End of Term Madness

Remember my ‘off’ three weeks ago on Macquarie Pass? Well… the doctor in Accident & Emergency back in Canberra – the one who sent me home with Nurofen, a pat on the head, 3 days off work and a diagnosis of a ‘pulled muscle’ was WRONG. What I actually have is a stable, undisplaced fracture (yes, fracture) of the superior & inferior pubic rami. A minor pelvic fracture, certainly, but something a little more serious than a pulled muscle. Still gobsmacked that a person can show up in A&E after a motorcycle accident FFS, complaining of severe groin pain, and the bloody doc doesn’t bother to have the pelvis x-rayed! Am I wrong to be a bit worried about the standard of A&E doctors? Thank goodness for a switched-on GP!

So – I had a whole week off school. And what a shitty week it was. During that time I had my poor old cat euthanased. I cried buckets, tried to get as much rest as I could, borrowed an automatic car from Mrs Boomerang Boy, to get myself to x-ray & CT appointments, and felt pretty sorry for myself. My bike was officially written off by the insurance company. I went back to school for the very busy final 2 weeks of term, on crutches, unable to do stairs, and set up camp in my downstairs classroom.

The school, the staff and the kids were brilliant. A small and evil, but essentially, rational part of me says “well so they should be – it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for me to spend the remainder of term on sick leave!”, BUT – I'm also incredibly grateful for the way people were able to shuffle things around and step up to help me out. While bits of my body may have been a little bit broken, my brain wasn’t, and typing up lesson plans to send to school for someone else to teach, when I felt mentally capable of teaching the lessons myself, was driving me batty. I wanted to be at school with my students, dammit! Things like playground duty, however, were out of the question - and my busy colleagues covered my duties and swapped classrooms with me, and were absolutely wonderful.

It’s true what they say about adversity often bringing out the best in people - and I learned a LOT in the last fortnight!

Apart from having it reinforced that I work with a wonderful bunch of people, I also learned that:

• Year 10 boys get a big kick out of taking a turn around the room on the teacher’s crutches – and will queue up for the privilege!
• It makes students feel important if you ask them for help – whether it’s carrying stuff or scribing on the board for you – and they actually worry about their spelling when they’re writing it up in public!
• Ex-students and students you don’t even know very well are keen to touch base and make sure you’re ok after something like a bike crash. I seriously felt so ‘cared-about’, there were times when I struggled not to get all teary!
• Photocopying makes us lazy, and you don’t realise it until you can’t get to the photocopier and have to resort to low-tech or no-tech!

Having said all that – the last two weeks have been difficult, and the last week, with Basketball Presentation night, a Parent-Teacher evening and three full days of marking Yr11-12 Oral presentations was actually a sort of hell. There were times that I didn’t think I’d manage to hobble to the end of term – but I did! And now - thank goodness for school holidays! And thank goodness for Mallacoota – my equilibrium is in severe need of equilibrating (is that even a word???)

Jamberoo Hoodoo

 A few years ago I went to Jamberoo with some bike friends. We were caught in a severe thunderstorm along the way. It was terrifying.  The next morning, the ride on slippery, skinny Jamberoo Mountain Rd was shrouded in thick fog – and terrifying. We also got word that our friend Deb had had a nasty off on her big BMW 1150GS on dirt, and was in a bad way.

This weekend, Deb and I, and some other friends, decided to give Jamberoo another go. It’s a beaut little town, after all; very picturesque, and with a great pub.

 Photo source: http://www.coast-accommodation.com.au/images/property_images/4702_1.jpg

I should’ve taken notice of the ‘signs’ though. I reckon there’s a bit of a Jamberoo ‘hoodoo’ going on.

• The previous weekend, the weather was bad enough for the treacherous Jamberoo Mtn Rd to be closed by a fallen tree and a road washaway

• 3 other riders pulled out during the week.

• On Saturday my basketball game started nearly 15 minutes late – that’s a first!!! – and I’d forgotten to pack my reading glasses and toiletries - so much for leaving on time.

How many more ways could the universe have said “maybe you shouldn’t go on this ride”?

We’d agreed beforehand, because of the road closure,  that we would go via Kangaroo Valley – a beaut road. HOWEVER, Brian phoned our destination pub and was told the Jamberoo Mtn Rd was actually open – so hey, we rejoiced and decided to go that way after all.

Except it wasn’t open, and we only discovered that when it was well and truly too late to go any other way. We were stuck with the Macquarie Pass – the road I had said “I would prefer to avoid”.

 Authorities have branded Macquarie Pass a motorcycle black spot after 144 accidents and six deaths in the past five years. (Illawarra Mercury, 28 Aug, 2008)

Motorcyclist survives Macquarie Pass plunge (Illawarra Mercury, 16 March 2009)

Four survive after car rolls off cliff (ABC news, 10 May, 2009)

I’ve heard horror-stories about buses/trucks having to do three-point turns to get around a couple of the corners. I’ve heard of people simply going over the edge.  I’m not that much of a ‘corners’ fan, to be honest…

So.

WTF happened? I don’t know. Mark doesn’t know either, and he was riding right behind me. 

On the second hairpin from the top – a steep, decreasing radius turn, I was probably doing 15kmh. A small group of Harleys rumbled and spat uphill in the opposite direction. 

Here are some pics to show you how heavily trafficked this deadly bloody turn is.

  

 Next thing I knew, my bike was almost on its side , heading downhill and for the opposite side of the road, the concrete lip barrier and the million-foot drop. I hung on for dear life, but when the bike hit the barrier I was dumped, hit the back of my head on the ground and came to rest a couple of feet away, past the beginning of the Armco barrier beyond the tree. The bike must’ve bounced up, headed over the concrete barrier, caught the tree (see pic) with the front left side of the screen, and bounced off. It flipped back onto the concrete barrier and lay there suspended, trickling radiator coolant onto the concrete barrier. The front wheel dangled over the drop, while the rear wheel dangled above the road.

 

  Here’s why I’m the luckiest motorcyclist in the universe:

• Neither my bike nor myself went over the edge.

• Total strangers Russell and Jamie – a young pair of trail-bikers – appeared a moment later with a trailer.

• At the same time, the tail-end Charlie of the Harley riders – an OMCG on a club ride, by the way – pulled over and rendered assistance. Four strong blokes recovered my poor dead bike from the brink, bent forks, bent frame, smashed fairing – but miraculously, NO BROKEN LEVERS – and securely strapped it between Russell & Jamie’s bikes on their trailer. Our OMCG friends continued on their way, and Russell and Jamie delivered me and my bike to a service station at Albion Park, about 10kms downhill (thanks heaps, guys).  It would spend the night there.

• Maureen in the ‘support vehicle’ collected bruised and battered Betty from the servo and we limped to our accommodation, while

• Mark rode back up the bloody Pass and back to Canberra to pick up his van, which he then rode back down the bloody Pass to Jamberoo for the night.

• My Ventura Bag, which was ripped off the rack by the impact of the crash, contained, amongst other things, 56 Year 10 essays, which I had optimistically taken away with me. They could so easily have ended up hundreds of feet below, at the bottom of Macquarie pass, never to be seen again (come to think of it, so could’ve I).

By Sunday morning every part of my body had seized up, and every step hurt. I wasn’t much help collecting the bike from the servo. In fact, I was no help at all. Apart from that, I was starting to feel the need to pee, and it was a long, slow, painful 100m or so hobble to the toilet.

The TOILETS OUT OF ORDER sign brought me undone in a way that a near-death altercation with a tree, a concrete barrier and several hundred feet of long drop hadn’t. The cleaning lady, seeing my distress – I was howling in a dreadfully pathetic and desperate way: “But I can’t walk any more and I need to peeeeeeeee” retracted her “There’s a Macca's about 5 minutes down the road, you’ll have to go there” and instead handed me a wad of loo paper and pointed me in the direction of the men's urinal.

‘Maybe you can squat over the trough, love – it’s flushing ok.’

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my injuries were such that I couldn’t have squatted for a million dollars. How the hell does one pee standing up when one can barely stand anyway?

I did it. I managed not to pee all over myself or make my injuries worse, and found myself very close to the hysterical giggles that inevitably follow hysterical sobbing in such a bizarre situation. What an adventure.

Fast-forward to Goulburn police station, where I reported the accident, and then Calvary Hospital, where I was given some painkillers and a pat on the head. My middle-aged bones remain sound, my kneecap is attached and unbroken,  and apparently the pain in my groin is nothing more serious than a strained muscle. I will be very colourful in a couple of days.

Crutches hired, I was home sweet home by about 5.30. 

In one sense it was one of the crappiest weekends ever. Weirdly enough, though, it was also very life-affirming. I’m a lucky, lucky woman.

But I think I’ll give any future rides to Jamberoo a miss.

Post-Unaugural (black and) Blues

A week after my spill on the way to Unaugural 8.0, the cankle has reduced enough for me to get my bike boot on again, but has too many sore spots to make riding feasible right now. Besides, the lovely James has my bike safely stashed where I can do it no more harm for a little while. (You're a star, James!)

What a week it's been. My first thought after crashing was “Fark – my ankle!” The second was “Omigod, the soup!” (5 litres of the stuff in plastic bottles in my saddlebags) and the third was “Oh SHIT – how the hell am I going to get around at school? I've been in the job for only 2 weeks – I can't possibly take time off!”

So... in order of those concerns -

Number One - The ankle – or 'Cankle', as Julian Smee so correctly called it – nothing broken, apparently. Pretty colours though! Have a look at the pics, one week after the event.

The foot...and the Cankle...

Boomerang Boy hired me a set of crutches to get me through the week, and for a couple of days I worked at building biceps and deltoids that would give Arnie Schwarzenegger a run for his money. OUCH! After 2 days on crutches my shoulders were screaming. I was whimpering in a corner, trying to hide from the dreaded crutches and rubbing emu oil into my aching, screaming delts.

Number Two - the soup – those big plastic juice bottles are pretty robust. They did not explode on impact as 200kg of loaded motorbike flung me hard onto the gravel. They also did not prevent the ensuing lever and blinker carnage on the bike, dammit. The soup survived, and some of those ausmoto folk actually got to breakfast upon it – a hearty start to a foggy and hungover Sunday after our wild and raucous Saturday night.

And the biggie - Number Three - getting around at school... OMFG!

The staffroom is at the top of a rather steep flight of stairs. The school (as schools tend to be) is rather spread out. Most of my classes are in the one block, but up and down stairs. As for getting to the library for Year 9 Geography assignment research, or the chapel for, well, God-type things, or my post on the bloody school cross country circuit.... aaaaaaaaaagrh - it was agonising!

However – my lovely staffroom colleagues mothered me and swapped classrooms with me... most of them are half my age, and they figured the Old Girl needed looking after, and got playfully stroppy when I tried my Independent Tough Old Bird routine – thanks folks, you're wonderful. They found it highly amusing, though, when I hopped across the staffroom with a thermal mug full of coffee in the pocket of the Coles supermarket eco-friendly cloth bag that I hung around my neck to carry all my stuff in (so classy!), and didn't spill a drop!

Also – I was so incredibly moved and totally impressed by the lovely manners of the kids at my school. Kids I don't even teach would dash to hold doors open for me as I hopped about the place on my crutches. I heard it so often that the words “Do you need any help, miss?” and “Can I carry anything for you, miss?” are still echoing in my head. What beautiful, beautiful young people.

By about Wednesday I was ready for the moon-boot that the hospital sold me after The Willy-Willy Incident last year – just as well I kept it! The foot was still mega-swollen, but I could put a bit of weight on it. By Friday I could walk on the moon-boot without a crutch.

Today I can abandon the moon-boot. My foot will fit into my joggers. In fact, it fits into my bike boot again, which is great news. It is, however, still multicoloured and still too painful to be relied upon to hold me up, so I've extended my crutch hire for a week. Thank goodness the new job pays well – I've also had to extend the hire of that nice little red car for a week.

All Thumbs as a New Year Begins

Last year I was sick - so sick that New Year came and went and I'd forgotten to make any resolutions - I was jubilant! At the time I said:

Resolutions are a yearly reminder of my total inability to stick with anything that might improve me as a person. Annually I resolve to be tidier, to lose weight, to exercise, to save more and to drink less - and annually I don't do any of these things. My resolve lasts anything from 10 minutes to about 3 weeks before I inevitably slide back into my shambolic lifestyle, a glass of red in hand and my feet up on the coffee table. If I bother to remove my bike boots I'll notice there are holes in my socks - and I won't even care.

No such nifty resolution-avoiding excuses this year - I am disgustingly healthy - but I decided to be sparing with my resolutions anyway, in the hope I might actually keep them. I ended up making just one - but it turned out to be the wrong one.

'Worry Less', I said.

It should've been Cook Less.

Why? Well.... after the excesses of this holiday season I have regained a little of the blubber I lost in my '7kgs competition' with my mate Lucy, down at the Fun Factory. But that's not why I should've resolved to cook less.

In order to kick-start the return to weight loss competitiveness, and to clean out my system after all those daiquiris and barbecued sausages I decided to make a giant pot of that

fabulous
fat-burning
fart-making
detoxing
delicious
super duper
special cabbage soup - and that was the problem.

I knew I should've resolved to cook less.

Cooking is a health hazard. The knife slipped as I was chopping the cabbage and I sliced into the tip of my thumb, through skin and nail, and I don't even know how deeply I cut coz it looks gross and I didn't want to be poking about at it with all that blood running out anyway. I couldn't see any bits of thumb in the pile of chopped cabbage, though - and I didn't even bleed on the cabbage, so the soup was safe!

I rinsed it and rinsed it and poured iodine over it (my thumb, not the cabbage) and it didn't make me scream, so I figured it wasn't as bad as it looked, didn't warrant a trip to the emergency room with something nasty in a bag of ice, and would probably be ok.

See? I'm already worrying less!

Happy New Year!
PS The soup is delicious - look out, Lucy - I'm going to kick butt in the 7kg comp!
PPS My thumb hurts.

An attack of wind

No, this is not another post about the perils of ageing!

willy willy: A dust devil is a strong, well-formed, and relatively long-lived whirlwind, ranging from small (half a meter wide and a few meters tall) to large (over 10 meters wide and over 1000 meters tall). The primary vertical motion is upward. Dust devils are usually harmless, but rare ones can grow large enough to threaten both people and property. - Wikipedia

So I'm sitting at the lights this arv on the way home from work, waiting for the
green arrow so I can turn off Belconnen Way onto Coulter Drive... It's been a pretty warm day and there's a lot of gusty wind about.

On the other side of the intersection, along the median strip, a willy-willy forms. No kidding. I'm fascinated. It starts off as a tall thin column about 5-6 metres tall, and it gets lower and wider as it crosses the intersection. For a brief second I'm sure it's going to go around the corner, but no - it wavers momentarily and then dances straight towards me, showering the area with the fine gravel they use on the median strip.

The lights change. My green arrow. If I gun the engine I might be OK. If I keep both feet on the ground and don't try to move the bike until the willy-willy passes (possibly a safer option) I'll probably be rear-ended. What to do, what to do?

This goes through my head at warp speed, at the exact split second that the willy-willy sideswipes the bike and knocks it (and me) flying. Holy shit! I can't believe the power of that thing!

The two lanes of traffic waiting to turn right, don't. They watch as I narrowly (and I like to think 'gracefully', ha ha) avoid the falling bike and wrench my ankle. Hmm. Maybe not quite so graceful. I hobble back towards the bike. Hot and sweaty, I pull off my helmet so I can breathe while I try to lift the bike. The nice man in the car behind realises I'm a small female and not a nuggety little bloke, so offers to help me pick up the bike.

I'm shaking like a leaf, right? I straighten my mirror and take quick stock of the damage. Bent bar end, smashed right indicator, couple of little scratches. Any off you can walk away from is a good one. An off you can ride away from is even better!

The bent bar end, I discover, makes the throttle stick. Every time I change gears I almost chuck a wheelie. Just what I need! My right ankle's throbbing, but I can wiggle my toes, so I figure riding to the mechanic is more of a priority than riding to casualty.

The lovely Bruce & Matt have their usual laugh at my expense "Tornadoes in Canberra eh? Yep.... right.... you get a lot of those..... " but they straighten things out and add the latest expense to my current half-paid bill.

Of course, now that the adrenalin has worn off, I'm not so sure about the ankle. It's throbbing, swollen, and is turning an interesting colour. Ouch. Damn it, this was my good leg!

I don't think I'll be going anywhere in a hurry - looks like I'll need tomorrow off work, and will need to go see a doctor! OUCH!!! This is the kind of adventure I can do without!