HEALTH JOURNEY ON A ROUGH ROAD

A ‘health journey’ is a phrase used by people with lots of doctor appointments.

If you’re old enough you either take that rough road yourself, or you show up for others on it.

Personally, I’ve never liked the term.

I like it even less when it applies to young people coming down with old people problems.

Speaking for all old people, the youths deserve better.

My first step in a health journey began when my brother did a wheelie on his trike with me standing on the back step barefoot.

I was maybe five year old.

He popped his wheelie at the exact moment my foot touched the ground to push him faster.

Neither of us knew my foot was under the back step when it came down on my big toe.

We didn’t know then that some parts of the trike were stamped out of steel plate that left a razor sharp blade on the edges.

I ran in the house with a bloody foot that was more blood than I’d ever seen.

My mom put a bandaid on it, then another and another, and it kept bleeding.

Finally she got a clean washrag and applied direct pressure to stem the flow.

As I grew bigger my toe scar migrated up the top of my foot due to skin stretching to cover a size 12.

In other words, I started my health journey with a limp.

 

Go Faster 

In sixth grade I was coming into my own.

More than a little brother to someone who was already getting known around town for good things, I was quarterback for my flag football team.

The future never looked brighter in the autumn of 1967: Broadway Dave and the Bangor Bearcats. (Bearcats? I think it was Bearcats. Anyone?)

My school was on Broadway street, not Broadway Broadway like Broadway Joe.

I don’t want any unnecessary misunderstandings, like the time I discovered the Empire State Building wasn’t in Empire, Oregon.

 It’s still not.

Broadway Dave has a nice ring and it’s only taken all this time to think of it.

So, a week before the first game I’m walking to school beside the ballpark’s outfield on Madrona.

My center rides up on his bicycle and asks if I want a ride.

I said yes, but I’m pedaling. He agreed.

Right off the bat I stood up on the pedals and said, “Let’s see how fast this thing can go.”

My center got frightened and started moving around on the top tube.

“Slow down, Slow down,” he said.

More worry and moving and then he did the one thing you never want to do when you’re the one sitting side saddle on the top tube.

He bent his forward leg.

I’m up top pedaling like a bitch and he bent his forward leg right into the spokes of the wheel, sudden stop, and launched me in a pretty good arc.

He stayed with the bike since his leg was wound around the front forks and he was yelling.

 

That Damn Collar Bone

The arc I flew eventually landed on the street. I didn’t land on my face, but my head and shoulders.

One broken collar bone later . . .

It was on the same side when I broke it playing swinging statue. You know, the kids’ game where the biggest kid swings smaller kids by the arm, lets them fly, and they freeze in place when they land?

I landed on the sidewalk and broke my collar bone.

Both times hurt like hell. It’s awful, just ask anyone.

The moment it breaks, it breaks you.

Look at video of mounted police swinging their sticks in a riot; they’re aiming for that damn collar bone.

 

After I landed in the street I jumped up and helped my center untangle his leg from his front forks, then it hit me.

I almost puked. Instead, I leaned against the fence. Fuck, there goes my football season.

No Broadway Dave, no victory parade after wins over Hillcrest and Roosevelt.

No star quarterback, but the next year in tackle football the coach recruited me.

“You could play quarterback if you lost a few pounds and got under the weight limit.”

From then on it was the defensive side of the ball for me. Weight limit?

 

The Health Journey Of Life As We Know It

The vignettes you read are my push to show the health journey doesn’t begin with a phone call at sixty-two that starts with, “I hope you’re sitting down.”

It’s not about your grandma, grandpa, mom, or dad; your bother, your uncle, or your favorite cousin.

In the most OK Boomer style, it is your health journey and your’s alone.

It’s full of woe and misfortune, but it’s also full of the greatest joys.

I spent the night in the hospital after my oldest son’s surgery; my daughter’s in-law spent the night Grandy’s room as she faded away.

My greatest joy is as universal as the sun and the moon; someone close to me survived an event that takes out 90% who get it.

In the correct order of things, I’d be the next one out the door, not them. But I don’t have a say.

And I’m in no hurry, unlike the driver who crashed into me recently and totaled my car.

I’ll stick around as long as you’ll have me, and as long as I keep up with payments for running a blog like boomerpdx.

In closing, remember this: a health journey isn’t all about the end, there’s also a beginning and a middle.

Where are you?