Still laying low which I know people find hard to imagine. Today I parked myself under the deck in the shade with my book and enjoyed a pretty full day of reading. Kelli arrived home late afternoon and begins work at the Foothills tomorrow morning at 6 AM!
Thought today would be a good day to revisit one of the scariest, perhaps most memorable Canada Days our family has every experienced.
Several years ago Bill and I were out at Mt. Kidd on a camping weekend with friends. We were just heading back to the campsite after a great day of hiking when my cell phone rang. You know it's a bad call when your son is telling you to be calm before he has even told you what happened. Turns out my Dad was riding his bike into Invermere to drop off his taxes at the tax office. When he reached the turnoff toward Invermere he was struck by a very large motor home. Medical personnel had wanted to airlift him to Calgary however there were thunder showers in the region that night so they decided instead to transport him by ambulance to Cranbrook. I have talked about his hospital experience at the Cranbrook Hospital in previous blogs so won't revisit that part of the story. Suffice to say I have told my family if I am ever a trauma case shoot me before you take me to Cranbrook. Kelli has since worked here and assures us things are much improved but Dad and I had such a negative experience there I'm not sure either of would ever consider giving them a second chance. When he was finally discharged we returned to Windermere for a long summer of recuperation. I pretty much spent the summer out there with dad and although the circumstances of the visit weren't great we still enjoyed our summer together. I learned the fine art of pruning (I'm not sure that's the right term) Begonias and became an expert at pinching off male and female parts. Sounds a little sadistic doesn't it!? After a few weeks of being back in Windermere we went to the RCMP office to see if we could retreive Dad's bike. The office was quiet that day and when we walked in the officer the desk took a distinct double take and then exclaimed "You're alive! We thought you had died!" The amazing thing is that I do believe most people Dad's age would have died from a collision of that magnitude. Several weeks after the accident I saw a picture that had been published in the Valley Echo of Dad lying in the middle of the highway with medics and police everywhere. I also saw a picture of the motor home that had hit him! It was stunning to think he had survived that! Probably one of the most upsetting and disturbing things about this whole thing was that we never once heard from the people who had struck him down. I remember commenting to someone about this and they said that people would not do this because it might in someway hurt them should the case ever come to a law suit. I myself cannot imagine hitting someone on a bicycle and never once making inquiries as to how that person was doing or if he had in fact survived. There was no blame placed on the driver of the motor home so this seems like a very weak excuse. You just have to give your head a shake. In any case I watched my Dad go through his rehab. One thing about Dad... give him a program to recover and he will commit to it 120% I have watched him go through many things over the years, including his knee replacement. He is totally disciplined and determined to do whatever it takes. There are no short cuts, there are no days off....if anything we are always trying to rope him in! I'm hoping I have a little of that tenacity in myself, although over this past week I haven't been inclined to do much. Once I start to rebound a little though I will be back on the walking paths, back on the bike paths, back at my workouts, back on the golf course. Once again the blog has pointed something pretty important out to me. When you do nothing there is nothing to talk about...the days tend to run together into a series of grey days despite the sunny skies above. I know I need to get back at it and I know it is frustrating for those who care about me to watch me happy to sit. But sometimes you have to sit before you throw yourself into the activity part of recovery. There is a fine balance and at the moment what I need is time for my blood to recover so that my energy levels will rebound to a level where I can start to enjoy the things I love to do. This includes spending time with people. So be patient.....I will be back....it's just taking a little time to get there. All is good!
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