MONDAY MEDS: Cyclonic Reaction/PART 4
- another installment chronicling my banged-up bod.
in this case, how i busted my back on Coney Island's Cyclone roller coaster and became instantly old.
somehow - can't remember exactly - i was taken out to my house in Centerport, LI, and was deposited on our couch. the 'can't remember' happened because i was so full of ibuprophen & anything else D had left over from his various bodydings that it was/is a hazefogblur.
(it's only a sprain)
i also don't remember how long i stayed on that couch ( a few hours? days?). i do remeber getting upstairs to the bedroom, and trying to sleep..but i had to keep getting up because our crappy mattress just made my back ache more.
after about a week of this/no improvement/rotted-out stomach due to legal, scored, begged, any and all painkillers...i finally capitulated and made an appointment with an orthopedic doc (or rather 'sports medicine' doc as they grandly and high-billingly now call themselves).
(but it's only a sprain)
i am in the waiting room with the other mangled: soaking wet jet ski guys still in their wetsuits in for cracking into pier pilings/a hulking linebacker from a local HS team just blubbering like a little baby over a crushed toe, and various arms and legs twisted into interesting & playful balloon animal shapes. i was assigned some European guy of indeterminate nationality, & told him i had sprained my back on a roller coaster. after he stopped laughing, i got wheeled into x-ray. und ven der x-rays comz bak frum dis makina, he was still laughing. "well - a sprain, right?" i asked. "vell not-ting, Meester Bittler. let us putt eet dees vay...i vood not conzidder a career aas a pee-anno moo-var".
- right around here...
it was not only a sprain. i had crushed two vertebrae (T10 & T11)...one completely and one partially in a forward pitch. apparently, our spines are 'intelligently-designed' (sorry...couldn't resist) to collapse as shock absorbers - an injury common in car wrecks when a vehicle jumps the kerb or an obstruction, and slams the rider down into their seat. i had walked onto that roller coaster a stumpy Southern Mediterranean 5' 9 1/2"...and had left it a stumpier 5' 8''. my chest had changed shape, with the crushed vertebrae forcing my rib cage out a full inch. i had been very lucky that bone fragments had not sliced into my spinal cord. i was immediately given a fat shot of morphine and (then? later? more fuzzhead) fitted with a back brace that fit under my chin, raised my spine and transferred the weight of my upper body onto my hips...and hurt like HELL. of course, the hospital had given me a generous supply of (drummmmmrrroollllll!) Tylenol with Codeine....crap that had never worked on me even in fistfuls.
3 months? 4 months? more? less? serious fuzzhead for many months that's for sure. and physical therapy and back exercises at the Y and more follow-ups to Dr. Urtsklickstosh. and a nice pile of medical bills.
so as any American in a similar situation would do...i began to think that it was time to sue somebody...
[to be continued]
NP: my ears are still ringing from 23 minutes of "Sister Ray" from last night's show.
PEEVE DE JOUR: it should have been longer...
N.B.A.T.W.P.:
True Love is playing the Guitar World Magazine AIDS/Lifecycle benefit concert THIS TUESDAY night, May 2, at NYC's Knitting Factory along with NADA SURF
Tickets $12 adv./$15 doors
True Love is on @ 10:30, with Nada Surf after us.
Other bands include: The Anabolics, The Border Cops, The Browns, The Dave Diedrich Band, Dirty Dick, Drag Citizen, The Grand Old Party, James Wolfe, Live Perl, The Muscatels, Shattered NYC, Tornado Big Man
INFO: http://www.knittingfactory.com/index.php
in this case, how i busted my back on Coney Island's Cyclone roller coaster and became instantly old.
somehow - can't remember exactly - i was taken out to my house in Centerport, LI, and was deposited on our couch. the 'can't remember' happened because i was so full of ibuprophen & anything else D had left over from his various bodydings that it was/is a hazefogblur.
(it's only a sprain)
i also don't remember how long i stayed on that couch ( a few hours? days?). i do remeber getting upstairs to the bedroom, and trying to sleep..but i had to keep getting up because our crappy mattress just made my back ache more.
after about a week of this/no improvement/rotted-out stomach due to legal, scored, begged, any and all painkillers...i finally capitulated and made an appointment with an orthopedic doc (or rather 'sports medicine' doc as they grandly and high-billingly now call themselves).
(but it's only a sprain)
i am in the waiting room with the other mangled: soaking wet jet ski guys still in their wetsuits in for cracking into pier pilings/a hulking linebacker from a local HS team just blubbering like a little baby over a crushed toe, and various arms and legs twisted into interesting & playful balloon animal shapes. i was assigned some European guy of indeterminate nationality, & told him i had sprained my back on a roller coaster. after he stopped laughing, i got wheeled into x-ray. und ven der x-rays comz bak frum dis makina, he was still laughing. "well - a sprain, right?" i asked. "vell not-ting, Meester Bittler. let us putt eet dees vay...i vood not conzidder a career aas a pee-anno moo-var".
- right around here...
it was not only a sprain. i had crushed two vertebrae (T10 & T11)...one completely and one partially in a forward pitch. apparently, our spines are 'intelligently-designed' (sorry...couldn't resist) to collapse as shock absorbers - an injury common in car wrecks when a vehicle jumps the kerb or an obstruction, and slams the rider down into their seat. i had walked onto that roller coaster a stumpy Southern Mediterranean 5' 9 1/2"...and had left it a stumpier 5' 8''. my chest had changed shape, with the crushed vertebrae forcing my rib cage out a full inch. i had been very lucky that bone fragments had not sliced into my spinal cord. i was immediately given a fat shot of morphine and (then? later? more fuzzhead) fitted with a back brace that fit under my chin, raised my spine and transferred the weight of my upper body onto my hips...and hurt like HELL. of course, the hospital had given me a generous supply of (drummmmmrrroollllll!) Tylenol with Codeine....crap that had never worked on me even in fistfuls.
3 months? 4 months? more? less? serious fuzzhead for many months that's for sure. and physical therapy and back exercises at the Y and more follow-ups to Dr. Urtsklickstosh. and a nice pile of medical bills.
so as any American in a similar situation would do...i began to think that it was time to sue somebody...
[to be continued]
NP: my ears are still ringing from 23 minutes of "Sister Ray" from last night's show.
PEEVE DE JOUR: it should have been longer...
N.B.A.T.W.P.:
True Love is playing the Guitar World Magazine AIDS/Lifecycle benefit concert THIS TUESDAY night, May 2, at NYC's Knitting Factory along with NADA SURF
Tickets $12 adv./$15 doors
True Love is on @ 10:30, with Nada Surf after us.
Other bands include: The Anabolics, The Border Cops, The Browns, The Dave Diedrich Band, Dirty Dick, Drag Citizen, The Grand Old Party, James Wolfe, Live Perl, The Muscatels, Shattered NYC, Tornado Big Man
INFO: http://www.knittingfactory.com/index.php
posted by CBeezwax at 11:42 PM
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