Vol 123: Turning point
Earlier this year, my patient was injured in a motorcycle accident. And while the name Aaron is an alias to protect his true identity, the sound his motorcycle made slamming against the cold pavement was painfully real.
The near-deadly moment is engrained in his memory, reemerging through intermittent graphic flashes without warning – the sounds replaying as if they were happening in real time – the cold metal of his bike scraping against the asphalt road, screeching like fingernails along a chalkboard. The increasing, incessant honking of drivers beeping their horns in unison until it melted into a chorus of noise and chaos. In the dead of night, the sound sometimes echoes in his eardrums. The replay is so loud it wakes him and he finds himself drenched with sweat, his heart racing wildly as if the accident were happening all over again.
On the night that it did happen, Aaron, who’s in his mid-40s with a lean muscular build and no medical problems, laid face down, his forehead touching the pavement and his torso and lower body on the road. He tried to turn his head but abruptly stopped himself, out of fear that his spine might be broken. Instead, he took a deep breath before wiggling his fingers and toes. Then as he turned his head cautiously from side to side, he realized he could move without substantial pain. He forced himself to stand. A few moments might have passed but they felt like hours. As he stood, the blood rushed to his feet. He became light headed and stumbled to stop from falling but concerned bystanders, who’d wandered over out of concern and curiosity, helped him regain his footing.
The accident was one of those split-second incidents that changes a life forever. Aaron was picking up food for his young son when he approached a stop light. As the car ahead signaled for him to pass, Aaron made his turn unaware that another car was speeding from behind. He glimpsed the oncoming car, swerving just in time to avoid a head-on collision. The near fatal impact of that night marked a turning point. Aaron remembers feeling weightless before being dragged, his body thrown almost six feet away and his right shoulder snapping as he hit the ground. The unknown reckless driver never stopped to see if he was alive.
The crash tore through Aaron’s shirt and jeans as if carved by a butcher knife, the shredded edges singed and scarred like fabric held too close to a flame. He was bleeding profusely from the scratches on his knees and ankles and all across the dorsum of both feet. He was barefoot with no sign of his flip flops in sight. There were abrasions on his chin but the abrasions descending from both elbows to wrists were even more shocking in appearance. The skin was torn cleanly off and a dark red, granular base was exposed and littered with pebbles and road dust.
Aaron doesn’t remember what happened at the point the car almost hit him. He just remembers the blinding seconds just before and the gripping fear he felt immediately after. His motorcycle was so mangled that he still wonders how he walked away with no serious injuries. But to Aaron, the ripped clothes and underlying abrasions weren’t just proof of his recent brush with death, they also offered a stark reminder that at a moment’s notice you can lose your balance on a motorcycle, remaining at all times vulnerable to an accident where the luxury of a metal barrier, seat bag and airbags are lacking.
In the days, and weeks that followed, Aaron replayed the seconds before his accident in his head over and over. In retelling what happened to loved ones, he felt more and more grateful to be alive but the what-ifs haunted him. He didn’t plan on wearing his helmet and vest because his trip was short. What if he didn’t listen to the whisper that told him to wear them anyway. What if he’d taken a different route or left home a few minutes later. What if the car had been a few seconds closer or he'd been momentarily distracted. Just one wrong move could have tilted the scale towards another outcome. But his physical loss of balance during the crash is only part of the story.
In order to maintain balance on a motorcycle, the driver has to lean the body in the direction of the turn, just enough to stay upright. Other important factors include understanding wind resistance, tire pressure and braking techniques along with knowing when to straighten, when to accelerate and when to stop. But whether on two wheels or two feet, the cost of losing balance can be detrimental.
On the road, balance keeps you alive. In life, it keeps you whole.
There are lessons to be learned from Aaron’s ordeal. Even before his accident, between work and his personal life, Aaron felt like he was being pulled in too many different directions. His life often felt off balance. He was more easily agitated and it always felt like he was running towards something but never getting close enough to achieve anything. After the accident, however, he’s slowed down and prioritizes himself more, spending less time existing and focused more on living in the present. For him that means spending more quality time with his children and close friends and removing himself earlier from toxic work environments. He's also more adept at listening to his inner voice and following his intuition.
Aaron appreciates the added safety a car provides but the cost of even a used one at this time is beyond his reach. So, for now, his patched motorcycle will have to suffice. He jokes that if anyone wants to donate a car to him, he’d happily accept. He bursts out laughing, imagining that with his luck, someone might offer him a car abandoned in the recent flood; one belonging to a driver like him who’d taken one chance too many and ended up, not face down on a road, but submerged up to the windows in water.
It’s in that moment that I’m able to appreciate that the one thing that hasn’t changed since the accident is his sense of humor. A good laugh can make all our problems seem so small and apart from a prescription for oral antibiotics and some local wound care, there’s no better medicine that I could have offered.
There’s a quiet pull throughout our lives that, left unchecked, can swing between order and chaos. Aaron lost his balance when he quickly swerved after a car almost hit his motorcycle and he was thrown to the ground. He survived and used the opportunity to find balance within his life.
This is a reminder to us all to slow down and for any of my readers who at any time have felt out of balance, I hope that you let Aaron’s story be your turning point. This may require setting goals and then prioritizing daily activities, creating a budget, finding better ways to communicate, delegating essential tasks to loved ones when needed and offloading unnecessary tasks, meditating, getting enough sleep, exercise and eating more fruits and vegetables.
Elizabeth Glbert, the author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ says that the madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being's difficulty in coming to virtuous balance with himself and I couldn’t agree more. Leaning forward during a turn maintains balance on a bike but finding and maintaining balance in life requires leaning on a support system that’s buoyed by a network of positive relationships. And it’s in recognizing and respecting the fragility of this balance that we preserve its strength and paradoxically strive fervently to prevent its fall.
This is The KDK Report.
