Oct 20th

A couple of days passed in my hospital bed, still refusing to accept my accident and my broken body, but the bandages, my pain, and my even more painful immobility proved me wrong too many times. Nurses coming in and out of my room at all times introduced themselves amicably, and were willing to exchange a little chit-chat while they prepared my medications or while they took my blood pressure. I maintained a stable, even cheerful image during this time, even though my mind was constantly reeling, trying to figure out what would this accident mean for my life. In the past, I’ve learned to calmly accept all events in life as irreversible and to try to make the best of whatever the current situation is, but when the doctors explained that my surgeries would insert metallic pieces in me to keep my bones together, and when I saw an inkling of hesitation when they predicted a full, though long recovery, I could not help but feel forlorn at the loss of a great asset: my body, my health.

I guess it was lucky that the iPhone 3GS in my pocket survived the accident perfectly intact, covered by the $1.38 hard plastic cover I bought on Amazon, though I would’ve gladly had it break in exchange for one of my legs. This phone allowed me to focus on things beyond my external fixtures and my hospital room. I could still keep in touch with people and email, find information about the meds I was getting on wiki, and watch netflix instant movies to pass time.

Shame and sadness deep inside me, I refused to tell any of my friends or family about my accident. I kept it to myself as I do most things, following the rule of minimal information. Who needed to know about this? No one… yet. The nurses and doctors were taking good care of me. But then my friends began asking where the hell I was (no more than 3 other people knew about the bike trip I’d begun 5 days before), so I told them I was in a hospital in Indianapolis, recovering from a grave car-bike accident. After that the news spread quickly through my social neighborhood, and then that very night, after the surgery on my right shoulder, I woke up to a reality check: to see my brother walking into my hospital room, just recently flown from Austin that same afternoon.