03 Feb 2008, 6:56 pm / Anxious
It's been 16 months and two laminectomies with rod insertions that I have rode. It's a little scarey. Why I don't know. I have been riding since I was 11, yet here I am 46 years later, scared to death to get back on the bike to ride. The accident happened in 1997. I was at Daytona Bike week riding out of Bulow Campground when I drunken cager rearended me. I remember hitting my left leg on handlebar, flying forward into windshield screaming "oh shit, not again", then waking up on cement pavement with an unknown woman holding me in her arms. I woke up, pulled my helmet off, and had the worst hip & neck pain imaginable. I was lying on my left side with my head in this woman's lap. Her husband was measuring the scene, while other bikers were trying to detain the cager until the cops showed up. I know he was speeding over 65mph in a 45 mph zone. In order to know that, I would have had to be doing that, but I had already stopped with both feet down on the pavement. He never stopped. The HJC 3/4 helmet broke my cervical spine at C6-C7, where there are also now titanium rods in place. And at the time of crash, I broke lots of body parts. They healed eventually. But in October of 2006 for the first time in along time, I helped lifted a patient in bed, and the disks that were ruptured in that accident way back in 1997, finally ruptured in my lower back. Having NO health insurance, I had to play the free clinic game. I went for months in severe pain, until I could take the pain no longer, and walked into a lawyer's office for worker's comp & a neurosurgeon's office to show I had an attorney working on this case. First surgery took place. Doc was in a hurry, flew in from out of state to do an emergency surgery on me, and we think he goofed. He said I'd be fine in 6 weeks. Less than 6 weeks later the pain was worse than before surgery, and had to do the ER visit for non-insured patients and sit for hours before being seen. I finally got in, doc was called and I had another emergency back surgeries done, but not by the same doc, by his partner. This time the rods/bolts/screws were inserted because the first doc's surgery collapsed from the cement he inserted. No support was added to my spinal cord area. So I have until June to actually heal, as I'm a slow healer. I want to get back in the saddle so bad, but am really afraid that after all of this time, that 1100# motorcycle and I might no longer have a lasting relationship. A friend of mine two weeks ago, who has also been riding as long as I have, told me I no longer need to prove things to others. She & I have both been hardcore women bikers with big bikes. We both have ridden cross country, spent our lives with kids on bikes. She went from a big harley to a small 450cc Honda because of the weight of the bike. Easier to pick up. I know she is right, I have nothing to prove to anyone anymore. I have always ridden full-dressed motorcycles. It has always been a thrill to ride, and be recognized as a loner/nomad/gypsy on a bike. A woman who can handle her own. A woman who needed no man to ride with as she wanted her independence. I still have nothing to prove. So if I go to a lighter bike, no matter what the make is, it will be because after all that has happened, I can still ride. I can still be me. And who knows, I have a man who loves me, and this time I won't make the same mistake I did for years before. My late husband always begged and pleaded with me to ride behind him. Mr. Hardcore biker. I flatly refused because of who I am. Yet this time, I don't want to lose those precious moments riding and being with someone because of my pride. I might just sit on the back to hold onto the man I now truly love. And then again I might not.............as I still am a proud woman who hates to be the bitch.........
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