When you think of it I suppose you could consider Nathalie and I something of Medical Miracles… and here is why…

8 1/2 weeks after a massive front end collision requiring us to be cut out of the car:

Naddy was 6 weeks in a cast and now out, ankle not broken through some miracle even the doctors cannot explain. Rather while still swelling it is perfectly fine and will recover.

For me.. well… ha ha
1. Fever of life threatening degree cleared up in the 3 days after the accident
2. A severely bruised kidney healed completely in 3 weeks
3. A lung with clearly apparent bruising and fluid cleared in 1 week
4. 4 completely fractured ribs healed in 4 weeks
5. Fractured clavicle healed in 6 weeks
7. Whiplash was the worst and longest to heal with memory loss, dizzy spells, loss of balance, blurred vision but now all gone.

Doctors, physio and all else cannot quite explain it but expect me to rock climb within a few weeks again and Naddy can be swimming and on a bike again already. Call it angles, luck or just a medical miracle… it takes far more to kill us I suppose.

That being said, I don’t wish to go through any of that again, but here’s a hint.. in such cases pain killers do nothing so don’t take em. And if anyone questions your state of mind afterwards laugh at them, you bounced back from something 10x worse and 10x faster than what most people will ever experience.

David McCullough, Mornings of Horseback. If you have not read it, go do. I am in a TR mood lately, not the most elegant man in our history but certainly had a mind for things.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

“Citizenship in a Republic,”

Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910 

Wow… just wow
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Needing a new hobby to keep me occupied, and also something to work out and strengthen my broken shoulder I decided to take up the hobby of knife making. I’ve never done this before and knew very little about it, though I use a knife nearly daily, it is odd how you never think how they are made… well now I know.The first knife was a kit knife from maker Brusletto, one of the very best in Scandinavian knife makers. The kit was for a ‘Falken’ hunting/skinning knife so not much purpose for me but included all the parts and a pre-turned handled, very helpful to learn the basics before I take on making my own handles. 

The kit includes:

• Falken blade
• Wood pre-cut handle
• Aluminum spor
• pre-cut leather sheath
• plastic sheath insert
• sheath rivet
• needle and thread
• instructions

The first step is a safety item, cover the blade to prevent cutting yourself. Here I used a folded bit of shipping package and masking tape which worked quite well.

The next step is to sand down the handle till it is nice and smooth and feels nice. The spor did not quite fit right before sanding so that also needed some work.

Once sanded (using progressively fine sand paper) it was then time to seal the handle. I did not want to use modern wood sealers as they are a bit harsh and all chemicals. Further they can be rough on the hand and I wanted a more natural feel. For this I gave the handle three coats of Teak Oil (a mixture of turpentine and linseed oil). This also gave the handle a wonderful deep warm color.

Because the knife could be used outdoors (as it should be!) it also was important to weather seal the handle. Again, wanting a natural way to do this I used a very ancient technique (something even used on Punic warships to weather seal them)… beeswax. It is cheap, can be sourced direct from bee keepers and is fantastic. You heat it in a plastic container floating in a pot of hot water on the stove. Then rub the hot wax over the handle with a cotton cloth. Once on it hardens very quickly and you polish this off with a second cloth.

Once polished the handle is ready to meet up the blade. To do this I taped up all parts I did not want to get glue all over with masking tape. Then filled the handle with epoxy glue and stuck all the parts together. The assembly then goes into a vice overnight to harden.

While the handle dries we can discuss the sheath.

Step 1 was to sew in the belt loop, I taped this down and marked out where the sewing was to go.

Without having an awl yet I used a nail to make the holes, then sew it up.

The next step was to fold over the leather and install the rivet, easily done with care and a hammer. Then the above was repeated to sew the length of the sheath. Finally the plastic insert slides into the sheath to protect it from the extremely sharp blade.

So with this all done it was time to remove the knife from the vice, provide a final polish to the entire thing and it is finished!

I’m rather happy with this project as it kept me occupied for about a week and was fun to have something impressive, functional and hand made as a result. I’ve ordered some more blades and the next knives I intent to carve my own handles for, so stay tuned!

Crossing the Line is a new 15 minute short film directed by Peter Jackson (LOTR ). He shot this as a test for some fancy new digital movie cameras. In reality, what he did with virtually no budget and within a handful of days is produce on of the most visually stunning films of WWI ever to be made.

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This is not an April fools joke…. but my past, current and future week:

1. Visit Fracture Clinic, get check X-Ray, bones will heal (yay)
2. Visit Doctor for Blood work, Kidney functions alright, Liver a bit odd, followup needed (boo)
3. Visit Ultrasound Department, Kidney well healed (yay) fluid in left lung (boo)
4. Visit Fracture Clinic to further checkup on broken bones (find out tomorrow)
5. Visit Doctor to further test Liver function to ensure no damage (find out Friday)
6. Visit Physiotherapy Clinic to check on spine, arm movements and nerve damage (Find out next Friday)

I’m tired of doctors, I really am :-p

Let me explain my week…

On Sunday, 8 March Naddy and I took a trip north above Oban to an area known as Appin for a weekend away. This was our first real vacation with only the 2 of us ever, and we really needed to get away because of all the stresses of life of late.

We went hiking, saw the sealife centre, purchased a wonderful wool blanket, visited Oban in the rain, saw some castles, etc.

On Sunday evening we went out for dinner. Returning it was dark, very very dark with none-to-perfect and disorienting driving conditions. We met a car on a hill.

Let me explain a direct front end collision. It hurts, it really F’n hurts. The first minute or two is the worst and no pain yet or later is worse than your body trying to remember what lungs are, if it has them and if they work. If they do, let me tell you that is an amazing feeling when you realize so-long-as that is ok, nothing else is a problem.

So we sat there, and sat there, and sat there in the cold and some rain unable to really move or get out of the car and in quite a bit of pain. We sat there nearly half and hour before rescue crews arrived. It is a volunteer emergency service area and took some time. Crews from Appin, Oban and Glencoe attended.

Well the only way to get out is with a really good pair of cutters, so that is what they did. Basically for the next 30 minutes we were live human sardines in a can as they turned what was a Renault Twingo into several chunks of neatly cut metal. Oh yeah, you don’t get medications as that time either. You get oxygen, I used a few bottles of that all that up, Naddy was refusing it, and not to be selfish but I was happy to have all that I wanted but you get nothing else.

So now the fun of moving comes again. Your bones are busted up, your muscles are mocking you and calling you dirty words and saying they are on vacation for a few years and you need to get on a wheeled bed… ha ha. Well expletives aside that was fun. The fire fighters were great though and laughing and appreciating the joking about. I promised those with kids University age a good word to get them into Glasgow Uni if they got me out of that car in 1 piece.

So this brings us to the next fun bit, the ambulance ride. Hey you just were in a vehicles, that did not work out so well, now you get to go in another… um yeah that is not pleasant. But you get a free ride 20 minutes to the Hospital. All you see of the hospital is doors and ceilings. But there you get first the fun of getting your clothes off, that hurts. Then the fun of morphine… guess what, it does NOT help the pain. NEVER believe anyone who says drugs help trauma pain, they are liars!

So you get poked, prodded, Xrayed and half the hospital is woken up because it usually does not handle trauma and you now are a special pet project, like deciding to bake cupcakes on a whim one night and excited to see what comes out at the end.

So the doctors look at the Xrays shake their heads and send you up to a ward for the long trip to stabilization. You finally get some water though, then a pitcher and cup you stare at all night wanting to drink it but unable to grab either, though they are 2 inches from you.

So damage assessment?
Well Nathalie gets bad whiplash and spends the night in a collar brace but it alright. Also a wonderful sprained ankle swollen the size of a mellon that is casted.

I get 4 broken ribs on the left side, a broken right clavicle, a seat-belt gash on the right leg I’ll happily take because 1 inch to the left and I’d be singing another tune, and some seriously bruised kidneys (though this was not known till nearly 24 hours after the crash.. oops and seriously ouch and the worst worry of all).

So Monday I crawl out of bed. Get out, hop out, walk out, are all wrong… crawl like an inch worm battered by a hammer is more like it. But can move a bit. They want to check my insides so no food or water all day… ha ha that is fun. But I have Codine to dull the pain… remember the morphine? Yeah well Codine is weaker but considered strong stuff, it is the difference of hitting your hand with a 9lb rather than a 12lb hammer, that is all.

Monday night is not pleasant, by now Naddy is stable and out of her braces and in a ward along with other. Secondary shock sets in for me along with my body deciding to kick my ass for walking about that day to check on Naddy and make the calls to let people know what happened. I get the honour of a second IV line into me, Morphine, Codine, Antibiotic, and a sedative. The drugs I hate they do nothing (notice a trend in my gripe about this?) but IVs I like, they are great! You need not eat, drink or move and you get water and food, woo hoo, standardize them for the population. I used a lot of those though, you have to pee a lot then, that requires moving, ouch.

The doctor asked me how I felt while the above was happening and if I though my hand was swollen from the morphine. I think I laughed, cussed him out and then zonked out, I mean really at that point I did not have a hand I had 6 according to my eyes and all were giving different finger gestures to him, next thing I knew it was breakfast the next day. Tuesday and Wednesday I wasn’t allowed out of bed. They’d have tied me down if I even tried… but no worries my own body decided moving so much as a leg was too much and it would be perfectly happy to lay about for a time.

In summary my kidney’s eventually stabilized and Naddy was up and moving. Our B&B owners had brought by our things so we had some clothes in the hospital and we wanted home. There was no way though. Our insurances would fly us to our home countries but not take us to Glasgow (go figure) and the NHS would not help or not take our things too. So we were stranded. Through the miracles that are around, Fiona from work got me a Glasgow Black cab to drive to Oban get us and bundle us home. That was the most painful and longest coldest ride ever but nothing ever looked so good as a Glasgow black cab and cabbie ready to spring us. It was wonderful and so amazing to be home… broken and in serious pain but alive which is a start.

There is more to write, things about contacting the world, hospital politics, laughs about patients, and a few more gripes about how pitiful I find the people who do think Codine and morphine make for a good day when in pain, but that all can come later. For now I have weeks of sleep, rest and DVDs to plan because there is very little else Naddy or I can do.

Scotland is the ONLY place you can be distrubed at work by a Bagpipe and Drum band out your window :-s

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This is a rather educated guess (since I am that)… if the nominations land on Obama and McCain, the Presidential Race will come down to, be decided by, and focus (eventually) on minority voters. It will spur around who do you trust more to lead the country, the man from Arizona who has had to deal with illegal immigrants across his boarder all the time, or the man who states he is the ethnic minority and understands them.

The war and the economy will drone on will plans to solve. Liberals and conservatives will squabble but both candidates will probably choose VPs to solve that (whatch Obama actually nod to Edwards that would be interesting… and McCain to Huckabee, again unlikely but interesting)

I’ll hedge my bets on the above.

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Packway Handle Band

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Friday took us to a Celtic Connections Concert at Oran Mor (a great venue that once was a church and is now a theatre, whiskey bar and events venue). Packaway Handle Band, a bluegrass band from Athens Georgia was the main act and fantastic! http://www.packawayhandle.com

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