How Vocal Media Saved My life

In 2020 I started my life as a writer on Medium and over time it worked out fine. Progress was slow to begin with as I went through an acute learning curve, but in the end it was well worth all the hard work and hours spent at my desk. Then, one day in November 2022, whilst out riding my bike in the rain, disaster struck.

I was riding through a local park and ill advisedly went down a ramp at speed. At the bottom of the ramp was a quadrant with a none functioning fountain. I turned left at the first corner without any problem. However the next left at the second corner was an entirely different matter. The turn was a lot more acute and before I knew it the bike flew from under me in a nano second and I hit the hard paving with a very heavy thud. I immediately knew I had done something rather more than sprain my ankle, scrape a knee or bruise my shin.

I lay on the ground on my left side in excruciating pain and screamed out with intensity of it all. I couldn't move even an inch to get myself back up. Fortunately some council workers doing winter maintenance came to my assistance.

Two workers came running to lift me off the ground. However my left side all the way up my leg and abdomen was so painful I could not bear to even touch the ground with my tippy toes. The guys put me in their pick up cab, put my bike in the back and took me home. I realised that for sure something was broken and so called my wife who called an ambulance.

In very little time I was in hospital being x-rayed. The x-rays revealed the damage. I had broken both my left leg and my left hip. I was then trasnsported to another hospital that specialised in broken hips. They x-rayed me all over again and finally decided that surgery was out of the question due to my hip being broken in such a way as to rule out a new hip. And so I was returned to the first hospital to my begin rehabilitation where things got even worse.

I was forbidden to move so much as even an inch on the bed. Due to tthe 24 hours a day lying prone on the bed my lungs collapsed and my digestive system packed in. So I had to be put on oxygen to reinflate my lungs and given a laxative to ease my toilet movements. After one month I was then taken to yet another hospital which specialised in my type of fractures.

In total I spent three months in hospital. And I have to say the rehab place did a fantastic job. The only problem was I was in Japan, and I didn't speak Japanese nor they English. Yet somehow we got through it, often with the help of a little hand held translation app.

Back home my recovery continued. Slowly I took up short walks and once again got back on my bike, admittedly nervous, but I did it. In all it took about six months to make a total, pain free recovery.

Of course I wanted to get back writing and made a couple of false starts. But the fact was that I had been so traumatised by the whole event I had lost all confidence to do pretty much anything except relax and cycle. Then Vocal Media came to my rescue.

My problem was not only a loss of confidence but also, I simply could not think of anything to write. It all became so frustrating that in the end I stopped trying. Then, checking in to Vocal Media for a read I saw a lifeline, Vocal Media Challenges. I suddenly realised that the challenges served to give a variety of excellent writing prompts. I found that the challenges gave me something to focus upon. And the word counts made me write more economically and honed my editing skills.

And so here I am, back in the saddle so to speak. It feels good to be back doing what I love doing, like riding my bike, but without any danger of falling off and breaking my leg. And since my lovely wife has, under-standably, banned me from cycling in the rain, I can sit at home writing to my heart's content regardless of the weather. So thank you Vocal Media for saving my writer's life.