My Motorcycle Injuries

I’ve very recently started to lift weights again. I have had this bizarre pain in my arm that runs from the area of my forearm near the wrist where my arm was broken, up the inner part of my forearm, and then up the center of my bicep. It started around January of this year and at times it was so severe that I couldn’t carry my bible with that arm when heading into the church auditorium. Wacky stuff. I have no idea what caused this pain, except to say that it originates in the part of my arm that received a compound fracture through the accident, but it’s been getting better over the past two months or so. It’s been a little strange to have my arm in such a state of weakness for the better part of this past year, but I’m really glad that things are getting better. I’m just now getting to the point where I can use the arm for heavier tasks and lift things without grimacing in pain. I have started the weightlifting with very light dumbbells. I’m using roughly 15% of the weight that I’ve ...

My health insurance changed this month. I’m insured through my wife’s work and the policies provide both primary and supplemental coverage. The previous company through which we were insured offered a good primary policy, but this new insurance company is even better. They offer more coverage for less money, so yay. In the years before my motorcycle accident my wife and I only had health insurance for a couple of years, back in the 1990’s. We didn’t even have insurance when my daughter was born and we ended up paying the hospital debt for years. We went to doctors during the time that we did have insurance and I even had surgery performed on one of my fingers, but the insurance coverage back then became too expensive and we dropped it. Our age always kept us fairly confident against any major issues with our health, and most of our medical problems over the years were handled by going to walk-in clinics. We hadn’t signed up for the available health insurance at my wife’s current place ...

I have a young niece that I’m really close to, much more so than any of my other nieces and nephews. I’ve helped to take care of her to one extent or another over the years and we’re very fond of each other. She’s been sick for several weeks and wound up being admitted to the hospital earlier this week. She was there for a few days and was released yesterday. I can’t describe how difficult it was for me to see her in the hospital, waiting for a diagnosis that never really came while having to endure the IV’s and all of the hospital “stuff”. I remembered how extremely unpleasant it was for me to stay in the hospital (1 ½ months) and it bothered me a little to think that she was going through some of the same things. I’ve never thought of her as being able to become this sick. She’s just always been…OK. It’s weird how we tend to neglect having a thankful spirit until things change and someone is in jeopardy. We never really consider the possibilities of harmful things in this life until ...

A few days ago I went to lunch with several family members at a burger place. One of them is just two years old. He’s a good kid and I enjoy watching him develop with each stage. While we were all eating he accidentally dropped his grilled cheese sandwich on the floor. It was only on the floor for a couple of seconds before his mother picked it up. She looked at it, brushed it off with a napkin, and gave it back to him. No biggie, right? The thing is that this is the same mom who once behaved as though every germ in the universe was directly targeting her son. She was always extremely careful about her son’s contact with things such as adults, children, various locations, hand-held items, and the entire earth’s atmosphere in general. I have no proof, but I think that hand sanitizer might have been purchased by the 55 gallon drum. Anyway, I found it humorous to see her treating that sandwich like a regular item in life instead of a deathtrap for her kid. It’s funny to me how time mellow...