Broken neck and back riding a bicycle (roadie/amateur racer) into two SUVs that were crashing in front of me. I took a 30mph hit directly to my head with nearly the entire force of my body into my forehead. As a reference, at sea level, a person diving from a ten story building would have a similar velocity hitting the ground head first. I was told I only survived because I was initially unconscious for 3 hours as the damage to C1 and the base of my skull would have been fatal if I had moved substantially before the swelling had time to build pressure.
Thanks for mentioning. That kind of thing can wear hard on me. Shit happens. I could write a long list of all the junk that happened and all of my broken stuff, but at a certain point, one has to ask how they want to be defined themselves, and what it means to be a victim when the results of an event are never able to leave one’s immediate consciousness. This is my pain. As I type this message, my inner voice is yelling over the constant annoying sound of a horn blowing in a figurative ear on my back. Nothing makes that pain go away. Meds just make me care less about yelling over it or the things I might be otherwise doing.
This is what it really means to barely survive. Injuries are ultimately easy. There is an enormous spectrum of what it means to survive and recover. It isn’t some binary of did or didn’t, or a trinary with paralysis. To really be close to that measure of “barely” and to stabilize at a point that is not much higher than “barely” THAT is what is remarkably hard. It is impossible to really relate this in words without a person experiencing it. One must mentally rebirth one’s self from scratch with new expectations, interests, relationships, and worst of all dependencies on others, while dealing with isolation and really the death of one’s self. That is truly hard.
Broken neck and back riding a bicycle (roadie/amateur racer) into two SUVs that were crashing in front of me. I took a 30mph hit directly to my head with nearly the entire force of my body into my forehead. As a reference, at sea level, a person diving from a ten story building would have a similar velocity hitting the ground head first. I was told I only survived because I was initially unconscious for 3 hours as the damage to C1 and the base of my skull would have been fatal if I had moved substantially before the swelling had time to build pressure.
Wow, it’s fortunate there wasn’t a bystander that tried to move you while you were out. I hope you’re doing ok now.
Now that’s really close.
I was in ICU for two weeks with 3 days on critical round the clock watch. I don’t care to talk about it because 10 years later
Shit, meant to say ‘Now that’s close’. Stupid typo.
Thanks for mentioning. That kind of thing can wear hard on me. Shit happens. I could write a long list of all the junk that happened and all of my broken stuff, but at a certain point, one has to ask how they want to be defined themselves, and what it means to be a victim when the results of an event are never able to leave one’s immediate consciousness. This is my pain. As I type this message, my inner voice is yelling over the constant annoying sound of a horn blowing in a figurative ear on my back. Nothing makes that pain go away. Meds just make me care less about yelling over it or the things I might be otherwise doing.
This is what it really means to barely survive. Injuries are ultimately easy. There is an enormous spectrum of what it means to survive and recover. It isn’t some binary of did or didn’t, or a trinary with paralysis. To really be close to that measure of “barely” and to stabilize at a point that is not much higher than “barely” THAT is what is remarkably hard. It is impossible to really relate this in words without a person experiencing it. One must mentally rebirth one’s self from scratch with new expectations, interests, relationships, and worst of all dependencies on others, while dealing with isolation and really the death of one’s self. That is truly hard.
“Jesus, it’s a good thing you weren’t on the sidewalk or this would have been way more dangerous!” -cyclists for some reason