So at 59 000kms friend Michael stripped the XT's motor. Jip bigend bearings and 2nd and 3rd gears a bit worn.
I told him to do the lot. Sadly I have no pics of this. A month later the Tenere was running smooth. A great job
done by Michael. I ran it in carefully.
27/3/2001
THE BIG BANG.
I rode into town from where I live on the farm and passing infront of the school in Lutzville I got hit
by a blind woman. She must have been blind not seeing me. :biggrin:I was doing about 50km/h.
I came to in the middle of the road and one of the first things I heard was this female voice saying
"but I did not see him"!!! (see was driveing strait at me)!!!!!!
I realized i was paralized from my nipples down. I have NO words to describe what went through my mind at that stage.
That's all I'm saying about that is what Forrest Gump would have said.
Michael was called to pick up the Tenere. Doctor came and gave me some injections and the ambulance arrived.
When I saw Michael i told him our rideing is done.
He looked me in the eye and said " ons sal sien " The ambulance
took me to Vredendal hospital and the ride there was no joy with a broken rib in my right lung!!!
As luck
would have it all choppers and planes were busy elsewhere in the WC. I just laid there and waited and the pain
got worse BUT the feeling slowly got back in my legs and torso. My rightleg remained paralized. At 11.30pm that
night i clock in at N1 hospital in CT after an 30 min flight. The accident was at 13.45pm. Yes luck have gone awol
on that day for me!!!
After three MRI scans over the next week i was told i had broken all ribs on the right on the spine and one
got broken in the middel and went into my right lung. I crunched vertebrae T 6-8 and this nicked the spinalcord.
This caused the rightleg to be paralized. A 4 and a half hour opp was done to put in a fusion where the vertebrae were.
After the opp i was kept under for a week. Not nice wakeing up and you have missed a week!!!!!! Three weeks
after the opp i got a nice prezzie!!!! Bloodclot in my leftlung!! MRI again and back into ICU!! Nice!!!!
One of the hardest things I've done in my life was phoneing my boss of nearly ten years and telling him he
should look for a replacement diver. We were in tears on both sides of the phone.
I liked my job.
I lost
17 kgs in the first month in hospital off a 80 kg frame and then was moved to a rehab hospital in Wynberg
for another 6 weeks. There were 26 patients and I was the only one that would ever walk (well sort of)
I litterally started crawling first before i could walk again with cruches. On good days i would wheel myself
out onto the pavement with the wheelchair to watch people and feel the wind and sun on my skin. The worst
was the pain. My body did not like the fusion and rebeled against in and still do today. To cope with pain i learned
very early on to take my mind elsewhere, thus i became the worlds best daydreamer.
I left that hospital after 2 and a half months on two crutches. I was told that what mobility i gain in two years in
my right leg is what i will have for the rest of my life. I forced my bigtoe to move one Sundayafternoon by stareing at
it and willing it to move by my brain. Big deal you might think but that was the start of what i have today. I moved in with my
Mom and went to gim every day. Could not drive and hated being dependant on other people. Frustrating to say the
least!!
At about August of that year i started driveing my old bakkie(did not want to smash the new one)!!! with one
foot. It was a manual but i coped. Now i could get somewhere.
Michael fixed the Tenere by sending the forks to CT to have them straitend and all of the minor other stuff.December of that year
he brought the bike all the way to Stillbay!!
I walked around it and said "start hom" and he did and
he helped my leg over and i rode down the farmroad for about a kilo. I was still wearing a brace but it was VERY clear
my back wanted nothing of this bikerideing!!!
I parked the bike in the garage and Michael and I walked back into my house. As we walked into my liveingroom
my elderly mother looked up at Michael (not me) and asked/said " hy gaan weer ry ne ?"
To be continued.....
Topic: Some oldies. (Read 12890 times)
