It could always be worse

[Mikael Hansson]

Hey Peter,

sorry to hear about your son. Hope everything goes fine!

Sad to hear about the young man! I was hit by someone driving against a 
red light 11 years ago. He hit my car on my side at around 70 km/h.

Got some heavy internal bleedings (lost around 2.5 litres before I got 
to hospital) and a lot of broken bones. Luckily I survived ending up 
with half a lung less and some extra metalstripes and bolts. After a 
year of recovery I was almost in the same condition as before the accident.

Learned that life can end very quickly and that you should spend as much 
as you can afford on a safe car, if you need to be driving around.


/Micke


Peter Korsten wrote:
> So, this evening I'm at home alone, because our son needed a small 
> operation (for a hydrocele, just Google it), and because he got sick a 
> lot and lost fluids, he needs to stay overnight. And mummy is staying 
> with him.
>
> Whereas St. Luke's hospital, where he stayed for about a week when he 
> got food poisoning a few years ago, was in dire need of - well, 
> everything really, the brand new Mater Dei hospital is top-notch, with 
> TV/radio/internet terminals at each bed, spacey rooms with comfortable 
> furniture. They even have a special area with soft toys to prepare 
> children for the anaesthetic.
>
> Even though a lot of the millions over millions that this cost went to 
> the ministers' friends and family, it has been well spent. It just 
> reminds me of Schiphol, Amsterdam Airport, though, because you walk a 
> *lot*. The corridors are seemingly endless.
>
> And when Jean-Luc gets older, and some girl wants to see his scar, he's 
> practically on third base. Even though he's my little boy, I'm not too 
> worried, and this e-mail isn't really about him.
>
> Despite all its niceties, Mater Dei hospital has a bit of an f***-up in 
> the sense that there's no place for family members to wait for their 
> loved ones to recover from surgery. So you're in a somewhat surreal 
> area, where the lifts and stairs come out, with not even a single chair 
> to sit on.
>
> As Yana went in to be with our son and I had to wait even longer, 
> another patient came out. He was younger than I am, in his thirties at 
> most. And the blanket made a sharp dip just underneath his groin: his 
> body ended there. He had both legs amputated, from what I understand as 
> a result of a road traffic accident.
>
> I'm having a bit of trouble getting rid of the image, this young man 
> lying on that bed, and the look on his face that was like resignation, 
> but not quite the same.
>
> There's not much more that I can say about this, except urge everybody 
> to drive carefully, and to check those crash tests before buying a car.
>