So people allow me to take this opportunity to share a bit of my life.
I was cycling from Tauranga to Rotorua and I was just a few short clicks from a little town called Te Teko when I got hit by a car,breaking my right tib & fib.The driver of the car that hit me put a cushion under my head and held an umbrella over me, it was real hot that day, the 4th Jan 1991.It didn’t take that long and a few more cars stopped and people got out to have a look,bloody ghouls!!
Anyway one of the spectators turned out to be a doctor who just happened to also be travelling along the same road at the same time and he came over to assist me,while we waited for the ambulance to turn up.
It turned out that I was really lucky that the ambulance crew decided almost at the last minute to take me to Tauranga Hospital rather than Whakatane,there being little difference in distance to travel.I say “really lucky” because at the time there was a dispute at Whakatane Hospital involving one of their surgeons who’d cut off a blokes arm instead of his leg,or it might have been his leg,instead of his arm!!
Although they liked to get rid of you lickety split it took them nearly two months before they could discharge me from hospital,because I used to keep what I considered MY wheelchair padlocked to the side of my bed and as soon as I’d had my breakfast,me and another patient would scoot out to the roof top garden for a smoke and a spliff and it actually took them all that time before they realised I was still there,like I’d been avoiding them,which of course I was.I tried to stay there as long as I possibly could!!
I got on a bus to Wellington to stay with my olds while convalescing and I can tell you that it came as a bit of a shock that when I went down to outpatients at the hospital,it turned out that the orthopaedic surgeon was the same bloke who’d assisted me at the site of the accident and I know it blew him away too,because he shared it with a lot of the other staff there.That’s when I first heard his name as Rhett Mason.
After 7 months passing and the bones not healing he decided to put a titanium plate into my leg.
Two years later in 1993 I was cycling through Hagley Park during winter and I skidded on a patch of black ice and broke my right ankle and no crap,but the resident surgeon at Christchurch Hospital was,yes you guessed it,Rhett Mason!!
Now you could say it was just coincidence but I am convinced that there was more to it,that maybe it was G-ds way of telling me to slow down,because it certainly did slow me down some.I’d rather believe that than that the devil had tried to kill me.
In 2006 my mother died in Wellington,which is where she’d lived and which necessitated my moving back there until the estate had been settled and while I was there I bought a Vespa GTS250 scooter and I’d just gotten over Crawford Hill into Constable Street and this woman driver in front of me failed to indicate her intention and suddenly turned in front of me cutting off and survival mode got me putting down my feet to try to get my bike back under control and it fell to the right snapping my leg again and another plate was put in.So I now had 3 plates in there,2 that overlap on my tibia and the other on my fibula.
Well that plate on my fibula starts at mid shin to my ankle and right on the ankle bone there are two broken screws in there and on 31st August I go back under the knife to have the plate and the offending screws removed.
The surgeon Peter Burn says that the quality of the soft tissues in my leg is very poor and that if I develop problems in my right knee,that all of the metal ware in my leg will need top be removed and corrected with an osteotomy both proximally and distally,which in layman’s talk probably means that it will be cut,in order to realign it.
It’s already nearly 3 cms shorter now than my left leg and it’s not going to get any longer I don’t think.
Well the upshot of all this is that since I was born I’ve had to learn how to walk once as a baby,two times for the first break,once each for the 2nd & 3rd breaks and shortly I’ll have to do it all over again for the 6th time,with a possibility of a 7th in my immediate future and I hear how other people reckon they have a HARD life,just because of a few earthquakes.
The fact is people,that just a couple of years ago I had surgery to straighten a broken nose and while I was out my heart stopped,so there is no guarantee that I’ll even be alive on the 1st of September, but I’m not overly concerned because my will has already been written and all of my affairs are in order.
I won’t be leaving anyone a bill for my burial which is what I hear is what most people can look forward to.Without a will in NZ it all goes to the state.
It does sound like you’ve been through a lot. I hope that your surgery goes well.
You were not taking the short route, then. Te Teko is much closer to Whakatane (30 min) than Tauranga (1hr+). Unless you mean Te Puke, which would be a somewhat nicer place than Te Teko to be knocked off your bike (I grew up near Te Teko, it is nowhere I would like to be injured).
Si
[quote
Well, happy to know you are still alive…I think?
So you’re on your way to becoming a cyborg? A sort of unique pathway in life, I think.
How’s your bone density? Either you have terrible luck or your bones seem to snap like kindling.
Using the word “cover” to refer to a new version of an older song. There’s a difference between a cover and a remake: a cover version is released at close to the same time as (and usually in competition with) the original.
http://www.history-of-rock.com/cover_remake.htm
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1683&dat=19960827&id=ZCYqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AS4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6780,1243972&hl=en
That was supposed to go in a different thread. Not sure what happened.
Your life may not be mapped out, but apparently GPS likes to route people through your bike…
You might want to read Max Barry’s novel “Machine Man”, bring yourself up to speed.
I feel like maybe the universe doesn’t want you biking.