Susitna Writer's Voice--In the Blink of an Eye, by Bill Was

In this week’s Writer’s Voice, Talkeetna blogger Bill Was

reflects on how a single unfortunate misstep

took him on a voyage of self discovery.

Across the past few months I’ve had more than enough time on my hands as I continue to heal from my severely fractured left radius and ulna. It has been almost fourteen weeks since that cloudy and cool March day when the simplest of missteps changed my current existence and set me off on a voyage of discovery. In hindsight I now recognize I went through a number of ‘phases’ with the severe injury: initially it was extreme pain and hoping the arm was just wrenched or similar, then I learned I had broken my left arm although determining the severity had to wait – along with a cast and pain meds – until I drove myself the 65 miles or so to the Mat Su Regional Health Clinic, then the wait to schedule a visit to the orthopedic surgeon followed by the crushing news I would need full surgery and eventually the actual surgery.

At this point I began the healing process; initially I was in ‘La La Land’ thanks to the Percocets but soon I realized I did not need them regularly but rather once in a while and the opiate fog slowly lifted. From time to time a solid dose of ethyl alcohol was substituted but for the most part I was focused on learning to get by with just my right arm. This required weeks of learning interspersed with moments of frustration and some rage at my inability to just ‘function’. When the cast was finally removed I began another phase; recovery with a lot of occupational therapy which I’ve just finished. This has yielded a regaining of at least 95% of my former range of motion and flexibility if not more.

During the last month I’ve noticed a lot of introspection on my part; some driven no doubt by being bored with respect to getting out and doing things but some of this is based much deeper. Having led an injury free life to this point I was ill-prepared for the immediate shock of such a serious fall; in this case the shock was good as it allowed me to get back home before I had realized just how badly I injured my left arm. After learning the degree of the insult and understanding it would require serious surgery I developed a sense of fear regarding my balance even though what caused me to trip – catching my right boot lace in the left boot’s hook – would’ve tripped anyone. I suffered nightmares about falling for many weeks and I couldn’t even consider jumping while on any infirm surface like ice or wet snow. But I’m continuing to force myself to ‘get up, dust myself off and get back on the horse’ and making progress.

However, this accident really delivered a perspective shift with respect to my far too cavalier outlook on living alone. Of course I’d often considered the ramifications but once again I knew them only from an intellectual level; this event forced me to recognize the emotional and spiritual perspectives. And this has caused some deep introspection on my part. I cannot see any reason to change my existence and I really do not want any; I truly enjoy living solo with my canine companions and I love living in semi-rural south central Alaska! But because I’m a thoughtful being I cannot escape the need to reflect upon not just my situation but what I have missed out on in taking this path. It is almost as though the emotional and spiritual shock from the accident were initially buried as my body sought to come to terms with the injury and then heal it. But I could only bury these powerful motivations for so long and now they have exploded into my consciousness with the force of a grizzly bursting from a tree line. As such I have no choice but to indulge them regardless of where they take me.

I’ve come to appreciate that life is tenuous; that it can be robust and full at one point yet changed forever in the blink of an eye. I really reinforced my slowly evolving outlook of the past decade; I am aging and with age comes an awareness of one’s mortality both in remaining years and physical condition. I have faced this realization and decided that I must heed to its basic premise while also pushing against its constraints. In hindsight I should long ago have really learned that one instant can forever change one’s life. The real importance here is not the actual instance or event but rather how we choose to respond to said instance or event. Even at the age of sixty one it’s possible to take a very negative event (my accident), experience the pain, the frustration, the desperation yet never lose sight of the positives. Sure, I will never regain the $48,000 that three second error in judgment cost me and my left arm will never completely recover; in addition I know I’ll have some psychological scarring which may or may not heal.

So what positives can I glean from such a tumultuous event..? I learned I can tolerate extreme pain for more than a day yet still function. All of the health care professionals I met during this event marveled that I managed to go those initial 28 hours without pain meds given the severity of the accident. I learned that I was ill-equipped to manage daily life on my own if I was hobbled by some physical shortcoming. This led to me re-thinking my situation; I realized that if I had broken a leg or ankle I would be in deep kimchee because all the bedrooms are on the second floor and my place has stairs both narrow and steep. A simple solution was the purchase of a portable inflatable bed for storage on the main floor. Should I ever manage to break a leg or ankle I’ll still have a place to sleep on the main floor and be able to forgo the steps for some time. But I believe the most important positives have come from my introspections regarding myself and my place in life. I’ve lost that ‘oh so common’ feeling that life is something that just happens and is ‘owed’ to we humans. Now I recognize the precious nature of life in general and my physical health in particular; I both suspect and hope I will never again take these for granted. I now view my existence with clearer sight as I am no longer ‘clouded’ by the care free belief that I am invincible and the perception that hugely upsetting events cannot happen to me.

I’d say my life is indeed now richer for this experience and I also view it as more precious and better understand its tenuous nature. Although I’d have not believed it prior to this situation a monumentally negative event in my life has actually allowed me to better perceive life and appreciate it in all its fragility and wonder.

In the Blink of an Eye, by Bill Was