It’s funny, I was planning to write a few weeks ago and use the same title, but for a totally different topic. I honestly do not remember the topic, but I can say it did not have the significance that I’m now using it. As most of you probably heard, I was involved in a little mishalf on Sept 9th. While cutting the grass, I had a pretty good sized tree limb come down and whack me in the head.
It knocked me out for just a second or two and then I rejoined reality. After that it took me another second or two to figure out what had happened. Once that happened, I could feel blood running down the back of my head and back. I was actually a bit trapped underneath the tree. The first conscience thing I did was to get my phone out of my pocket and dial Tim, my friend and neighbor. Nora was actually in town and it would have taken her around thirty minutes to get home.
So I called Tim, explained what had happened, he said he would be right over. I then somehow managed to get the limb off of me and the lawn mower, I went into the shop and grabbed some paper towels to hold against the wound in the back of my head to stop the bleeding. Tim arrived in a few minutes. I pulled the paper towels off the wound and asked him if I needed to go in and have it taken care of. Upon seeing the wound, Tim’s face turned white and he immediately said, get into the f!#&@ng car.
We got to the hospital in good time where Nora was waiting for us. I got checked in, they put staples in my scalp, there were quite a few as the dr had said the wound was 7cm long. After that, the got me in a room, got an IV setup and then it was off to radiology to get a cat scan done.
Upon getting the results back, it showed I had a small brain bleed. I have to take a blood thinner because of the mechanical valves and somehow my blood was extremely thin. So they gave me some medicine to thicken the blood and then sent me on my way to the hospital in Marquette, which was the closest hospital with a neuroscience staff.
Enroute to MQT, we got a call that said that the CT scan had also revealed I had fractured my C7 vertebrae. So the medic in the ambulance put me in a neck collar and we continued on. Once in MQT, the did another CT scan, which showed that the brain bleed had not gotten any worse, which was wonderful, as had it gotten worse, then I likely would have needed to have surgery up there. The fracture of my neck also looked pretty stable, so no surgery would be needed for that.
The next day, they repeated the CT scan to see if there was any more bleeding and there was none. So it looked pretty good that I had avoided two life threating injuries, All that was left to do was to remain in MQT for observation and also work go get my blooding thinning to the range I’m suppose to. On Friday morning I was able to head home. Somewhere in my encounters of the different medical professionals, someone said something like “it looks like the tree won the battle”, to which I replied, the tree may have one the battle, but it lost the war and showed them this picture.
On Tuesday the 19th, I went to my primary care Dr to have the stitches removed and while there, they noticed that my heart rate was high and blood pressure low. They did an EKG, which showed something was out of whack. It was not life threatening, but I would need to go back to Marquette to have things checked out. My primary care Dr had thought that based on the EKG done in her office, it was my pacemaker that was out of whack.
The folks in Marquette also believed that it was my pacemaker and something called Pacemaker Mediated Tachycardia, or PMT. I’m not going to get into the details, you all can google it if you are interested. The bottom line is that they were able to make adjustments to my pacemaker which solved the problem. So we were able to get home Wednesday evening and all has been well since then.
So to the luck thing…I know opinions will vary, but I’m not a strong believer in luck, especially the bad kind. In fact, I think there is no such thing as bad luck. I know bad thing happen to good people and it can be hard to find the reason, however, I really don’t look for the negatives in my life. Take this latest case…basically out of nowhere, a tree limb falls on my head and causes me to be in the hospital for almost a week.
Not once did ever think: Oh poor me. Why did this happen? What did I do to deserve this? I have been grateful for all of the help I got from the healthcare professionals, the fact that it could have been much worse, but wasn’t and grateful to be married to such a wonderful woman that has helped me get through this incident and all of those in the past.
I’m also grateful to the friends and family who have come to my rescue and have helped me get the chores done before winter sets in. Here is a shot of Nora’s brother, Joel, and my neighbor/buddy Tim reattaching the ramp to our outdoor shed.
The contractor who built out new home got wind of the fact that Joel, Tim and I were going to be putting up the screens in the back porch and said that they would come down and take care of it for me. So two of their crew arrived yesterday and got all the screens in and today they returned to put the door in and also put trim and siding up.
There are many other things in this latest adventure that I am grateful for, but will save you from any further expounding on them except for one…
The weather this month has been absolutely wonderful. Very little rain, lots of sunshine and temps in the upper 60’s to low 70’s for highs, with lows in the mid 50’s. The autumn color show is just getting underway in most of the Keweenaw. On our trip to Marquette last week, Nora and I did notice that the higher elevations between L’Anse and Marquette had quite a bit of color in them, with most other areas just some splashes. We have some those splashes right here in our own backyard.
Both Nora and I are looking forward to this winter and being able to sit by the fire and take it all in. The forecast looks to keep our beautiful weather going for at least another week to ten days, which should make for some awesome colors. I will try my best to keep you all informed on things. Until next time…
Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD
