Friday 6 June 2008

Time + Tragedy = Comedy

All bad things, given enough time, become funny things. It’s as true as anything’s ever been. So now that some time has passed since my, ahem, incident, it’s time to start exploring some of the lighter moments.

Our first episode begins right away, on the very first evening. After I had posed for my x-rays and everything, they wheeled me back into the trauma ward where the missus, the Pony and big Drew were awaiting, whereupon we were introduced to The Handsome Doctor. Apart from Brad Pitt, I’ve never been able to tell which guys women would like. This guy changed all that. First of all, he made Brad Pitt look like Barney Rubble. The four of us kind of got the wind knocked out of us when he entered the room. He showed the other three my x-rays and was as charming and debonair as he was handsome. Perfectly coiffed (how does he get his hair so shiny??), perfectly dressed, he even smelled good – which for a doctor ain’t the easiest thing in the world to do Absolutely Perfect Teeth. He wasn’t out of the room for 5 seconds when were imagining him walking into a bar and every thong in the room suddenly shooting down its owner’s legs just by sheer force of – handsomeness. And then he’d walk up to some lady, start up a conversation and tell her that he’s an orthopedic surgeon? Jesus, the guy must get more ass than the portajohns at Tradezone!

It’s a good thing that Greg wasn’t there or we might have had a scene on our hands.


Exhibit A: The Greatest Invention, Ever. Our hero, with a steaming hot bottle of urine. Nothin’ says lovin’ like a bedside urinal. I will never be without one of these things – ever. If only I’d had one of these things in college…

General anesthesia is some powerful stuff. They didn’t even tell me what they were doing, they just said “okay, this is going to be a pretty big needle, you’re probably going to feel this one.” Duh, the thing was like a piece of schedule 40 pipe being shoved into my arm. I felt it. But they didn’t say they were hooking me up or anything. All I remember is them kicking Mrs. Wagon out the room, her coming over to give me some sugar, and then nothing. So I time traveled for a while, and then all of a sudden I’m riding my bike south down Route 24, but I’m in the northbound lanes. Route 24 starts south of Boston and goes pretty much directly to Newport. I used to drive on it a lot, and it’s a freaking speedway. Flow of traffic is usually at least 80, but the thing’s so dead straight and flat that there’s nothing to it. Anyway, I couldn’t figure out how I was riding my bike so fast, or why I was riding into oncoming traffic, all I knew was that I had to get home FAST because my wife was wicked pissed at me.

So then I wake up and I’ve got absolutely no idea where I am, but I’m on a bed that’s rolling. At first I thought we were on 24, and was pretty freaking happy when I figured out that we weren’t. So I see Mrs. Wagon next to me and ask her “where the hell are we? Did I ride my bike here?” Very calmly, she pats me on the forehead and says “yeah, in a way you did.” Great that’s just the kind of wit I need when I’m waking up off a full dose of horse tranquilizers.

I get back up to my room and there’s a whole bunch of guys there but I’m still pretty out of it, starting to come around by the minute. So then I’ve got to tell everybody about the surgery. It’s kind of like fish. They say fish have ridiculously short memories, so after you catch em and put em back in the water, they’re stunned for a couple of seconds, and then they’re like “man, I’m TIRED. And hungry. And why does my jaw hurt so bad?”

So everyone’s talking about the various injuries they’ve had and trips to the ER and stuff, and we get to the topic of catheters. My greatest fear going into this thing was that I’d have to have a catheter. Thanks to Exhibit A above, I’d avoided that fate. And I tell everyone, “man I am so glad I never had to have a catheter. That was like the one thing I was freaking out about.” And I look over at Mrs. Wagon, who’s kind of chuckling a little bit and has that “should I tell him now or should I tell him later?” look on her face. “What??” “Well, how do you think you got through a 3 hour surgery without peeing all over the doctors?” “Jedi bladder control, of course!”

Man, I’m TIRED. And I gotta pee. And why does my junk hurt so bad?

2 comments:

John P. said...

LOL. That made my day.

oh, and I'm so glad it wasn't me going through all that. I just pictured some catheter to water bottle setup at the races, that'd be handy.

Emma said...

Hello!

I found your blog via a GamJams email and must say, it made my day to see your blog! I started riding and racing in college, and quickly fell in love with the sport.

Unfortunately, almost a year after graduating, I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. I, of course, denied that the disease was as serious as it sounded and tried to get back to "normal" life as I knew it. Well, my body didn't exactly cooperate and it's been an awful roller coaster since! I can say, though, that cycling has become very therapeutic for me, and has helped me through some pretty dark times due to this chronic illness.

I had a pretty serious hospitalization last October and decided that I was going to race the 2008 season regardless. I joined an awesome team (TriPower) and started training like crazy. Well, three days before the training crits started I relapsed. I can honestly say that all my training, and my season, went down the toilet (literally). It was hard to deal with, but had to come to the realization that I have no control, and most of all, I had to accept that it is what it is.

I plan on racing next year (I'm still not stable at the moment) but also understand that if my body doesn't want to cooperate I have to accept that too

I want to tell you that I feel for you, but know that you WILL heal. If a doc ever tells you that you will never fully heal or will never be as fast as you were in the past, tell them to go to hell. And your sense of humor is PRICELESS! You will race again. You've got a great attitude. Even if next year you're a lil slower than before, it'll all come back!! And you may be better than you were before ;) This experience has definitely made you stronger! Take care and I wish you the best!!