Get Well Clarkie!

Well the last week has been a good one, the days are getting busier but in a good way.

Last Thursday was Mum’s day off work so after I went to the gym we went for a drive up north, it has been at least 15 years since I have been up north so it was sure to be an eye-opener.

We drove through the valley where I grew up as a kid called Maromaku and it hasn’t changed a bit, our house on the farm looked the same, as did all the neighbours houses. The school I first went to as a 4 year old had one more building but also looked exactly the same, the trip through Maromaku brought back both good and bad memories. To be honest now the bad memories make me laugh now but as a young kid the were the end of the world.

Next we headed up through Kawakawa on our way to the beautiful Bay Of Islands, we drove past my old high school in Kawakawa and I was surprised how run down it was. The next stop was the Bay Of Islands and to be honest I was surprised at how little it had grown, sure the businesses had changed but apart from the warf where the ferries left from it really hasn’t grown at all. After a quick lunch we headed off to Kerikeri which to my amazement had changed lots, it was always a quaint little town but there is some serious money around Kerikeri which is great to see.

On Friday I got a long overdue haircut, the last haircut I got was a #1 buzz cut from Scott in the Colorado hospital right before i left which was over 2 months ago and my head was basically a fuzz ball which was funny also sucked a lot. Now I was given one simple instruction from my mother which was “don’t get another haircut like Scott gave you” which was funny as hell but I followed it, Scott gave me a buzz cut so it was one less thing I had to deal with which was fine by me, but my mother was a little shocked when she first saw me.

While I still don’t remember the crash or most of the next four weeks in hospital, some things really stand out. The main thing in the hospital was that at first I was hot and bored, but more on the hot thing next time. I was so bored I decided that I would get out of my bed and go for a cruise in my wheelchair, I would do this quite often and just wheel up to the nurses station for something to do. I remember one time when my wife turned up and I was just hanging out at the nurses station and I waved to her and she got the shock of her life. Sure I wasn’t allowed to put any weight on my right leg as it was non-weight bearing, and I wasn’t able to do transfers or even get out of the bed by myself, and I had just had a 6 hour operation to fix my shattered lilac bone, and had 4 plates and 18 screws inserted, but hey I was kinda loopy and thought cruising the hallways and waiting for my wife was more important.

Then they decided that I needed to be in a special bed that had a mesh tent type top that they could close at night to keep me secure, now it just became a game to me. For the first day I tried everything I could to break out but nothing worked, then I figured out that I could just pull the zip apart at the bottom and work my way around until I could escape my prison. Kristie who is a good friend that came to visit, got the blame for not securing the zip properly but it wasn’t her fault, sorry Kristie

At first the hospital staff couldn’t believe how I could get out of the bed, which to me was just more incentive to keep doing it. It got to the stage where it became too easy and they told me unless I stopped breaking out I would have to remain in the tent bed. I was a good boy for about a week and they took the tent bed off for good, they main reason I wanted to get out was that it was as hot as hell but more on that next time.

Take care!