don’t cross the streams.

It’s been awhile again.  Im making an effort to keep this up daily. Just a personal goal.

More or less that is all I’ve got for now, that will change tomorrow.

My bruises that were trapped in the muscles are coming to the surface. It’s not my idea of fun. I couldn’t concentrate on work so I came home a bit early. I did drop my scoot off at East Side Scooters to have the headset realigned. I hope it takes less than an hour. My bank account is the lowest i’ve seen in years.

My god, daytime TV is horrible…

Technology is crazy. I used google maps to plot my journey. It’s amazing how fast it can all happen. Click to see. All links open in a new window.

I’ve managed to escape 24 years of my life without a trip to the hospital. No broken bones, no random diseases, natural disasters or flesh eating bacteria. That streak ended Thursday night.

My pal Noah was getting his first tattoo, and as part of a wedding present I went down to watch the fun and pay for a part of it. About 9:40 p.m. I left and headed home. I was going to stop at a grocery store to pick up some chicken to grill out Friday. I didn’t make it that far. I was heading on Murfreesboro Pike towards downtown Nashville in the right lane. There were two cars in front of me. The first car wanted to make a right turn, they didn’t signal the turn and decided to stop completely before turning. The car in front of me of course had to stop, and stop fast. I followed suit, and as a precaution I changed lanes, but then again I didn’t really do that either. I lost control and hit the ground. My head took a nasty hit. My left arm and leg got some road rash. The two cars drove off.

A group of people came up to make sure I wasn’t dead. Someone called 911. I told them call 862-8600 our local non emergency number. I felt it wasn’t a real emergency, that must have been the adrenaline talking. The fire trucks got there first, then the cops, and finally the ambulance. The cops got my story, a fireman that was walking by came up and asked “Is that tattoo real?” pointing towards my “Don’t Panic” tattoo, I smirked and said yes. The cop kept asking her questions, then another cop comes up and asks “How many miles per gallon does that thing get?” “About 90″ I said back and laughed. Eventually I got loaded in the ambulance and started my way to the hospital. I remember helping one of the paramedics out with his bill. I offered to help him more if he would call me on saturday. Somehow I thought that I would be at work the day after this had happened.

The doctor was awesome. If you ever lay down a motorcycle/scooter it helps to have a doctor who has done it too.  I offered to sell him my spleen if the price was right. He said they really didn’t need any right now. I joked that Vanderbilt probably would have taken me up. They then decided it was time to give me some morphine. I also learned that it is of utmost importance to tell everyone that I am allergic to shell fish. If you wait too long the CT scan lady will yell “SHIT! He’s allergic to shell fish!” Also if you have tattoo’s do not expect any amount of sympathy from the nurse if you tell her that needles freak you out.

It took about 3 hours before I was discharged from the hospital. My wallet was missing so I didn’t have any of my cards or anything like that. The person who discharged me refused to call my insurance company, and told me that my care was $6,000. If I had insurance they needed to see the card within 2 days or I would owe that.

At this point im home and healing nicely. I’ve got some meds to help with the pain. I get to pick my scooter up in about an hour to survey the damage. I don’t think its busted up that much. I genuinely hope that is the case. I also can’t stress enough how happy I am that I was wearing a helmet. I’m convinced that if I wasn’t wearing one that I would be dead. Thanks HCI, I owe you my life, and you have my business for the the rest of it.

For those interested, here is a set of accident related photos - Hospital (flickr)

I feel inspired.