The Kindness Of Strangers

Life is resuming a normal pace after my surgery two weeks ago. My right arm is also improving and most of my pre-accident movement has returned to normal, although at times it is a bit painful. One thing I know for certain: my boxing days are over and I doubt I'll ever be able to hit a baseball or softball as I once could. Time will tell. My stitches come out today, which means I will no longer have to shower with saran wrapped around my shoulder. The oddest part of it isn't the pain, it's the strange feeling of having a titanium plate above my pectoral muscles. There is nothing fun about realizing one is mortal and not forever 19 years-old, but I digress.

Those days in the hotel in Medan before returning home were rough. Father had to return to Toba to gather our things and was delayed an extra twenty four hours because the ATM at Toba was out of cash. The painkillers the hospital in Medan gave me were adequate to the task, but there was still an exceptional amount of pain. Getting out of bed was excruciating. Try it when you have a shattered collar bone (the doc here in Austin told me there were six shards in my shoulder when he reconstructed the bone) and two cracked ribs. Eating was a trial. Sneezing or coughing was a searing jolt of pain.

All of this was ameliorated by the kindness of the staff at my hotel--and the kindness of Sumatrans in general. Rarely in all of my travels have I encountered a more generally kind and thoughtful people. One of the staff even drew an uncanny portrait of me. Everyone, and I mean every single human being I encountered from the first moments in the village clinic in Ambarita to the day we flew out of the airport in Medan, was exceptional. While the same holds true to a lesser degree in Malaysia and Taipei the contrast between the moment I arrived in Los Angeles and Indonesia was just absolutely exceptional. I'm still trying to digest and better understand what it is about the American character that makes people so mean spirited when they see an injured or handicapped person, but it is what it is. Eyeopening, if a bit heartbreaking.

If you are ever in Medan, Indonesia, I highly recommend the Hotel Grand Antares. And for $35 a night? It cannot be beat. I do not, however, recommend getting injured--there is nothing fun about that.

Sean Paul Kelley November 28, 2011 - 9:32am

Sean Paul Kelley's diary | printer friendly version |

( categories: Agonist Travel Journals | Indonesia )

Glad you feel better!!!

S-P, I may have missed this, but what happened???

PS. In America, if you are sick or handicapped you are a loser. And they don't like to see losers for some reason. It is a bit paradoxical, because it should remind them that they could be next and so generate empathy. Instead, they just want to forget they exist, perhaps they cannot cope with the thought they could be next.

creativelcro November 28, 2011 - 11:05am

Yo, I'm very glad that

Yo, I'm very glad that you're on the mend - but what happened to you? (have you explained and I missed it? - happens). Did you consider having surgery in Asia? You may be surprised at how little you've lost in strength when you've recovered. I speak as one who went off an FJ1200 @ 70 MPH or so. Messed up a bunch of stuff (shoulders, ankles, Rotator cuff, smashed wrist - then there was a concussion). The point is that in a year, you will hit a ball as well as ever (for god's sake,don't box - concussions are the worst).

docbradd November 28, 2011 - 11:53am

Maybe I missed it

But how were you injured, sounds like you fell off a horse, impacting with the ground on your shoulder, cracking the ribs with your arm.

mcgrande November 28, 2011 - 11:55am

I missed it too.

And I couldn't find where SPK explains what happened. This is the first time I've seen where he even mentions his injury was a broken collarbone. I'm assuming a motorcycle or moped accident, not horses.

maqmigh November 28, 2011 - 10:55pm

What happened? I'm writing up that story

right now and hope to post it later today.

^{Bad decisions make good stories.}

Sean Paul Kelley November 28, 2011 - 12:09pm

I wonder if your tagline might play in this ;-)

"It's no longer IOKIYAR....It's OK If You're A Republican, but IOKBYAR--It's OK BECAUSE You're a Republican." -- Me

justadood November 28, 2011 - 12:30pm

I have long noticed

that the less wealthy (or perhaps wealth-oriented) people are, the more human they are. Subway panhandlers get a lot more from minority donors than from the Suits.
I know a lot of Native Americans who'd share their last crumb of food, give your their only blanket.

I think our material success, particularly since WW2, has generated a lot of hubris - "it can't happen to me". It will interesting to see what happens when our world Unravels (as is happening). When the well-off middle class finds itself unemployed, homeless and broke, it might actually humanize us. Meanwhile, that's one of the reasons I am seriously considering retired abroad, to someplace with real people.

Il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
- Voltaire

steeleweed November 28, 2011 - 1:03pm

year after year

it shows the poor give proportionately more to charity

Tina November 28, 2011 - 1:07pm

It's a little complicated in that there are...

...minimum donation size effects and most of the figures available rely on gross, pre-tax income (i.e., they don't account for differential tax regimes and social programs). The general principle is sound, but the difference isn't necessarily as large as has commonly been presented.

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

JustPlainDave November 28, 2011 - 1:29pm

Admittedly anecdotal, but

I rode NYC subways and walked Manhattan for 40 years and noticed that maybe one in 20 middle-class whites gave panhandlers anything, while perhaps 1/3 of the blacks and Asians donated, with women more generous than men. And non-donors often displayed contempt or unease.

It seems the higher up the ladder, the less concern for folks at the bottom, which is ironic really, because the higher you are, the more contributed to your success.

Il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
- Voltaire

steeleweed November 28, 2011 - 2:00pm

Yes, it is anecdotal...

In the sense that the amount of attention you pay to whites and to minorities is not the same. Plus, memory itself is affected by relative frequency etc. All you need to postulate is that you tended to notice when blacks/asians gave money, while somewhat ignoring cases when whites did.

creativelcro November 28, 2011 - 4:34pm

I am well aware

of the reputation of anecdotal 'evidence'. Therefore, when I notice some oddity that makes me want to generalize, I deliberately back off mentally and pay close attention. In NY subways, for example, the proportion of minorities to WASP was likely higher than their proportion in the general population, but what I remarked on was not the number of black vs white donors but the percentages. I've seen panhandlers walk into a car full of WASPS and just go right on through without begging - they know from experience (anecdotal?) it would be slim pickings. In a car full of blacks, they would hit up everyone in the car.

Il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
- Voltaire

steeleweed November 28, 2011 - 7:58pm

There may be objective evidence out there...

I'm sure somebody must have done an actual study (I mean, more than a survey). Probably it's buried in some social psychology journal.

creativelcro November 29, 2011 - 5:09am

it may not be

as large as some graphs show but is still disappointing from a social and community sense. It just reminded me of a 60 Minutes story on the homeless in Central Florida last night.

Hard Times Generation: Families living in cars

those kids pictured are impressive as hell

Tina November 28, 2011 - 2:00pm

Quasimodo

was not American.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly November 28, 2011 - 1:18pm

I've done pretty similar to what you've done twice now.

You can recover, and you will recover. And - unless you're a pro athlete or similar - what you don't recover you'll rarely miss (I have occasional trouble with drive-through parking stub dispensers - I can live with it fine).

After the bones set straight and firm, commit to one of the Eastern disciplines like yoga that understands the malleability of soft tissue better than any Western therapy regime ever has.

Take everything your doctors say about recovery with a grain of salt - they practice Western medicine and Western medicine is about statistics. The average American has one breast and one testicle. You aren't a statistic.

"The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Escher Sketch November 28, 2011 - 2:27pm

Prices seem to have gone up.

http://grandantares.com/room/suite

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly November 28, 2011 - 7:49pm

That's there posted rate--but the walk in rate

in $35USD. I paid the same rate there in 2009 as I did three weeks ago. :-)

^{Bad decisions make good stories.}

Sean Paul Kelley November 28, 2011 - 7:59pm

Glad you're getting better.

Just take the rehab carefully. And if you stay out of sleazy bars, you shouldn't need your boxing skills. Hope your dad is okay - noticed an injured arm on the photos you posted. Looks about my age and we don't heal as fast as you youngsters.

When my wrist was pinned, they splinted the arm and I got the splint off today when they took out the stitches. They took new X-rays (surprising how much hardware they could cram into my arm) and decided to put on a cast for the next several weeks. I suspect it's because when they did the surgery, they found my bones less dense than expected and are afraid it will take longer for the bone to knit. That, of course, will mean more muscle atrophy and longer rehab.

Had a bone density test and think the MD is contemplating Reclast (she ordered all the prelim blood tests) but I will probably try to boost my calcium intake and exercise more, then test again in a few months. Wife has yearly Reclast treatments without side effects but I'd like to avoid it unless it's absolutely necessary. I do want to resume hang-gliding next summer, so must get in shape by then - with healed and stronger bones.

To quote Bob & Ray:
"Until next time
write if you get work
and hang by your thumbs."
:-)

Il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
- Voltaire

steeleweed November 28, 2011 - 8:30pm

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