This says it all...........

Midday Sunday saw everything change for the worst

We had a very successful time operating on our beehive. The hive was remarkably tidy, considering we had left the girls to their own devices for so long. I will post some photos when I can get in and sort them out,

I didn't get stung at all, which was surprising, but my Beloved did, twice around the head, which made him a little grumpy. I guess he will step back a bit further next time.

Then we got the bikes out to go for ride to Yarragon, to see a friend's art exhibition. We did that, though I forgot my glasses and had to borrow hers to see.

Next, we parked around on the main street and had a great cup of coffee. We sat in the sun, chatting to a couple we knew about Harleys versus Triumph motorbikes. He was looking at buying a replacement Harley. They walked up with us to our parked bikes, and I remember saying to her, I had never crashed my bike in over 53,000 kms.

We said goodbye and gunned them up the highway, heading for home. We came up the off ramp to the roundabout near the West Gippsland Hospital. My man was perhaps 50 metres ahead, then.....................

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This is written for the local doctor who failed to give way to my motorcycle at the hospital roundabout on 9th October.........

I vividly remember the disbelief I felt as you pulled out into my path. I recall my desperately braking to lessen the impact, seeing the side of your BMW fill my vision, the sickening crunch as my bike turned on itself and crashed heavily to the asphalt, gouging the bars down my right leg. I felt my left wrist break as the impact telescoped it into my hand.

You got out of the car, all shock and concern, trying to get me off the road so others wouldn’t run over us. We left the mess behind as we went to the nearby hospital, with me cradling my smashed hand against my chest.

You left soon afterwards as it was your son’s birthday, and I remained chewing on the gas mouth piece and crying for pain relief.

We stayed for 5 hours in casualty, where I was x-rayed, given morphine, and then sent home to attend for surgery at 10 am at Traralgon. I lay awake crying in my bed all night until the pain drove me back to the hospital for more morphine at 5am. I have never experienced such agony in my entire life.

I waited in a corridor until 6pm that evening for surgery. The surgeons told me my wrist had been pulverized into so many pieces there was nothing solid to fix a plate to. There are now just screws attached to floating shards of bone. The plate is also there to stop my hand from ‘just falling forward’.

So now I am home. My partner has taken the week off to help. My hand is useless and very painful. I think I may have torn the cartilage in my left knee again, but have no energy to find out. I cannot drive for at least six weeks, probably longer. I am too traumatized to think about painting for my planned solo exhibition in 2008, and it will be doubly hard to do it single handedly. My plans for expanding my garden will have to wait for this year. The repercussions just go on and on, as my life has been changed forever. My beautiful Harley, that has carried me safely for 52,000kms is scraped and bent. I will sell it when it is repaired as I no longer have the heart for it anymore. My partner will have to ride alone or with friends.

Your BMW was saved by my braking so hard, and was spared with only the rubber marks from my front wheel. I took the impact you deserved.

I harbored a vague hope that I might come home from hospital and find a beautiful bunch of flowers and a get well card from the casual perpetrator of this assault on my life. But no, there is only silence. You have moved on.

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I have offered this above to our local newspaper in the hope it might get published..........

"We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one."
... John Updike