after two days in the hospital, lots of ex-rays, cat-scans, being probed, i'm back in my little cottage. plenty of sores, pains, walking with a walker, and only one little chip off my ankle. i don't know how you did it, sydney. i flew over the hood of the car, down the right side, breaking the rear-view mirror, and landing face-down on the pavement.
after dark, lots of headlights shining on me, me determined not to move a muscle before the medics arrive. poor woman who hit me crying, 'i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry.' she'd been talking with her kids in the rear-view mirror and didn't see me till she hit me (at thirty-five miles an hour). normally i'm super-careful, even in a cross-walk. i wore my fire-engine red coat and a waved a flashlight in my hand. that last gave me a false sense of security.
you know, ambulance rides rough, they seem to hit every little bump. i'd always imagined it would be riding on air. they emt's superb. they kept me talking. the real trembling didn't start till later. even now i have little after-shocks. i'd been sure, hit in my right hip, that bit of elderly anatomy would be crushed. first x-rays showed no such thing. suddenly, i am sliding back and forth in this tube, back and forth. good heavens, when does this end?
okay, i do have a moment where i wish i'd been hit head-on and dead, all my troubles over, no more effort to be made, the end chosen for me. that passed, me pretty sure i didn't mean it, the only pain i'm feeling in the hip. later, i find the real damage to my left ankle, though that relatively minor, even looking like a bloody, blown-up inner-tube.
of course, this means sydney saved me so i could save the world. Syd, i've been trying my whole life and never gotten anywhere. someways the situation of human beings better than in 1940, and in other ways worse, ie. we've grown no wiser. i love to walk, and will be very happy to do that again. friends have been spectacular. pays to be aging in a community you know. the hospital folks spectacular. true, i did feel a bit sidelined once they realized they wouldn't have to do anything dramatic.
fifteen minutes of stardom, the hard way. i'd recommend you run naked through a stadium, if you really need the attention.
http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters-ebook/dp/B00JCW0BCY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417901857&sr=8-1&keywords=BEING+MORTAL
