Yesterday was one of those days. You know, the one where everything seems to be going well and suddenly it takes a hard left in the middle of the day and you are scrambling to catch up. Yesterday, my husband had an accident on his motorcycle. You see, a few years ago when we were married, he gave me a projection screen television and I gave him a motorcycle for our wedding presents.
To preface the rest of the story, he is fine and in one piece – mostly. He wears the proper gear, he always wears a helmet and yesterday, he was extremely grateful for that when he bounced his head off the concrete and sustained no head injury.
Blind Curves
He was coming out of a parking lot with one of those little hills that you have to drive up to reach the exit. At the top of the hill was a curve so basically the road is blind around that curve. He wasn’t going very fast which was extremely fortunate. Because as he came around the curve – there was a car there – and he fast a split second choice – hit the car or drop the bike and stop, because he couldn’t break before he got to it.
He dropped the bike and slid a little. He would have been okay except that as he slid forward a few feet, he slammed into the curb and broke his arm. He didn’t know he’d broken his arm. The man in the car jumped out to help him get the bike up. They were concerned, but he said it was okay and then my lovable, sweet, silly, stupid husband road his motorcycle slowly the rest of the way home.
Tough Love & Hospital Trips
He was in bad shape. I had to help him get off the bike. We got his jacket and gloves off and he said his arm hurt, but his ankle hurt worse. When I got him out of the thick shoes he was wearing, his ankle was really swollen. I put ice on his ankle and arm and got him settled. Then I called the doctor. They could see him in an hour.
We spent about three hours at the doctor’s office. By the time we got there, the swelling in his ankle was gone and while it was still really sore he could move it around. The arm was broken though. That floored both of us – but then the pain in his arm had been growing steadily despite the Tylenol and Alleve I gave him.
The fracture was to the radius right near the elbow joint. He was getting shooting pains down his forearm to his hand. They splinted the arm and gave him some vicodin for the pain. He has to keep his arm immobile for the next two weeks and then we begin the physical therapy to maintain the use of the elbow joint.
In Sickness & In Health
He was pretty exhausted when we got home. But he didn’t want to take it easy. The broken arm is his right one and he is a right-handed person. He’s been interviewing for a permanent position to get out of the contracting work and this is going to slow him down some. He was insisting on cooking dinner, so I pitched in and acted as his hands while he was directing. By the time our daughter was in bed, he was sitting back in a chair and looked pretty fatigued.
I told him to sleep. Not to worry about the typing he needed to do. If he needed it typed up, I could do it. In the meanwhile, he needed to rest. He doesn’t do sickness or injury very well. But then who really does? Before he went to sleep, he looked at me and said: “Thank you.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For today. You were great – you always know what to do – how to do it – and you take care of me.”
“Part of the package.” I reminded him.
I got up several times last night to check on him and he finally fell into a fitful sleep after midnight. It’s going to be a long two weeks and it’s going to be tough when he’s got to do the physical therapy. But he’s in one piece, mostly and I can’t say how grateful I am that he’s always been the one to make sure he wears the right motorcycle gear and the accident could have done a lot worse to him if he’d been wearing shorts and a t-shirt like so many motorcycle riders I see.
So that was my day yesterday, it took a hard left turn around a blind curve and he came out of it in a splint – but he came out of it in one piece and he’ll be out of the splint in just a few weeks.