Note: For those of you who may wonder why I wrote Part I in the third person, allow me to explain. See, like Brett Favre, I have an evil twin. Brett's evil twin shows up towards the end of a playoff game and throws an interception to end his team's season. He's done that about six years in a row. My evil twin also does stupid stuff and then leaves me to suffer the consequences. I've been describing for you, then, the actions of my evil twin. Surely you don't think I would have done this to myself, do you? Well, do you? Anyway, having done his worst, he has fled the scene.
I wasn't sure exactly what had happened, only that something was terribly amiss. I was getting to my feet when the driver of the SUV asked me if I needed an ambulance. I stood up, wondered why I would need an ambulance, and said no thanks. I remember I helped up Blue Thunder and actually tried to start it. I couldn't. Somehow I managed to push it out of the street and onto the driveway of a vacant house.
A car approached and slowed, and that driver asked if I needed an ambulance. What, did I look like I needed an ambulance? I was up and moving around. I needed no stinking ambulance. No thanks, I told him.
I began walking back towards home, some 10 blocks or so away. Only then did I realize I was cradling my left arm with my right. I was also doing a Ratso Rizzo limp. I began to wonder if I could make it home when I saw my wife driving towards me, a look of abject terror on her face, the same look she gets when she spots a "palmetto bug" (translate: roach) in the bathtub.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Blue Thunder took a little spill," I replied, figuring if I minimized the event I would save myself my wife's wrath. Actually, it would be days before I finally was able to work out what had happened and place the blame where it belonged--right on the shoulders of my evil twin.
We're going to the emergency room," she decreed. "You do realize you're still wearing your helmet, don't you?"
A CAT scan revealed a fractured shoulder and a broken foot. My knee was intact but had an abrasion the size of Lake Erie that looked like a piece of filleted fish. My upper inner arm was the color of a blackboard. I was patched up and sent home with instructions to see an orthopedic surgeon. The orthopedic surgeon put my arm in a sling and my foot in a walking boot. I gazed upon myself and saw that I was decidedly not cool.
Still, it could have been worse. A few days after the event, I checked my helmet and found a couple of dings. But for it and my religious fervor over wearing it, I could have suffered a skull fracture.
Later, I had to have the nail on my big toe removed. An ultrasound revealed a blood clot in my left leg. I had to administer two-a-day shots to my abdomen. Three weeks and 42 shots later, it looked like Clay Matthews and A. J. Hawk had been tap dancing on it while wearing cleats. The granddaughter wanted to know if she could play connect-the-dots on me. No sympathy.
I had once taken a womb-to-the-tomb psych course. Apparently upon reaching old age, seniors begin regressing. I experienced that phenomena in a different context. No longer could I bathe myself, dress, or tie my shoes. I slept on a futon, and later on my recliner, and used a gallon water jug for a bedpan. I watched helplessly as the swimming pool turned into the Black Lagoon.
I've always said that while men want to be husbands, women want to be mothers. Now was my wife's second opportunity to self-actualize, and she assumed the role in a manner that guaranteed her sainthood. She turned what could have been a catastrophe of biblical proportions into little more than a minor inconvenience.
Surprisingly throughout, as long as I kept my upper left arm immobile, there was very little pain. That was yet to come.
To be continued. . . .
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