I was a bit worried when I heard from Jeremiah on Sunday: I crossed the Straights of Magellan on a 3-hour ferry ride yesterday: I am now officially on the island of Tierra del Fuego. But though I am only 284 miles short of my southernmost goal on the island’s opposite tip–I simply cannot go […]
It’s rather tough to sit and lie here in Southern California while fielding e-mails from my riding partner and good samaritan extraordinaire Jeremiah. But it is what it is; as the adage goes. Since leaving me to to get on my way with my medical evacuation Jeremiah has slowly made his way south through Chile […]
It’s been 29 days since my accident in Tica Tica, Bolivia. 26 days since my surgery in Newport Beach, California. I’m moving around on the crutches more easily. I’m off the narcotics and have switched to Advil. My leg still stiffens up at night. I wake. Stretch and flex the bugger. Then have a hard […]
I tried to get as much sleep as possible that first night in the hospital. It’d been a long journey to get here — three and a half days to be exact. But I’d spend the next three and a half in that hospital bed. I gave the nursing staff and my doctor a scare […]
I’m getting tired of sleeping, pain killers and doing nothing. Some say I should relish in my down time. I’d like to spice it up. I’m coming along. The nights are the hardest. Between pain medicine wearing off and my leg immobile for hours while I sleep, I wake up stiff and in pain. A […]
Had my first doctor’s appointment today; a week and a half after surgery. He carefully unraveled the gauze around the splint his team put on me in the operating room while revealing some nasty blood stains that caused me to turn away from the view of my own appendage. I don’t like blood. I don’t […]
Glorious ocean view private room and the sunset taken from my hospital bed. Hoag Hospital sits on the bluffs in Newport Beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In the north end of this Southern California playground that has captured the country’s attention through the silly TV program “The O.C.”, the hospital is the tallest structure around. […]
When I woke up from the anesthesia I was back in my hospital room with my roommates. A crowd of visitors had gathered by the elderly man in the corner diagonally from me. Last night my moans of pain didn’t bother him as he muttered and spoke in his sleep. But he didn’t speak Spanish. […]
I wake up to the sound of water splashing on the floor of my hospital room. A squatty lady in a smock holding a bucket of water hanging on her arm flicks water over the floor with her other hand. She leaves and quickly returns with a mop which she pushes through the room, under […]
In a state somewhere between awake and sleep three hours had passed. The rain, thunder and lightning added dramatic effect to my sprawled body with my left leg in a cardboard box splint as I laid in the Tica Tica medical clinic. Still no ambulance. In a town with one telephone, one restaurant and no […]
