A Night of Firsts

I will be posting more about the Alaska trip soon, but thought I should share my night of firsts with you. We were on our final leg of the journey yesterday from Williams Lake, B.C. to Seattle. John and I split off after going through the US border because he travels faster than I do (this is about to become ironic.) I was on I-5 south in Everett and traffic was slowing down - I was going maybe 45-50 when the THREE cars in front of me stopped suddenly - I almost made it, but I just didn't break hard enough and couldn't swerve as there was a vehicle beside me. I hit the right rear bumper of the last car.

I didn't fall over, or come off the bike, but my grip on the handlebars was severe so my wrists absorbed the impact. When the cars started to move to the side I couldn't hold the bike up - it fell over and a few guys that stopped helped me get it over to the side of the road. I was trying to get the girl and her friend from the car in front of me (car #3) to help me take my helmet and gloves off, but the driver started freaking out and then screaming at the driver of car #1. Her friend explained that the girl didn't have a license and the girl wailed that she was not going to fucking go to jail because of some idiot. She and her friend then got in the car and took off. I got the guys from car #1 (3 teens) to memorize her plate number. Meanwhile, guy in car #2 was STILL in the car - never got out. I managed to get my helmet undone and pulled off and tried to get the guys from car #1 to help me with my left glove, but they were afraid they would hurt me. Just then, the firemen showed up - hooray! They helped me get my glove and jacket off and then quickly sat me down when they saw my wrist - it looked - well, wrong. They put me in a cardboard splint and wrapped it with gauze and an ice pack. Amazingly, they said my pulse and blood pressure were extremely good and we joked around a bit until I started feeling dizzy.

The ambulance came and they loaded me up onto the stretcher. I asked if I could take my small "personals" bag with me and the firemen decided to load all of my luggage into the ambulance so it wouldn't be impounded in the tow lot! Meanwhile I was loaded into the ambulance and they put ice on my other wrist which was also swelling, but not bad. We drove to the hospital and they put me and all of my stuff into a room to wait for the doctor.

One of the nurses let me call John's cell phone and leave a message and then I told her to call Belltown Starbucks to get him because that's where we were to meet up. Poor John was in the middle of telling friends about the great trip we had and got a phone call from a hospital! He rode home, dropped his cycle gear, threw on some regular clothes and hopped in the car.

My left wrist is broken and the right one is sprained. They told me at first that they were just going to splint it and send me home - follow up with an orthopedic guy later - but then they re-evaluated the x-ray (thank goodness) and got out what looked like torture devices combined with a Chinese finger trap. They unwrapped the arm and it was REALLY obviously wrong. They put me to sleep and when I woke up I had been re-aligned. John said that I moaned and kicked when they were re-setting the bone!

So - my night of firsts:

1. First hit-and-run
2. First ambulance ride
3. First broken bone

I called today and had my motorcycle taken from the tow yard to the BMW dealer in Tacoma. They think it might be totaled but won't know until next week.

My "good" wrist is purple and swollen stiff so typing even one handed is a bit of a challenge. I am supposed to fly out to Omaha Monday morning to do a client training on Tuesday & Wednesday. I am finding it very difficult to dress and groom myself. Showering with a large garbage bag over my arm will be fun - I opted for a sponge bath this morning as I wasn't yet up to dealing with a shower. Hair is a big problem, so are some clasps on clothing, and there is no way I am even going to attempt pantyhose!