Memoir Monday: How I developed my life-long fear of Kombie vans.

If you happened to be driving past PBC High School in April of 1991, you may have noticed a stain on the road, not too big, a dark rust-coloured stain.

That stain was my DNA, smeared all over the road.

As part of Memoir Monday, as started by Travis at I Like to Fish, let me explain how this stain, a kombie van and a pack of cigarettes all relate to the day I nearly died.

Can you believe I've actually forgotten the exact date? I nearly died, but can't remember the date.

April sometime, 1991, I'm 14 and wasting time with my mates before high school, hanging out in a park next to the school. Being the bad-ass that I am, I have started hanging around with "the bad element" and have picked up smoking as a way to prove I'm cool to the cute older boys in the group. :oP (Hey, I never claimed to be a brain surgeon.)

So today I have decided to use my lunch money to buy a pack of cigarettes. Yes, thank you, that is excellent decision making, isn't it?

I borrow a pushbike off a girlfriend, and start heading down toward the corner store, where they have a decidedly loose policy on checking ID to by cigarettes. I'm pretty sure I could've bought a nuclear warhead from this store. I'm heading back, when I hear another friend call out from across the road. Of course, I turn my head to look at her as I answer.

Here was my big problem. I was a very occasional bike rider. I did, however, ride a horse at least once a day for a few hours a day. One of the basic principles of riding a horse is that where you look, you tilt your body, and steer your horse. Problem: bikes work kinda like that too. As I look across the road, my body unconsciously leans in that direction, and steers me out onto the road.

I realise what is happening almost immediately, and correct myself, snapping my head round to check what's coming.

And make eye contact with the headlight of an orange kombie van... I can see the headlight through the black bars of the bullbar on the front. It seems impossibly close, that can't be right.

I realise this kombie is in fact that close, and it's going to hit me. Strangely, I'm not scared. I remember thinking "Oh, this is going to hurt."

Funnily enough, it didn't. Oh sure, I got a sore head (where the back of my head smashed the windscreen. The helmet? Safely hanging from the handlebars, thanks for asking), but I didn't actually feel much pain at this stage. Charming stuff, adrenaline.

I remember feeling the breath whoosh out of me, and the hard jolt and scrape of hitting the bitumen. The kombie had hit me on my right side, and I was all tangled up in the bike. I remember trying to push myself off the bike, but nothing responding like it's supposed to.

Then two friends are there, pulling me clear of the bike and laying me on the footpath. One is a senior guy I sort of know, and another is a good friend of mine. He's sitting with my head on his lap, sussing me out while the older boy is doing something to my leg. I can't feel it. A girlfriend is holding my hand, and I see my other friend running across the park toward the school, for help I presume. I am mortified. I have spend my entire school career trying not to be noticed or singled out, and then I go and create a spectacle like this! The friend with my head on his lap won't let me up, he keeps his arms crossed across my chest and my shoulders pressed into his legs. He's talking at me, but I'm not really paying attention.

I struggle to sit up, he presses me down. I get upset and struggle harder. Realising he's dealing with emotion and not logic, he lets me sit up.

Oh.

Bad.

Idea.

My right leg is a mushy red mess. Now, suddenly, I'm in pain. A lot. It's like my brain needed a bit of prompting to react. Is she really hurt? Not sure, check with the eyes. Oh yeah, she's fucked up. Ow.

Now, I see the school principle striding across the park towards us. Remarkably, I have the presence of mind to slip the cigarette pack out of my sweater sleeve where I hid them earlier, and palm them to a friend. I don't want to get in trouble, after all.

By this stage, the driver of the van is here, babbling apologies. She was a Mum, on her way back from dropping her kids at school. Poor woman, I jump out in front of her, and she feels responsible. She is holding my hand, and my whole arm is shaking. I remember thinking very clearly, "Oh, I'm shaking, I'm probably going into shock. Someone should get me a blanket." Interestingly, I keep this information to myself.

About the same time, a paramedic turns up. Where'd he come from? Oh, it appears an ambulance has turned up. I have no idea when, I didn't notice it.

When the driver of the van is convinced to let go of my hand, I am barely trembling. Turns out it was her shaking, so hard it made my whole arm shake. She needs oxygen. I remember feeling sorry for her.

The paramedics give me a delightful green whistle. This contains pain killers, the dope-you-out-of-your-head kind. They put my mushy leg in a temporary splint and do other very efficient, in-charge kind of stuff. I'm vaguely impressed.

I don't remember much about the ambulance trip, but according to my friend who came in the ambulance with me, I am hilarious when on morphine.

In the end, I have a horribly broken right shin, go into surgery to and end up with external traction (bolts sticking out of my shin, with scaffolding over the top holding it all together). I will spend pretty much the rest of the year graduating from this, to a thigh cast, to a walking cast, to a limp. Other than some cuts to the back of my head, the rest of me is unscathed.

Some days, I can't believe how lucky I am.

Memoir Monday - The Honeymooon is Over

Alrighty, it's that time again, where I jump on Travis' bandwagon at I Like to Fish.

So this weeks Memoir comes from my honeymoon trip to Daydream Island, romantic paradise for starry eyed lovers. Well, except me of course, instead of ending up in a blissful loved-up state of newly wedded ecstacy, I ended up in hospital. Welcome to my life (and that of my long-suffering husband's!).

The trip started off well, the morning after our awesome wedding, we grabbed our pre-packed bags, left the luxury hotel and jetted off to our island paradise. Champagne on arrival, and minimal bitching to get moved from the room right over the kids pool to the suite overlooking the ocean. Score!

The first two days were spent pretty much as you imagine the first two days of a honeymoon might be. Then came DayThree.

Day three involved a catamaran cruise around the surrounding islands and reefs. Lovely. As we boarded, I was vaguely aware of an officious sounding girl warning us all to remember that sharks are bitey and to re-apply our sunscreen. Pfft! I thought, I'm not going anywhere near a scuba mask, and sure, those pasty Poms over there might need to worry about re-applying sunscreen every 10 minutes, but I'm a Gold Coast girl, I never burn!! I had put some 30+ on that morning, so decided I was covered. Tra la la.... where's my mimosa?

Now, had I stopped for just a second here to contemplate that reasoning, I may have saved myself a boat load of pain and suffering. But nope, I knew better. Sure, when I was 21 and living off the generosity of the Government, partying every night and cruising the beaches of the Gold Coast every day, I did indeed have a righteous tan, and never did burn, a lucky inheritance of my Dad's olive complexion. I had, however forgotten that in the interim, I wised up, got a job and spent the next 7 years inside an office. Problem.

But back to the catamaran. Mimosa in hand, I clambered out onto the big slingy thing made of trampoline material, assumed the "lady of luxury" pose, and began sunning myself. We then set off on the 2 hour trip to Whitehaven Beach, where, being the water-babe I am, I decided not to wait for the little dinghy to shuttle me to the beach, but to follow suit with all the other people who simply dived overboard and swam to shore.

For those who live in less sunny climes, water washes suncreen off. Especially salt water.

Tra la la... we frolicked on the beach for a while, then all swam back to the cat to resume the cruise. The cruise on which I spent the rest of the day with my legs hanging over the side, catching the sun and sights of the Whitsunday Islands.

When we got off the catamaran and headed for our room, I noticed my legs were a bit pink. I said to newly titled hubby, "No worries, I'll just slap some moisturiser on and they'll be lovely and golden by morning... just like the old days, watch and see."

Indeed....

Later that night, I awoke in agony. My legs were throbbing, searing hot and so sensitive that the cotton sheets moving over them felt like razor blades. I inched my way off the bed and sat up, putting my feet on the floor. OOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!! I felt like my shins were going to split open. I tried to wake hubby, but those Crown Lagers may as well have been morphine, the guy was out to it. I hobbled to the bathroom, ran a lukewarm bath (the best temperature for treating sunburn, I remembered), and sat in it. No relief. Then I ran a cold bath. Nothing. Then, inspiration struck... I wet some towels, and put them in the bar fridge in the room, one even got wedged in the little baby freeezer in it. Then, I got back in the bath and after half an hour, added these towels to my about-to-self-immolate legs. By this stage, the rest of my body was shaking with chills.

So here I spent the night, the top half of me wrapped in towels to keep from shaking like a bloody Chihuahua, and the bottom half feeling like it was aflame. Glamourama, huh?

The next morning, hubby was dispatched to the island pharmacy, with strict instructions to bring back either something that would fix me, or a gun to shoot myself with. After buying nearly every sunburn treatment they offered, and applying them all, still nothing, I was in agony.

Poor hubby spent the remainder of his honeymoon nursing me through that day and the next night, til the ferry came to take us back to the mainland. Well, not so much nursing me as asking me why was I carrying on so much, it was only a bit of sunburn for goodness sake. In his defence, he's from New Zealand, and has very limited knowledge of the sun's effect on human skin. He honestly didn't get how much this hurt.

So we get to the mainland, pick up our rental car and before we set off on our road trip home, I convince him it might be worth popping into the local medical centre to see about my legs, which are still red raw, throbbing and feel like they are about to split open every time I get vertical. The woman at the medical centre takes one look at me and sends us to the nearby regional hospital. With much eye-rolling and comments about hysterical old nannas, hubby takes me.

We arrive at the hospital, and hooray for being out in the sticks, I am the only person in the ER. We get seen straight away. As the Doctor is fussing over my poor, swollen, lobster-red legs, hubby pipes up with a question about surely this can't be all that serious, it's just a sunburn for Heaven's sake.

The Doctor shoots him an incredulous look. "Tell me, would you be at all worried if she had tipped a pot of boiling water on herself?"

Hubby looks horrified, "Of course, that'd be, like, a major injury!"

"Well, this is just about as bad. Imagine the water was just about to boil instead. Your wife has second-degree burns on about 20 percent of her body. She is in extreme pain, has lost the ability to regulate her temperature, and, as the blisters worsen, is vunerable to infection."

"Holy shit!"

"Indeed."

"Does this mean I can get some some pain meds now?" This last comment is from me.

A few hours later, after an application of industrial-strength salve, the begged-for pain meds and a list of care instructions, we set off on the 3 day drive home. By this stage, I am laughing like a drain (the meds, remember) at my ability to un-romanticise any given occasion, even my own honeymoon. Hubby is shell-shocked and babbling apologies about not taking my melodrama seriously.

The trip home was actually pretty fun. I had my drugs and salve, and hubby and I have always been good at road trips. My legs healed quickly and I still have fond memories of sitting in a steamy shower in a motel in Bundaberg, peeling long strips of skin off my legs, completely grossing hubby out. Hee hee.

A Break in Time

A friend of mine's 11 year old broke her leg yesterday. She was just riding her bike, and came off when their family dog was in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Just one of those things that happen to kids all the time, it's not nice, but she'll be fine.

I was round there today and have noticed a big change in my friend, her Mum. S has always said she's not a 'mumsy' mum, she's a great mum, don't get me wrong, but she's what I like to call a Lioness Mum. Fiercely protective of her kids, loves them to pieces, but not so much a 'baby-er' of her kids now that they're older. And she's raised great, smart, independent kids. A even wanted to go to school today, thigh cast and all, because she's not one to mope around, she's a doer.

I noticed today though, and last night when I was on the phone to S, this nuturing side of her come out. Her whole voice and demeanour change when she talks to A, she is hopping and fetching for her without complaint and is constantly watching her face, like she's looking for signs of pain. She's still S though, cracking jokes and seeing the humour in it, but only now she knows she'll be fine.

When I was 14 I was hit by a car, and lucky to escape with a badly broken leg. I was in external traction (metal bolts drilled into the bone and sticking out my shin!!) and in bed for like a month, then in a cast and then a walking cast for the rest of the year, and this happened in April. I think I'm only just getting now how hard that must've been for Mum. And Dad, this big, boofy bloke with huge hands, who was the only one I'd let sponge my leg, because he was able to do it so delicately I'd barely feel a thing. I guess it's not just Mums who step up when their kids need them. :)

Get well soon A.