Hope you are not eating dinner.

This is called a stitch abscess. I drained it for a day or two and finally went into see a doctor. Yum.

Blue eyes.

I wonder if my brother Tyghe's eyes are the same color as mine. This is only a decent picture because there are no bags under my eyes in the shot. Really though, last night was the first night I slept all the way through a night! Yay, for small miracles, eh? 

Sunday December 17th

Here's the Taiwanese Medical Care System's official Diagnostics tool for my right leg.
Some Postcards that JR has sent, recently. I'm so lucky to go to the mail box every day and get gifts. Love that surprise.
Have I mentioned I love google's Picasa2 software? If you don't have it - get it.
Jasmine. Cute as a button. She's one of JR's students. Had her ear muffs on in class as it was 'cold'. You know, all of plus 18 and the Taiwanese are wearing three or four layers. No, seriously. 

Day 12

Coming along. The tape is covering a chunk missing out of my elbow. I'm going to tell people it was a piercing gone wrong. This is the elbow I've decided to drop on the punk who pulled in front of me as he's sticking to his story that I ran him in an intersection. He doesn't want to pay for my scooter and so we have to go through some Chinese B.S. to see who pays what to whom. M'eh. Just another story. Now I have insight into how Goldmember feels (from Austin Powers 3). Alas, my joy at picking scabs has been cut short at 12 days and I had no 'keepers'.

The leg is healing too. Too slowly for my liking. Now that the swelling is down 75 percent, my knee is talking. Snap, crackle, and grinding really as things sort themselves out. I tried cardio on day 10 thinking I was cool - but errr, it was a pretty spectacular failure. Maybe tomorrow. 

10 Days o' fun

Here's a 10 day shot of the left arm, coming along nicely. I never noticed it before, but pain is a good way to focus on an injury. You just think about where it hurts and let your body do the rest. My roomie noticed the bottom here has healed a lot faster than the top in the last three days. It just hurt more. Now it's as itchy as ants in your pants.
Here's a fun game you can play. Don't put your right elbow down on anything for 10 days. Not a chair, or bed when you are rolling over at night... It's kinda like the 'Buffalo' game, except instead of getting to drink when you screw up, you get to a negative reinforcement of pain, yum! I must be the thickest headed rat in the maze though, cuz I still haven't learned(just put this one down on my computer chair armrest...sigh.) My leg gets better every day with good advice coming from many people. Mostly about stretching for a charley horse. I've been choking back vitamins like crazy too and I'm sure that's helped. But mostly it's the luxury of taking a meditative nap before I hit work. 

7 Day Scabby Update

Here's a quick shot of the healing process at exactly seven days, to the hour. Notice the skin flaking at the top already. Funny story, the part at the bottom was healing nicely until I took my blood pressure on that arm. As the cuff inflated my arm started aching but I figured, 'whateva' until SPLOOSH! my scabs popped and squirted all over the cuff and chair I was sitting in! Oops, lesson learned. hahaha To add insult to injury my bp was 140/90. Sigh.
Some nice color. I didn't bother to go back to the doctor yet, I just removed the stitches myself. My right leg is better too, but I still can't walk without a limp, do stairs or hit the bike as it refuses to bend to 90 degrees without feeling like someone is stabbing a knife in my quad muscle. The hardest part about dealing with the pain was chasing down codeine. Out of 9 places, one had a couple of tablets, the others hadn't heard of it. 300mg tylenol and 6mg codeine is the best anyone can do around here?? Grumble grumble. Ibuprofen is shockingly useless for me, perhaps I've built a tolerance through all the years of treeplanting? The good news is that being nauseous all the time is a great way to diet! 

Scooter update

Just a quick pic so you can see what I ride when it's in the unfolded position. This lovely baby is really Helen and Tyler's old scooter and it's awesome - I thank them as the brakes alone have saved me dozens of times in the Taichung miasma that passes for traffic. Everyone thinks it looks new now... The damage wasn't catastrophic to my pocket book either as my mechanic Frank is awesome: speaks English, takes care of me, and has three dogs - no wife. Perfect man's man. hahaha. Seriously, he's has a hatred of 'cheaters' which he'll expound on if you ask him about a vet he went to recently... but the upshot is he would rather drive all the way across town with me and examine my bike than just let some other shop work on it. Usually next day service too. That reminds me, isn't it Dale's birthday?Oops, the Fourth... At least I'm ahead for Mark and Quinne... on the Eighth, right guys? hahahaha 

3 day update

Hey. It's tough to get a good shot of yourself when you are dripping white blood cells everywhere.
Other arm, almost embarrassing, here. No tone in that flabby arm! What a girly man! I did take the stitches out myself last night, though. I'd post a shot of my charlie horse, but it's anti-climactic as the swelling has gone down and it's not bruising. Have to thank my parents for two things here: 1) good genetics and a fast ability to heal. 2) No b.s. attitude about being hurt. Plus I have my picture from Kiana that always reminds me if she was here she'd be shouting, "Suck it up Princess!" for encouragement... 

Been hurt worse playing hockey.

Alright, this is called 'road rash'. M'eh. Not much really, just a surface rash that'll heal up in a week. Looks worse than it is, my MEC coat took the most of it for me.
You can't really see this, it's a dooozy of a charlie horse. That's not thigh muscle. But I've been icing it and 'skating it off' as it were.
This looks cool because of the swelling. My forearm is not that big. What's missing is a picture of the pain in my midsection. I hit the pavement before I T-boned him and damn, I do NOT bounce very well. Props to a my full face helmet, though as we all know I've got a hard head anyway. Not to worry as I was at the hospital 15 minutes later and they obviously stitched me up and sent me on my way. So overall, a swollen leg, charlie horse, and some road rash. I'll be fine. 

Excitement!

Don't try this at home kids. It's called a T-bone. You see, you get a high school kid looking at his computer at his feet, instead of the road, shooting out in front of a foreigner.
Said Teen. They are not even allowed a license until they are 18, I think this young man is all of 16 or 17. He did me the favor of telling the cops I ran that light waaaayyy back there. He also said he was in the intersection when I supposedly ran the red light. Kinda had to thank him for the obviousness of his lie, because the cops were so disgusted by it they didn't bother to give me the foreigner 'stupidity tax' that usually happens. A 200Can ticket for driving without a drivers license. He'll be paying one of those fines so they had the book out, but they let me off.
This is what a scooter looks like if it's folded, for easy tuck away storage!
In the shop. You can see again the front and the seat are uncomfortable close!