The most hurtful thing that I went through in this whole episode was the fact that the people I was doing the flight for to help them get their new business going hadn’t even called me to see if I was ok. Never mind coming into the hospital to see me for the first six weeks. One of the company representatives came in after six weeks for five minutes. He was very cold and showed no signs of thoughtfulness or care. His aim of the visit was to try and get me to sign some paperwork so that they could get their insurance money for their aircraft. and then left. The relationship I had with them before hand, they were over excited that I was going to help them with their project. I had met one of the owners and had dinner with him and spent much time with the other over the phone and in the office. I wrote them letters and didn’t even get a response. They basically turned their backs, Later to only receive an attorney’s letter to say I could never contact them again. I was left to my own to battle with the coming financial difficulties I was to encounter. I was very fortunate that I had very loving parents that stuck by me and helped me all the way. I had a very close beautiful princess of a girlfriend that helped me through all the bad times and never left my side. I had a couple of very close friends that helped me out on a daily basis. Always kept in touch and showed their support (Thanks Guys)
Learnt about people: I didn’t know people to be so cruel after I had risked my life and got seriously injured in helping them, to just turn their back. I suppose you get all kinds of people on this planet. I used to get calls from people all the time saying they will come and visit me and I just used to think to myself. No you are not, your are caught up in the rat race of life. You not going to come round and they didn’t. I didn’t hold it against them as I know what it is like when you are caught up in the modern life. It’s hard to go out and do something that is out of your normal pattern. I cover more about that later in the book.
This was something that I had to fight through and not let it get to me too much as it was really hurting my feelings. I know now that no matter how injured your body is the pain you feel from a broken heart or bruised soul is the worst feeling you can go through. I kept fighting with myself to think through it and be positive where I can. It took a lot of courage but eventually managed to turn all my anger and pain into a positive outlook and just put my energies into getting better and healing my body.
I got to know doctors and nurses quite well. Whenever I had to go back into hospital for more operations. They used to say”hi Dave, here’s your kit of clothes. You know where to go, off you go, they are expecting you in 20 minutes.” I used to have a laugh when I went into theater as it was becoming second nature to me. My anesthetist showed me what all the probes were for and what he was injecting me with. They always used to joke about me being back again. My orthopedic surgeon comes in saying. “Ahh today we take the me Cano sets off you “and before I could reply, Lights out. I now have shares in the hospital
For over a year afterwards I Had very pale skin. The normal colour I used to have took ages to come back, it was literally like I hadn’t seen the sun. It wasn’t the lack of sun though it was the body taking time out to repair itself. My scars on my face took a long time to heal. I used to rub Vitamin E oil onto my scares every opportunity I could. That did wonders for my skin. My scars have healed up so nicely.
At a later stage I started to feel sharp objects coming out of my gums in my mouth. I thought it was wisdom teeth trying to come through. It was very painful, also the pieces were very sharp and made my tongue bleed from rubbing against them. It turned out not to be teeth coming out but from when my jaw bone had broken up. Splinters of bone had come off and were sitting under the flesh. This was the way the body rejected the pieces by pushing them out through my gums.
I had many Lacerations and cuts to the face from when parts of the instrument panel penetrated into the skin on impact and also when the doctors had to cut through the skin to make repairs. There were some nerves cut under the skin making me lose some feeling in my face and also muscle movement. Which prevented me from being able to smile as my mouth would go off skew. Luckily the nerves in my face grew back and all returned to normal.
People used to crack jokes at me for wheeling my wheelchair and that I am going to fall over backwards.
The only thing I could respond was that if I spent most of my life wheeling super bikes I’m sure going to wheelie my wheelchair.I have a whole new respect for wheelchair drivers. People permanently in wheelchairs don’t have it easy. There are still a lot of places that aren’t wheelchair friendly. You can’t go up or down stairs. Car parks are terrible. The handicapped parking are always blocked up by people who shouldn’t be there. It is really hard to socialize with people in a croup as you tend to get left out. Even people that know you tend to avoid you. Maybe it’s because they are not used to it and don’t know how to handle the difference. My father made a few alterations to the house to make it easier for me to get around. He had put in a new garden path. Made ramps for me to get up and down a couple of stairs in the house. I made a mess of the house as not used to using a clumsy wheel chair I made marks all over the walls from the rims and foot rests sticking out. For a while I had to have my left leg out straight on a bracket. This made things harder. Getting around corners always involved sticking the foot rests into the wall corners taking the paint off. Not having the use of two hands at times didn’t make it any easier.
In the late afternoon, evenings I used to look at the time awaiting 8pm to come by, as that was my escape and knew I could go to bed knowing my cat would join me and I could say good night to this world. In some ways in hope that I wouldn’t have to wake up to it. Just to wake up was very depressing to me and had to start my day with anti depressants
Much later in my recovery when I was starting to walk and leave my crutches behind I hardly had any feeling in my left foot. When I took a step forward I had to look down slightly as I had to make sure my left foot was in front of me to catch my weight. Not feeling the pressure on my toes made it very difficult to balance. It was like I had a wooden peg leg. I had gotten used to it for a while as using my sight as a reference helped a lot. I really enjoy flying RC planes and when out at the field I realized another problem as while standing for a short time while taxiing the plane out for its take off, I was ok. I’d take the plane off and keep it low as I flew around for a while. Then decided to make it climb high. The little model went up vertically. Looking up and focusing on the model. This was great fun for a short while before I found myself with a great thud hitting the ground on my back. Slightly dazzled and trying to work out what had happened and realizing that I was still in control of this little plane and attempted to land it. Realizing what had happened, without having the balance sensors in my feet and also looking straight up I had no visual reference to the horizon I just fell over backwards. Well this was something to learn.
Having to self catheterize to empty my bladder, sticking this long probe up inside of me used to cause infections which used to stay in my bladder. Not having any sensation I couldn’t tell and only used to find out when I went for checkups. I used to go on long term medications for this to allow my bladder wall to recover