More musing:
Injuries. Have you had any life-altering ones? Been close? Recovered ok?
I had been a pretty lucky kid and teenager. I had a few close calls but had never hurt myself badly or broken any bones. I didn't play sports though so that probably helped. It's tough to sprain anything or break bones playing a trumpet in pep band.
I was on leave at home Thanksgiving of 1997 when I hurt myself really bad for the first time. I was out riding 4-wheelers (remember those?) with my brother and friend Eric when my brother wrecked pretty hard. The 4-wheeler was on top of him and the rack on the back had landed on his head/neck. I ran down the hill and literally threw the machine off of him and in the process I ended up bending my knee backwards while high on adrenaline. It swelled up over the next day or so to the size of a large grapefruit. I put on a knee brace and hopped around for the next week on the other leg and then drove all the way back to Louisiana. Two days later I was able to run, jump, etc. like I had been able to do before the injury EXCEPT stand and twist on it.
I really had no idea what I did to it for the next 21 years and I just kept it in the back of my mind that I had to favor it. I have re-injured it twice in the last 23 years - once in the summer of 2014 and once on December 7, 2017. The first time was while trying to pack a charged, spraying 1.5" firehose up the side of a hill. Ah, that feeling....CRUNCH! BRIGHT LIGHT! Wake up on ground. Two days of a brace and I was back to normal. The last time three years ago I was walking across the work parking lot and the puddles in the asphalt lot had frozen and there was a nice 1/2" layer of fresh powder hiding them. My right heel hit one of the ice spots and again, the same sequence of events. I went back to work after about an hour of icing it.
I decided to FINALLY have the thing checked out as I've ALWAYS been afraid of finding out bad news......Torn ACL. Oh, that's common and it can be fixed. However, after exploring options of how/where my own tendon material would be harvested for the repair or the risks of installing cadaver pieces and the chances of rejection, I decided that I wouldn't bother getting the surgery. I make my living kneeling on concrete and that would pretty much be over for me if I had the surgeon use kneecap tendon. I also USE my hamstrings often and I didn't want to lose ANY strength there. I'll wait another 10-15 years and think about getting it fixed then.
The last big one was ALSO on December 7th...of 2020. I was doing the same thing I've done for years: Lifting truck tires onto a pickup flatbed. It caught up to me this time - big time. I made the last lift at about 10AM and didn't feel anything out of the ordinary until about 8PM. My gut and abdominal muscles felt weird - I thought I gave myself a hernia. The following morning I drove myself to the hospital and checked into the ER. CT scans showed nothing out of the ordinary - no ruptures. Well.....ok. The "doctor" said, "Oh, you may have gastritis." Here's a prescription for Pepcid. Um....Ok. Did you not hear anything I said about what happened and how I feel?
Long story short, I made 5 trips to the ER in eight days. I saw 5 different "doctors" and had an ultrasound and nine x-rays. I've been fortunate to be an extraordinarily "regular" guy ever since I can remember but I was unable to have a bowel movement for
15 days . Every time I would go to the hospital, it was, "You have gas.", "You're constipated.", "Take laxatives.", "Take Pepto Bismol." I heard from every one of them that there was nothing wrong with me even though I explained to each in very high detail what had happened, how it happened, and that there had been food going in my mouth but after all of the laxatives there was nothing in my colon. I lost 14 lbs. in 2 weeks because I was afraid to eat. I couldn't stop drinking water - I couldn't seem to get enough. Magnesium Citrate and suppositories DID NOTHING. The symptoms were only the feeling of discomfort in my gut (like pressure) but no real pain and I could not flex my abdominal muscles.
On the 10th day I took all of my vehicle titles in and had them notarized (easier for the vehicles to disappear). I made sure all of my life insurance paperwork was in order, and I called my friends to let them know that I was planning.
After the 14th day, I had an emotional breakdown. I was convinced that I was going to die because I started feeling nauseous on and off. I cried on my wife's shoulder for quite a while. That night, I went to bed and I felt a pain in the middle of my back that I'd never felt before. Just below my shoulder blades, centered in the spine. My wife, who sees a highly-respected massage therapist every month for her back made me an appointment for the following evening.
I had never been to a person who practices the massage/bone cracking bit but I know this woman. She has been working on my wife for a couple years and my dad a few more than that. She asked me what was going on, what happened, and what I was feeling. She turned me around, felt my spine and convinced me that she was going to fix me right up. She worked on me for about 20 minutes and then went in for the kill. She popped the first vertebrae and I could instantly feel my abdominal muscles come back to life. Then she hit the second one and said that I would start getting back to normal (in the gut function deparment) the next day. She was right. The next day at about noon I was "going" and have been ever since.
I still am not "right" though. Sneezing, coughing, or even hiccups and laughter hurt - as though I have no muscle action holding up my guts above my pelvis. I've gone back to the therapist and my back doesn't hurt, but something still isn't right. I can barely lift 25 lbs. without it hurting my abdomen directly above and below my navel, and oftentimes I get the "kicked in the groin" feeling into my left lower gut shortly after. I can't sing in the car (if you can call the music I like "singing") anymore either.
After this charade, I have no faith in doctors. None of them listened to what I said and instantly went to the stomach acid/constipation/gas as my problem when in actuality it was pinched nerves in my spine. They would have killed me had I waited any longer, I'm certain. I got referrals to the gastroenterologist and an appointment to get another ultrasound but I never went and I'm not going to. The worker compensation office only paid a couple of the bills because "nothing the doctor wrote in his notes had any relation to a muscle strain or hernia". Thanks. I've been self-aware of my body and how it functions for 40 years and I have these problems all of a sudden AFTER I hurt myself lifting. No, not related at all. I never took any time off work short of a few hours of sick time here and there to lay down and relax.
Short of that, I still hit my head a lot on things and I still lose a lot of skin (mechanic trait of shedding more skin than a snake). I've been lucky so far with other things. I guess a few years ago I DID actually finally break a bone. In a freak accident, I broke a rib. I don't know how I'd explain the how/why of what happened, but it occurred during some fencepost hole digging with a tractor. It screwed me up a little bit for about 2 months but I came out of it just fine although I can see where the bone healed a little bit off if I stand in the mirror in the right light.
I also fell on some concrete (tripped) about 6 years ago and landed on that pointy bone on the end of my left elbow. It's not pointy anymore.
Man, what a BOOK!
Sorry, still bored. My wife is doing Girl Scout stuff (my stepdaughter is selling cookies tomorrow) and I'm waiting to put the last few logs on the fire before hitting the sack.
Take care!