Okay, let’s take inventory. Fractured foot, inoperable fractured pelvis, broken neck, several bruised ribs, sprained right hand, extensive soft-tissue damage to legs/groin area. That’s the bad news. The good news: I’m alive, my arms, hands and back are intact, I have a face, skin, seventeen blood cells, and I know I’m in the hospital.

I believe I’m alive because of three things:
1) Luck, simple good luck. Okay, fine, there was an abundance of bad luck in the air,
but considering I’ve found about a thousand four-leaf clovers in my life, I’m still ahead in the luck game; 
2) I was in very good shape physically; 
3) The absolute key to my survival was drilled into me by my motorcycle safety instructors--wear protective clothing. 

At IMPACT, I wore a full-face Nolan helmet, padded long-sleeved Joe Rocket Ballistic riding jacket, padded Ballistic riding pants, zippered Harley riding boots and Joe Rocket padded leather cycling gloves. My only skin injury is a half-inch scrape on my wrist between the jacket arm and padded glove.

I can never quite understand the garb, or lack of it, of most riders, especially those at the beach in South Carolina, a state where no helmet is required. No shirt, short shorts and flip-flops, a bikini-clad babe on the back of the bike. It’s ninety-five degrees, the pavement’s a hundred, the bike’s pipes are hundreds, the asphalt is melting. The bike weighs 600 pounds without riders, 800 if it leans a little to one side, two tons 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.

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. You only have two air bags and they’re called “tires.” Neener, neener, neener. If you’re male, some drivers are probably out to get you so there’s no chance you will ever date their daughter.

Random events on the road beyond the rider’s control are constant. At seventy miles an hour, how does a stone thrown up by a car feel as it slams into The Emperor’s New Helmet? How about a strip of steel-belted, tire tread from a semi raking a naked thigh? I’ve had close encounters with June bugs on the Interstate when they smash into my visor. It sounds like a gun shot and knocks my head back an inch. With no helmet or visor, how would one feel on, or through, the cheek? “52-year-old man in stable condition with semi-conscious June bug imbedded in his tonsil. Yes, to some I’m definitely not cool with all the protective gear, but today, I’m definitely alive.

My own hospital room is swell and I’m swelling. It’s Tuesday and there’s no screaming and ranting. The good news: I’m not Acute. The bad news: I’m not cute. My hair feels like seaweed along the shoreline after an oil spill. Both legs are growing, the entire right leg twice its normal size. My thighs and butt are several colors, none of which are normally associated with skin. (I don’t understand all the damage and pain to this area until I see the cycle at the impound lot, waiting to be pronounced “totaled” by the insurance adjuster. The imprint of my legs and buns are clearly visible in the gas tank, crushed by my groin.) My scrotum continues to grow and turn multicolored. I feel like an old joke where the guy asks the genie for larger genitals but ends up with a 10" scrotum. I have absolutely no clue why I still have two round testicles and not two flat pancakes. Where did they hide?

With the help of the side bars on the bed and uninjured arms, it takes all my effort to turn partially on my side. I love my side bars, adjustable bed and button to alert the nurse it’s time for Vitamin M. 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 specifically to make rolling over more like climbing up a hill. The pillow, inside a pillow case 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. There is no way any patient would ever steal one of these pillows. If they are ever used for an ordinary pillow fight, people will be taken down to the emergency room.

Wednesday is the worst day. The swelling continues, all the pains from all my parts are vying for my attention. Midday my bladder goes on strike. I suspect he finally woke up, looked around at all of his distorted organ buddies in the general neighborhood and went into shock. I am reminded there are different levels of pain. This new, amplified level requires constant groaning--not loud, just rhythmic, regular groaning. A nurse reinserts my friend/enemy the catheter, removed yesterday after the foot operation. It feels like she’s shoving a refrigerator through my penis…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 for Number Two, and I cannot wipe myself. After a hasty, inadequate swipe from the nurse, I have a better understanding of all the indignity of all incapacitated folks in all the nursing homes, hospices and hospitals. If this state of incapacity ever becomes permanent for me, I’ll need 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...

The groaning pain slowly slithers away. I don’t know it yet, but the worst is over. Vitamin M is replaced by Vitamin V for Vicodin, a cousin of codeine. With an array of southern drawls within the three county area, the nurses have several twist on the pronunciation. One nurse calls it “bike done” which sounds appropriate.

Thursday the road gets better although I feel like I’ve been in the hospital forever. Visitors come and go. Sleep comes and goes. Nurses always come and go with more blood. Ms. Phys Therapy gets me up with a walker and into a chair. Cards and flowers fill up the room. The phone rings quite often. Once in awhile I can figure out where it is and maybe even get to it by the 37th ring. I feel lucky to have loving family and friends, reaching out across the city, across the country.

Friends I haven’t even met yet reach out to me. An odd bouquet is delivered from “Amber and the gang at Choppy’s Den,” a huge, white carnation with a baseball hat, red nose, black lips and, a smiley face helium balloon floating above. Once I escape from the hospital, I visit Choppy’s, which is five miles from IMPACT. It’s like North Carolina Cheers. Amber owns it and knows the name of everyone that walks in the door. She doesn’t know me, but once I thank her for the bouquet, she comes around the bar to give me a big hug and a kiss. Kevin at the video game says over his shoulder, “I thought that guy was 52?” I said, “I am.” He said, “I hope I look like you when I’m 52!” I said, “Broken neck, pelvis and foot?” A popular biker bar, Choppy’s was having a benefit when Amber heard about the accident. She went to the scene since I “mighta been one a her bikers” and sent the bouquet because “all bikers are like family.” For the next hour, everyone that enters the bar is introduced to me personally by Amber.

Of course, the big question is always “How are you?” I learn how relative the answer is. It truly depends on how I or the asker looks at it.
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