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My Story
I have often thought about writing a story about my life. The only thing that stopped me is that I’m not a good writer. I don’t think anyone would believe most of it anyway. Trust me I have gone through a lot of things in my life. Sometimes even I have a hard time believing some of it. I decided to go ahead and give it a shot. Not that over night I became a great writer or anything. See, I have always had a unique set of eyes. I have always seen things a little different than most people. I say most people because there are a few out there that do think like me. For example the famous comedian Gallagher. He and I seem to share the same views on a lot of things. But that is another story in itself. So look over the imperfections and enjoy. This is the way I remember my life. Some of the dates and info may not be exact, but it is how it is in my mind. I have two older brothers named Clifford and Jeffery. I also have a younger sister named Tawanna. Later on I gained a step-sister named Roxanna or Rocki as we all call her. Cliff was born in Nov 1968, Jeff was born in Oct 1969 and I was born in Sept 1970. We are all only 11 moths apart. Five years after me, Tawanna came along. I was supposed to be the baby and I didn't like the idea of having her around at all! I grew to love her more and more. I have a great relationship with "Sis" now. (We are so much alike.) SchoolAll my life I guess I have been different. By that I mean that I look at things in a different way than most people. I try to never worry about the small stuff and I don’t waste my time on something I can’t change. As I went through school if I could not see how I could use a subject in life, I wasn’t interested in it. Like History, to me this was a waste of my time. I can’t change it, it’s not going to change me and who cares when some place or thing was discovered! To me all that matters is that someone did discover it, now can we move on! Sure we need to have an Idea of where we come from. To me you could wrap it all up briefly in a 30-minute video and move on. Now we can spend more time on a subject we can use, like math. Math is something we use everyday in life. I am now 31 years old and I can not remember a time when knowing what year America was discovered has helped me at all. Knowing who all the Presidents were has never made me a Dime, nor has it changed the outcome of any situation in my life. Homework is another problem I have had. You get up at 6:30am. Get on the bus at 7:15am arrive at school by 7:50am. Your first class starts at 8:00am. You have two classes back to back. These should be Social Studies and history, because these classes are a waste since you can’t even think properly till at least 10am! You finish school at 3:30pm get back on the bus and finally get home sometime after 4pm. Now guess what? You have to do homework!! WHAT! If you factor in time to eat dinner, shower, and maybe pick your nose, the entire day is gone. I have just spent all day in school, now I have to go home and do more schoolwork? We wonder why our children can’t think for themselves and survive easily in this world. In my opinion it’s because they don’t have time to discover the world until they are forced to live in it after 13 years of nothing but school. We get so crazy on the weekends because our brains are still spinning out of control from school. Don’t try to tell me that someone drilling 50% useless information in your head all day for 5 days straight won’t make you nuts. We are taught about how things were hundreds of years ago, scientific symbols we’ll never need unless we want to become doctors, basic math skills and thrown into adulthood expected to make money, raise children and survive. Maybe it’s just me but I think we can learn all we need to live in this world in about half the time. Or maybe teach about real life subjects and things that are happening today for a change. This will give us more time to see and experience this world before we go through puberty, have children and are forced to survive in a place we know nothing about. Granted we know when it was discovered, that really helps pay the bills! In school I always found time to entertain myself. At the same time I guess I entertained others as well. Weather they wanted it or not. I never made straight A’s. I always did just enough to pass and move on. I never had problems learning; I just despised school and had no desire to be there. I know you are saying to yourself “from the looks of this book he didn’t learn much in school.” I look at it like this; I want to communicate something to you. You can read this and although it may not be “grammatically correct” and there is incorrect spelling here and there. As imperfect as it may be I accomplished my goal of communication. I went to kindergarten and started first grade in Japan. My Father was in the military. I think we lived there 2 or 3 years. After moving back to the USA we were stationed in Montgomery, AL. That is when my parents divorced. My mother took us four children to south Louisiana. This is where we meet a great man named Randolph, A.K.A. “RATT”. Don’t let the name fool you. He was the best thing that could have happened to complete our family. We lived several places in LA, but mostly on an Island called Grand Isle off the coast of Louisiana. School was all but easy there. Picture this; a young boy in a new school with a strong southern accent that looks like a cross between Opey Taylor and Alfred E. Newman, surrounded by a bunch of dark skinned little Cajuns. I can’t remember how many times I heard “you aint from round here are ya boy.” Did I ever have to learn to fight! Thank God for older brothers. We lived there for a few years and then moved back to Alabama. Now here we go again. This time I still look the same but I have a slight tan and a slight Cajun accent. The Rednecks didn’t know how to take this. Here is Opey Taylor and the gang with bad attitudes and Cajun accents, WOW! Yep, more fights. After moving back and forth from Alabama to Louisiana a few more times we settled down in Wedowee, AL. Now I am Starting the 7 grade. Until now I have not been in the same one school for a complete year that I can remember. At the time I didn’t realize it, but these were the best times of my life. Although innocent I was not. I decided to try my luck at everything. I have always learned the hard way about most things. I had to try drinking alcohol. The sad part is that I was good at this and did more of it than I should have. I was always into some sort of trouble. I picked up the nickname “KING”. This was because my class hated our Spanish teacher and I pretty much took over the class. Everyone said I ruled the class. When he would ask us to get quiet or stand to go to lunch, no one would do it unless I stood up and said to. It’s not that I was superior to the class, they just did it to aggravate the teacher, and the fact that they couldn’t believe that I’d do it. (Every day for a year!) I did eventually get to the 12th grade. Through the years a have gone round and round with the teachers and staff at school. I was always into something or pulling some kind of prank. Like once I put a live chicken in a teachers classroom over the weekend. Boy was she ever-surprised come Monday morning! I won’t elaborate any more in fear that I might incriminate myself. I did manage to keep up the grades enough to take some advanced courses, even electronics. I always wanted to make a career in electronics. My Principle often told me he would do anything to make me drop out of school and he would see to it that I would never go to college. So at that time what sounded like a great idea was to quit school, get my GED and start college early. Just to show him what I was made of. I just had a point to make. So I did just that. 3 months before I graduated I quit school, got a GED with no problems and enrolled into college. I was paying for this myself; I went to Opelika State Technical College and majored in Electronics. I also took business Math and business English. It was a 2-year school. All was great until the money ran out. So I had to quit, of course with all intensions of completing it when I got some more money. I got more money, but I never went back. How many times have you heard that story?
A Job?In my life I have done a lot. When it comes time to make a resume I think it would be easier to record it instead of writing it. I always have had an ambition to make money. My first moneymaking experience was in south Louisiana. We lived not too far from a Hotel and I used to help my Mom clean the rooms. I was about 7 years old at the time and knew then that I had to do something with my life so that I wouldn’t have to do this anymore. We didn’t have to do it. We just went along with Mom to keep from staying with a baby sitter. But it did give me my first touch of what work was all about. At 9 years old I was making friendship bead necklaces, pins and bracelets and selling them in front of a service station in Lineville, Alabama. My entire life I would do anything to make money. My dream was to become a famous inventor. Make lots of money off of something that everyone needed. I wanted to be recognized everywhere I went for my work. I just wanted to be successful at everything I set out to do “good or evil.” I worked at the grocery store in Wedowee while I was in school, I had a service station just out of high school, I tried a regular job and worked at Amoco Fabrics and fibers in Roanoke and I hated that. I worked for a Satellite sales company for a while then I started my own satellite installation company, I had a computer sales company, a embroidery and screen printing company, I did vehicle graphics for a while and many other things. As a young boy I went with Ratt to buy a new vehicle and I loved the entire process. I said to the salesman then, that I wanted to be a car salesman. Of all the things I have done, that is what I really wanted to do. I ended up moving to Douglasville, GA and went to a car lot and asked for a sales position. They laughed at me because I had never sold cars before. They told me I had to get some experience first. I wanted it bad enough that I agreed to start out washing cars. I worked as a wash boy at Don Barrett’s Dodge. I learned the inventory and new the products so well, that after a while, the salespeople would ask me questions and want to know if certain options were available a so on. I knew about everything Dodge had out at the time. After a while I finally talked the General Manager into letting me try selling cars. I would go in at 8 am and wash cars till 5 pm. Then I would drive home change into dress clothes and a tie and sale cars till 9pm. It didn’t take me long to prove myself and before long I was selling more cars working 4 hours a night than the full time sales people did. So they hired a new wash boy, actually 2 to replace me, and made me a full time salesman. I had a company car a desk and everything. I did great and loved the job… BUT! I got complacent and stupid as Dallas did so often. I kept driving cars I wasn’t authorized to drive and it cost me my job. Yep, I lost the job I worked so hard to get. So for a while I worked as a full service gas attendant at a BP gas station and hated every minute of it. It was a very humbling experience. Especially because it was about 3 blocks from the Dodge store and I had to face those guys almost every day. After that I got a job at Chuck Clancy Ford in Marietta, GA. I was up front and explained what happened at the Dodge store. Mr. Clancy didn’t want to hire me because of my “lack of experience”. He was going on a 30 day vacation and told the Sales Manager that I could use that time to “try it out” and honestly he never thought I’d make it. This is a very big store and could sale 500 cars in a month. Well, was Mr. Clancy ever surprised when he returned to find me in the number 3 spot out of 42 salespeople! I worked there for several years and eventually moved into management. Now let’s fast forward a few years. I had a motorcycle crash, broke my back, couldn’t work, and had to fall back on what I knew. I started selling cars on eBay. I sold cars for many dealerships and was very good at it. I called my new “company” Best Net Brokers. I had a laptop computer and a digital camera. I would take pictures and list the cars on eBay. When someone would win the bid I would send out a letter and tell them who to contact and at what dealership. I would get either a commission or a flat fee for each sale plus the dealer ship would pay for the listing. Tera’s dad, Larry, has had a car dealership for many years in Carrollton, GA. He did mostly Buy Here Pay Here stuff and was very successful at it. It did some talking, but I convinced him in to letting me list some of his cars. One sale lead to another and after a while I only sold vehicles off Larry’s lot. I got to where I was selling as many as 43 cars a month, on eBay alone, from Larry’s lot. He had never seen anything like that before. The idea of buying and selling a car over the computer was crazy! But it worked. Because I am such a good salesman of course. After a while we decided to open a new car lot together. Larry, Wayne (Tera’s brother) and I bought some property and started our own used car lot. Larry split off from his old partner and we opened up January 1, 2004. We have been open for two years now and have done great. We have paid ourselves well and expanded all at the same time. We go through about 200 cars each month. We decided to name the place Best Net Auto sales. By the way, I am still in the business and if you need a car you can call me at 770-836-0302 or www.bestnetautosales.com My Life Changing ExperienceWe moved into a new house in June of 2001. This is pretty much the house of our dreams. It’s out of a sub-division and further in the country than where we were. We have only been here for a few days when our only neighbor walks over and introduces himself to us. His name is Lloyd and his wife is Wanda. He seemed like a real nice man. He let us know that there was not a trash pick-up route around here, but that he had a dumpster on his property, for his Heating and Air Company that we could use. We spoke a few minutes and he walked off. From our conversation and watching them leave every Sunday we knew that they had to be going to a church somewhere. Tera and I went to church where we got married in Alabama, but it wasn’t regular. A few weeks go by and Lloyd mentions that he is having a youth group from the church camp out on his property down at the river. That afternoon as several people gathered at Lloyd’s house I could see them piling three and four people on a four-wheeler, as well as caring some supplies, and trying to get it all down to the river. We have some four wheelers of our own and this was a group from a church, so I offered to lend them ours. They gladly accepted and sent some people over to pick them up. I knew I didn’t know anyone that was there and I had just met Lloyd, but I felt o.k. about lending them our new four-wheelers. A couple more weeks go by and we get a call from Lloyd’s daughter Jennifer. She invites us to attend there church the following Sunday for “High Attendance Sunday school”. We accepted the invitation and went. We have been to a few churches around Douglasville. They all were rather large, which we were not used to and we would not return feeling somewhat intimidated. This church is called Sunset Hills Baptist Church. The Pastor is named Ikey. We had a great visit even though this is a large church too. We are told it has over 900 members and each Sunday over 300 is in attendance. Everyone seemed to be genuinely nice people and it all seemed to just “click”. During the service, I noticed something in the program that shocked me. Our neighbor Lloyd is the Associate Pastor for the great church. This shocked me because any other “Christian” I had ever met, would have made it known right from the start and pushed a Bible down my throat. Lloyd never did this. I saw a sign one-day that said “things well done is better than things well said.” Lloyd showed me that he was a hard working man that provides for his family. I observed him being a Church going Christian man, He didn’t have to tell me. He never bragged about being a preacher and he never tried to force a Bible in my face every time we spoke. I guess this allowed me to put my guard down a little. We went to Sunset Hills and our old home church in Alabama a few more times. Each time we attended I would get this strange feeling that I should go forward and get the preacher to pray with me. I never did, I just couldn’t let go of the pew in front of me. I would often just stand there and cry. I knew I need to change direction in my life, for me as well as my family, I was just scared. I was not aware of it at the time but Sunset Hills has a FAITH class that teaches how to go out and minister to others. The class would split into groups on Tuesday nights and visit people in an attempt to get them to continue attending church and /or witness to them about Jesus. They came to my house one Tuesday night and I wasn’t home. Tera said they had a great visit and wished I could have been there. Friday October 12, 2001 Lloyd and Wanda came over for a visit. At this point they have never mentioned my faith or beliefs. I knew what this visit was about, and it wasn’t to borrow a cup of sugar. We talked for a little while and I asked a few questions about Jesus Christ and how he could have let me go through some of the thing that I went through? And why if God was so great, that so many people would turn away from him so often? Lloyd answered all my questions in a way that I really understood for the first time in my life. Then he said could I ask you a question? In your personal opinion what does it take for a person to get into heaven? I was at a loss for words for a moment. Then I said “To be saved and do the right things according to the Bible.” Lloyd said I had the general idea but then he went on to explain. He used the letters of the word FAITH We I could not have eternal life in heaven without God’s Forgiveness and forgiveness was available for All. He said that the Bible says it is Impossible for God to allow sin into heaven. He went on to explain that we all needed to Turn from sin and repent, and that Heaven is eternal life. With this being said He asked me if I wanted to accept Jesus as my personal savior to ensure myself eternal life in heaven. With tears in my eyes and a crackled voice I said yes. I repeated a prayer after Lloyd that went something like his…”Dear Lord Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for my sins and that You arose from the grave. I now ask You to forgive me of my sins and save my soul. Amen” after we were done I knew that this is what I have been waiting on. This is what I should have done a long time ago. The feeling was so good I almost wanted to run around the house. The Motorcycle CrashOn December 14, 2001 I was at home with my wife and several people from our church. We were having a Christmas party for our Sunday school class. It was the usual laughing, eating and gift exchange. Everyone was having a great time, especially me. I always love to have people over. The more the merrier! We talked about all kinds of things, including the motorcycle that one of our Sunday school classmates, Layne, had recently bought. As things started slowing down at the party, Layne asked if some of us wanted to go to his house and check out his new Harley. Being that he only lived about two miles away, we agreed. So four of us gathered in a van and off we went to check out this bike. What a machine this was too. Layne opened up his garage and there it was. A brand new Harley Davidson, Softail Deuce, all shiny chrome and black. He put in the key and started it up and WOW! What an awesome machine. Layne talked about the bike a little and was pointing out some of its unique items like the custom seat and he mentioned something about the exhaust and the great sound it made; Although He had never heard one on the road before. Revving up the engine sounded great, but I was looking around at the neighbors’ houses waiting on lights to come on and getting yelled at, because at this point it was around 11 pm. Layne new that I had been around bikes and road them a lot. He asked if I wanted to take it for a ride. At first I said no simply because it was so loud and so late, despite the fact that it was cold out that night. Then I said sure. He gave me a helmet and I said I would be right back. I fastened the helmet, put up the kickstand and with a huge smile I went up the drive and down the road. As I enjoyed the sweet acceleration and the smooth ride. I guess I went about a mile and turned around. As I was returning to Layne’s house and was slowing to turn in, I remembered that Layne had mentioned that he had never heard a bike like this going down the road. I let off the break and was going to pass by and then come back. As I got to the driveway I noticed that Andy, our Sunday school teacher, had walked to the end of the driveway. As I passed I through up my hand and shouted “HEY”! This is where it gets interesting… The combination of cold weather outside and hot air from my breath inside the helmet shouting “HEY” totally fogged the face shield.-- I could write a book about what went through my mind at this point.-- My first reaction was to wipe it off, I had my left hand in the air waving anyway. So with a big swipe across the outside of the face shield, I realized the fog was on the inside! In a panic I quickly try to raise the shield knowing that I was in a curve and had no time to mess around. Rubbing and rubbing the shield wouldn’t rise… At this point I felt the bike go of the pavement and I knew I was in trouble. I hit several bumps and scared out of my mind I am still trying to open the shield. My mind is going a thousand directions as I am driving this bike into who knows what. With one hand I try and keep the motorcycle balanced, while the other hand is still franticly pushing and rubbing on the face shield trying to open it. A big bump makes my hand hit a small tab on the left of the shield and it raised it about an inch or so. Almost as if you were drowning and had just gotten a small sip of air. I raised my head to look through the small opening. I looked just in time to see a cement culvert about 3 feet tall. With almost no reaction time a grabbed the handle bars and with all my strength I raised my self up off the seat and pulled the front tire up into the air. From the time my shield fogged up till now is only about a second and a half. At this point I new it was going to be ugly, but how ugly was the question? The bottom of the bike hit and it hit hard. The back of the bike then lifted as we went over the culvert. The seat hit me in the butt and catapulted me into the air. The motorcycle sailed through the air hitting the ground with just the back tire and bouncing up again. It finally came to rest upright about 30 feet from the culvert. Meanwhile I have been thrown in the air, hit a tree with my shoulder and hit the ground approximately 70 feet from the culvert. I hit the ground face down. I hit hard enough to push the full-faced helmet against my face busting my nose, both my lips and cracking my teeth. I remember landing against some trees. After a couple of seconds I tried to get up. As I crawled to my knees I knew I was hurt bad. By this time Andy had ran to my aid, With Layne and Chuck on the way. Andy said “I don’t know much about this kind of thing Dallas, But I don’t think you need to get up,” as he helped me back down to the ground. This is where I laid; face down complaining of my back hurting. As Layne ran to call 911 and my wife, I remember trying to explain what went wrong. All I could get out was “my windshield fogged up! My windshield fogged up!” They had no idea what I meant. As I waited, I thought of a motorcycle crash my dad had years ago. He said he did a self-test to see if anything was broken…”right arm- ok, left arm- ok, right leg- ok, left leg- ok”. That part made me realize that I was not paralyzed and my limbs were not broke. Although I have never experienced such physical pain in my life, I was hurting all over! It wasn’t very long when my wife, Tera and Layne’s wife, Cynthia arrived. I’m not real sure who all showed up at the scene. From what I am told there was a lot of people there before the ambulance got there. I don’t remember how long I was there until the ambulance arrived. All I remember is I kept blacking out. I was conscious but I apparently blocked out my surroundings. I was hurting so bad and I didn’t want to scare anyone around me. I never was the type to get loud at a time like this. I figure I’ve caused enough trouble like it was. The rescue workers rolled me onto my back and onto a board of some type, did the neck brace thing and all that good stuff. They then loaded me into the ambulance. Like I said before, I was kind of in and out. It seems like I lost my vision. I could hear everything around me, but I couldn’t see anything. The only thing is, I don’t remember being aware of not being able to see at the time. As I was loading into the ambulance I could hear someone talking about Tera Riding with us. As we started to move and the paramedics were working with me I asked for Tera because I could not hear her anymore and without her there I felt really scared. I was told she was in the front with the driver. Just knowing she was near gave me a sense of comfort. Just trying to imagine if our roles were reversed could I keep my wits as good as she has? Tera is one of the strongest people I have ever met. Now that I new she was O.K. it was back to me. From the time I hit the ground I was having trouble breathing. When I was rolled onto my back it got worse. By the time we got on the road to the hospital, I could barely breath at all! It was like if you had to breathe through a small straw and could only take a tiny sip at a time. I found out later why. I had hit the ground with such force that it made blood explode out of my heart and into my chest. The pressure of the blood kept me from breathing. That along with a bleeding nose and both lips swollen to the point that it was very hard to speak or breathe. I was starting to panic again because I was having such a hard time breathing. It seems to be getting harder with each breath. At this point my mind was wondering. I kept thinking that this is how I would die. Of all the things I have gone through in my life, I was going to end my life on a cold December night at 31 years old of suffocation because of a motorcycle crash! Some people my dream of dieing on a Harley, but it‘s not my dream. Dieing is a scary thought in itself, but I wasn’t scared for me. I was concerned about my wife and son. Tera and Brendan are everything to me. It made me hurt so bad knowing that if died they would endure so much pain. I know how much they love and care for me. There are a lot of people out in this world that like me as hard as it is to believe. Just a couple of weeks before the crash I remember consulting with my mother about not having the people in my life that I used to have. This really bothered me. She had told me that God wouldn’t have taken those people away from me, but that he just was keeping us apart for a while to give me a chance to grow spiritually. To let me educate myself and learn about the Lord. Being a new Brother in Christ I needed a chance to build my strength so that I could be a better witness to them, and maybe lead them to the Lord. I knew I couldn’t give up. I have a lot of people counting on me. It was at this point that I felt I had to say something to the paramedics about my suffocating. I could not just lie there and die without a fight. So now I find myself trying to get enough air to say anything at all. As hard as it was I mustered up” I...I can’t…I Can’t breath!” They said “you’re o.k.” I didn’t think they understood how bad my breathing was so I kept saying over and over. The entire time sipping for each breath as if may be my last. One paramedic told me that they had me hooked to a monitor and it showed that I was getting plenty of oxygen. My thought now was that the machine had to be wrong! I just knew there was no way I was o.k. I could not breathe! And it was still getting worse with each breath! I was in so much pain and not breathing well on top of it… I just couldn’t speak anymore. I couldn’t see anyway, so I closed my eyes and sort of fell limp on the stretcher. I just gave up, I knew at that point it was over for me. I new that my life was in God’s hands and he would guide the hands of these two paramedics. I was ready to accept whatever would happen. With this I went out again. I’m not sure if I went to sleep or passed out or what. Either one was fine to me because I wasn’t aware of the pain as much anymore. The next thing I remember is the door opening to the ambulance and the stretcher being brought out into the cold again and into the hospital. Then I was out again… I was real messed up at this point! I’m not sure what they gave me, but I had no idea what was going on around me. I remember some nurses trying to move me. At some point they cut off all my clothes. I felt a draft and new I was exposed to the world so I tried to pull something over me. This was a useless attempt because they had so much morphine in me I could barely control my muscles. All the nurses had to say was “we’ve seen them before, just be still and we’ll be done in a minute”. This was embarrassing, but I was in no position to fight a couple 200lb nurses! At one point I remember my brother, Clifford (who is also a nurse I Columbus, GA) arguing with another nurse about how they were caring for me. They woke me up shouting. The nurse said for him to stop telling her how to do her job. Cliff told her that when they started doing their job correctly then he would. He has always been very protective of me. And a shouting match involving Cliff, I knew who would win, so I went back out again. I new they had me on some serious pain medication. I was just zoning in and out, I had no idea what was going on or who was around. I knew I was in rough shape health wise, but I was felling no pain! I’m telling you, I was in “LA LA” land. I remember a doctor checking me out. I expressed to him that even with the oxygen tubes blowing up my nose I still couldn’t get air in the left nostril. I thought it might have been dried blood because I’d been on my back. The doctor got a strange look on his face and grabbed something out of his pocket. With it he pulled out of my nose a piece of wood. I don’t know if it was a tree limb or bark or what it was. I really don’t know how it got there, I had on a full faced helmet!? Sometime later I remember Layne walking up to the side of the bed. I can’t explain why I was able to notice him and not anyone else. I was feeling so bad about wrecking his new bike so maybe on a subconscious level I was able to recognize him. I remember reaching out for him and when he grabbed my hand I started to cry. Here I am in the trauma center fighting for my life and my concern at that moment was what I had done to Layne.? I know that in my life I have caused a lot of havoc. Many times I have pushed myself to the limit; I didn’t care who I had to run over in the mean time. In the process I have hurt a lot of people. At that time I didn’t care, but now I am a changed man with God in my heart. I knew that I didn’t want to hurt anyone in any kind of way. This time I knew I was not trying to push my luck. I was not trying to do anything wrong. I also knew that there was no way I could have changed what happened. But I still felt bad, as though this was some sort of punishment for me, and Layne got caught in the middle. Knowing that I felt this way and knowing that Layne was still by my side praying for my well being made me feel better about how I was feeling. God had to be the one to make me at ease with it all and without a another thought, back out I went again. Lets see…I’m waking up in a hospital room and I see a few people talking. I don’t say much I just listen. I’m thinking to my self about what I wild night it has been! The more I listen to the conversations the more confused I get. It seems to be that I’ve missed a little as I was going in and out. I crashed on Friday night. I thought it was Saturday morning. In fact it’s Monday afternoon!?? Talk about a weird feeling. What happened to me? I know I was in a crash, I know I made it to the hospital, but it’s 2 ½ days later! Finally through talking with everyone, I have cleared up my confusion. They let me know that I have been on a lot of Morphine and it would make me sleep most of the time. I have been informed of my Hematoma (when my heart exploded blood into my chest due to the hard impact) and that my back has been broken in three places. The first thing I did was wiggle my toes and move my arms and legs! So that much made me feel better. The strangest part is when I discovered that I had a bandage on my grown? I asked what it was for and I was told “it’s where they had to inject die into your heart.” WHAT! Just when I thought I had it all figured out… Now they’re telling me my heart is in my grown! How bad was this crash? This is really going to make my Pledge of allegiance to the flag look real strange. What if I go out again and need to be revived? Will someone be around to tell the doctors that my heart is in my grown so they won’t be beating my chest for no reason? Where will I put my hand when I tell Tera that I love her with all my heart? I have got to get that morphine out of my system. This is all crazy! I think I was better off asleep!
Recovery time The last few days have been eventful. Now I have to look at the reality of all that has happened. How is all this going to impact the rest of my life? Just how bad is my back? I have no idea if I need to have surgery or if I’ll ever be able to walk again. I don’t have any idea because finding a doctor around this place is almost impossible. I see lots of nurses and other staff, but a Doctor never shows up. They keep talking about a back brace. At this point who knows what the future may hold.
Home again
We are on our way home now.
Lloyd and Wanda are going to meet us at the door to help me into the
house. I don’t know how difficult it will be. They are great
neighbors, I just can’t believe they are waiting up so late for me.
By the time I get home it well be almost midnight. Arriving home is
almost breath taking. At one point I wondered if I would ever see this
place again. The ride was not too bad. After getting into bed I thanked
Lloyd and Wanda for being there. I’m not sure what we would have
done without them. The shower The Doctor has said I could take a shower. This is a good thing because other than a sponge bath, I haven’t had one in about two weeks! Tera has to do all the work. She turns the shower on until it gets some hot water flowing then shuts it off. I hobble over into the shower and thankful it’s a stand up shower, without a step up too. If I had to climb over into a bathtub shower I’d be in trouble. After getting in, I have to stand firm footed and hands on each side of the walls. I’m not supposed to move, but this is almost impossible in the shower. Tera takes my brace off and I grit my teeth. This is the first time I have taken the brace off while standing. Now I stand strong while the water is turned on. I know the first shot of water will be cold and then maybe get real hot until Tera gets it adjusted. Now the fun part, you would think? I remember when I would be willing to pay to have Tera bath me and wash my hair. This time it’s not so exciting. What I mean is that my back has still not started to heal up yet and with every twitch I can feel my back bones crunching together. It feels as if I have a bag of marbles or rocks in my lower back instead of a spine. It hurts a lot, but after all the pain I have had lately I’m sure I can handle this. Tera graciously washes me and I’m so grateful. After turning the water off she dries me, slips my brace back on, dresses me and helps me back into bed. I feel like a new man! I asked Tera one day if she had ever thought she would ever have to do these things for me? As she smiled her reply was “Yes, but I thought you would be a lot older!”.
Return of the Softail Today Layne and Cynthia are going to pick up the motorcycle. It’s been a long 3.5 months waiting for the repairs. I guess a bright side is that at least we know that the Harley shop is taking their time and doing it right. This is the day that Layne and Cynthia are leaving to go on their anniversary outing to the mountains. They had planed this for a long time. I was going to be very upset if the bike wasn’t ready in time. Nothing like the last minute! It’s been about two weeks since the bike has been out of the shop. I’ve talked to Layne several times but I have not seen it yet. So today he drove it to my house. I’m sitting on the front porch and I can hear it roaring up the road. Just the sound of it makes my spine tingle. As he pulls into my driveway I could almost cry with tears of joy. Just the feeling of taking away what he worked so hard for has really bothered me a lot. I’m so glad that he has his new Harley back. He now has a custom paint job and a few extra chrome additions. I have to admit that it looks awesome. Harley did a great job. They replaced pretty much everything except the engine. The custom flame job looks great too. I ease cautiously over to the bike, holding my brace as to clutch my chest. I can’t believe how nervous I was. It was as if I was walking up to a snake or something. I went around it as we talked and I decided to get on it. Not to ride it! I just had to “get back on that horse”. I sat there for about 2 minutes or so and finally had to get off. My entire body was shaking and I had broke out into a cold sweat. I just kept having flash backs in my head of not being able to see and how bad I felt. The entire wreck was going on over and over in my head. I had to get off before I passed out. Six more months It’s now six months after the crash. I went to the doctor today for another check-up, as I have been doing every few weeks sense the crash. Today I was hopping to be able to take off this back brace and start physical therapy. The Doctor wants me to keep wearing it for six more months. He said the bones are ugly but solid again. He is still concerned about the ligaments and muscles. This really bothered me and I have a hard time accepting it. I never imagined him saying six more months. I thought the worse case would be a few more weeks or something. I am grateful for being alive, but this is still hard to deal with. Praying Today was another step in my long walk of life. I had to pray in front of the entire church! See it went like this. You know that I have not been saved very long. I’m trying so hard to become a better Christian. I have been around prayer all my life and I don’t have a shy bone in my body. I don’t have a problem praying in front of a crowd, I just want to make sure that I say something that sounds somewhat intelligent. Through the last several months, well, It’s been almost a year now, I have listened to a lot of people pray in church. Some of the prayers are just so wonderful and I just can’t believe that these people just come up with this off the top of their heads. I sometimes wish that I could have it recorded so that I could listen to it over and over again. Sure I can think of lots of thing I’d like to say, but I want to say a great prayer. I want other people to get out of my prayers what I have been getting out of others prayers. I have been made head usher. That means that I have several tasks. Some of which are to greet people at the door, hand out bulletins, get people to help take up the offering and make sure that someone says the offering prayer. I have the option of doing it my self or getting someone else to do it. I have been passing the buck and getting someone else to pray. Until now, I decided that I would do it. Lets face it, I mean how hard can it be? I have heard lots of prayers, I know what I want to say, I feel good about it, so here I go. The offering song is being played and the four of us are ready to walk up to the front of the church. One of the guys looked over at me and says, “Do you want me to pray?” I said, “no, I got it this time”. He gave me thumbs up and off we go. As we walked up front I go over what I want to say in my head. So far all is good. So as the song continues I quickly go over in my head again what I want to say. At this time I seem a little nervous and changed what I wanted to say, but it’s still alright. I glance to my left and almost touching me in the front pew is the preacher and a guest preacher. At that very moment I realized that there is about three hundred people in service tonight. As the song ends and I look up and the music director who gives me the nod to pray. I open my mouth and the first thing out was what I planed to say at the end of my prayer. So I panicked, I try to adlib. I was lost for words and paused…. This was only for a second, but it seemed like a long time standing there. I say a few more words and got mixed up and stumbled all over what I was trying to say and paused again…. I hear a few people say “bless him Lord”. This brought to reality that everyone could hear me, so as a last resort I say with disappointment in my voice I say “bless this offering Lord, Amen”. Now with a red face I walk through the entire church and have to take up the offering. I’m not really embraced as much as I am disappointed in myself for messing up something so simple. O-well, there is another time another day. 1 year later It’s Christmas time again. It’s hard to believe that it has been a year sense I had the motorcycle crash. I have come a long way. I crashed last December 14, 2001. I was taken out of the back brace on October 21, 2002 almost a year later. Talk about a strange feeling. Just to stand up without the brace feels very strange. With the brace on I could be relaxed while standing and it would hold my body up. Now without it on it is a constant strain just to hold my upper body up. I am walking around slowly watching every step. It feels strange. All the nerves and feelings don't react the same anymore. I can ease across the room and I get winded as if I just ran a mile. I can't do anything that I used to do except exist. I can still eat pretty good though. 4 Years later O.K. people. It has been 4 years now. At Church this morning I heard a preacher quote scripture word for word without holding a Bible. He did so because he can't. He is in a wheelchair, a quadriplegic. I have heard him before and am always amazed at his ability to quote almost entire chapters without missing a word... I was reading along checking him out of course. He always has a great sermon, he is not just good at memorization. Well today was a little different. He spoke about providence and what it means in the Bible and how everything happens for a reason and how God is always in control and has a reason for everything, good or bad. Just when I thought it was over he asked for a few extra minutes to talk about something personal. He told a story about what was wrong with himself and why he was quadriplegic. Then he told about his son, who after just starting college had a crash and broke his back and he was also, as a result, a quadriplegic. The story hit home for me because of what I have been through. It has been 4 years since I broke my back in that motorcycle crash. 3 of those years were rough, but this last year has been the most difficult by far. I try to hide my pain with laughter and smiles, but after 4 years it gets harder and harder as I hurt worse and worse. I listened to this preacher talk about how he still takes his son hunting and all the things they still do, they both seem happy and didn’t let depression get to them. I spoke with him after the service and he said he would pray for me. I couldn’t believe this… what was I doing? Here I am feeling sorry for myself and complaining about what I am going through and here is a man, sitting in a wheelchair that can’t even feed himself, telling me, he would pray for me, I WALKED up to him and he is going to pray for me…? I guess it just goes back to his original sermon… God is in control and everything happens for a reason. Satin tried to stop me from going to church this morning. He did everything he could, we even walked in late! But we made it in time to hear what I needed to hear. To end where we began, everything happens for a reason. I just thought I would share that with everyone. I feel like there is someone else out there that needed it as much as I did. T
August 25, 2007
September 22, 2007 December 14, 2007 I do love you all and remember... "IT'S O.K." Dallas
Friday, October 31,2008
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