My Motorcycle Injuries

My daughter told me a story about myself the other day. It involved my time in the hospital years ago, just after I had become more coherent. The guy in charge of the church services during my absence was in the hospital room and I apparently told him that I was certain that I would be ready to take charge of the worship services on the upcoming Sunday. At the time I had been kept unconscious for over a week and I had been put through roughly a dozen surgeries. I was physically unable to get out of bed for any reason and I was unable to function physically in any practical way. I could barely speak coherently because my mind was in a drug induced haze and my jaw was wired shut. My daughter said that he gave me a quiet "alright" sort of answer and things moved on. I was obviously not in my right mind, but part of the problem must have stemmed from the fact that I never really think that I'm down for the count in anything that I do. I checked with that same guy the other da...

I mentioned a ministry related trip to the Middle East in a post about a year ago. I was supposed to go this past January, but the trip was cancelled last December due to the war in Gaza. It wasn't an issue of safety, but rather a problem with the fact that the flights were scheduled to go through Tel Aviv. The trip was rescheduled for this coming October, and although things remain bad over there, my contact in Israel says that things within the nation are safe enough. We will eventually be landing in Amman and I will be speaking in Jordan and Israel for two weeks. The trip involves an enormous amount of walking, with some of the terrain being uneven and rocky. I have to be cautious to be in good shape because I'll be speaking often and I won't be able to get the job done effectively if I'm feeling exhausted and beaten day after day. Consequently, I've been really diligent to exercise the past several months in order to prepare for such a physically demanding trip....

Today I took my niece for a walk around the block of the street on which I live. It's roughly a mile in length, but she likes to look at everyone's house, chase after birds, and attempt to touch anything we run across as I say "no". About three quarters of the way through the trip she asked me to carry her, so I sat her on my shoulders and carried her the rest of the way home. She probably weighs about 30 lbs. It made me think of something that happened nine years ago. A few days before my motorcycle accident I took my car to a mechanic for a repair. I took a backpack full of books and study materials with me in order to get some work done while waiting for the repair to be finished. It turned out that it was going to take the full day for him to get it done so I decided to grab my heavy backpack and walk home. The trip was a few miles, but I made it back without any problem. Incidentally, this was the repair work that led for me to eventually have to take my bike on ...

I’d like to draw a bit of an analogy today as I watch the Red Sox beating the Twins by a fairly wide margin just now. The Sox have been in either first or second place all season long. Recently they have slipped into third place and they are playing with a level of inconsistency that has them looking like heroes one game and goats the next. It’s getting too late in the season for this, but it’s baseball and you never know… I’m hoping that this is a pattern that does not develop in my life when dealing with the aftereffects of my accident injuries. The past several months have had me going from feeling athletic and strong one week to then feeling like a beat-up guy who needs to rest for a while the next week. I get so tired of this pattern and at times it causes some frustration when thinking about the future. I don’t want my life to go in this type of direction, but the truth is that my body doesn’t care what I think lately. I’ve always said that you can’t give up hope with the Red S...

My hand and wrist have been hurting more than usual lately. I keep thinking to myself that I should set an appointment with an orthopedic hand specialist to see if someone could help to rework some of the things originally done after the accident. I’ve got a bone/nerve/tendon thing going on that ranges from uncomfortable to painful on any given day. Lately, it’s just more noticeable to me and leaning toward the side of painful. I mentioned the pain in my hand a week ago to a relative who is well aware of the injuries caused by the accident. He asked me “why?” when I mentioned to him that my hand was really hurting. My answer? A subtle yet somewhat sarcastic, “ you see, I was in this accident six years ago and I got really banged up”. I cannot forget that these things are a part of me now. I cannot forget that my life is different in many ways, that my body is never going to be the same, and that I am called upon to remain stronger than the sum total of everything that has happened to m...