My Motorcycle Injuries

      +      =     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 have had so much medical “stuff” done to me within this calendar year that I will no longer have a deductible on any major medical procedures throughout the remainder of 2020. Hooray for me, right? I guess. Anyway, this recent development set me to thinking about surgery again. My knee has been hurting in new and inventive ways the past several weeks without any provocation, and I started thinking about the fact that I could save a bunch of money on the insurance deductible for a surgery that will inevitably have to happen if I just go ahead and get the knee replaced within this calendar year. The Mr. Krabs in me loves to save money. Still, the more rational side of me says that the pain is not even close to being a quality of life issue, and I should just mellow out on the whole topic of saving money. My leg is unpleasant at times and has been getting worse over the past six months or so, but I plan to live well past my mid-seventies and personal longevity means that I would in all ...

                                                                  The dude in the photo above is called Ultraman. I watched movies that included him as the central character when I was a kid. Back then my brother and I thought that he was uber-cool as he fought against all kinds of evil entities with a hint of martial arts mixed in with ray blasts that he emitted from his arm when he stood in the pose above. I’ll be 57 years old soon, and now all I see is an actor dressed in a corny outfit that dates back to old Japanese films similar to the Godzilla movies. Yeah, the times they have a-changed. I had gotten a little slack in my exercise routine over the past year or so, and it was becoming evident through the condition of my body in the way that I was able to handle the various injury aftereffects. It hadn't hurt my A1C leve...

So yeah, today marks the beginning of a new month. Consequently, it also marks the end of a long January that was filled with medical stuff; things that involved blood samples, big machines, exams, and doctors who barely know me but control a lot of things in my life that include pills and money. Sounds like a cheesy made-for-tv movie, yes? The end result for all of my January adventures involves good health, happy doctors, and nothing changed within my mortal existence. I get tired by midday often, and my leg is feeling brittle at the knee, but overall I’m in pretty good shape…you know, despite the whole aches and pains thing. Strange, but lately I think about riding from time to time when I see someone on a motorcycle. I know (intellectually) that I really have no desire or need to ride at this stage in life, but my mind takes me back to the point that something was taken away from me through the carelessness of another driver six years ago. I feel so stupid when I think this way, bu...

January will be a little busier than usual for me concerning medical visits. I went for my annual CT scan last week, and I will need to go for a five vial bloodletting within a week from now for the sake of diabetic testing. I’ll then have to go for an appointment with my endocrinologist to make certain that the numbers related to the blood tests are acceptable. I’ll finish the month with an annual appointment with my cardiologist that involves an electrocardiogram along with a general physical exam that will involve things related to heart health.  I’ve already been informed by phone that the CT scan showed that the stent in my aorta shows no sign of movement or leakage. Good news, yes? I realize that all of these things are a necessity, but I grow tired of it all. It interferes with my schedule, involves needles and sticky things attached to chest hair that are pulled off with a sense of disregard, requires money because of insurance deductibles, and serves to remind me that the ...

I continue to live the life and enjoy the days. Things have been busy for me while I balance my job responsibilities with my commitment to taking care of my infant niece. She’s nine months old and I taught her to say “cup” today, so yeah, we’re moving toward a membership to Mensa at a young age. My job duties and the baby duties don’t leave me with that much time for home chores, but I get them done with the time left between sermons and diaper changes. No room for boredom, right? The thing is that my body has started complaining to me in a louder way since this new schedule with the baby began. Last night I had a really hard time sleeping because my hip hurt throughout. It’s not really an “ow, this hurts” type of pain, but rather the kind of pain that can be compared to an annoying friend that talks to you during an interesting movie. It just makes it hard for me to focus on resting mentally and physically. The thing is that some of the hip pain is getting worse because I sit on the f...

I’ve mentioned before that I walk a lot during the day. My minimum distance within any given day is five miles (11,400 steps). I don’t walk outside much because I’m always alone and a little paranoid that something will happen with my leg and I won’t be able to get help without calling 911. This week I’ve got the first round of babysitting duties with my new niece. She’s five weeks old and about as cute as a baby can get. I say it’s the first round because I have her this week, then I’ll get her for about a month six weeks from now, and then I’ll probably be taking care of her full-time by mid-August. It requires a lot of energy and work, but being with a baby has its own rewards beyond the labor. I’m really growing quite fond of her. One of the things that I do with her involves walking the path that I take within my house in order to achieve the proper steps each day. Part of that path always involves a trek that stretches from my family room to the center hallway in my house. It’s a...

I spent the earlier part of the day at the office. I had a list of things that I wanted to accomplish, and I was able to cross everything off the list by the time that I left. I even did a few things that weren’t on the list, so kudos to me. I wanted to stay later and do a few more things, but today was one of those days where my body decided to act weird. By midday I started to feel really lightheaded and weak. You know how sometimes people say that they feel lightheaded and you don’t know exactly what they mean? I’m not even certain what I was actually feeling. These things hit me without provocation of any kind and I wind up not so certain as to what I’m experiencing. It’s been going on since the accident and nobody has been able to explain to me why. Wacky stuff. I went home, ate lunch, and sat for a while as I studied for a sermon outline. Next up was my phone. Yesterday I joked with a couple of people who asked about my recent CT Scan. I said that I would know if something was wr...

Early appointments grant quicker exits! I went to have my annual CT Scan today. I need to have one done every year because of the potential for movement or leakage with the stent in my aorta. It was placed there because of a rupture caused by the forced impact of the accident. My heart is quite healthy, but the stent needs to be monitored in order to ensure that there isn’t a leak. I set the appointment for early in the morning because they wanted me to fast for three hours before the appointment and I figured that it would be easiest to go before breakfast and eat something afterward. Also, I didn’t think that the wait would be as long if I scheduled the procedure for the earliest possible time. I set the appointment for their opening hour and I was right about the wait. Everything went as well as I think it could have with my visit to the imaging center today. In a sense it all started a few days ago when I had a blood sample taken for the sake of today’s scan. The...

My daughter had a relatively minor surgical procedure performed today. She entered the hospital as an outpatient early in the morning and was released in the early afternoon. My wife and I took her to the hospital and waited there throughout the process. We went to the area where they do the prep work before surgery and then went in later to sit with her in the recovery area. She’s resting comfortably at home now so all is well. It has taken me all day before I could write these present thoughts, in part because I’ve been busy taking care of things like food and medicine, but mostly because I’m a dad. Nothing is easy. It was a little weird to see all of the medical stuff associated with surgery today. On one side of my mind was the involvement and concern with my daughter’s condition, but on the other side were the memories and thoughts that arose with being in the surgery section of a hospital. As the pastor of a church I visit hospitals fairly often, but I rarely have the need to vis...

The Santa in the photo belongs to me. When you press his stomach he cheerfully says, “Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas”, and then he sings a verse of Santa Clause Is Coming to Town. I should state that my wife and I never endorsed the whole Santa thing at Christmastime. We never taught my daughter that he existed, but rather taught that he was a fantasy figure similar to a cartoon character. The thing is that as a Christian I cannot allow an omniscient and magical individual to supplement the glory of a Divine Savior who came to this world in human form to provide a redeeming work of grace. Jesus Christ came as a baby in a manger in order to die as a man on the cross. It is because of His redeeming work that we are able to receive the saving grace of God, and I could never allow Santa or anyone else to diminish the glory of Christ from the heart of my kid. With this in mind, why then do I keep the Santa doll that speaks and sings in a somewhat goofy voice? My niece (the one that I’m closes...

I’ve noticed something a little weird about lifting weights recently. I usually do my routine in ten sets of ten repetitions. Lately I’ve been using the weights for upper body strength by working with a set of dumbbells for the sake of biceps, triceps, and shoulders. I’ve been working hard on getting past a problem with my one arm that seemed to originate at the point of injury where my bone was broken near the wrist in the accident. The strange thing that I have noticed is that I don’t have trouble with the last set of ten repetitions, but rather with the very first set. One would think that the last set should be the one that causes me to struggle with exhaustion, but it’s actually the first set that I strain with the most. After the first set it almost feels as though I’m the Tinman in The Wizard of Oz after Dorothy applies oil to all of his joints. Suddenly I’m free to move and work again. I have no problem with the remainder of the workout as long as I get through that first set. ...

Are you old enough to remember the days when FM radio guided your knowledge of new music? Regardless of the genre, you turned on the radio for hours and listened to the songs, all the while saving money in order to buy an album. Radio and albums…crazy stuff.           I realize that the music industry is completely different now in the way that things are run, along with the way in which people listen to music, but I can still remember lying in the sand at the beach for hours and listening to the radio without headphones or earbuds. If your bedroom never had a stereo that included a turntable and really huge speakers when you were a teenager, then you probably don’t know the heartache of scratching an album on your favorite song. You’re just a pup. The thing about FM radio was that you had to listen to a bunch of songs that you really didn’t like over and again in order to hear the ones that you actually did like. It always involved the need to tolerate a l...

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 ...

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...

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...

The Move I walk amidst the present circumstance At times to search, at times to plainly see And though I strive to reach beyond this trance The whole remains as a dim memory   I’ll go, I know, to times as yet unseen It’s there that fate upholds my hidden vein Though deeper still lies every lasting mean The past is just a thing that must remain                                                                                                 -Lazarus

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...