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.

Let the Adventures Begin...

So yesterday I went to the bike shed and sat on the Bomber. Extremely becoming in shorts and a t-shirt, lily-white legs and my bike boots. I needed to see how they felt (the boots, not my lily-white legs). They felt so good that I watered the garden in them afterwards, but I digress.

In the shed, I moved the Bomber back and forth. I tried holding up the stationary motorcycle with the left leg and then the right. Both were fine.

So last night, feeling brave, I phoned the Ancient Submariner.

"I reckon I'll be ok to have a little ride tomorrow," I said. "Will you come with me?"

Long story cut short - getting the Bomber out of the shed and down the Driveway From Hell this morning was really scary, but by the time I got to the end of my street I already felt more confident.

And then the feeling just grew!

After riding just a smidge under 300kms today, in gorgeous autumn weather, I think I can say I'M BACK! My foot was fine, my bum was sore, my soul was nourished. What a beautiful day! The autumn leaves that had fallen on the road just danced in the wake of the Ancient Submariner's wheels - it was so pretty! As for the beautiful autumnal scents... they didn't quite overwhelm the aroma of roadkill - crikey, so many dead roos.

And then this arv, Boomerang Boy moved back in, a week early! It's been an eventful day!

Boomerang Boy is my 25 year-old son. He is called Boomerang Boy because he just keeps coming back.

Having a "child" move home is always a bit fraught. You can't possibly fall back into the mother-child routine (shudder) after they've been living independently - and geez, why the heck would you want to anyway? I think it'll be great having BB here as a housemate, instead of getting a boarder who's a total stranger, and I'm sure we'll have some adventures. As long as we don't end up trying to kill each other.

Here's a funny thing: when BB was much younger he started playing rugby. I knew nothing about rugby and it scared me half to death (those necks, those spines, those impacts - those potential medical disasters - eeek!) But I faithfully went to BB's games because - well, because I guess I was trying to be a good parent??? Anyway... I still don't understand rugby. But I think it was probably good that I sat through those games, freezing my arse off and feeling like a complete numpty. I'm sure BB and I are closer as a result.

Actually, I'm not sure at all. But I'm glad I went anyway. Watching rugby wth BB and tryihng to make sense of it all, I fell in love with John Eales, the God of Rugby, and did a lot of drooling over late-night World Rugby Cup matches for a couple of years.

So anyway - since I started riding, and going to Phillip Island to watch motoGP, I've learned that BB is a fan of motoGP! From where I'm standing it seems like some kind of weird role reversal - BB is taking an interest in something I'm passionate about... I guess that means we'll be sitting up together late at night watching the races on telly - him cheering for Rossi, me cheering for Casey Stoner. Could be a giggle!

This has to be one of the weirdest mother-son bonding experiences, but I think it'll be an adventure. Of course, if BB decides he wants to learn to ride, I could be in strife - who the heck will look after the cats on my annual Phillip Island pilgrimage?

Bikerbetty's (almost) back!

I'm so excited I can hardly type!

Yesterday's x-rays were good. Today I did cast off the moonboot and walk, and yea verily it did hurt a bit. Poo. The foot hath forgotten how to walk.

What was painful at 4pm, though, was no longer painful at 9pm. Watering the garden worked miracles. As did a minor mouse-project next door.

God it's nice to have good neighbours! Poor Maree has been terrorised by a mouse recently, and I've been offering to remove any meeces - but she has consistently declined (probably due to my crippled state. I bet she was worried that I couldn't outrun a mouse and I might drop dead from fright... LOL)

Tonight, though, back on two legs and only needing marginal support from a crutch, I went mouse-hunting at Maree's (she would do the same for me if the situation were reversed, with spiders instead of mice).

NO LUCK!

We could see where the mouse had been (how much POO can a single mouse produce in the course of an evening's frolics in a bag of dessicated coconut, for goodness' sake?) but there was no mouse. We re-laid baits in more "mouse-friendly" locations and I made Maree promise to call me if mousie should show his face again. I even offered the services of Oscar bin Laden, who sat at her front door yowling mournfully. Was he begging me to come home and give him some attention, or was he yowling death-threats at Maree's meeces? Who knows! He even did a cursory stalk through the house, with much sniffing and waving of the tail, (who knows what cats think?) before shepherding me home. That cat is SUCH a control-freak.

Actually, Oscar bin Laden despatched a mouse the night before last. He left the corpse by my bed (a love token, bless his little black heart!) Perhaps it was Maree's mouse, who knows?

Oh - but I am distracted by talk of vermin...

MY FOOT IS ALLEGEDLY BETTER! I've an appointment with a physio next Tuesday after work. I hope to learn how to make my foot do what it has been doing for the last 49 years without any trouble - and I hope to learn it quickly! I have a motorcycle that has been sitting patiently (and sadly, I'm sure) in the shed. We need to RIDE!

It could be worse.

I'm sick of these crutches and I'm sick of my stupid broken foot and I'm sick of myself.

It all came to a head on Friday – CT Scan time – the moment of truth. I was so certain that tiny chip of bone would have glued itself back. Violin music – Betty throws away crutches with a cry of joy. Gracefully, like a very graceful gazelle with an extra helping of grace, she bounds away to the bike shed in slo-mo, smiling beatifically.

BZZZT! WRONG!

It doesn't appear to have healed at all! Not one bit! Four weeks of pampering the stupid foot, keeping it wrapped in cotton wool and fibreglass, babying and cossetting it as if it's made of the finest, most precious and fragile crystal has done nothing! NOTHING!

The backslab cast has gone, in its place a gigantic and heavy “moon-boot” that holds my foot at a different angle. I look like a Transformer. No weight-bearing for another 2-3 weeks. All for a tiny stupid chip of bone aboutthe size of my little fingernail.

This awful shattering of my hopes broke my heart and my spirit. I came home from the hospital in a taxi - $46! - and cried. I mentally slapped myself about a bit and “got on with things” - getting the laundry basket to the laundry, for a start.

I don't know what happened – but I went over backwards, like a big miserable sack of poo.

And that was what brought me undone: the reality of several more weeks of this crap, of being dependent on others, of being unable to sit in bed with a nice cup of coffee, and of being unable to ride my bike – being out of control and powerless - not to mention the whopping bruises that appeared after this latest fall.

The conditions were perfect for a big fat panic attack, yet when it hit it still took me by surprise (yes I am a froot-loop), and I was suddenly gasping for air, crying uncontrollably and looking for tissues and my mobile phone. My nose started bleeding, my heart raced at about 200 beats per minute and I knew I was going to die – even though, rationally, I knew I wasn't.

My mate Clem saved me with a well-timed phone call that located my mobile phone and distracted my panic-ridden self from myself. I don't even remember what we talked about, but suddenly I could breathe again. Phew. Thank [insert higher power of choice here] for mates and telephones.

Saturday was shite as my body recovered from the massive adrenalin dump. Wan and washed-out, I slept a lot, and couldn't drum up even the ghost of a smile. Me and my stupid moon-boot retreated under the doona and stayed there.

What I hear from some of my biker mates is “pull yourself together” - and I wish I could, but panic has its own rules. See (and this is very very important) – since I was raped, motorcycling is what has enabled me to pull myself together and give me back a sense of control. Take away my 'medicine' – my ability to get on the bike for a bit of road therapy – and I'm up shit creek without a paddle. When panic hits and I can't ride away from it, it just has to take its course, and no amount of well-meaning advice will help. Yes, it sucks. I'm working on it. I'm lots better than I used to be.

BUT – it's Monday now. I'm well rested and a kind of equilibrium has been restored. I can think of lots of ways that this could all be worse.

I could have two broken arms as well, and an itch at the end of my nose. And be living in the middle of nowhere – somewhere off Woolies' grocery delivery route.

Or this: I could live in a 2-storey house, with only one loo at the top of 20 stairs, at the top of a cliff that's only accessible by scaling a thousand stairs hewn into solid rock and guarded by dozens of psychotic homicidal cats a lot like Oscar bin Laden – and have a head cold and a perpetually snotty nose…or even worse, diarrhoea.

Or – and this one is very very serious, and puts my crappy situation into perspective: I could be one of the hundreds upon hundreds of Victorian bushfire victims who survived the fires but lost absolutely everything and now live in a tent city with absolutely nothing, wondering how the hell to rebuild family, life and community.

I'll stop moaning now.

Red Cross Bushfire Appeal

A new adventure - shopping!

I started online shopping reluctantly several years ago, ordering hard-to-get books from Amazon. I progressed to a few small but excellent eBay purchases (the cost of the postage from the UK for my bike leathers was more than I paid for the leathers themselves!) and then bought the odd fado CD (fado not being hugely popular in this country, finding my fav fadistas in the local Music Shop isn't easy). More recently I've found some brilliant bargains on the Catch of the Day website – my favourite being the cases of rather good red wine that come up now and then (hic!)

I've never really taken to buying my groceries online, though – until now.

When I was a high school teacher I used to think there was something a bit therapeutic about wandering through a quiet, child-free, uncrowded supermarket late in the evening. All those lovely orderly rows of goodies, well-behaved and silent... Now that my bike is my only mode of transport, night-time grocery-shopping (particularly in winter) isn't the fun it used to be. And of course, doing it all on crutches and with NO means of transport – well, that's actually NEGATIVE fun! I attempted it a few weeks ago in 35 degree heat and had to be rescued by a man on a recumbent bicycle, who walked my heavy backpack up the hill for me while I sobbed uncontrollably. How embarrassing.

Last year when the wheelchair man fell on me and my hamstring snapped off my bum, I took advantage of online grocery shopping in a very small way. Just as well really, or I would've starved to death, as I was pretty much housebound for almost a month. I didn't really get into the spirit of it though - perhaps I was in too much pain – or perhaps I was spending all my food money on stuff like MRIs and surgeons' appointments.

And of course, my lovely daughter drove me shopping occasionally in her held-together-with-duct-tape deathtrap of a car, making a point of smirking at me (she's evil like that, bless her!) She had visions of a long-distant future and was unable to resist the line “Hmmm.... and so it begins...” as I hobbled like a 90 year-old to the car and took 10 painful minutes to manoeuvre myself into it. Hag.

During this current period of incapacitation, though, I have embraced Woolies' online grocery shopping like a long lost friend. In fact – I'm becoming obsessed!

Each week my orders become bigger and better. After yesterday's delivery I am a bit nonplussed. What on earth possessed me to buy 3 litres of grapefruit juice? When oh when will I use up 3 slabs of silken tofu before its use-by date? As for the 10 litres of soda water, entire kilo of chicken breast fillets, four jars of coffee and three dozen tins of diced tomatoes (ok, I exaggerate – it was only 1 dozen)...

Next time I shop I will do it before I open a bottle of that excellent aforementioned red wine from the Catch of the Day mob!

There are some things I will only buy in very small quantities, to tide me over, say, till I'm able to go to the Asian specialty shop for the really good Jasmine Rice I love so much. And I haven't quite been able to trust a stranger to test my melons or select my salad leaves...

I just make a shopping list and key in my details, and some kind mystery shopper actually does the shopping for me, bags everything up, and a nice young red-headed fellow drives it to my house in his refrigerated truck, during the 2-hour “delivery time-slot” that I have specified, puts it all on my kitchen bench and lets me pay with my EFTPOS card – and the cost of this very convenient service is a mere $13!

It's magic. AND – (but wait, there's more!) they give me little pressies; freebie samples of things – it's fabulous! So far I have stockpiled 5 little tubes of toothpaste that will be perfect when I can finally head off somewhere on the bike again; several of those faddish tubes of instant coffee, and a few packs of dog biscuits. (The fact that I don't have a dog is irrelevant – the boys next door do!)

Oh dear – my name is Betty and I'm a shopaholic...

Fun & games with the ACT Health system

See, this is how it's supposed to work:

Monday – have willy willy accident
Tuesday – go to hospital, be x-rayed, get sorted with cast/crutches, be referred for CT scan and fracture clinic.
No weightbearing allowed.
Have CT scan - maybe as long as a whole week later (i.e., accident plus maybe 10 days)
Subsequent treatment dependent on result of CT.

Here's what happened in reality.
Monday – willy willy accident.
Tuesday – go to hospital, be x-rayed, sent home with “sprain” diagnosis.
2 hours later, call from doc in ER – “Oops, I was looking at the wrong part of the x-ray. There IS a fracture. Come back.”

Wednesday – back to hospital. Have a look at x-ray, and the fracture practically leaps out at me and my untrained eye. Get back-slab cast, crutches. Doc says “see your GP in a week.”

9 days later (Friday) get in to see GP. She doesn't know what to do, phones radiology and orthopod, hears “possible second fracture”, sends me home with order “no weightbearing. $68 please..."
GP phones several hours later. “I was supposed to refer you to fracture clinic. Will do that next Tuesday when I'm back in the office. Um, will you phone to remind me?”

Tuesday – I phone. “Oh, it's more complicated than I thought”, she says. "Will you come in on Thursday? I'm not in on Wednesdays.”

Thursday – back to GP. “Oh, now where was I up to?” she says “What do I do next?”
“Referral for CT scan,” I mumble, incredulous.
“Ah yes.” She phones fracture clinic. “This is Dr X” she says (I am seriously wondering by this stage if she really IS a doctor! Only the cream of students are accepted to study medicine, after all.) “I need to refer a patient. Um, how do I do that?”

[[[boggle]]]

She faxes fracture clinic referral to fracture clinic, gives me CT scan referral. I hop back to work, my new Schwarzenegger shoulders bulging. At least she had the decency to bulk-bill me for this totally unnecessary non-consultation. Another Medicare rort... No wonder the country's going down the toilet.

I phone CT bookings. “You have to fax the referral through to us”. WTF? So I do. Just as well I'm at work, where there's a fax machine, and not at home. “We'll phone you with a booking time,” she says.

Friday (accident plus 19 days) I phone CT bookings. “Nobody's called me yet”. Clearly, nobody was going to either – at least, not in a hurry. On the other end of the phone, the bookings clerk scrounges around looking for my referral. “Ah, yes, there it is.” They make a booking for me over the phone. First available appointment is next Friday (accident plus 26 days). I can't help myself.

“Wouldn't it have been more sensible if the ER doctor had organised all this in the first place?” (thinking to self that in theory I might've already been able to throw away the crutches by now if that had been the case – oh my bruised and aching hands/arms/shoulders!)

“Yes,” she says. “I wonder why they didn't?”

Looking for Answers

So – assuming everything happens for a reason, I'm thinking that my current pathetic and crutchified state is supposed to teach me something (see, that might make it bearable instead of just being bloody annoying.)

Think think think...lightbulb!

Aha - maybe it's giving me a reason to develop the following virtues (ones that are sadly lacking in Miz Betty):

Patience. It's impossible to take short cuts with broken bones. They heal in their own sweet (swear swear) time.
Acceptance. Anything else just leads to mega-frustration and rage.
Ability to ask for/accept help. This is one I have trouble with, but I will try!

And maybe it's time to stop putting all my sanity eggs in one basket! Motorcycling is my main source of sanity. Whenever I can't ride, I get twitchy, niggly, down, depressed, bloody miserable, homicidal (you get the idea.)

Over the last 3 years and 4 months – i.e., since I got my bike L's - there have been approximately 50 days when I did not ride. That's right, I have ridden almost every single day. I have about another 35 bikeless days ahead of me till my ankle is better. That's going to bite. I'm twitching already, and it's not a good look.

My other sanity saver has been trying to bring a little bit of order to my overgrown, weed-infested, drought-ridden “garden” - and I was doing so well! Until this little incident, that is.




So what else am I going to do? Knit? No thanks – tried that when I was nesting. I was hopeless, and hated it. Cook? In this heat, are you kidding? (Plus it would entail too much washing of dishes and eating of delicious, calorie-laden things). No thanks.

Looks like I'll just have to embrace insanity and learn to love my twitches.

But wait! What about blogging? I could blog to my little heart's content while I'm boring myself to death and going nowhere...but this is about my Occasional Adventures, and I'm not having too many of those at the moment.

Oh, here's an idea – how about “writing”??? Real, honest-to-God, make-up-a-story-and-write-it type writing. I'm an author, for goodness' sake – I should be authoring!


You know, the reason I started this blog in the first place was so I could spread the word about my books. Somehow I got all caught up talking about all the outdoor adventures that I have, and forgot all about the Other big adventure – my life as an author!


Hmmm. Maybe that's it. Maybe my current incapacitation is supposed to be a bit of a kick up the bum, to remind me that I'm a writer and that I need to be sitting down to write. Sheesh! A tap on the shoulder would've been enough!

More random thoughts on crutches

Forearm crutches are more comfortable than underarm crutches. The technique required to drive them is a little different, though, and very unsettling at first.

Uphill on crutches with a full backpack is harder than downhill with an empty one.

My local shops are over 500 (I lost count) crutch hops from my gate.

Walking to the shops and back is a better workout than you'd get at any gym. Especially in 33-degree heat (that's 33 degrees Celsius...) which adds a sauna dimension to your workout.

Such a workout should only be attempted once, just to prove something to yourself (to prove what? That you're an idiot?)

Going to the loo on crutches at night is very difficult. Cats tend to sprawl on the floor and in doorways in the dark.

Cats make a very loud noise when you poke them with a crutch in the dead of night.

Cats are a death trap.

No matter how difficult it is to get around on crutches, crawling on hands and knees is worse for anybody over about 12 months of age. Baby knees crawl, grown up knees creak and bruise.

Stairs are a death trap.

If you're on crutches it probably means you aren't riding a motorbike around. Have that glass of wine with lunch! (just one – wine and crutches don't mix very well.)

Using crutches develops your brain. You find new and interesting ways to do things that have suddenly become impossible.

Bathrooms are a death-trap.

Gardening, far from being the therapeutic activity it once was, becomes an exercise in frustration. Multiple kinks in a 30 metre hose can induce apoplexy in a very short time. Weeds will always be just out of reach.

Everything – everything – takes ten times longer on crutches. The exception to this is the rate at which your bladder fills.

When you only wear one shoe and one sock you discover that a pair of socks lasts twice as long, but the same doesn't go for shoes.

If crutches can fall over and land in hard-to-reach places, they will.

The toilet is a death-trap.

Getting ice-cube trays full of water from the sink to the freezer gives new meaning to the expression aaaaaaargh!

Oh, one more – crutches aren't just for walking. They're also for opening/closing doors and gates, lifting dropped things, switching on lights that are several feet away, pulling things towards you, tripping people up, pushing things away from you, poking cats... the list goes on.

Amazing things, crutches.

Random thoughts on crutches

Things that do not "go" with crutches:
Clutter
Power-cords
Cats
Stairs
Narrow hallways
Baskets full of laundry that need to go on the line
Bags full of shopping that need to be carried
ME

Things you need to be if you are on crutches:
Early - start heading to the loo long before you feel the need!
Organised - do NOT under any circumstances leave your mobile phone anywhere but in your pocket.
Patient
Well-balanced
Coordinated (uh-oh...)

Things you need to have if you are going to be on crutches for any length of time:
A whopping great sense of humour
The patience of a saint
Armpits of steel
A chair by the stove/fridge, where you can sit and eat/drink. You're not carrying that plate of dinner/cup of coffee/glass of wine anywhere!
A bag you can hang around your neck, for carrying non-spill stuff around the house
An extra pair of hands

Things that might take you by surprise on crutches:
Slopes and hills and uneven paths that really didn't seem all that steep or uneven when you were on two legs
How far away everything is - the corner shop, the bus stop, the toilet...
Cats
When you reach down to ground level to pick something up, and then can't get up again with one leg.
How relieved you are that you live alone and noone can see you rolling around on the floor like a deranged beetle, trying to find a way to get up again with one leg.

OK, it's only been 4 hours. I'm new to this. I'm sure a resourceful person like me will find a way around just about everything. My "cast" isn't even really a proper cast, for goodness' sake - I can take it off to have a shower (YAY! That had been worrying me, I confess.) As it's so easily removed (as simple as unwinding a bandage)the temptation to take it off so I can hang out the washing/hobble to and from the shops etc is going to be a biggie, I can tell.

My willy willy incident on Monday caused an avulsion fracture, when one of the tendons in my foot started to tear away away from the bone, and took a piece of bone with it. It needs compression and immobilisation, to try and encourage that bit of bone to "glue" itself back on again. Hence the back slab cast and the crutches.

Here's something I hadn't thought about. I no longer have a "good" leg. I have a bad leg and a worse leg. The bad leg is now having to do the work that the worse leg used to do when it was the good leg. This is bad. Very bad.

I have a week off work to learn how to drive these crutches, before I have to sprint to the bus stop every day. And get on and off the bus and get my ticket and put it in the ticket machine and find a seat without falling over. All before 7am every day.

Oh goody.