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How to survive your bike accident, part 3
HIT-N-RUN TO HOME RUN – IN 9 DAYS!
After 3 more intense days of
self-healing, bartering with doctors, praying to deities of all
major religions and promising nurses I’d send them a pint of blood
everyday for 3 months, I’m rock ‘n’ rolled out of the hospital!
If I lie quietly in bed, I sometimes feel
absolutely normal, healed, intact. The hardest moments are when I
have to leave that space for the reality of pain and disability in
every other space. I’m off the pain pills and on every other
vitamin, mineral or herb that people I respect recommend: calcium,
magnesium, silicon, spirulina, wheat grass, celery seed extract,
protein powder, lecithin, condroitin, glucosamine, MSM, FBI, WD-40,
eye of newt, dried mosquito toenails.
After 3 weeks,
Frankenfoot approaches normal size and colour. He demands to be
raised regularly, preferably above the heart, ideally on my
shoulders, replacing my head. My time on crutches is limited to the
amount of blood he can hold. Once he’s gathered all the blood in my
body, he draws blood from people near me. I introduce him to
everyone, everywhere, since they notice him before me. He’s a great
conversation starter and ender. When people get a good look at
him…purple with steel pins, ready to explode…they turn green, but
not with envy. My pelvis and groin are their original shape and hue,
but I am certainly not doing the splits. I know I could do them.
Once.
At night Frankenfoot walks in my sleep. The rest of
the body is tired, ready to nod off, but nooooooo! Frankenfoot
buzzes and twitches and explores new avenues of pain. I hear that
healing hurts more than the original injury. When a nerve
reconnects, the reunion can be painful. (Great, Frankenfoot gets on
my nerves all day. Do I need yet another nerve that he can get on?)
The neck moves a bit, but I won’t be sitting in the front
row of a ping-pong match. Dr. Neurosurgeon says my bones are healing
well and I only need the neck brace for security. Or sympathy. I
don’t like the brace, but I’m apprehensive about removing it. Hey, I
have a broken neck here, the same second vertebra that Superman
(Christopher Reeves) fractured. “Deadman’s vertebra.” Plus a
fractured third.
I need sympathy when returning to the
motorcycle dealership to request they refund $400 of extended
warranty payments for my dead bike. I wear the neck brace and make
sure Frankenfoot’s pins shine brightly in the lights. They’re
aggressively empathetic. “Why don’t you come into the back office
and we’ll talk?” [Translation: “It’s bad business to have crutches
and neck braces here in the showroom with the bikes.”] They refund
my money and try to sell me a 3-wheeler with room on the back for my
crutches.
Scott the survivor can be found
doing his
musical thing at The Hug.
Oz, the Wonderful Wizard of Massage,
enters my life: 27 years old, 250 pounds young, biceps the size of
my thighs. He could easily rip off my arm and hit me with the wet
end. Personal trainer, massage therapist extraordinaire and nursing
student, he knows the names of every muscle, bone, ligament,
escarpment, isthmus, paradangle and orthometric clavichord in my
body. When he tells me which part of me he’s massaging, I only
understand the prepositions in his sentence.
I am nervous the
first time he puts his hands on my neck and gently turns my head.
One muscle twitch and I’m the Headless Norseman. It feels good. He
takes the pain away and gives me motion in return. He teaches me
exercises and stretches to do on my own.
The following week
I meet Dr. Ortho P. Dick, designated pin remover, and ask, “What
kind of cast will you give me?” He says, “A hard plaster cast for
4-6 weeks.” I say, “Look at my foot movement! I’ve been working on
it for 2 months and I don’t want to lose this mobility. You can put
the hard plaster cast on your head.” I recommend we use the
removable “sport-boot” cast and Thank God, Our Father Who Art In
Baptist Hospital, Hallowed Be They Decision, Dr. Dick agrees.
Three days after the pin removal operation, without
crutches, I walk around the car. Not fast, no stomping, but no cane,
no crutches. I’m in ecstasy. I love my sport-boot cast. I drive to
the cleaners. I walk from the car to the cleaners, into the
cleaners, back to the car. I’m giddy. I’m walking! I call several
friends to brag pretentiously. “Okay, you’ve been doing it forever,
you’re probably doing it right now, taking it for granted, but I
just took myself to the cleaners! I walked in and walked out. No
crutches. Just legs and feet.”
I arrive at a family reunion
and walk from my car to the house. Someone says, “Oh, I’m so sorry
this happened to you.” I say, “Shut up! I’m walking! I don’t care
what happened! I’m walking! You want to walk with me?” Some folks
just can’t get out of the past. They’re still back at the crash. I’m
overjoyed, they’re depressed. I offer them pain pills, since now
they’re a pain in my neck. Soon they understand my joy and I accept
their pain. I play bocce, horseshoes, croquet, with and without
crutches. By 10pm, I’m used up, crisp, throbbing. The next day I’m
not walking without help. Healing hurts. I tell myself: “I walked
yesterday; I’ll walk tomorrow.” I don’t walk tomorrow. Mainly I
worry for about a week. “I broke it again. I’m out of control.
Frankenfoot will be back. Dr. Ortho was right. I’m a bad
person.”
A few days later I get out of bed and walk across
the bedroom, down the hall, through the kitchen and out on the
porch: no cast, no crutches, barefoot. I feel like I’m 11 months
old, like my mom is on her hands and knees in front of me, arms
outstretched, urging me toward her. I weep. Three months after
IMPACT and I’m walking barefoot.
The countless hours of
exercise and stretching paid off handsomely, but there’s a lot more
foot and ankle bending required for normal walking. And a lot more
strength required for extended walking. Oz tackles my foot with
gusto and rearranges the bones to his liking. Oz, cold, heat,
stretches, exercises, diet, lather, rinse, repeat. His words echo in
my mind and shape my steps.
“You’ve got to train your foot
to do what you want it to do.”
“The bones will heal together if
you don’t keep them moving separately.”
“If you don’t walk
THROUGH the limp, you’ll have it for the rest of your
life.”
“Do jumping jacks. Do 50, then 100.”
“Walk on
your tip toes everyday, even if you look gay.”
Six months
after the crash, I quit my job, pack everything I care about into a
storage unit (or 3 travelling packs) and move to Asia. Back on a
bike in Vietnam, I learn to ride where everything: oxcarts, horses,
goats, pigs, chickens, families of 6 on scooters, ballistic buses
and titan trucks the size of the Space Shuttle flies towards me in
my lane. Now Thailand is my home and a 1000cc Kawasaki ZX-10 is my
steed. I’m having the time of my life.
Advice? Sometimes it
takes a close encounter with the Grim Reaper to drive it deep into
your soul. Wear a helmet! I wouldn’t be here writing if I hadn’t.
Wear protective clothing, gloves and boots. I’d probably still be
riding a chair with wheels if I hadn’t.
Have the
time of YOUR life. Right now. This moment could be your last. Make
it last. He who laughs, lasts!
(Also see comment in
‘My Chiangmai’).
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