Life Is Where It's At

Being alive is so cool. Don't take it for granted. We all do. Takes a near death experience to wake us up.

April 17th, I was driving my old Yamaha 125 scooter through downtown 新竹 in Taiwan. It was a nice day. I was on my way to meet Gugod at OPCafé to work on some work stuff. All the sudden this car was sideways in front of me about 20' away. I hit the brakes hard... darkness... nothing...

I woke up in the hospital feeling pretty good. Some people were asking me if I minded them drilling a hole through my rib cage to insert a drainage hose for excess blood and whatnot. "Sure. Go for it!" I guess massive morphine has this affect on your rationale.

I spent the next 8 days in that hospital. Gugod was usually there even at night while I slept. He made a wiki to recruit other Taiwanese Perl Hackers to watch over me in shifts. I requested morphine as much as they would allow.

After 5 days the internal bleeding stopped and they pulled out the hose from my broken rib cage. Then they did surgery on my shattered left wrist. This involved a weird exoskeleton to put my hand in the correct relation to my arm where there is no bone left to hold it.

I love my Ducati Monster back in Seattle but I had no wish to become one. Regardless, I have unwittingly taken the fist step. Those familiar with the Monster will recognize the similarity to my current left arm, seen here.

I'm out now for the 3rd day. Life is kinda starting over for me. I renewed my lease. I love it. I was so lucky. It could have been so much worse. I'm in so much pain now, I can't sleep until exhaustion outweighs pain. But I know each day will be better.

When I left the hospital, my roommate was a kid with a triple fractured leg and face. He'll be there at least a month. Poor guy. But he's lucky too. We're alive. Everyday we are is a gift. That's the way I see it now.