My Motorcycle Injuries

I went to my cardiologist yesterday for an annual checkup visit. He did the usual things with an EKG and a stethoscope. I like the guy enough, but I really see these visits as a waste of time and money...really. The reason that I'm obligated to go is that I have a stent in my aorta placed very close to the heart. It's due to an impact rupture from the motorcycle accident. Still, the visit was filled with questions about how I'm doing and feeling, so hey, it makes me feel as though I'm an important person. He scheduled me for a stress test because I've never taken one. He tried to do one several years ago but my insurance company denied the request. I have a different insurance company now, so we'll see if it actually happens in a few weeks. Otherwise, he says that I'm totally healthy. But, if I'm the epitome of great health and fitness, why the stress test? The world may never know. In the process of being set up for a stress test, I asked him if it invo...

I've told the story before on this blog, but my motorcycle accident occurred, in part, because my car was not running well and I chose to take my bike to get a haircut. A few days before the accident I had gone to a mechanic to have some work done on my car. On that day I took a backpack full of books in order to work on a sermon while waiting for the repair. A short time after getting settled I was told that the repair couldn't be finished until the following day, so I shoved everything into the backpack and trekked my way back home on foot. It involved several miles of walking, but no biggie.  A few months after the accident I started to think about that little journey that I had taken just a few days before the accident and I sadly thought to myself that I would never be able to do something like that again. I was pretty much convinced that my body was so heavily damaged that I was finished with any kind of walking that involved longer distances. Well...I have for years now ...

I bashed one of my toes today on the metal flashing at the floor of my front door entrance. I was barefooted, so my toes were fully exposed. Today's mishap involved the leg that was injured in the accident. That leg sometimes doesn't lift as high as it should when I'm taking steps. The floor on the inside of my house is a couple of inches higher than the ground outside at the entrance, so it's a slight lift to get inside. This same problem with my leg sometimes causes me to stumble a little when I'm walking on flat ground. My one leg is weaker than the other and it sometimes causes me to experience hindrances with my mobility. When it first happened this morning I thought, "ouch", but then I began to notice that it hurt far more than usual. When I looked down I noticed that my toe was bleeding. It's all fine now, but the Band-Aid and slight pain serve to remind me that I need to be more careful with each step that I take. Can you imagine? Walking is su...

I returned from my trip to Israel/Jordan a few days ago. Everything went well with the things that needed to be done and I was able to visit a bunch of nifty historic sights besides. We had no issues concerning any need to deal with guns or bombs, so...bonus. The ankle on my accident damaged leg swole up in a big way over the course of time, but it didn't involve any pain. Aside from the ankle, my body did alright with all of the walking and step climbing. None of the things related to my motorcycle accident injuries was a hindrance at all throughout the trip. I was really tired at the end of each day, but my body held up well and I was able to handle all of the things required of me physically with a good sense of ease. Uh huh. The irony of it all? When we left for the trip I had been dealing with some congestion in my head for about a week. It was getting better as the trip approached, and it improved during the first week in Israel. Nice, right? Well...the last two days I began ...

I'm leaving on a trip this coming Saturday morning. It involves a long journey as I travel from the home base airport to Atlanta, then to DC, then to Istanbul, and finally to Amman. I'll be spending a few days in Jordan and the better part of two weeks in Israel. Yeah, I know it's dangerous these days but hey, think of the SkyMiles I'll earn if I live! I've had to shuffle a lot of things in my life to make this trip a reality, but tomorrow I'll finish packing and Saturday at 4 in the morning I'll leave for the airport. It's a good thing that I don't ordinarily sleep much, right?  This trip involves touring with a missionary and helping with a few things from day to day. I know that God's hand is in it, so off I go. (Well, off we go because my lovely wife will be joining me). My body is as ready as it will be, and I must admit that I really don't fear any trouble with my knee, leg, or hip. I'll probably need to walk about seven miles a 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....

Yesterday I spent the majority of my time watching my niece because of a sick day from school. My knee wasn't feeling its best, but I took her to the grocery store in order to buy her a snack. As I strolled through the aisles with her riding in a shopping cart, I ran through a few of those aisles while pushing the cart because it's something that she has always loved to do. My knee hadn't been feeling well before this, but a few hours later it began to feel really loose. I've mentioned this problem with my knee in previous blog posts, but it feels as though my leg is going to separate into two pieces at the middle. Weird. I can't simply blame it on the grocery store activity because I've had it happen while simply walking a very short distance at a fairly slow pace. The feeling went away overnight and I only feel the normal pain and discomfort today, so yay for me. One of the annoying things about my motorcycle accident injuries is the uncertainties that they pr...

  Nothing ever seems to settle with my various motorcycle accident injuries. There were a few years in which I seemed to have hit a plateau with the problems related to my body injuries, but those days are long gone. These days my body can't seem to decide what it is that hurts the most or hinders my life in the greatest way. My arm has issues with pain and inabilities from the forearm to the fingertips, but most of the pain and trouble is focused on my hand. Well, for now anyway. My leg has developed a problem with the front of my ankle (I looked it up, and it's called the anterior tibial tendon). The foot on that leg has always been a bit swollen since the accident, which is most noticeable to me when I wear shoes, but the pain never existed in the past. Now, the front of my ankle often hurts more than the rest of my leg and it's getting to be a considerable issue when I walk. My tibia was damaged badly in the accident, so it makes sense. The rest of my leg experiences fl...

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 just returned from a two week trip to Israel. My wife and I travelled with a tour group and we were able to see many of the places mentioned in the Bible, along with other cool places throughout Israel and also Jordan. It was very hot throughout and we did a lot of walking at each stop. How much walking you wonder? She logged our walking on her Apple Watch and we walked a total of over 74 miles. Yeah, you read that correctly. Seventy-four miles within a two week period, with very little flat land to enjoy. We seemed to always be going on an upward or downward slope, with a lot of stair steps at many of the different locations. It was a little grueling, but we really did enjoy every bit of the trip. I made it through feeling really well despite the usual pains, but during the second week I made the mistake of actually looking at the ankle on my "bad leg" from the accident. It had started to hurt at the ankle one afternoon and I checked on it when we returned to the hotel roo...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Before                                                                    After One of the stranger thi...