He had white horses, and ladies by the score.

[Eule 0]

All dressed in satin, and waiting by the door.
Oooh, what a lucky man, he was.

So, anyway, last weekend I won the Titanium Lottery on my L7 AFF jump. I have posted a report and
analysis to three decimal places over in the Incidents forum. This post is for more philosophical musings,
and for all my fans to post get-well messages and offer sexual favors. :) Maybe this goes in Bonfire,
but my guesstimate is that it's at least marginally jumping-related. If not, I'll soon find out.

(The Readers Digest version is that I broke my left tib/fib and have a plate and about four screws.)

Whuffos say the darndest things. I visited another jumper at the hospital last fall, and happened to
catch him just as he was being transferred to his room. A couple of orderlies that didn't know why he
was in the hospital came to wheel his bed around, and when he told them he got hurt jumping, the next
was the familiar "Did your parachute not open?" We both thought it was kind of funny. Last weekend,
while I was getting wheeled into the ER entrance, one of the nurses asked the same damn thing. I told
her that if that had happened, they'd need a scraper and a baggie, not a gurney, IV, etc.

I lucked out in that the surgeon (who visits several area hospitals/clinics) was in that afternoon. He
asked me how I did it and I told him and he asked when I was jumping and I told him that. He said, "I
was probably about eight miles out at that point and I heard the "jumpers away" on the radio." Turns
out he flies himself around to the various small towns. So I think I lucked out again... this guy isn't
going to give me a lot of grief about wanting to jump again, I don't think.

Everything up to the surgery was pretty businesslike. I recall the anaesthesia guy telling me he was
going to get started, and watching him put a needle in an IV tube. That was about 18:00. About
21:30, I groggily woke up in my room, and my left ankle pointed the same way as my knee again.
Yay! I stayed overnight and until about 16:00 the next day. The DZO stopped by on Monday
morning to see how I was doing. I told him that since I had to take out an instructor to get L4
(instructor and I deployed according to plan, instructor had a hard opening and got hurt) and take
out myself to get L7, I'm gonna set my sights even higher for my A - maybe I can take an airplane
out on my check dive! For whatever reason, he didn't think that was a very good idea.

In between all that, I had a lot of time to lie there and think. At first I was mostly pissed at myself for
breaking myself up, when my progression was going so well. (Short version; it took me June->Dec
2005 to clear L4; went to tunnel mid-Jan 2006; Jan->Feb 2006 cleared L5-6-nearly 7.) I was trying to
work out about how long I'd be out (based on what I knew of other jumpers) and thinking, "well, I
won't get my license before *that* boogie, but maybe I can have it by that other one later in the
summer", and so on.

Later on I got a little more philosophical. I figured that while one doctor installed the hardware, it took
ten thousand people to fix my leg. It took Hippocrates and Fleming (penicillin) and DaVinci cutting up
dead bodies and Watt and Bessemer and Edison and Otto and the brothers Wright and, and, and. A
hundred years ago, my treatment would have been a lot different, and two hundred years ago, they
probably would have given me a bottle of whisky and sawed off my leg. There are lots of people in the
world today that can't get health care like I can. Hell, there's lots of people in the world today that
want, but don't have, a house or a car. I am a rich man and I am the luckiest man in the world. Ten
thousand people fixed my leg.

People handle things like this differently - I heard from several people at the DZ on Monday, and
haven't heard from some others at all. When it was time to go home, I got a little more insight into
who my friends are - promised rides home and such didn't happen, so I had to rework all that.

On the up side, I did get a nice Lortab script out of the bargain. I took a few earlier in the week but
haven't needed them since then. I may be able to cover some of my medical costs - I was talking to a
co-worker and she said they were worth about $50 each over at the local high school. Er, hang on
a minute, the phone's ringing... who the hell is "D E A" and where the hell is area code 202? I'll let
the machine take it. I think I am also going to get some flame stickers (like the paint job on the front
of a hot rod) and put them on my crutches so I can walk faster.

So, anyway, that's my story... just in time for Safety Day, too, w00t! I knew I would prove useful...
now people can use me as a bad example. :)

Eule

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[Eagle7 0]

Heal fast!!!

[OzoneJunkie 0]

Thanks for the info. Glad to see you're maintaining a sense of humor.

I tried to when I hurt myself as well. Named my walker "Luke".... as in..... Luke Mywalker