Slings And Lampshades Are Sexy

I can’t say the last few weeks of my life haven’t been eventful. Actually the last few weeks of my life have been filled with tiny tragedies, nothing earth-shattering or life changing like the loss of a loved one, but a handful of small little setbacks nevertheless. Perhaps it’s just a string of bad luck that is running thru my family? It shouldn’t be a shocker because the whole country has fallen on hard times with a struggling job market, a bad economy and the daily surge in gas prices. It’s no wonder people are having problems. They say when it rains it pours. And there have been times in the past where that quote has rang true. However, I can’t say the last few weeks have been horrible! They just haven’t been peachy.

Don't worry, he's not dead.
He's just overly dramatic when it comes to
photographing him when he's sick.

In just the last few weeks, 3 surgeries have occurred in my family. My 4-year-old niece, my 88-year-old Grandma and let’s not forget my 1-year-old beloved Bulldog have all gone under the knife. My niece recovered in less than a day, my Grandma needed 2 days and my puppy...well I’ve been nursing him back to health for an entire month now. During this time, my Mom managed to wreck her car. And out in California, my sister nearly went into premature labor, 3 months early! She is now "sentenced" to strict bed rest for the remaining of her pregnancy. Gee, sounds like fun, fun, FUN! Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I smashed my body into a metal pole last Thursday night while racing my crotch rocket. So like I said, life hasn’t been peachy, nor has it been a bowlful of cherries.

So the good news is that obviously I didn’t die since I’m here to tell the tale. However, I did dislocate my shoulder and tore every ligament possible surrounding it. Dislocating it wasn’t the painful part, "relocating" it back to its proper position was! If I was a girl, I think I would have actually cried - it hurt that bad.

You can see why I drove my Mom crazy growing up. She was always on me about flying off skateboard ramps without pads on and basically just doing things that made her extremely nervous for my safety. But it's fun! What's the point of being young if you can't live a little? Ok, well I'm not exactly 10 anymore, but I'm not ready to pull up a rocking chair and retire just yet. Is it bad that I once had a girl that wouldn't date me anymore because she feared I would end up killing myself racing? I guess she had a point because I nearly did die in a motorcycle accident a couple years ago, but that still hasn’t stopped me from riding and racing. I say you only live once so you might as well make the most of it. I’m going to have fun and die with a smile on my face.

I guess I kind of deserved the injury. I was getting impatient waiting to race, so to entertain myself, I decided to fly around a parking lot that had a couple strategically placed light poles. I would cut around one of them and sort of slide/drift my bike - hard to explain. On one of the laps I had too much speed going into the turn and didn't lean the bike hard enough, which meant it was about to slam sideways into the metal pole! I couldn't let my precious bike take a hit like that, especially after I did tons of custom carbon fiber body work to it. So I did what any perfectly insane, crotch rocket loving, human being would do. I threw my body into the pole instead and absorbed the 40mph hit. Hey, it protected the bike from getting even a scratch! I say mission accomplished.

I didn't hear anything snap, crackle, pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies, but it was pretty loud out so I’m not sure I would have heard anything. It didn't even hurt that much at first, just sort of knocked the wind out of me. Being the stubborn person that I am, I sucked it up that evening and never went to the hospital. I didn’t see it as an emergency since there weren’t any bones protruding from my skin, although I couldn’t lift my arm. I’ve had stingers before and I was hoping this one would go away by morning. The next day I started to wonder if I had cracked my collar bone or had more serious injuries. After much nagging from a few female co-workers, I checked myself into the hospital after work and later was sent home in a sling.

I’m told slings are sexy, true or false? Or at least that is what she told me to make me feel better. I look like a total dork with it on. And just look at my poor puppy! He has to wear a lampshade (AKA e-collar) on his head. The two of us together is just pathetic. We look like a couple of battled war heroes. I’m beginning to think we need a babysitter to watch over us. I suppose we could turn this to my advantage and use the pity to pick up girls. Although that seems really slimy to pimp my puppy and myself out. Besides, I think that pick up method of "arm in a sling" was already used by Ted Bundy. Yeah, that’s not the type of first impression I want to make.