|
How to survive your bike accident, part 2
ECSTASY TO CATASTROPHE
After being struck head-on by a
drunken hit ‘n’ run driver, Scott Jones’ true story ended last month
in the Acute Care unit of an American hospital. Broken neck, cracked
skull, sliced artery to the brain, inoperable fractured pelvis,
bruised ribs, sprained hands, extensive damage to leg/groin area
plus pins and rods protruding from his recently re-assembled foot.
Day Four
I’m
transferred to my own room where there’s no screaming, moaning or
groaning. It’s swell but I’m still swelling. The good news: I’m not
acute anymore. The bad news: I’m not cute. My hair feels like slimy
seaweed along the shoreline after an oil spill. Both legs are
growing, the entire right leg twice its normal size. My thighs and
buttocks are several colours, none of which are normally associated
with skin. (I don’t understand the damage and pain to this area
until I view my bike at the impound lot, the imprint of my legs and
buns clearly visible in the gas tank, see above, crushed by my
groin.) My scrotum continues to grow and turn multicoloured. I have
no clue why I still have 2 round testicles and not 2 flat pancakes.
Where did they hide? Maybe they saw it coming and fled internally at
light speed to the safety of my helmet? One cracked my skull and the
other broke my neck from the inside out.
It takes all my
effort to turn on my side. I love my adjustable bed with sidebars
and button to alert the nurse it’s time for my best friend, Mr.
Morphine. I am not a fan of the mattress or pillows. The mattress is
a plastic-covered, semi-soft, semi-hard device, lower in the middle,
like a long trough, designed to make rolling over more like climbing
a hill. The pillow, inside a pillowcase the thickness of one cotton
molecule, is a flat, sturdy rectangle meagerly filled with mystery
material, the opposite of soft feathers, perhaps other parts of the
duck – feet, bones and beaks? A patient would never steal one of
these pillows. If they are ever used for a pillow fight, people will
be taken to the emergency room.
Day Five is the worst
The swelling continues, all the pains from all my parts
vie for my attention. At mid-day my bladder goes on strike. I
suspect he finally woke up, looked at his distorted organ buddies in
the general neighbourhood and went into shock. A nurse reinserts my
friend/enemy the catheter, removed yesterday after the foot
operation. It feels like she’s shoving a refrigerator
through my
privates…sideways. I barter with my body: “Okay, fine. I’ll take
more pain here for less pain over there. Just let me do Number
One.”
For the first time in my life, I have to use a bedpan,
and I cannot wipe myself. After a hasty, inadequate swipe from the
nurse, I have a better understanding of the indignity of
incapacitated folks in nursing homes, hospices and hospitals. If
this state of incapacity ever becomes permanent for me, I’ll take
the generally illegal pill, liquid or gas that takes me permanently
away. If I can’t wipe me, then wipe me out. Maybe Vitamin 357
Magnum. Just give me a shot.…!
Believe it or not, but all this
protective gear does NOT have to be hot. Check it out in the
shops!
I’m alive because of three things
1.Luck, simple good luck; 2. I was in very good
physical condition; 3. The primary key to my survival was drilled
into me by my motorcycle safety instructors: wear protective
clothing! I wore a full-face helmet, leather biking boots, padded
gloves, pants and long-sleeved riding jacket. My only skin injury is
a scratch on my wrist between the jacket arm and glove.
I
never understand the garb, or lack of it, of most riders, especially
those in the sun. Flip-flops, short shorts and no shirt, a
bikini-clad babe on the back of the bike. The air’s 40 í C, the
pavement’s 60 í C, the exhaust pipes are 100 íC, the asphalt is
melting. The bike weighs 250 kilos without riders, 400 if it leans a
little, 1000 if it leans too far. One tiny mistake and you’re down,
surfing cement with your skin. You don’t even have to make a
mistake. I didn’t make a mistake. I was riding in my own lane, in
broad daylight, on a perfect road.
Motorcycle Lesson
Number One
You’re invisible. Most drivers don’t see
you. They don’t care about you. You’re smaller. You’re a nuisance.
If you’re male, some drivers are probably out to get you so there’s
no chance you will ever date their daughter. You ride like the
wind…invisible.
Number Two
Random
events beyond the rider’s control are constant. At 100 kph, how does
your head survive a stone thrown up by a car slamming into The
Emperor’s New Helmet? How about a strip of steel-belted truck tyre
raking your naked thigh? Huge American June bugs smacking into my
visor sound like gunshots and knock back my head an inch. With no
helmet, how would you feel with a gigantic Asian insect passing
through the cheek? “Disfigured man in stable condition with
semi-conscious rhinoceros beetle imbedded in tonsil.”
One and Two Make Three
Wear protective
gear, please. If not for you, do it for those who love you,
especially if you’re on a big bike going fast on a big, bad road.
Top of the list? Top of the head: a full-face helmet made from
material stronger than plastic yogurt containers. Fact: 20% of head
injuries are on the chin and that’s a one-way ticket on the ugly
train. Yes, to some folks I’m definitely not cool with all the
protective gear, but today, I’m definitely alive.
On Day Six the
hospital road gets better although I feel like I’ve been here
forever. Visitors and sleep come and go. Nurses always come and go
with more blood. Cards and flowers fill up the room. The phone rings
often. Sometimes I can figure out where it is and maybe get to it by
the 37th ring.
How am I? Hmmm
Neck broken,
foot fractured, pelvis in pieces, can’t ride, can’t walk, can’t
dance, can’t hike, skate, ski, dive, exercise, garden, play Frisbee
or have sex even if there was someone to have sex with. A get-well
card from my aunt says,
“We’re so glad everything is going so
well for you.” I laugh out loud painfully, the guffaw bashing my
bruised ribs from the inside. From her perspective, since I’m not
dead, everything is good. It’s all relative. Somehow I honestly feel
okay. There are problem areas, but most of my body is intact and I
can wipe myself again.
Next month: back home in only
9 days from impact. Scott meets Dr Ortho P.Dick and Mr Warren T.
Motorcycle.
|
