My Motorcycle Injuries

This past week I had an appointment with my endocrinologist. He has my blood tested every three months and then has me sit in his examination room while he stares at his computer and comments on the results of the bloodwork. I grow tired of the routine, but it makes my wife happy because she's always concerned about my health as it relates to the aftereffects of the accident injuries. I think that diabetes is the most annoying and unpleasant result that was created by the accident. It controls so many aspects of my life that it's hard to keep track.  The blood test involves about thirty different things that include glucose, kidney function, heart health, and a bunch of things that have to be Googled in order to know what they are. I always have to donate between 5-6 vials of blood along with a container of urine. Yeah, fun stuff. This time around my numbers were particularly good and he told me that it was going to be a quick appointment because I'm a good patient. It'...

The holidays are coming soon, and on my wife's side of the family this means that everyone will be busy with countless details in order to get things like food, homes, and event details ready. It's all a little excessive, but why be all Scroogy about it on this blog when they get enough of it from me in person. Anyhoo, the whole planning thing caused me to think a little about the things that have been going on for me these past couple of months. I'm taking a trip overseas in early January (Turkey, Israel, and Jordon... don't ask). I've been exercising like it matters because the trip that I'm taking will require a lot of daily walking and I also have an A1C test coming up in late December. Also, I've been super careful about my eating in order to keep my blood glucose level in good shape. I often feel tired in an almost groggy way by midday, but I really need to be prepared for everything that I'll be going through within the next couple of months. Thes...

Things have been a little demanding lately between taking care of my niece (4 years old, happy, energetic, and of the belief that I am able and willing to do anything imaginable), maintaining my house, and my regular duties within the ministry. Additionally, the folks who ordinarily do a lot of the maintenance work on the church property haven’t been well, so I’ve been covering things such as cleaning the main building and some of the landscaping work. There are days when I feel so beat up that I just want to sit and stare. The parts of my body affected by the motorcycle accident keep me feeling as though I’m wearing down like an overused gear that’s slowly running out of grease. My hand takes a few minutes to operate normally when I first wake up, while the rest of the day is spent with the need to tolerate everything else that my hand feels like, well, feeling. My leg is constantly in need of “warming up” for the sake of walking when I first stand after having been seated for more th...

I went to sleep last night at 11 o'clock. Not too early, not too late. I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning. I remained in bed, wide awake, until 4 a.m. I then got up to watch a little tv until about 5 a.m., and then I went back to bed and stayed there until about 6:30. I then got up for the day and started to work on everything that needed to be ready for my niece's arrival later in the morning. It's all a little brutal, but it's part of the price paid for riding my bike to get a haircut nine years ago. I was in the hospital from late November until mid-January. I couldn't sleep in the hospital at all, and I really didn't do any better after I finally made it back home. My thought back then was that I would eventually resume a normal sleep pattern after my leg healed and I could lay in bed more normally. Sadly, time has proven me wrong. Every 2-4 weeks my body breaks down and I sleep better hours for one or two nights in a row, but my normal pattern invo...

So, it's officially summer and things are busy. I don't have to take care of my niece for several weeks during the summer and it allows for me the opportunity to do other things more freely. I've been going to appointments without having to set the times around her, and I've been able to get a lot of maintenance work done around the house and at the church property as well. It's been good to accomplish so many things, but it really takes a toll on my body parts. Some days it just feels as though my body is waiting to break down. The pain, the stiffness, and the fatigue are a constant reminder of the injuries sustained years ago in the motorcycle accident. Still, I'm getting a lot of things done this summer, and I look forward to the coming weeks. I just wonder sometimes if I'll ever stop feeling as though I'm fading away a little more each day.

There has to be more than one reason as to why I always feel so beat up and tired. There are times when I feel as though I'm going to actually pass out. When I'm at my worse, my vision actually becomes a bit blurred (like, right now as I squint to type this blog entry). My guess as to why this happens so often includes the following: 1. The constant toll taken on my body with all af the aftereffects of the injuries that I received in the accident. 2. The consistently improper sleep that I've endured for the eight years since the accident. 3. Diabetes, which my endocrinologist claims is due to damage done to my pancreas in the accident. I know a guy in church who keeps telling me that it's age, but the thing is that my issue with fatigue and the fact that I often feel generally beat up always comes and goes, and seems to consistently affect parts of my body that are associated with the accident. Coincidence? I don't know, but I think not.  I can only say that I get r...

I have told people in the past that one of the greater differences between pre-accident and post-accident me involves the aftereffects concerning the things that I do. My body still allows me to do a great percentage of the type of things that I did before, but the difference lies in what is left of me afterward. It’s not as much an issue of inability as it is my body’s response to the things that I do afterward. I did a lot of physical work today that is not typical for me. A neighbor of the church called a while back to ask that we cut some pine trees that are growing sideways across a canal from our property and into his backyard area. I decided to handle this myself because I didn’t want the church to pay for a professional service and I also didn’t want any of the guys in the church to spend hours working on such an unpleasant task. So…I went out early in the morning and determined to do the tree cutting alone. I did get the job done after several hours and a handful of setbac...

Sometimes light shows up in the strangest of dark places. Taking care of my 10 month old niece during the workweek has become a full-time job. It takes up an enormous amount of my time and energy, regardless of my body’s mood for the day. I start setting things up for her arrival around 6:45 in the morning for an 8 o’clock drop-off, and she usually gets picked up between 4:45 and 5:30 in the afternoon. I sometimes have to fight the fatigue for scattered hours throughout the day. In the end it’s the energy that I often don’t really have within me to give. I often have to dig deep inside of myself to find the things that are required for taking care of a baby all day long. It wears me down sometimes in ways that leave me wishing that I could just lie down and not wake back up…ever. That’s the dark place. Over time taking care of the baby has taught me that I can do just about anything that I need to do within the course of a given day. Taking care of a young baby will do that to you. No ...

Can I just start this post by stating that I feel really beat up and tired? Thanks. Between taking care of my 8 month old niece for over 9 hours a day on weekdays, doing some necessary landscaping at my house (when your wife mentions it from time to time for a few years, it becomes necessary), and the general condition of my post-accident body…yeah, I’m tired. The thing is that I can never be certain that it’s just the accident injuries and the ensuing diabetes that’s killing me so slowly. The accident occurred just about a month shy of 6 years ago. I was fifty years old then. That’s somewhere between the middle age to early-bird-special age brackets, right? I’m now 56. I mean, that’s like 9 in dog years, know what I’m sayin’?   So…I’m left wondering if some of my problems are age related as opposed to accident injury related. I just know that my wrist, hand, knee, shin, and hip hurt more than the rest of my body. By coincidence, those are some of the areas hurt when my bike ate th...

I mentioned a while back that I’ve volunteered to help take care of my new niece. I had her for about a month a while back ago, and within another week I’ll have her on a more permanent basis. She’ll be with me for eight or nine hours a day, Monday thru Friday. I’ve had roughly two months off from taking care of her, but soon it all goes into overdrive. I try not to worry about things a whole lot, but I have to admit that I am concerned about this. I want to help with this baby (she’s now 6 months old), but I’m a little concerned about my health and strength as I prepare to take on what I know to be a huge responsibility. It’s currently 6:30 in the afternoon, and I feel somewhere between sleep deprived and drugged. The problem is that I slept OK last night and I’m drug-free. This goes on most days since the accident, and it often starts in the late morning. I fear that I won’t have the physical energy and stamina to take on the responsibility of doing right by this kid. I guess that in...

Tired. That’s what I am today... I’ve been dealing with some things related to diabetes lately that involve appointments, procedures, and the personal impact of it all. It has been ongoing, and I won’t be done with these things for another three or four weeks. It’s mostly inconvenient, but I do grow tired of having to deal with the effects of this disease while knowing that it was caused by damage done to my pancreas in the accident. Today this disease has left me feeling physically spent. Not as in “sleepy”, but rather as in “drained”. I don’t partake of energy drinks so…too bad for me. My leg has also been a bigger source of trouble these days. It hurts more whenever I’ve been sitting for too long and it seems to be getting a little weaker. I know that I don’t want to even consider surgery any time soon. When I think of everything together, the diabetes and “my bones”, I’m left to consider the fact that it’s all just a part of the process. Consequently, by nature of that statement, I...

I’ve mentioned before that I am now taking care of my new niece. She’s adorable and has a very sweet personality (you know… for a baby). She requires about as much attention and work as any three month old would, but she really is a good baby and doesn’t need a lot of “extra” effort like some kids do. My energy levels have been very much deficient since the accident, and this babysitting gig has been a little rough on me. I’ll only have her until sometime next week, and then I’ll not have her again until mid-August when I’ll begin taking care of her every weekday throughout the school year. I believe that family should help family, and I do count it an honor to be able to help my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, but some days leave me a bit drained. There’s something that I’ve noticed about myself during the past couple of weeks as I’ve spent my days alone with the little cutie. Almost every time that I pick her up I have an overwhelming thought in the back of my mind that I need to b...

This past weekend was a little rough on the body. On Friday and Saturday I did some work in the yard and had some things to do inside of the house that required a lot of standing and moving around. Sundays are more taxing simply because they are a work day for me and usually involve a good amount of physical exertion. I felt weak and fatigued most of the day because of the work done the two days previous. The damage to my bone structure causes pain in several places and it becomes prohibitive in functioning normally, sometimes even with simple movements like getting up out of a chair when I’ve sat for too long a period of time. It’s now Monday afternoon and for the most part I’m feeling alright. I’m thankful to God for a quick recovery. I once honestly believed that I would never get sick, injured, or fatigued. It was before the motorcycle accident, but I felt that sense of invincibility for most of my life. I think that one of the things that the accident injuries have taught me invol...

I've been working on the sprinkler system in my yard at home the past few days. The sprinklers have been inoperable for a few years now. I had just gotten the grass to start looking nice in my yard for a year or so before the accident, but it all sort of fell apart after the big event. I’m just now getting to where I can start to repair everything and fight the weeds again. It will probably be a few years before everything looks good again with the grass on my lawn, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right? The sprinklers needed a lot of work, and I’m just now getting things going. I fixed the major problem with the water source, but there’s an issue with a leak in the main service line and many of the sprinkler heads are in such bad shape from not being used for so long that they will require replacement. Fixing the leak in the main line isn’t rocket science, but it will take a little bit of physical effort. I started to work on things this morning, but the day is demanding too mu...

Things have been glaringly obvious to me lately. What I mean by that involves the condition of my body. I have settled into a routine of sorts, and it seems as though this is pretty much it for the future. I get up, I assess where things are with my hips, my leg, my arm, and my head, and I move forward toward whatever the day demands of me. The issue with my head has to do with how sober I feel (Hey, no alcohol involved. Baptist preacher, remember?). It’s just that I sometimes feel so lightheaded and fatigued that I have to be careful with what I do and how I do it. Certain tasks require a more alert spirit than others. Once the day gets going a bit I have to be careful with the twilight zone. This is the time, between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., when my body starts to give in to whatever ails me most and decides to fall into a place of weakness, or pain, or fatigue. Sometimes it’s a combination of the three and it can last for a while. Yeah. I have had to measure success concerning my health ...

I’ve been at it again. We’ve been doing some home improvement projects to get our house in better shape. I had to bring everything of this nature to an abrupt halt four years ago when I wrecked my bike and pretty much wrecked my body with it. My wife and I had plans, but they all fell by the wayside as we focused on getting my body to recover. We have started to get several projects going on the house, with some things handled by hired professionals and other things handled by me. I have spent the past week working on things such as the installation of an outside door with a new frame, tons of landscaping, installing outdoor lights, and a bunch of other things that I won’t bore you with. In the end, I’m just sort of wiped out physically. Between the repairs and running several errands, my body has been fighting back in a harsh way. My wife has wanted these things done, and I have a hard time saying “no”. I always feel that she should have better things in this world than a guy who just...

So yeah, I’ve mentioned in the past my inability to sleep properly since the accident. It was getting better a few months ago, but things have regressed a bit. It’s currently Tuesday morning around eleven. Last night I went to bed at 11:30 and I woke up around 3:00. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so after laying there for about 45 minutes I got up and did some work. I usually have something that I can be doing and it wasn’t hard to get things started for the day. I honestly don’t go to bed thinking about problems or unfinished business, but I wake up far too soon and can’t seem to get back to sleep. It was a bit worse the first couple of years after I came home from the hospital. I would lie down in bed for the night and remain awake for hours. I would then finally fall asleep and wake up within an hour or two. Over the years my sleep patterns have fluctuated, but the actual time spent asleep has remained pretty grim. However, the past few months have been different. I’ve been able to f...

This past week I held a funeral service for someone who was associated with the church that I pastor. She wasn’t a member, but she and her husband would visit in a worship service once a year or so. She was a very nice person and had fought a disease bravely for many years. Her husband asked if I would be willing to have the memorial service in our church auditorium, along with a time of fellowship with family and friends afterward in our dining hall. It seems like a strange statement to make as I prepare to type it, but the truth is that funeral services involve a lot of work. Family members have to put forth a great deal of thought and effort in order to plan and implement every detail involved. As a pastor I always attempt to accommodate every need according to the things that family members express. In this case, there was a need to prepare the church auditorium (usually easier to achieve, but we were trying to get things ready for Easter Sunday services this week). Also, there was...

The past couple of weeks have been a little more rough for me. Things have gone great personally in several areas of my life and I can hardly count the blessings, but my body has been  (warning: bad pun ahead)  a bit of a pain. It becomes a source of frustration because I will go through periods of time where everything is still a mess, but generally OK. My body has experienced some permanent damage as a result of the motorcycle accident, but at times it seems negligible for the most part within any given day. I often experience a comparatively minimal amount of pain and hindrance. Within the past week or two, however, not so much. A few days ago I actually had to use a hand brace for two days because of the pain in my wrist. The nerve damage done to my hand and wrist leaves me with discomfort and/or pain at all times, but the pain experienced a few days ago went beyond the usual stuff. I woke up in the night and couldn’t get back to sleep because of the pain in my wrist....