Head Job

Yes, I did a real job on my noggin' a few weeks ago; and now that I have your attention, you may as well read this post, you know, while you are here and all ;-)

Right, so I alluded to an extended absence from the bike recently. Including the recent couple of weeks of rain (which turned the trails into a quagmire) this was to the tune of around 5 or 6 weeks.

We need to rewind time to a fateful February evening. Enter stage left a DMC Delorean (and if you don't know the significance of one of these, I pity you).

A party was raging. I had stepped into the kitchen for a break from the festivities. My pet birds cage was sitting on the bench. Odd I thought. My beautiful Rozella was not in the cage. More Odd I though. I turned to my left and looked down. Across the room, my pet bird was on the floor. Being attacked by a cat. I freaked out. I launched myself across the room, in a downward direction. THUMP.  A wave of pain circulated around my head. The room turned dark. I was in a different house. I was laying in a bed. My bed?! The pain! Why is it dark? Why am I in bed? Why does my head hurt. Why is my head wet?

....I had woken up.

....I was dreaming.

....I was sleep-walking (or sleep acting).

I am a prolific dreamer, but I am not a sleep walker/talker (or so my harem of ladies tell me). I reached up and turned on the light. Blood all over the pillow and all over the sheets. Have you ever opened up a significant wound on your head?! Freak me, the blood! I dashed out of bed and ran for the bathroom (blood stains on the carpet scrubbed up the next day). I looked in the mirror. Blood down my forehead and the left side of my head wet with blood. More shocking was a flap of skin about the side of a 5cent piece, complete with hair sticking up out of my head. Suddenly a wave of faintness hit me (originally thought to be in reaction to the blood but more likely because of how quickly I jumped out of bed after 5 hours of slumber).

I laid down on the bedroom floor, clasping a washer over the wound. I looked at the clock. 3:45am. I attempted to get up. Dizzy again. Some logic began to return. Concern for the blood and cut turned quickly to concern for loosing my hair - right on the part hairline! Options assessed. A couple of mates live round the corner. Should I call them? Flatmate is home. I needed some help on this one, so banged on her door. Asking her not to freak out, I shouted I needed some help. I returned to my room before the onset of the next wave of dizziness (which returned). She assessed. A quick an unanimous decision was made that I needed to go to emergency - right after I can walk again.

So, in my hast to save my pet bird, I had slammed my head into the <metal> handle of my bedside table.

Sydney roads suck. But I can tell you at 4am they are truly sublime. That doesn't really help 99% of us still sleeping at that time of morning. Drummoyne to RNS in 8 minutes flat.

Behold, the post repair carnage...

Now, I am not going to sit here and proclaim that this was a particularly nasty or painful injury, far from it. What I can tell you however is that the ensuing weeks were damn right annoying. The damn thing just would not heal properly and given its location on my scalp was a nuisance to manage. It also prevented me from doing a lot of my normal exercise; I could not wet my head so sweating was out and furthermore, I could not put a helmet on my head = no riding. No riding make Justin go craaaaaazy.

Furthermore, what is the first thing that you do when you get in the shower (mainly if you are a bloke) - head back and run the hands through the hair. I did this twice, which resulted in grimacing, swearing and after all was said and done 4 visits to the doctor to check on how the healing is going (it is very hard to manage an injury you can't easily inspect yourself). I only made that mistake twice, for the ensuing 4 weeks I had a note on the outside of my shower door "watch your head!"

My worst fear though was loss of hair. If you notice, it is right on the part line (where baldness starts to set in) and with the lesion was a fair chunk of hair. I can report that <thankfully> it appears most of the re-seated scalp skin took hold and it appears the possible hair loss was contained to a very small area.

So there concludes my story telling for the day. I will return you to the purpose of this blog in the next post. P0rn. Bike p0rn!

Proclaiming that 88mph IS the figure capable of creating the risk to break the space time continuum, 
Justin.