X-ray on 18 August 1998 showing broken clavicle, scapula and 2nd rib.

I'm OK, but. Those three words can only mean something bad has happened. I got to say them this week, but mostly I'm grateful for how I came out of this scrape relatively intact, and I'm grateful for the kindnesses of strangers.

The problem is basically that I'm an overconfident city bicyclist. I'm zooming down 45th Street in the U District, on that big hill between 15th and Brooklyn. I'm keeping up with the traffic, certain I'll make the two traffic lights ahead. I hit a rippled stretch of pavement, maybe it's a pothole. In an instant I'm in that disembodied state of watching myself have an accident. The handlebars go left, the bicycle drops out from underneath me, and I'm crashing, crashing, crashing.

My memory of that moment is still a traumatized, dissociated one. I still see myself having the accident. It shocks me awake when I drift to sleep, to recall it. I'm thinking, roll out of traffic, and I have to accept that my fate for the next few seconds is not mine to control, that these seconds may change my life. It's a horrible sensation. It's not that bad, it's not that bad, it's not that bad, I tell myself as I roll, wanting that affirmation to make it all go away. My limbs work, I assess that. But I'm sure not going to get off this sidewalk on my own.

I must now surrender completely to whatever is going to happen next to me. And here's where the series of small kindnesses begin. In an instant I had people to assist me. I see a woman's face, It's going to be alright, she says. . Within seconds there's an EMT at my side, assessing my state. Another EMT shows up with his kit, takes my vitals, he also was just driving by. People are on cell phones, calling 911, calling my wife. Someone gathers my bike from the street and locks it up. My possessions are loaded onto the ambulance with me.

Robin gets a message from the EMT, a fellow from the Coast Guard. He hit a boat with his bike? she wonders. The message is that I'm stable, and being transported to Harborview.

Now a chunk of my professional life has been devoted to documentary photography of medical care. It was very enlightening to be on the receiving end. One thing I noticed was how limited my perceptual range is. I'm in a collar and a backboard. I can only see straight up. Ceilings are really boring. At Harborview I'm triaged into the hallway for some time--this is the primary trauma center for the region, and I suppose it's a good thing I wasn't a case that needed the full and immediate attention of the ER crew. A kind woman waiting for her daughter to get care hears me moan and comes to sooth me. Eventually I get an ER bay. I get x-rays and the first assessment of my condition: a broken clavicle, a broken rib, and a broken scapula. They're impressed by the latter--the scapula is hard to break. The question is whether the joint is involved, and if I'll need surgery. Travelling by gurney I'm grateful for the art on the walls.

A relieved Robin finds me emerging from x-ray. We camp out in the ER, it takes 5 hours to get a CT scan (hydroplane drivers are flipping, it's the start of a full-moon weekend), another three to be admitted. I spend a restless night on the 7th Floor Trauma unit, wondering how severely this is going to change my life.

They cut me loose the next day. The joint's not involved, they decide against surgery. They don't even want to see me again for 10 days. These breaks heal on their own, my job is to stay as active as I can.

So, I've got a right arm that barely moves, and some really impressive road rash. The bone pain is actually not that bad, I'm feeling now all the other bruises all over the right side of my body. The hardest task is getting in and out of bed. I can use my right hand to type, luckily, but it's fairly useless for most other tasks. I'm one of these rare people who is mixed dominant--some things I do left handed, some right, some I'm ambidextrous. It's amazing though the tasks that require right-or-left handedness that you wouldn't think of. Male urination for example.

I'm grateful for a whole host of things. I'm grateful my helmet cracked and not my head, and that I get to spend the rest of my life not in a nursing home. I'm grateful for an emergency response system that worked flawlessly. I'm grateful for the overworked yet compassionate crew at Harborview--they constantly kept me informed of the state of my care, what was happening in the CT holding pattern. The people at Harborview are the best. I had the most painless blood draws of my life there. I'm grateful for the circle of friends who are offering to cook, do errands, take care of me until I get more mobile again. And for the countless strangers of the past 2 days who reassured me that our society is one that cares and will help each other when we need it. I'm even grateful for how this has slowed me down, how ordinary acts of daily living I now approach with a kind of conscientiousness. I'm seeing my world more clearly.

Yet at the same time I become aware that gratitude is the twin of terror. It masks the icy knowledge of "what if". It is my defense to the terror, not a shabby one to have, but I'm in that clarified moment of what could have been but isn't. I'll recover from this fully. Change not many aspects of those few seconds and the outcome may have been very different. Robin's worked with me on the traumatic memory, and through some EMDR I've come through.

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