The Tour de France, at that time, 2008, was dominated by rouges that had drug infused monumental rides. Grunt riders were being paid hundreds of thousands a year, the so called stars millions and the King, Lance Armstrong, was making multiples of tens of millions.
And schmucks like me turned our backs on our suspicions. I guess we thought that if we closed our eyes cyclist drugging would just go away. But personal cycling was the milk of the God's for me. I had been riding 3,500 to 4,000 miles a year for many years, well into my 80's, and spent almost zero time worrying or even thinking about those druggies.
But in the middle (to be the end) of my road biking addiction, there I was, on my lower case, sorry, 88 year old, bronx jewish ass. There was an ambulance nearby and a bunch of people hovering over me as I became conscious, after a nasty bicycle crash, which had left me unconscious.
I had an IV stuck in me while I struggled to get up and said that I wanted to get back on my bike, as though I could, to ride home. Shit, even my helmet was dented. My hard head seemed to be unscathed.
Being 88 years old, dressed in Lycra, pretending that I was in training for the Tour de France, without drugs, was a great fantasy. But if you can't bullshit yourself, who can you bullshit?
The Lycra emphasized my ever present and ever depressing ugly, fucking pot belly. Win, lose or draw, with an Eddy Merckx racing bike, dressed to a cyclist’s nines, I still looked like shit. A fat old man trying to ride and look like a 40 year old.
The fucking ambulance ride to Stanford Hospital's ICU facility was severely uncomfortable (Too bad Hitler wasn't a cyclist.) Probably the longest 15 minutes of my life.
The ambulance guy cutting off of my high priced, $250 Assos Lycra bib really did bite my ass. Shit, I was only bleeding a little bit. Maybe the ambulance guy thought that the Lycra would cut off my blood flow, starting with my legs.
Avoid teaching hospitals if you can. They are loaded with 30 year old geniuses with little practical experience and who don't know shit from a rainy day and who will spend all their time scaring the hell out of you. Spend enough time in a teaching hospital and you will become a borderline hypochondriac, at least.
But just getting into the hospital and going to ICU was a lesson in needing fucking health care coverage. Without the VA and Medicare I am chopped liver. The bill started with a mind boggling $28,000 just for admission to the hospital plus another $28,000 for admission to the ICU. Fees easily paid by hedge fund geniuses but not by the common folk.
Then came the actual treatment charges which came to another $50,00 for total of over $100,000 for 18 hours in ICU. The insanity of the bill was highlighted by a $600 charge for less than 5 minutes, to show a physiotherapist that I could walk.
90 days later while not fully recovered, macho-pacho, jackass me went out for another bike ride. New Lycra, pot belly, Eddy Merckx bike and all. Still, basically still looked like shit.
Lost my balance unclipping and on my lower case bronx jewish ass I went again back first. Falling, while unclipping, even by professional cyclists, is as common as taking a piss. I had fallen several times but this time my first impact was flush on my back on a concrete road and I was virtually paralyzed except for my groaning fucking mouth.
Palo Alto supplied the ambulance to the Veterans Hospital ICU. This time for a week being unable to walk, have a bowl movement or piss and needing a catheter to drain my bladder. Talk about feeling like shit all the time with no respite from feeling really stupid.
Then came an awful month in a terrible rehab facility with a catheter stuck in what is left of my schlong for the entire month. Throw in not being able to walk for the month which made me grow to respect people stuck in a wheel chair or even stuck with a walker. Not being able to walk for a month, then using a wheel chair before graduating to a walker, totally dependent on others is a grim lesson in humility.
My stay at that terrible fucking rehab facility with a catheter stuck in me for the month resulted in a Urinary Tract Infection and back in the VA ICU unit again for a week.
My Grand kid, Jake, drove me down to the hospital, at 2:00 in the morning, with me screaming at him to ignore the God Damn red lights.
And God bless immigrants. Without Filipino, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Chinese and Indian doctors and aides our hospital system comes apart at the fucking seams. The upside of all this action, for me, is that I lost 15 pounds. Still look like shit, but didn't break any bones or my spirit.
God takes care of drunks and fools and since I qualify on both scores, I’m mostly okay but with no positive effect on my dead sex life. With all the rehab effort you'd think that my limp noodle would come alive again. No chance. As Willie Nelson so famously said, "I'm sorry that my dick died before the rest of me".
You are fucked if you can't laugh at yourself and if you don't recognize how ludicrous life can be and laugh at the humor of it all.
Looking in a full length mirror while naked makes me really grateful to be single. Talk about laughs.
2 comments:
laugh out loud hysterical.
You're one tough guy, Bernie!
Post a Comment