New Vocabulary

Today's word is 다행하다 (da-haeng-ha-da). To be lucky or fortunate. I learned it from the doctor the other day.

Turns out there was nothing on the x-ray, but the doctor wanted to do an MRI to see if there was any damage to the cartilage, or meniscus, in the knee which is what stops bone from grinding on bone. That would definitely not be a good thing since I still consider myself fairly active and plan to use my knees for a while yet. I realized it would probably be the right thing to do. But of course I was hesitant due to the cost- 400,000 Won (about US$ 400). What if I spend the money and find out there is no problem. Is that money wasted or money well spent?

I figured I might as well get the MRI. I've never had an MRI before, so if nothing else, at least it would be a new experience. But I have to tell you, as far as new experiences go, an MRI is a rather expensive and boring one. I was hoping they would scan my body from waist to shins. That way they might be able to find out about the lower back problems I have sometimes. Or at least they could scan my legs and get both knees in the picture. My right knee is the one that has problems sometimes (the left one was injured in the accident). But no, they placed the left knee in a special form to raise it up and just scanned that for thirty minutes or so. I didn't slide in and out of the ring or anything. I just lay there as the machine made a lot of noise.

For a moment I was wondering if a person could actually feel or be affected by the magnetism. I swear I felt a tingle or twinge in my other knee, in the blood veins or something, maybe. I had headphones to block out some of the noise, but the machine was still pretty loud. Even so, it was so boring, I almost fell asleep. Finally it was finished and I was able to get up. The technician told me that was it and then said something else I wasn't to sure about. Now what? Could I go home? Was I supposed to wait? If so, where should I wait? I figured since I didn't have anything else to do that day I might as well wait for a while. I went back to were the orthopaedic patients waited, sat down, and waited. And waited, and waited. Just when I was about to go home, one of the nurses came out, recognized me (not hard considering I was the only foreigner there) and told me it would be about another hour for the doctor to assemble and look at the data. Ok, so I waited some more.

Eventually they called me into the examining room and the doctor told me what was, or wasn't in the image. I didn't understand everything, but I understood that there were no problems. And he told me I had been lucky. He doesn't know how right he is. The accident could have been a lot worse. Luckily nothing was broken. Luckily I didn't loose much skin. Luckily I didn't land on my head (or my camera). And luckily there were no other cars in my lane when the accident happened.

I may have been lucky considering the outcome of that particular incident incident, but it was pretty unlucky to actually have the accident. All in all I would say that things have been rather unlucky for me for a while. Last year it was the broken foot. Before that there have been some other events- going back about three or four years. Life hasn't been too good to me for a while now. Perhaps I walked under a ladder, a black cat crossed my path, or maybe I broke a mirror a while ago. Who knows why things have been going the way they have. I just hope this run of bad luck ends sooner than later. I am not superstitious, but if it was a mirror I broke there could be up to another three years of bad luck left to go. Wish me good luck. I need it.

I don't have any pictures from the MRI. I was too busy trying to understand what the doctor was saying; I didn't have time to try and ask for copies. I know a log blog post can be boring, so here is a picture of the snow we had a few weeks ago. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make things pretty for a while.

Ouch!!

A word of advice for bicycle safety. Always keep two hands on the bicycle handlebars at all times.

I went riding Sunday, the 4th. It was pretty chilly, so as I was zooming along, I lifted one hand to adjust my sleeve to keep out the cold. Just then, suddenly, a pothole appeared in the road right in front of me. OK, so maybe the pothole was always there, but it certainly was an inopportune moment to encounter it. Had both hands been on the handlebars I am pretty sure I could have ridden through it. However with one hand off the bump was enough to spin the front wheel nearly perpendicular to the direction of travel. And thanks to Newton, since the bike was no longer moving me forward, I had to go forward somehow.

I assume from a different point of view, it probably looked pretty interesting. Maybe like Superman on a low level flight along the road. But from my perspective it was pretty damn scary. I managed to land pretty flatly on my chest and hips, and thanks to my right hand and elbow I was able to keep my face out of the pavement. Of course the bike continued moving forward too and ended up tangled in my legs. I was surprised how quickly I was able to stand up and shake it off. After all, I am no longer a spring chicken.

From a general perspective, I think the worst part of any bike crash that you can get up and walk away from is the humiliation you feel knowing others just saw you execute a face plant. Luckily there was only one car that saw me fly/fall. I guess it did look pretty bad, too, because I could see the grimace on the driver's face as he went by in the other lane.

After picking up my bike and doing a quick assessment ... Yes all the fingers were still there, no major skin losses I could see (though the elbow started to bleed a bit later), and luckily enough, the bike was still in good condition. I think what saved me was the fact that I was bundled up rather thickly due to the cold. I am not sure how I lost the skin on my elbow without tearing the sleeve and at the same time shredding my glove yet not suffering a single scrape on my hand. My knee hurt a bit, but I just figured that was par for the course for a fall like that.

Since I hand only just started the ride, and everything was still working (the bike and me included) I hopped back on and went riding for another 2-3 hours. About a half hour or so later, though, I came to realize the picture wasn't so rosy. I could feel my elbow bleeding. I figured it couldn't be that bad and looking at it would only make me feel bad, so I let the sleeve eventually stop the blood. The knee was another matter. It started to hurt a lot more, especially when I stopped pedalling. As long as I was pedalling, the pain wasn't so bad. So, I just continued with the ride. In the crash, I smashed my knee on either the bike or the road. I still don't know which.

Despite the cold, the crash, and the knee pain it was actually a pretty nice ride. The valleys and "canyons" I rode up into where pretty nice. Some nice countryside that I am sure is nicer in the spring. If you look at the map you can see it was an out and back trip. The road did actually dead-end there at the southernmost point. The place where the pothole is located is marked by the skull. If you ever ride that road, be wary of that location.

The ride ended without any further incident. But after getting home I was able to see, and feel, how bad my knee was. There was some swelling, but nothing scary. The worst part was, now that my leg was straight most of the time, any attempt to bend it was met with incredible pain. Monday was terrible because I had to walk between classes, up and down stairs, and sit at my desk. I realized I actually could bend my leg, but only if I did it very slowly. After some Googling I determined that since I could actually put weight on my leg, the kneecap was probably not cracked into pieces. But it certainly felt like it could be.

I decided that I should probably get an x-ray, but that I would wait to see if it gets any better. It is hard to adjust to the fact that you have health insurance when you have been living without it for so long. With no health insurance, only the most serious incidents send you to the hospital or doctor. And even now that I do have health insurance, I am still hesitant to use it.

Even though my knee is a bit better, I will still go get an x-ray. It hurts enough at times to make me wonder what happened. I'll go Friday and let you know what I find out. Wish me luck.

Journeys

I am traveling into space. OK, actually just my name is going. But my presence will be out there in the heavens.

My name will be recorded on a chip that will be placed aboard a NASA probe headed out to the asteroid belt. I'll be zooming along with the DAWN probe as it investigates the two asteroids Ceres and Vesta to determine and understand the conditions at the formation of our solar system. This just goes to show that since can be fun as well as informative. NASA doesn't have to record names and send them along with the probe, but they do it to get people involved in science. You too can join me on the journey to the stars. Go to the DAWN site and enter your name. The probe is scheduled to be launched in May of 2006, so don't wait to long. Be sure to print out your certificate for posterity. Who knows, maybe someday someone out there will find the probe, find my name and come look me up. Hmm, that could be good or bad.
Send your name to the asteroid belt.