My Motorcycle Injuries

  I spoke of some serious leg pain in my last blog entry (here) . I assumed that it involved the aftereffects of my once-broken femur. I still think that some of the pain was related to a small piece of bone that I’ve been told has grown into muscle within my thigh, but that wasn’t even close to being the main problem. I started to feel symptoms that were eerily similar to shingles, and yesterday I started to develop a rash in a small area of my thigh. I went to a clinic and, sure enough, I have shingles. The person examining me asked about stress in relation to the cause of my illness, but my pulse and blood pressure helped to prove that I was, generally speaking, a calm guy. The outbreak and pain are on my damaged leg, and one of the assumed potential causes of shingles involves injury, so I’m thinking that maybe I overworked a messed up leg and it triggered something inside of me (I’m not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once). Anyhoo, this shingles thing is...

      +      =     I did it again to myself. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this . Years ago my wife and I were told by the owner of a local nursery that a couple fruit-bearing bushes could be trained to grow into the shape of trees over the course of a few years, sort of like a Japanese bonsai, only much bigger. He lied. After several years of looking at these big, ugly bushes in our back yard we decided that they had to go. I went out there this past Saturday and hacked them both into several pieces. I then dragged them into the front of the house near the road so that the trash collection could haul them off later this week. The problem lies in the fact that I dragged a bunch of large branches while walking backward for a total of about a dozen trips from the back yard to the front of the house. Well...I haven't really felt any sense of physical comfort since. There was something about the backward walking while hauling bundles ...

I’m kind of vacillating lately in dealing with what I expect to do with my leg in the future. There is an enormous part of me that does not want to have surgery to help with what ails me…ever. I can’t stand the thought of subjecting myself to the whole surgeon/hospital/nurse thing again. The prospect of surgery and the ensuing physical rehab that will be necessary to recover properly is something that keeps me saying that I’ll live with the progressive decline of my leg over the rest of my life. However, I’m growing tired of dealing with the constant discomfort and hindrance, along with the inability to stand up after sitting for a while and just walking away normally. Simple activities are always hindered by my damaged leg and it would be nice to revive the common freedoms associated with a pain-free leg. So, is surgery some type of panacea, or is it just a way to feel somewhat “better”? And what would all of that mean after enduring the hassles of going through the whole medical ...