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 went to the church property for a while in order to get a few things done. As I was trimming a couple of trees that were beginning to grow into the dumpster area, I realized that several of the branches were too high for me to reach. I then pushed the dumpster closer to them and used it to climb up on a wall that encloses the space. As I stood on the wall trimming a few branches I briefly considered the fact that I had just climbed onto a dumpster and then jumped onto a wall. I finished the work and climbed down without killing myself, so yay.  In contrast, I'm home now and ten minutes ago I limped when I first stood up because I had been sitting too long. I also had a hard time using my hand because I held my cellphone in one position too long while looking at some photos. I mean, really? I sometimes have a hard time believing the things that I go through. I'm Joe Athlete one minute, and Myron Invalid the next. None of it makes sense to me. I feel like an enigma wra...

 Today is the last day of my “full time” duty with my niece. I’ve taken care of her Monday thru Friday, early morning until late afternoon, since she was six weeks old. She is now four, and will begin attending pre-k in the late summer. Her mom is a teacher and school ends for her today, so my time with my niece will now be far more limited. I’ll get her for a couple of weeks in August as her mom reports for staff days, and then she’ll begin attending school later in the month. From then on I’ll only be taking care of her on school half-days and teacher work days (along with any sick days). All in all it will only add up to a few days each school year. I’ve spent the past four years watching her grow up while joining her in playing with a multitude of different toys, playing every game that she learned or made up, walking her around my neighborhood, watching her play with my tools in the driveway, taking her to various places as a sort of field trip, playing various chase games a...

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...

Hello. It's me again. Things here are going OK these days. My body is cooperating with everything that life demands of it lately. I'm getting things done around the house, the church property, and the homes of a relative or two in need of help with repairs. I still take care of my young niece during the workweek while her energy levels and consequent need to playplayplay continue to grow along with her body. All in all things are moving forward from day to day and I'm very much thankful for the freedom that I have to live my life and take part in all of the things that I do. With all of that said, I can feel that things continue to get worse with the body parts related to my accident injuries as time moves on. It's nothing really big, but rather it's just some subtle changes that are evolving over time. It's getting harder for me to walk after I've been sitting for too long a period of time, and it's becoming more difficult to walk without some type of s...

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...