First we'll cover Robbie's "bike accident". During college, Robbie got a motorcycle. This effected me in a couple of ways. First of all, since it was his only mode of transportation, when the weather was bad he required another way to get to and from work and school. I had a 1980 Toyota Starlet that looked very much like the one below. In fact after Robbie had driven it for a while, in front of an automotive center would have been the best place to get a glimpse of it since that is where it spent most of it's time. Actually, it spent most of it's time in my Dad's garage while he overhauled the engine, but that is a story for another day.
.jpg)
I could tell you about the times that Robbie "borrowed" my car and drove me to work saying that he would pick me up when I got off. Then he would forget me and I'd end up sitting outside of a closed mall waiting for a ride for an hour or so in the days before cell phones, but I won't. His incident happened on a drizzly morning in Nacogodoches. I had an 8 AM class and had gone to school in my own car that I was paying for being the selfish person that I am. After class I stopped off at the former employer who shall not be named because even then I was a slave to them and we were having a walk through that afternoon and I wanted to make sure my department was prepared. (It was naturally, because I had worked for about 14 hours the day before and the store hadn't opened yet for the day.)
When I got home, my sister-in-law who was living with us and was Ronnie's girlfriend at the time, met me in the driveway. She was wearing the uniform that she wore to work at La Hacienda everyday. I wish that I could show you a picture of that hideous uniform that she had to wear to work. But I'll just have to describe it to you. It was a skirt and top. The top was off white and peasant styled. I think it may have had some rust colored rick-rack around the collar and sleeves to match the ugly rust colored full knee length skirt that went with it. It doesn't sound that horrible when I describe it, but I think after seeing it for so many years and smelling it when she walked in the house at night I was a little disgusted by it (I'm pretty sure she was too). When she came home from work, she always smelled like a big burrito. Which may be why I think burritos are really gross today.
Anyway, she met me in the driveway and was a little panicked. She explained that the hospital had called and Robbie was there and one of us needed to go to Medical Center, but she was running late for work. So, I rushed over to Medical Center Hospital while Christina went to work. When I got there, they were ready to release Robbie he just needed someone to take him home. He said that he had been turning off the loop onto University Dr. and apparently on the slick street the wheels had gone out from under the motorcycle. His head hit the pavement but fortunately he had been wearing a helmet which had cracked. He had a concussion and didn't remember any of it. He only knew what the witnesses had told him. When he got to the hospital he didn't know who he was or what had happened other than what he had been told. They got his information off his drivers license and he said that when they read it to him, he was really excited because he knew that was him! But they still needed his phone number so they could call someone. The phone was in my name and fortunately our childhood doctor was in the emergency room and knew my name, so they found our number and read it out to him. He said when they read those numbers out he felt like he had won the lottery because he recognized them. Anyway, he recovered, but he got rid of the motorcycle shortly afterward.
Now the other incident didn't really result in a trip to the emergency room although I suppose in hindsight, it should have. It happened just a few years ago which is why it didn't occur to me yesterday. It was a Saturday morning and I had taken my beautiful Trek bike to Arbor Hills in west Plano for a morning ride. I forgot my helmet and was wearing a baseball cap. But I was going to stay on the cement trails anyway, so I thought I would be fine without a helmet. I had been riding for 45 minutes or so when I came down the biggest hill there. At the base of the hill there is a Y and you have to veer either left or right. I was going to go left and had started to turn when my cap flew off. Rather than just letting it go, I tried to grab it with my left hand while braking with the right hand which was my front wheel brake. I hit the brake too hard and went over the handle bars. The crazy thing is, I never let go of that right brake so my right side had a lot of road rash where my knee, shoulder, arm and wrist had met with the cement. But I tried to brace myself with my left hand and broke the bone in the lower part of my arm right at the elbow. It also dislocated my elbow but it popped right back in and tore the skin off my left thumb.
There were people walking behind me when all of this happened and being a veteran "faller" I knew the first thing I had to do was jump up and assure everyone that I was fine... even though blood was dripping onto the cement from my knee and thumb. The people helped me get my bike. I got back on it and road it back to my car. When I got to my car, I still had to lift the bike up to put it in the back. This was the difficult part. I had almost given up when a guy noticed my problem and came over and helped me. As I drove home, I thought about detouring to Plano Medical Center but decided that I was just being a wimp and would be fine when I got home and cleaned my wounds and put ice on them. So, that's what I did. I thought the worst wounds were the ones that were bleeding and concentrated on those when I got home cleaning them all well with soap and water, then peroxide and bandaging them. But as time passed that day, my left arm continued to swell even with ice on it and the pain was horrible. I kept ice on it all day Sunday and took tons of Advil. I went to work on Monday and told my co-workers about it. By then my left arm was bruised which I didn't realize since the bruising was on the back side of my arm. Finally, by Wednesday I decided that I should go to the doctor because the pain was getting no better in my left arm and the swelling had still not gone down. They couldn't get me in until the next day. So on Thursday, I went to the doctor where they examined and re-bandaged my open wounds and then sent me for x-rays on my left elbow and wrist.
From there I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon who told me about the dislocation which had stretched stuff that shouldn't be stretched and the fracture. He was hesitant to put a cast on it because of the dislocation part of the injury. So, they put me in a sling and I had to go back to the doctor every week for about 2 months for new x-rays and for him to check on the healing. The good news was the it all healed on it's own and no surgery was required. I remember thinking during my weekly trips to the doctor that if I had just gone to the medical supply store on my own and bought my own $25 sling, I could have by-passed the doctor entirely. But that too is another story.
Have a happy Sunday. It's looking like a pool day in Dallas! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment