Category Archives: Health and wellness

On August 31^st of this year, around noon, I was at the company annual offsite meeting being the loyal company employee.  Walking to lunch, I managed to trip over a four inch riser in the atrium of the venue and went down like a sack of bricks.  I heard and felt some fascinating things in that microsecond as I saw a slate floor come up to meet my face. 

The first thing I felt was a feeling in the pit of my stomach:  That “Uh-Oh.  This Is Going To Hurt” moment.  I’ve felt that before, notably in a couple of car accidents and a particular one in a racing kart that saw me thinking “The horizon should not be up there and it is not good to be looking down from this high up going this fast in +Z and +X axis, when it normally works only in +Y and -Y axis.” 

That is the joy of “Uh Oh” moments:  Time slows down so you can appreciate what is about to happen.

The second thing I felt, after the Uh Oh, was, “Which particular body part do you want to break, David?”  This internalized dialogue is one you have when you know that if you put out your hands, you will break both wrists, or at least an arm. 

You also realize that you had best accelerate your decision-making processes, as the gap between the floor and you is rapidly closing.  “Hmmm.  A broken arm hurts.  A broken face hurts.  I’ve already done my knees in, so, let’s see if we can dislocate a shoulder and roll across my shoulder, hip and butt like a semi-uncoordinated parachute roll performed by an idiot.”

I turned a bit in the air, but had spent too long debating which particular pain I was willing to go through.  I couldn’t quite turn fast enough to take the fall on my shoulder, hips and butt.  My left ankle resolutely determined to not play along.  “Hey, screw that nonsense, I’m stayin’ put!” 

The ground came up to meet me at that moment.  I managed to wallop my legs, hip, ribs, shoulder and head on the floor.  Birdies, planets and stars were rotating around me.  I gave my head a shake to clear the Warner Brothers animation enough to start the initial assessment.  I am lying on my right side.

Balls?  Fine.  Dick?  Still there.  Whew!  The Important Stuff is intact.

Face?  I’m still wearing glasses, so it must be fine. Skull?  Ouch.  Shoulder?  Not so good, but I’m not feeling bone ends or hearing unique sounds.  Elbow?  Ouch.  Ribs?  I can breathe, so nothing broken.  Hip?  Ouch.  Knee?  Ouch. 

Doing OK so far David, just Ouches, which means bruising; nothing permanent or debilitating.  Right Ankle?  Fine.

Left Ankle?  FuckmeDeloresGodaddmitsonofaBitchCocksuker!  Since my body parts tend not to use that kind of language unless they are injured, I figured I hurt something.

At that moment I was aware that there were a number of people standing over me, probably watching the animated stars, birdies and planets orbiting my head.  One colleague said “Are you OK?”  The snappy cynic in me wanted to say “Oh yes, I just wanted to lie down rapidly on a slate floor, face first.”  I didn’t, but I did ask for a moment to do a quick second assessment.  Yep. Left ankle Not Happy.  The next step is simple enough:  Am I feeling bone ends where I shouldn’t feel bone ends?  Hmmm. 

I rolled on my butt, sitting on the floor, as more people crowded around, offering all kinds of advice.  I’m a first aid guy and have been for years, so I said “Give me just a moment please, I do first aid, but not normally on myself.  Just a sec.”  The animation around my head faded and I took a breath to check the ribs.  Fine. 

“Could you help me up please?”  Two people took me under the arms and lifted me up.  I guarded the left leg, as that was the one that was cussing me out.  I stood momentarily on it.  Whew.  Broken bones don’t take any weight, at all.  Even the slightest weight on a break will make the patient use language that would make a drill sergeant sit up and be impressed. 

However, the ankle was not impressed with me putting weight on it and let me know with a lower-case “Fuck” running up my leg to my brain.  I did manage to edit it to “shit” before it leaped out.  Someone slid a chair under my legs.  I sat down.  A drone from the facility came up, eyes all aglow with adrenaline.

“HelloImsoandsofromthevenueandIdofirstairwhathappendtoyouareyouallrightdidyouhityourhead”   I replied, rather calmly that my name was David, I am a First Responder too, No, I did not hit my head.  No, there was no loss of consciousness.  I have injured my ankle but it takes weight, so it isn’t broken.  But I am a bit diaphoretic and need a moment to collect myself.  She stopped immediately and looked at me like I had grown a second head.  I suppose she wasn’t used to getting an instant diagnosis from a patient. 

I tried standing again, as a couple of people helped me to my feet.  The ankle was taking weight well enough.  I had hurt it, but nothing was broken.  I had dodged the bullet.

Since there was no blood, puking or seizures, the crowd melted away, nothing to see, move along, move along.  In the first aid situations I’ve been in as responder, the thing I always try to do is to get the patient some privacy.  Nothing makes you feel more vulnerable that a bunch of people staring at you, while you’re in pain. 

After another moment, I tried standing again.  Left ankle seemed to take weight and the whack upside the head merely hurt a little.  “I’m ok folks, nothing to see.”  After exchanging data with the facility drone, I limped outside to have a smoke and sit down for a bit.  Lunch occurred, the rest of the presentations occurred and by 4 pm, I was in exquisite agony, limping like an amputee. 

When the afternoon presentations were over, a co worker with me determined that I could not walk.  Pat went to get a facility person.  It was determined, by me, to not bother with such niceties as an ambulance, but I did want to get to my car and get the hell out of there.  Pat got my car to the front door and the facility got a wheelchair to get me to my car.  Pulling on the roof and doorhandles I got into the car and drove home. 

Hobbling out of the underground parking it took about twenty minutes to get to the apartment.  My thought was that some RICE (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) and I’d be fine in a day or two.  I gobbled some Tylenol and got undressed.  I had a lump on my head and a lovely collection of bruises on my elbow, shoulder and hip.  I had even managed to rip a couple of square inches of skin off the top of my knee.  The ankle:  Swelling up like an erection on a Mormon Wedding Night.

The Tylenol kicked in and I slept for several hours.  The next morning?  No weight on that ankle thanks.  However, I do have a rolling chair as part of my ‘home office’.  Guess where I spent the day?  Rolling around like a seven year old.  Roll to the kitchen, roll to the living room, roll to the bathroom and even roll to the bedroom. Wheeee!  More Tylenol.  More Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

Friday, when the ankle wouldn’t take any weight at all.  I figured I was in a world of Shiite and it was actually broken.  I don’t have crutches.  I don’t have a cane.  I have an ankle that won’t take weight.  I can’t get to my car to get to a doctor.  I’m not going to call an ambulance for a sprained ankle.  I called a drug store and ordered some crutches, then had the drug store put the crutches in a cab for delivery.  Fortunately I had some cash on hand. 

The short form, after seeing a doctor at a walk in clinic, who referred me to the local hospital and waiting for a couple of hours, I got an Xray that confirmed that, yep, no breaks.  Sprained like a rat mother, but no breaks.  Yippee!  No plaster for me.

In the next post, I’ll cover off some observations on mobility.

We love to think that athletes compete under that dreamy spirit of pure competition embodied in Citius Altius Fortius (Higher Faster Stronger) from the Olympic movement.  This is a lovely fantasy, right up there with Rue McLanahan and Sigourney Weaver wrestling naked, in pudding.  OK, the wrestling is wrong, but, we like the concept of pure sport.  There has been no such concept for generations, even in Baron de Coubertin’s day of rehydrating the Olympics out of some soft-focus fantasy of amateur competition.

A couple of examples:  Golf:  The ball originally was leather stuffed with feathers, then rubber, then a wooden core, then a metal core, then dimples and so on.  Technology improved the game and the initial ‘unfair advantage’ was adopted by the players.  Track and Field?  Spikes and starting blocks gave the early adopters huge advantages over the barefoot and standing start runners.  Pole vault technology went from ash, to bamboo, to fiberglass to carbon and unobtanium.  The vaulters used to land in sawdust and cinders, then foam, now air valved inflatables. 

The humans have adapted as well.  Training methods used to include robust dinners with laudanum (opium wine) and brandy during the race.  Now the lab coat brigade start with analysis of six-year olds to see if they have the potential to compete at the highest levels, the less than possibly perfect being weeded out by the age of eight.  Only those who have the potential to uptake more millibars of oxygen during a specific heart rate will be moved along.  I won’t even mention the weirdness that female gymnastics competitors undergo. 

The endurance events in sports, like track, or cycling or biathlon are the ones that truly cross the line into mad science.  Human growth hormone, Erthropoitin, blood doping, testosterone and even more strange things are injected into athletes to make them go faster and longer.  As the scientists come up with a new way to pharmaceutically jack up the athlete, the anti-doping folks come up with another test to find the metabolites in the blood and urine.  It is an endless battle of the black hats versus the white hats with serious product endorsement and performance contract appearance money up for grabs. Ask Floyd Landis or Justin Gatlin about the money involved in sports.  They’re both in a world of hurt regarding the possibility of being caught doping.  Not the actual doping, just the being caught.   

In a RoadDave of a few years ago, I figured we should just dispense with the pretense of honest competition.  I still feel that way, so here’s the short form.

Go as fast as you dare.  The only caveat is that the athlete must be able to walk, alive and unaided, up to the podium to receive the medal or trophy.  After that, we don’t care.  There will the occasional misfortune of sprinters bursting into flames at the 60 meter mark, or Tour de France cyclists leaving Low Earth Orbit, but that is the price that must be paid for the best performance. 

I can see future golfers hitting the ball a kilometer or more, while baseball players hit crushing line drives that kill kids in the cheap seats in left field at Wrigley.  I can see hockey and lacrosse players violating several laws of Physics, while the gymnastics fraternity dispense with the spinal column altogether.  In each sport however, is that caveat:  Walk unaided and alive up to the podium to get the trophy or medal.  This will put enough of a brake on the mad scientists to keep the athletes or teams alive for a whole season.  I can foresee some interesting steroid rages from football and hockey teams whereby whole villages are physically sacrificed for their beloved Packers or Hurricanes.

There is also the whole aspect of future effects of the various doping strategies.  We might see, of the few athletes that do survive into their 30’s to retire, a preponderance of tumors the size of turnips, or incidents of sociopathic madness involving guns, high buildings and crates of ammunition.  As long as the retired athlete has the requisite sponsor product logos well placed for the cameras, who are we to care?  We want our fantasy of pure sports. 

Certain pieces of knowledge are critical to life.  For example, calling Mike Tyson a sissy-boy to his face has a result.  Looking into a tank of gasoline using a Bic Lighter as your source of illumination has a result.  How to escape from a killer whale is knowledge you might well need some day. 

As a Public Service, after all, we deeply care about you, we are going to share some of these critical datapoints you might some day need.  You’re welcome. 

Mike Tyson/sissy-boy remark:  Don’t do it.  It will hurt and your clothes will be out of style by the time you wake up from your coma.  Drinking your meals through a straw isn’t as much fun as you think.

Bic Lighter/Gasoline quantity investigation:  Don’t do it.  It will hurt.  This is right up there with the last thing a redneck widow hears from her late husband. “Hey Honey, watch this!”

Killer Whale Escape:  One, don’t go where killer whales are:  Phoenix, Saskatoon and the east side of Ottawa come to mind.  Two:  Fart a lot.  No, really, I’m not trying to buy us an excuse to behave like pigs, this is legitimate public service

From the Acoustical Society of America, meeting in Rhode Island this week, (Discovery.com) scientists have studied how Norwegian Killer Whales get dinner.  Consequent to their investigations they have discovered how dinner avoids becoming dinner.

Here’s how it works:  Norwegian Killer Whales slap theit tails under water, creating a shock that disorients the herring they’re trying to eat.  The herring get frightened and cluster together, making the herring a nice compact nori roll for the whale.  However, if the herring bubble some air from their anal duct and sink a bit, the whale gets disoriented enough that some of the school of herring can escape becoming dinner. 

“Orest Diachok, a research physicist at Johns Hopkins University, told Discovery News that the killer whale study provides “compelling evidence on the function of tail slaps, much more compelling than previous studies of this phenomenon.”

As for the herring flatulence, Diachok agreed the fish may do this to facilitate escape, but he said it also might just be inadvertent.”

Therefore:  If you’re parked in the Barcalounger and have a sudden urge to unburden your lower GI tract of the increasing methane and hydrogen sulphide pressures you’re feeling, you can perform a vital public service.  Let fly!

Even if the bridge club is over.  Even if there are guests.  Even if Queen Noor of Jordan is staying at your place.  You have a duty, nay, a sacred duty to protect your family from a Norwegian Killer Whale attack.  Be proud.