THE BACKGROUND
Born May 17 in the grand year of 1984, I was a nothing less than an adorable baby boy. My parents chose to name me Mickey Samuel Kay, in honor of my two great grandfathers and the famous Mickey Mantle. Childhood was full of the regular developmental influences and their accompanying effects. When I was two, we moved to Oakland and I learned to be a gangster. At eleven, I accidentally killed my pet parakeets with the fumes from a burning can of Sterno™, and then truly knew the tragedy of love lost. By eighteen, I had attended over 2,000 hours of Hebrew school, which left me with a nervous tic and a savage distaste for latkes. Pretty much the usual.

I graduated from Analy High School in Sebastopol, California along with my awesome friends in the class of '02. After a celebratory summer trip to Europe, I enrolled in Tufts University in the harsh quagmire that is Medford, Massachusetts. Entering as an innocent freshman with great aspirations for my college career, I had no idea of what the next three semesters would bring. My engineering professors tied me down and forced me to solve endless reams of fluid dynamics equations. The sleety snow formed aggressive battalions, flying kamikaze missions down whatever cracks in my clothing they could find. And Boston won the world series. I had had enough, and could take no more. I returned home defeated in the Spring of 2003.

The following year was a demanding regiment of minimally part time school at the Santa Rosa Junior College, bi-weekly Ultimate practice at Sonoma State University, and eating lots of peanut butter. This taxing work schedule was rewarded by a sailing voyage from Balboa, Panama up the coast to good old San Francisco. The trip was full of fun, including killer whales, raging Tuhuantepecker storms, and three rampantly alcoholic Brits who made it a point to ridicule my American upbringing for the entire two and a half month duration of the trip. It was okay though, because I took a massive crap and clogged their toilet right before I got off in SF. Take that you wankers!

THE ACCIDENT
Which brings us to the climax of this story. Finishing up Fall semester at the JC, I had benevolently decided to give up driving in order to save the environment, and because my parents stopped paying for my insurance. I had resorted to riding my dad's sweet road bicycle, and bumming rides to and/or from my desired destinations. The route to the junior college was one I had ridden many times without incident, whizzing alongside the busy traffic that typically crowded its streets. One sunny Tuesday afternoon however, that streak of safe travels came to a shockingly abrupt end.

I was riding my bike home from school, grooving to the Mates of State CD in my Discman, when a Golden China Trading Company cargo truck turned into the bike lane in front of me. I was pumping hard to gain momentum, nearly at full speed, and it was either hit the brakes or hit the truck. Unfortunately, I managed to perform a stunningly precise combination of the two. My sudden application of the brakes tipped the bike up on its front tire, and I went flying over the handlebars. By this time, the turning truck was perpendicular to my graceless trajectory, and I managed to land, superman style, right in front of the truck's rear tires. As soon as I hit the ground, I felt these two smashing forces crushing me from above and below, and I pretty quickly figured out that I had been run over. Like a good injuree, I just lay still, waiting for help to arrive.

Luckily a lovely nurse by the name of Mary Ann was on her way to work, and saw me obviously in trouble. Doubly lucky was the full truckload of fireman training only a few blocks away. Mary Ann called 911, and calmly talked me through the standard routine, and the firemen and ambulance arrived shortly thereafter. I was taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital where I was subjected to hours upon hours of MRI's, CT scans, x-rays, and the most insane quantity of drugs I have ever taken. Two days later I was in surgery, as the doctors attempted to treat me for an L1 burst fracture, an L2 fracture, several fractured ribs, and a severely compressed spinal cord.

One day, and two spine-supporting titanium rods, later I was driven down to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and placed in the RTC2 (Rehab Trauma Center), a freakishly injury-impacted ward where I no doubt spent the worst week of my life. No sense of time, painful dysaesthesia, drug-induced hallucinatory dreams, and worst of all, a terrible fear of what was to become of my body and its capabilities. HORRIBLE! BLEEECCHHH!

THE RECOVERY
The next thirty days I spent in the slightly saner rehab section of the hospital. Slightly saner. My roommate was a third time offender, his first being armed robbery, second shooting a police officer, and this final strike and cervical spine injury accrued during a high-speed chase. He was very nice though, and shared his gummy bears with me. Furthermore, so many of us were doped out on ridiculous amounts of narcotics that the ward often resembled, as one other patient so aptly put it, "a bad version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

The daily activities were good, however. Through physical, occupational, and recreational therapy sessions, I soon began to learn various solutions to my recently acquired problems. Rolling over, getting dressed, transferring to and from my chair - all of these once simple tasks now required innovative efforts to achieve. Things progressed at a mercifully quick pace, and by the end of the month I was performing my own range of motion, wheelying up and down curbs, and even peeing without a catheter! On December 30 they sent me home with a frustratingly restrictive TLSO brace, and a healthy supply of Codeine. Back to the real world.

Coming home was soooooo good. The dogs. The couch. The food. Sweetness. My parents had hustled to get the house ready for my homecoming, and everything was wonderfully accessible when I finally arrived. A custom built ramp allowed me access to the house from our now spotless garage (probably the biggest job was the garage cleanup), and a power elevator was ready to hoist me up to my second floor room where a brand new full-size, extra firm bed awaited. In the famous words of Chuck Palahniuk, "babies don't sleep this well."

Writing this on April 18, nearly five months out from my injury, all I can think to say is that it's been a lot of ups and downs since then. The initial high of coming home gave way to a hopelessness that deepened as I approached, and finally passed, the two month timeframe most doctors and therapists give as the main period of significant recovery. I was still in a chair, still unable to walk, and was now suffering a wide array of draining discomforts each day. My butt always hurt while sitting, I was painfully aware of the rods running up and down my back, and this persistent nerve pain made every bump on my legs feel like a hammer blow to a deep bruise. The prospect of living with these ailments for the rest of my life was a big downer indeed.

Things have recently been getting better, though. After much tinkering with both meds and cushions, chair configurations and postural exercises, I seem to be feeling a bit more comfortable. I still go to the junior college where the adaptive PE program keeps me busy, and fairly satisfied with my efforts toward physical recovery. I ref indoor soccer at the local high school, and have only been kicked in the face twice. I play a lot of online chess as well, which despite its high nerd rating is actually great fun. So basically I'm kind of getting used to this. I still hate the fact that I can't use my body like I used to, and by no means am I satisfied with my current abilities, but I no longer feel utterly devastated by what has happened either. From awful to mediocre, right? But that's still a big step.

So that's the story. I've got my new mission, a cause more important than any before, I imagine. And that's not so bad. In fact I kind of like it.