My Motorcycle Injuries

I have been experiencing a new sensation in my knee the past couple of weeks. Most of the pain that I feel from day to day involves what I consider to be a dull pain. It feels sort of stiff, thick, and generally "sore", like a week-old injury that lingers past the initial severe pain. Now, however, I've been feeling more of what I would describe as a sharp pain. It feels as though something inside is jabbing at me, like a small knife. Bone maybe? Who knows. The thing is that I know if this feeling will go away soon enough, or if I'll just grow accustomed to it and learn to ignore it like everything else. I think that I feel it so distinctly now because it's new and my mind hasn't adjusted enough to simply disregard it. I've had varying pains over the years, both in the type of sensation and the level of severity. Some of it has lingered, and some if it has gone away completely. I believe that this one seems so distinct because it's a sharp pain, sort o...

One of the strange things about dealing with my body since the motorcycle accident involves the constant existence of duplicity within my mind. I think that a great many people don't spend their days considering the state of their physical condition (vanity aside). I was that way before the accident. I mean, sure, I dealt with my body's existence and needs. I considered things such as weight and pain. But it was always very much fleeting within my mind. Most of my time was spent "living" without much consideration as to what I was living in. Now, it's more of a consistent focus on pain vs. ability, good blood numbers vs. highs and lows in my levels, energy vs. fatigue, etc. My blood was tested last week and I just read the results of all of the blood work. I have not been doing well the past couple of months and I was certain that my A1C would be high but...nope. The results came back with an A1C level of 5.9 along with most of my endocrinologist's other conce...

I woke up this morning without the dynamic ability to walk normally or close my hand. It happens daily, but not to this extent. The problem with my knee lasted for roughly half an hour, while the issue with my hand persisted for well over an hour. I believe that it's due to some of the maintainance work that I've been doing all week. It included plumbing (toilet water tank repairs, water heater replacement, etc.) along with cleaning the church building and assembling an unusually heavy work desk for my wife. In the end I was able to clear the list of maintainance duties for the week, but I think that it has left me a little bit worn down physically. These types of things continue to take a toll on the parts of me that were damaged by the accident, but I can't really do anything about it, so I write about it here instead. It all seems a little self-serving and psycho at times to me, but life goes on.  The knee that was so heavily damaged in the motorcycle accident, along wit...

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.

  I spoke of some serious leg pain in my last blog entry (here) . I assumed that it involved the aftereffects of my once-broken femur. I still think that some of the pain was related to a small piece of bone that I’ve been told has grown into muscle within my thigh, but that wasn’t even close to being the main problem. I started to feel symptoms that were eerily similar to shingles, and yesterday I started to develop a rash in a small area of my thigh. I went to a clinic and, sure enough, I have shingles. The person examining me asked about stress in relation to the cause of my illness, but my pulse and blood pressure helped to prove that I was, generally speaking, a calm guy. The outbreak and pain are on my damaged leg, and one of the assumed potential causes of shingles involves injury, so I’m thinking that maybe I overworked a messed up leg and it triggered something inside of me (I’m not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once). Anyhoo, this shingles thing is...

      +      =     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’m kind of vacillating lately in dealing with what I expect to do with my leg in the future. There is an enormous part of me that does not want to have surgery to help with what ails me…ever. I can’t stand the thought of subjecting myself to the whole surgeon/hospital/nurse thing again. The prospect of surgery and the ensuing physical rehab that will be necessary to recover properly is something that keeps me saying that I’ll live with the progressive decline of my leg over the rest of my life. However, I’m growing tired of dealing with the constant discomfort and hindrance, along with the inability to stand up after sitting for a while and just walking away normally. Simple activities are always hindered by my damaged leg and it would be nice to revive the common freedoms associated with a pain-free leg. So, is surgery some type of panacea, or is it just a way to feel somewhat “better”? And what would all of that mean after enduring the hassles of going through the whole medical ...