Things I Learned From Modprobe's Mashing

 

At this point it’s been well over a month since the mashing of our dear friend @modprobe.  It’s been a rollercoaster for all of us to be perfectly honest.  At this point we’ve sat down and had a really good conversation that day about the accident and everything surrounding it and we even discussed that it’d be worth sharing with Steemit and it is, I just haven’t had the time to do it honestly.
 

You see for me personally the accident was a wakeup call.  Since I witnessed the whole thing, including the blissfully ignorant look on @modprobe’s face as he got hit by the other motorcycle, it really hit home for me.  This is what happens when you choose not to think.   
 

For those who have followed me since the beginning, or know me personally,  you’ll know that I broke my jaw now five years ago in a rollerblading accident.  I was totally alone, did something really stupid without thinking first and reality smacked me in the jaw, with the concrete sidewalk to be exact.    
 

I won’t explain exactly how it happened but @modprobe made a mindless mistake that caused the accident. It’s important to be honest about that because while it was an accident, he had a hand in how it turned out and he now understands to what extent more than he did in the days following his surgery.  While it’s not productive to put blame on yourself during these things, it really is important to start to look at what hand you did play because most of the time, it’s life teaching a hard lesson.
 

It didn’t occur to me until I watched @modprobe go through something similar how numbed I was to many of the important metaphors and lessons to be learned from the experience.  Between the reality that I hadn’t even really begun my life and I seriously injured myself to the fact that I didn’t even have health insurance were all pressing factors that made it hard for me to see the lessons in all of it.   
 

At the end of the day when you decide not to think, you essentially die either mentally or physically.  What I mean by this is life often intervenes in accidents like this, sometimes fatally and it’s almost always a result of refusal to think, whatever your reason may be. If there’s no accident you often become a non-person just following instead of thinking for yourself and making the best decisions for you. I lived much of my life in this state, so I know this first hand.  In many ways my jaw breaking was a painful way to snap me out of that state so I could start to learn to learn again.
 

There were a lot of things about my injury that make it worse than what @modprobe has been going through, where things stand with him currently anyway.  For example, due to how I broke my jaw my surgery involved a lot more risk and required many surgeons and it certainly wasn’t an outpatient thing like his was.  There was risk of pretty serious nerve damage and they actually damaged my ear canal, causing hearing loss, during the surgery. He was only wired shut for a few days and he had the luxury of living in sunny Acapulco, wheras I lived in the Snow Belt during the middle of winter.  Another nice advantage was everything including accidents are so much cheaper here in Mexico, so he had that added bonus as well. 
 

Not to mention the fact that my surgery wasn’t even done correctly so I have a lot of residual pain he hopefully won’t have to deal with.  Already, it seems like he experiences less pain on a daily basis which I’m personally excited to hear.  He broke his jaw in a pretty common way which was easy for the surgeon to access, so he got lucky in that regard.
 

As far as I know I didn’t experience a concussion, partially because of how I fell. I landed with all of my weight on my jaw; I honestly injured my neck more than my head. I still experience neck pain as I did permanently damage my upper neck from the fall. It was pretty scary to be honest watching @modprobe go through those symptoms, especially when he didn’t even remember he had moved to Mexico.    
 

There were many conversations that we had repeatedly just because he didn’t have the mental stamina to remember them.  He had a lot of anxiety over what he was going through with everything from the liquid diet to the healing process so it was obviously hard to keep straight.  It allowed me to really understand why I didn’t learn as much as I should have from my own accident. There were times were he was pretty irritable with us and vise versa, so it was also an interesting lesson in learning to communicate and interact with others.   
 

We handled just about everything for him, save for the surgery and doctor visits.  We helped him find the surgeon but let him make the moves with that, although we did our best to advise him based off of my own experience with this.  I was there when the dentist diagnosed his broken jaw, something I myself didn’t want to believe.  I wouldn’t wish a broken jaw on my worst enemy, let alone my friend.
 

We also handled the legal side of things which turned out to be a mess and a half, but all in all things got settled and @modprobe was able to focus his attentions on healing and working on his projects. We did our best to make plenty of superfood smoothies as well as get him things like Gingko to help his memory.  It was a growing process for us all and still is in some ways.  There are so many little things that I identified with him on, so I was able to shed some light on some things he was going through, wheras I was largely alone on that front.   
 

The legal proceedings taught me a valuable lesson that I want to share with you all.  Insurance, in some form or another is an important concept.  If you’re going to have to do something as dangerous as riding a motorcycle, you better have insurance or the money to handle an accident.  There are a lot of costs involved in those sorts of things and those situations are just so much worse when moneys an issue too. As @modprobe had the funds to pay for everything he needed to, I saw just how much smoother things went with that sort of foreplanning. Before I get on a bike myself, I want to have at least some sort of insurance either private or public to protect myself.   
 

It also made me have a lot more appreciation for John and what he went through when he took on taking care of me, like we took care of Nathan.  There was no legal situation to be handled but there were smoothies to be made and weed to be acquired, so he helped a lot in many ways during my recovery.  At the time, I was too busy with my metaphorical bitchslap from reality to notice how hard all of that was on him.    
 

As I helped to take care of @modprobe in this past month and a half or so, I really understood both sides more clearly, of the injured and the caretaker.  Often the injured can be pretty insulting or harsh, but it’s generally not intentional.  Mostly it’s based on fear. Of the few times @modprobe got very irritated with us he was also very scared, scared he wasn’t being cared for and that he wasn’t getting what he needed to heal as far as food was concerned.  Valid concerns, but it is a bit hard on the caregiver as well as the person experiencing the injury.    
 

So now that I have these different perspectives, I want to do my best to share them with you all with the resounding message to think before you act.  Just understand that there are ways in which just about everything you do can go DRASTICALLY wrong.  While it doesn’t pay to be negative about everything it does pay to consider the bad things, that way they don’t hit you out of left field.
 

@modprobe only remembers aspects of his accident, partially because he straight up had a blissfully ignorant and distracted look on his face.  He didn’t even see it coming but I did and I knew what was coming and that’s why I saw everything.  I was just aware enough to catch his mistake before he did and I’ve learned a lot about life and myself through his accident.  It doesn’t pay to be blissfully ignorant, as @modprobe learned that night.
 

I saw my accident coming way more than he did and honestly I was so wrapped up in the memory of the accident itself that it was really hard for me to look at the causes.  Also as someone who had never really taken responsibility for anything before that point, it was a really hard pill to swallow that I had really messed myself up and it was my fault.  It’s hard to admit that you made a stupid mistake that nearly cost you your life and maimed you in the process.    
 

While @modprobe seemingly will be less maimed than me, he will have things to remind him to not ignore reality.  His approach to life allowed him to finally see the lessons in the accident, it just took a month or so for him to go through the pains and really start to put things together.  It was a maddening process for him I know, but it was necessary.  I think he has gotten the message and his future motorcycle adventures will probably go a lot better as a result.   
 

So there you have it guys, think before you act because it’s always the one time you decide not to that life decides to smack you with reality.  Sometimes you get lucky like @modprobe did in terms of injury and sometimes you die like in the case of my friend from high school.  He got a brand new car for his birthday and three days later killed himself, his girlfriend and a father who was driving a different vehicle racing around a turn at way too high of a speed. You cannot ignore reality, it just doesn’t work.   
 

So if you’re the type like me who is more likely to just think “I just don’t want to think about that” instead of facing the difficult things head on, maybe you should consider the things I say in this post.  I get it’s easier to say “I just don’t have the energy to deal with that” but if it’s something that’s a common issue with you, often times you have to deal with it or life will make you. Think of it like natural selection.    
 

So be smart, use your brain and choose thinking lest you end up like me or @modprobe, all busted up with great life lessons. It’s not easy, I say this from the perspective of someone who quit thinking at 8, but in time life will reward you like it seems to be rewarding me finally.    
 

I didn’t get here easily, there has been a lot of blood, pain, sweat, tears involved to make me who I am.  Just consider that, everyone’s got to start somewhere.  If you don’t know where to start, start thinking.   
 

Thanks for following and supporting us, until next time!