Spare Parts

It may look okay but the bike is toast. Well the fork is bent and the frame is also bent. Right in a critical area. The steering tube is bent right where the bearing race is. So it's been comprimised and unsafe. Well that's what I thought and the bike mechanics at Sporting Life said the same thing.
You can see here how the fork bent back from the impact. Funny thing is the front wheel is perfect but the rear wheel is bent to hell. I'm not sure how I looked as I was smashing into the back end of that minivan. And believe me I imagine it quite often. I now know what goes through a bugs head when it hits a windshield. You guys have heard that joke, eh? It's his ass. Anyways, I think the rear wheel must have smacked the ground on the recoil as I hit the rear of the van and warped it. I just had the wheel trued too. I broke a spoke as I was riding home one day and I still had a long way to go and I guess it bent it really bad. Damn it.

So I owe Tresa a new bike. It was her bike I smashed. It's going to cost almost as much to replace the broken parts versus buying a brand new one. This was a gift from me on our second anniversary. She didn't care too much about it. She was just glad I was going to be ok. And she was concerned about my nose. She wanted to make sure it was functioning properly and I could breathe okay.

Well so far so good. It's healing okay, my upper back is sore today and the scar is there. But that's to be expected. I'm getting used to looking at my mug in the mirror. I've got the 60 SPF sunblock, the vitamin E and the scar pads. They said it'll take a year before the scar levels off with the surrounding skin. We'll see in a year.

In Heat

Ms. Mai came by the house for a visit. Now who told her our phone number and where we lived? Jake, I know it's you, man! You gotta keep your women at your place.
She came by the house showing us her buff bod and wearing one of her 'toys' around her neck.
See, she was trying to get him into the 'position'.
Look at the reaction of our baby. That face means. 'Exit Only'.
Actually she came by to finally see Kieran and give me my present. No not a table dance or even a block of cheese, but some polysporin scar bandages. Thanks Mai. Tresa and I were just talking about this stuff the day before. Exactly what I wished for.
Yep, it's been a really hot couple of weeks. Tresa and I don't remember it being so hot in July. Even Kieran has been feeling the heat.
So we'd give Kieran the spa treatment to cool him down.
There's no belugas here. Doing the backstroke! It may not be a pool like what his Oshawa cousin Liam has, but in the warm weather who cares.
This kid gets the ultimate in hair care. But no matter what, we can't get that hair to come down. As soon as the towel comes off and the sun light hits it. It's like how grass grows to reach skyward and follows the sun throughout the sky.
See even with a hat on. That tuft of hair that's become his trademark has a life of it's own. It's looking for freedom from the dark confines of his touque.
We thought we'd do one of those artsy fartsy poses with him naked. Showing his fine physique next to papa.
And this is what he thought of it. That ain't water that was splashed onto my boxers. I guess the cool air conditioned surroundings against the warm bath water on his crown jewels sent shivers to his head, and gave the signal to go ahead and open the floodgates.

Year of the Rooster

Another year passes for Sukaboy.
Thanks to everyone that sent me a birthday wish.
Hey I even remembered to call my cousin and wish her a happy birthday, since her birthday is the same day.
Happy Birthday Cath!
That knock to the head must have unblocked something.
I'm on the road to recovery. I even got 60 SPF Umbrelle sunblock for my stitches so I can get rid of that gauze pad I've been using.

This is the year of the rooster. So my son and I are the same Chinese year. What a coinky-dink eh? Almost an Aries…but NOT QUITE! He delayed his birth long enough to move into the next animal. But he is an april baby. So Tresa got that at least.

cock a doodle doo!
That tuft of hair on the top of his head never goes down, no matter what we do.

Tresa brought me up to her parents cottage to rest and recover. This is public enemy #1. I had brought out some nectarines to eat and this critter snuck up on the table and took a bite out of one of them.


They tried to surprise me with a cake, but I was reaching for a beer in the refridgerator and saw the box.

So I played along with it until they called me into the kitchen and hung around outside.


I think if I had lost all of my teeth that this is probably what I'd end up looking like. But I'd have to pack on at least 100 more pounds. Right now I only have 1 chin.

We brought Kieran into the lake for a dip. He took a dump in his diaper so I cleaned his butt in the lake. Seemed pretty happy.


This is my first birthday as a new father. It didn’t matter to my kid that my nose was laced up with stitches or that it was broken in several places. That’s cuz he bopped me in the nose and head butted me without blinking an eye. And yet he still smiles and laughs at me regardless of the black eyes and swollen lips.
But these kids use all their senses to recognize their parents. Smell, sound, touch, taste as well as sight. So it still smelled like papa, so it must be him.
He’s now at about 14.5 lbs and 12-1/2 weeks old. He’s in the 95^th percentile in terms of weight and 75^th in size. But we were told that breastfed babies tend to be on the bigger side. Now if anyone has watched the movie “Supersize Me”, if we were in the good ol’ US of A. Where the A means Astronomically huge. Kieran would probably be much lower on the scale, probably scrawny. And the American pediatrician would think this kid should eat a few more big mac and fries combos to go!

Mugshot

Here it is. I had requests about this photo, mostly from guys. Actually ALL from guys. They were saying that I was lucky I wasn't a girl and besides a scar adds character, like NHL hockey players. You know who I'm quoting here. It's the com-forter dude.
I didn't think I'd be posting this up so soon. But here it is.
Moe, Larry and Curly.

So from left to right. Me on day after the accident. And I wasn't holding my breath. I found out on Monday on the follow up appointment at St Mikes that the CT scan showed fractures on my cheeks as well as my broken bridge. That's why I was so swollen and felt all congested. My upper lip was really swollen and it was tough to eat for a few days. Can you see the outline of my Oakley Pro-M frame sunglasses?

The middle one is one week (the following monday) after crash. Just before the follow up. I thought they were going to take the stitches out and I was nervous it was going to hurt, but it was still oozing guck. So the doctor cleaned me up a bit and said to come back next Monday morning to get them out. They used peroxide to clean me up and it stung.

The last one is from this afternoon. My upper lip is still numb right on the tip. The doctor said that there are two nerves that run from my under my eye and across my cheek to the tip of my lip. And that they were probably bruised from the collision of my face and the the mini-van. He said it would go away in a few months. I haven't shaved yet because of all the little cuts from the glass. I was a little afraid that I'd be getting the blades caught on the scabs and pulling off skin.

So here it is. It's not as bad as I was anticipating, but still if you talk to Tresa or my sister, they were there in the ER with me, and so was Kieran, but he may not recall in detail and he only speaks baby babble. Anyways they said it wasn't pretty. Especially when I held my nose and blew bloody bubbles from the gash on top of my nose. I'm glad I didn't see it.

I'm still sore in my upper back but I'm mobile, and I still get groggy, especially in the mornings. The A/C kind of makes my face swell and then I feel congested. And I still feel pressure at times on the top of my head on the right. And tilting my head back is a little painful. Sleeping is sometimes tough. When I sleep on my side I can feel the weight on my nose. So I sleep on my back, which bothers my back. I get scared sometimes when I have to sneeze. I'm not sure if I'll blow my nose off with the force. It's sore when I scrunch up my nose too. So I try not to do that. But other than that. I feel pretty good.

Lifesaver

This is my helmet after the crash. I took a pic of my face too the day after the accident as well. Nie had a photo of me in the E.R. but she accidentally deleted it from her camera phone. Guess it was meant that way. Don't think I'll be posting my photo up for a while. Not until the mental scars of the accident are gone.

Mel said that I looked like I'd been in a fight like a boxer. I had cuts on my forehead and cheeks. You could see the outline of my Oakley M-Frames embossed into my face. That's what Nie's Ray said anyways. My upper lip was swollen, cheeks were puffy. I felt like I was squinting for a while. My nasal passages felt stuffy. From all the swelling.

So my helmet actually looks pretty good. But if you look towards the front of the helmet it's got a dent. Unless you're looking at it in real life you may not be able to see it. But this is one of those single use things. The helmet is designed to absorb the hit at the point of impact and spread it out throughout the rest of the helmet. So it could look good afterwards, but it's useless now.

I just wanted to say thanks to my family and friends that called to see if I was okay. I'm feeling a bit better now. I was in and out of sleep all week. It was really uncomfortable for a few days. I wasn't in any hurry to see people or to go out in public. The swelling has come down in my face and the numbness in my upper lip is almost gone. My neck and upper back are still sore but tht's to be expected, and I'm finding some pains are starting to creep in that weren't there originally - like in the right side of my jaw. And sometimes I find when I swallow something hard like a piece of fruit it hurts. But the cuts are healing and hopefully the memory of the accident will heal too.

Where am I?

I was redirected to the ER at St. Michael's hospital. I had hoped they would have brought me to the Western. At least the staff knows me there, since Tresa worked there. But they weren't accepting any EMS patients. I was strapped to the board for a long time and it was getting uncomfortable. They kept saying ten minutes. My head was killing me. I asked, the police officer, if he could contact my wife and let her know where I was and that I was going to be okay. I looked a my watch and finally at 10:25am I was admitted. They put me on the bed, but I was still strapped to the board. The back of my body was aching and painful from being strapped to this board. I am not sure how long I was on that board, but it must have been over an hour.

They finally brought me in and moved me from the stretcher to the bed in E.R. But I was still strapped to the board. The EMS people could only strap me on; they weren't allowed to remove me. I tried to relax, but I was squirming, and then I just begged them to take me off this thing. They finally rolled me off, but I still had the neck brace on. Until they could verify that I didn't damage my neck, it was staying on.

My sister showed up. Tresa had called her to inform her what had happened. I didn't recognize her at first because my right contact had shifted somewhere in my eye. I couldn't rub my eye to fix it because I was covered with glass and blood. My hands were filthy so I just left it. I asked if they could clean me up. I know I did. I think I asked at least twice. But I was left covered in blood and shards of glass for 4 or 5 hours. They never did clean me up. Tresa ended up cleaning me up. After several hours of blood pooling into my eyes and ears, I asked her if they were going to clean me before they sew me up. They wheeled me in to get x-rays on my neck. I recall people's eyes burning into me, but I was in too much pain to care. Once they confirmed that my neck was okay, the brace came off. Thank God, because that was really uncomfortable too. The intern checked to see if there were any broken bones. She applied pressure on parts of my face. Nothing. She worked her way to my collarbone, surprisingly, nothing. Then she pressed on my ribs. OW! It wasn't broken; it was a piece of glass that she pressed into my torso. I had some lacerations on my mid section from the glass.

Tresa finally arrived and it was painful to see how worried I'd made her.

I was moved from my E.R. bed to the middle of the E.R. Someone else was coming in that required the monitor. Me, my sister, Tresa and Kieran were in the middle of the E.R. The intern had come back to check on the gash on my nose and she was about to take the bandage off. I was afraid of how it was going to be. I'm not one to go queasy at the sight of blood, but because this was my own flesh, it was grossing me out a bit and worrying me. I could see that it wasn't going to be pretty. I asked my sister if someone could call Pat, for advice on what we should do while we were here. He said to make sure I get an X-ray of my chest and a CT scan. I think that the adrenalin from the accident was slowly wearing off, because little by little aches and pains were starting to settle in. My back was getting stiff. I could feel bruising in my right hip and left knee. The eventually did an X-ray of my chest after I complained of soreness as I took a breath. And my lower ribs were painful to the touch. However they didn't do a CT scan. They didn't think I needed one. When they wheeled me in to the x-ray room the second time, my IV cord was caught and almost pulled out of my arm. I felt a tug and yelled 'whoa!'

At about 3:30pm Tresa asked a nurse if we could get some stuff to clean the blood and glass off me. She gave us a stack of gauze and peroxide. I could feel particles on my eyelids. I wasn't sure if it was dried blood or glass. I had a lot of little cuts all over - on my forehead, my cheeks, and my eyelids. I had dried blood on my hands and I just felt like I wanted to clean my face. It was about 4:00pm and I hadn't eaten anything since the evening before. I was starving and thirsty. No one had even offered me water to drink. But it was tough to get up I couldn't get up on my own power. And I didn't want to look in the mirror. I wasn't prepared for that. I was wondering why it was taking so long for them to sew me up. What was taking so long? The E.R. doctor was the one who was going to stitch me up, but then he had me do one thing. He had me hold my nose and blow. Blood and bubbles came out through the gash. That wasn't a good thing I thought. After that they paged the plastics doctor.

After they wheeled me to another area - a hallway, near the nursing monitoring station. This is where I'd be staying for the next 7 hours. I didn't see the plastics guy until about 5:30pm. I asked him what he thought. He was honest. He said that there'd be a scar. It was unavoidable. Listen to this. Because I was lying in the hallway, there wasn't a good light for him to do a prognosis. So he got a flashlight from the nursing station and I could see he needed three hands. So I held the flashlight and shined it down my nostrils so he could check it out. The only thing I asked was that he tells me what was going on. The silence was agonizing.

He eventually cleaned me up and sterilized the area. He sank a whole bunch of needles in my nose area to freeze the area. I caught a glimpse of the needle and I shut my eyes. It looked humongous. And I could tell my heart rate was climbing. As he was injecting the anesthetic, some of it went down my throat and I could feel that and blood dripping down into my eyes and ears. He cleaned it up but it burned my eye a bit. He covered the surrounding areas with some fabric, moved the skin into position as best he could and began to stitch. I couldn't feel the needle but I could feel the tugging. In a little over an hour he put in 30 stitches. 15 internal and 15 external. The last few stitches I could feel the prick of the needle as it went in. But I just wanted it over, so I clenched my fist.

After it was over he checked over the area and showed Tresa. It was now well past 7pm. He checked the bridge of my nose and I could hear cracking. He said it was broken. He asked if I had a CT scan done and I hadn't. So he ordered one. The nurse said I'd be waiting a while. I sent Tresa home, since Mel could take me later. I had the CT scan at after 9pm. The porter had come to take me upstairs and she was banging me around, hitting walls here and there. The hallways were crowded and narrow. It wasn't her fault. But I pulled me feet in to be on the safe side.

I was starving and all I had was water. I asked if I could have some food, but they weren't sure if I would require surgery. Until the results came back from the scan, I wasn't allowed to have food. The CT scan results were negative and he told me that I'd need to schedule a follow up for next Monday. I could finally go home. But I was feeling really weak, so I asked a nurse if they could give me some food. It took a while but I ate and got up from my bed and walked out of the hospital. It was weird to see it from this angle, when I'd been on my back the whole day.

I didn't care that I had to walk out to the parking garage, in my cycling shoes even. I was glad I was at least alive and not more badly injured. It could have been a lot worse. I considered myself lucky. Guess my mom was watching over me.