Good thing I'm not married to my injuries

 I was half way home yesterday when I realized it was an anniversary that I'd almost missed.  I'd passed through one year since the accident and two years since my previous last summer solstice outing, and while the one-year-past of yesterday may seem small in comparison to those, in ways it has more meaning for me.

Early in June, I'd spilled some water.  Sure water over a damn and under the bridge and all that, but some of that moisture landed on the printout of my hospital report which had been stacked on a table for six months.  I'd skimmed some of the opening pages, but the one inch thick stack of sheets had failed to entice me to read further, so it was mostly sitting there, gathering dust, and then a bit of water.  I spread out the damp sheets to dry without sticking together, and maybe one by one, they were less imposing, so a day later, I sat with the pile of now-dry papers and started to read.

I was pretty messed up, and I don't mean in-my-usual-fashion.  I was hit on a section of road with a 40mph speed limit, and according to the police, the car was moving "pretty fast", so a guess of at least 50mph seems reasonable.  I'm an at least half way decent bike handler, and in getting to that point, I've certainly handled riding a bike not-quite-right much more than a handful of times, and yet I was still reasonably intact.  I know how to crash, and I only partially mean that as flippant as it sounds.  Knowing how to hit the ground in a way that disperses the energy over time instead of into one's body is one of the most valuable skills for a mountain biker, and while I probed this skill's limits, the fact that all my primary impact scratches were on the back of me and my helmet means that in the air, I tucked, which tends to have better outcomes than attempts to stay upright and landing face first.  Yes, there is solace for me that I probably handled the impact as well as possible.

But still, I was pretty messed up.  Past the initial keep-this-guy-alive stages, the hospital had me working with speech and physical therapist my last few days there before promoting me to the recovery facility.  In their reports, the therapists would record a daily quotation from the patient, and on June 30th of last year, twelve days after the accident, I was quizzed about restrictions to my movements while I was recovering in the neck brace.  

My reply, "No stretching, less disco."

Ok, not the best joke I've ever told, although certainly not the worst either, but in the context of a broken pile of body that would spend a month in the hospital and then recovery facility, it still gives me a hearty chuckle, although I do have a dubious appreciation of bad jokes.  Hey, it made the cut for the one line that was recorded by the therapist for that day, and it is a sign to me that I was still me, intact enough to deliver a truly bad one-liner.  

Better luck next time, I suppose.