Abubilla Music

Gang

 

So, first, thanks for all the kind words and I thought i’d give folks a quick update before weekend — at the very least this is one of those ‘God what a story’ moments and you can toast me at the pub.

 

On Thursday morning at about 650AM at the local Virgin Active, I was on the third set of reps doing bench press on a ‘non-burstible’ Swiss Ball (actually guaranteed to hold 1000 Kg, and this is exercise I’ve been doing for 4 years).  My personal trainer was spotting.  On 7th rep, with two 40Kg dumb bells sitting above my head, the swiss ball burst.   With some velocity, I smashed back on the (surprisingly hard) floor of the gym, and in the spirit of a good ‘road runner cartoon’ the two weights followed and smashed into my chest, apparently both onto the left side.  Ouch.   My brother suggested that time must have stood still, like Wiley Cayote, as I waited to fall.  Actually the opposite — in a split second I was on the floor, with one weight still on my chest and the green remains of the swiss ball on my head, covering my eyes.  I thought — ‘wow, i died, and God really is green.’  The other weight was about 20 feet away, which means my chest is nice and bouncy.  Lots of panic and ambulance crew — they didn’t think i was in very good shape for a lot of this and Ii had one of those hospital movie cliches where you see lots of heads above you doing things in a quite urgent manner, but all you can hear is some crappy song on Capital Radio; I kept wondering whether they were going to be able to drop me off at a client meeting on their way to some other emergency.

 

Ultimately, the toll of  damage, which was slowly discovered over my two days at the hospital, is 8 broken ribs, 4 on either side, and partially collapsed lung on the right side, tons of deep tissue bruising and a lot of little contusions in both lungs, with fluid,  and some deeply bruised vertebre in my upper back.  I can’t breath very well due to sore lungs so mostly on oxegen, but beyond that no organ damage.  The doctors likened it to a major car accident and actually said i was lucky to be alive given the 80Kg blow to heart. They said i survived because I was well protected, which I took to mean massive muscle tissue but i’m sure other interpretations could be made.   thick ribs?  nike sweat shirt?   There’s a lot of pain, but the drugs are good; on other hand, the munchies kind of suck.  And daytime TV…really sucks. 

 

Anyway, this has been and will remain my only e mail for a bit — as always when these things happen at our firm, everyone has rallied hugely to make me feel like I can focus on returning to good health and suing swiss ball manufacturers (anyone know good lawyers?).  This means jumping on clients, internal assignments, etc..on my behalf and I know this adds hours to your already busy weeks.   thanks for all the support.  There’s a chance i can leave hospital tomorrow, but they worry abit about this breathing thing.  In the spirit of that welch girl on Big Brother a few years back ‘I like breathin’ i do.’

 

By the way, leaving this e mail from the hospital room during a relatively good morphine kick.  Please excuse all typos in advance.

 

All the best and thanks for being so supportive. 

 

Jimmy

• Pain Management:  This is what they actually call it.  I call it ‘no pain management’ or as we discuss amongst the family: ‘Daddy’s Drug Bag.’   They have set as an objective that i’m to feel no pain and I signed up for that very quickly before they got to Option B.  This invoves a whole variety of tricks and treats, including the 70Mg slow release morphine tablet, the 10Mg immediate release morphine tablet, valium tablets and some other morphine like stuff.   So i get to play around with the right drug-DVD combination and am compiling some interesting ‘mixes’ for those of you who want advice.  ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ is good for all morphine types (slow and fast releasing) but not valium.  the Wire season 4 is good for everything and I actually understand the drug dealers in Baltimore when I’m on valium, so i become a family translator.  Battlestar Gallactica is really good w/ Valium and this morphine substitute, but mostly for the colours.  I go on line to find out what happened later.   In addition to pills there is something called TENS, which is (I kid you not) a little mobile phone size box that has wires coming out that are attached to pads that you attach to your body.  You then dial it up to severe pain or down to dull buzz and attach is all over.  Its supposed to act like nerve blocker to act as ‘white noise’ to block your pain — bose headphones for pain.  Sounds pretty fishy to me. So I use it as a Pain monitor.  If i dial it up and feel it, I go back to the drug bag.
• Breathing: The reason they want me to manage pain, is because they’ve prioritised breathing as an important item on my to do list.  Since that involves putting air into lacerated lungs and filling a lung against broken ribs, they’ve recognised that left to my own devices i would choose not to breathe. So the drugs come w/ a catch — i can do them as long as i promise to take deep breaths.   Now the breathing thing involves its own trials because of liquid.  One recent story: 

when i breath it creates weird gurgling sounds and or i emit wheezes that sound bizzare.   So the other night, i’m in bed and I keep calling kathy to find the cat in our bed room and get it out because she’s driving me crazy meowing. This goes on 3 separate times, each time she can’t find the cat, each time i assume the cat has jumped out a window, each time she returns as soon as kathy leaves the room to harass me further.  Well turns out my breathing was creating perfect secondary cat noises. So i’m breathing and meowing.  Kathy finally notices on time 4 when she’s looking for the cat, expresses real dismay that it looks like i’m laying back on cat because its right under me, forces me to move around (more pain) wihch causes even louder cat noises and even more panic from kathy as its clear the cat is in some distress. So she’s frantic, pushing me here and there, i’m screaming, the ‘cat is screaming’ -… she tells me to shush. i shush. the cat shushes.  finally, with kathy now thinking cat is dead i say something, cat says something and we figure out what is going on.   She stomps out of room not showing a lot of sympathy.  I reach for drug bag, deciding humiliation consitutes a certain kind of pain.

• Chassis Repair:  the final thing is to sort out my bones.  It started with my jaw, which i discovered on Saturday was out of line, ie..,i couldn’t eat any solid foods because teeth don’t meet.  Went to specialist and found i suffered ‘effusive trauma’ of the jaw, which means the weight hit it, the sockets filled with liquid and got out of line.  nothing to do for that one other than eat soft foods and reach for drug bag. Doing full cat scan again tomorrow to sort out ribs and vertabrae and agree on physio routine, which will not involve swiss balls, unless we’re referring specifically to a vice and part of the anatomy of the manufacturer.   In general the doctors think the worst is over (I agree) and now its about adding something to the routine each day and ploughing thru. They’ve made vague references to the unsustainability of the drug bag, but i’ve not paid too much attention.