knee xray

Once again, it’s been a while since I’ve made an update. A lot has changed. A lot hasn’t. I’ll try to be clear about everything, but it’s even all muddled in my head. This is a long one.

The wound on my knee hasn’t healed yet. I’m missing quite a bit of tissue below my knee cap and while most of it has scarred over, due to how thin the remaining tissue is, most of my sutures that were used to repair my patellar ligament are now protruding outside of my skin. So what looked like a giant scab on my knee turns out to be a knot of sutures with dried blood all mixed up in the tangles of blue surgical rope.

I can visibly see the ligament tissue and the sutures that wrap around it underneath the scab. It’s a very uneasy feeling when you can see your ligaments outside of your own body, lemme tell ya.

 

It’s been bleeding lately too, whereas it hadn’t been. And the smell..ugh. I wash it nearly every day with antibacterial soap. I’ve even taken a semi-soft scrub brush to it, like you would with road rash. But it still smells of rotting and decaying flesh though my surgeon assured me it’s not infected. Just another strike on my already ailing self esteem. I feel like at any moment, a swarm of flies will be circling around me like a Peanuts cartoon strip.

Last week, I spoke to my surgeon, Dr K, on the phone and he says he wants to get me into surgery next week as soon as possible and he referred me to another surgeon that he wants to collaborate with in my next surgery.

So I saw an oncologist skin graft surgeon specialist at my surgeons behest. Dr G says I need a skin graft and muscle flap from my calf to cover the thin and failing tissue on my knee.

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It’s been over two months now since I made an update on how I’m doing since I got hurt on July 3rd.  I’ve been wanting to post something. I just don’t know what to say anymore. I feel like old news. A burden.

“That’s just Joe again, whining about hurting himself. Don’t worry about him. Fuckin broken record…

Such a wimpy little tip over turns into this life changing event for me… and it might seem silly to everyone; “Oh you broke your knee? Feel better! Heal up!”

Hell, that’s what I would have said. In fact, I pretty much HAVE said that before to at least two friends who have had a similar type injury. I didn’t know any better.  I had no idea. I had no idea that 0.02% of people have the type of injury I have and that it’s so severe I’d be down for at least six months.

I had no idea about any of this.  And I’m still struggling to come to grips with it still to this day. It’s fuckin bad. Everyone that messages me asking for an update and when I tell em, they’re always surprised. I guess everyone just thinks I broke my leg or something. I fuckin WISH I’d have only broken my leg. I’ll take 2 pair of broken tib/fib over this shit. Hell, even throw in a broken arm and I’d be happier than I am now.

After all I’ve been through already, right here, right now, this exact second I would trade it all for two broken legs and a broken arm if my knee injury could be magically undone. I’d be all better in 6 to 8 week that way! At current rate of success, I might not ever be all better with my knee injury.

My last surgery was the beginning of August…the 5th, I think? I don’t know for sure. I was in such a drug induced state that I feel like my entire life was only a few weeks ago. Everything. All of it.

“When was it that you…?”

“Just a couple weeks ago,” is my reply.

“What about the time forever ago that we were…?”

“Yeah, that was a couple of weeks ago too. You mean you don’t remember?” I’ll ask incredulously.Read More →

TL;DR:

On July 3rd, 2022 I looped a slow wheelie on my friend’s YZ250FX dirt bike. I missed the rear brake and stepped off the back and fell onto my left knee at 12-13mph. My knee disclocated doing a bunch of damage and was medically labeled as an open compound tibial fracture. The injuries listed below put me into a 0.02% category of occurrence. Basically, it’s about the worst you can have with not losing your leg entirely.

My kneecap fractured and patellar tendon was severed. My kneecap recessed itself into my quadricep. My femur crushed down onto my tibial plateau, breaking it off. In that process, my tibial spine was crushed, severing my ACL and my MCL and tearing my PCL, and my tibia saw daylight. My meniscus was damaged, flipping upside down.

I’ve been out of work since July and was unable to save up any money to get my family through the winter off season. I generally save up around 15k to last us from mid November through mid March of the next year.

If you’d like to help us out, you can donate through gofundme or you can buy photos through 4theriders.com or donate directly through my paypal link.

Donate through PayPal

www.gofundme.com/f/he-yeeted-when-he-shouldve-yutted

I can’t even begin to thank everyone enough for the outpouring of love and support over the last 3 and a half months. I still can’t walk yet and I’ve only got 30 degrees of flexion so far…It’ll be January or February before I can walk again.

The entries below are copied and pasted from my facebook feed.

//End TL;DR.

 


 

July 5th, “Put me in, Coach!”

0800 wake up call from the surgeon… Just updated me on what he’d done yesterday as well as what he intends on doing tomorrow…

In my best Aussieman Review voice, “destination fucked!”

He said in 27 years, he’s never seen so much damage. He was talking reconstructive surgery as my patellar tendon is severed and my tibial spine is also crushed (taking the ACL with it). My MCL is also torn.

So add those to the tibial plateau fracture, the compound patella fracture, and the dislocation of my knee entirely.
My best guesstimate was that I was doing approximately 12 to 14mph when I looped the wheelie. I haven’t looped a wheelie since I was 14. And I’ve never before broken a bone from a dirtbike…

I guess I’m just getting real old. It was an awkward landing on my knee, for sure…but dang. This road to recovery is gonna be a little steeper than I realized…I got this shit. I’m still gonna send it!

Ps – Sorry, bribri! I love you!


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I haven’t yet made an announcement that I’ve put a deposit down on the 2022 Tenere 700. I mean, I may have flirted with mentioning it a pair of times in public, but nothing more than that.

See, I’ve never actually owned one of my dream bikes before. I’ve always just had whatever happened to be laying around, settling for “this is good enough. It’ll do.” I’m still a bit hesitant to post about it, because what if it doesn’t work out and everything falls through?


“This should be a picture of me…”

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At the end of February, Rawhyde Adventures—A BMW GS training facility located in Castaic, CA—hosted a grand opening of their newest facility in California City, CA called Zakar. Brianna and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend the 2019 Adventure Days event. I’ve been to Rawhyde Adventures a bunch of times covering the GS Trophy qualifiers over the years. I love the facility there and even more importantly, I love the people there. Rawhyde attracts people from all over the country and even the world.

It’s the kinda place where you go and hear non-stop stories from people who have ridden all the places you’d ever dreamed of going and riding; Patagonia, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Mongolia, etc etc etc…It never ends! And I never grow tired of it. I aspire to do these things and the wealth of experience and knowledge is pretty much priceless.

rawhyde adventure days zakar california city
Stacked connex boxes makes me happy for some reason. The main dining tent is in the middle.

It’s not your typical Starbucks meetup of GS riders either. Most of the attendees to the Zakar grand opening rode their bikes to the facility loaded up with tents and sleeping bags. When I arrived in my fancy RV with my fancy trailer with my [not so] fancy bike nestled inside, it was snowing pretty fierce. It was COLD. I waited in line for registration behind a spattering of Sportsmobiles, RV’s, and GS’s loaded to the gills.

rawhyde adventure days 2019 zakar
Like, brrr, Shaggy.
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EDIT TO ADD on Feb 26th, 2019:

These are the guys. I just found a youtube video with the same “roper” and grey 2007 Honda Odyssey Ohio plate # GTW 1060

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPA_vdYAGt0
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I’m gonna start this off by saying I feel like a total fucking idiot. I’ve never been played so hard in my life. I’m dumb, I’m stupid, I’m a moron, I’m a fool.

I woke up to excited knocking on the door of the RV in the WB Sacaton rest area off the 10 near Phoenix at about 8:35am. I open the door and there’s a guy all super excited saying “Didn’t you hear?! That guy just won $180,000 on slots and he’s just giving money away!”

robbed by truckers
I reviewed the dash cam…this was the guy that got everything going. The time code is off by 1 hour. It was actually 8:38am
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Well, in case you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to… LOTS! We just recently wrapped up the final Rickdiculous Racing school of 2018…Also, we’ve shot a few expos! Totally out of our normal routine, I know, but still fun…in fact, I’ve learned more about side by sides and RV’s and travel trailers and such than I ever knew possible!

We’ve been shooting these expos and such for New Atlas, an online publication based out of Melbourne, Australia. My friend Loz is a writer there and he helped dial me in with the gig. I’m rather liking it.

A couple weeks ago, we shot the Mullin Auto Museum down in Oxnard, CA. Holy wow. Art Decco, but for cars. Check out the gallery here:

https://newatlas.com/mullin-automotive-museum/57035/

mullin auto museum race car art decco
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Brianna and I recently went and did some touristy stuff. We’re pretty much constantly on the road, but 90% of the time it’s places we’ve been to over and over. Often times having taken the same route we’ve done a million times purely for efficiency’s sake. Now and again we’ll detour, time and money allowing, and check out something we’ve not seen before.

Old Tucson, Arizona is one such place. It’s basically a big western movie set. If I recall correctly, over 400 films have been shot there over the years. John Wayne, Clint Eastwood…even guys like Steve Martin and Chevy Chase! I thought it was pretty awesome. Even knowing there was very little historical significance outside of being a Hollywood set, it still felt very much Old West.

They have the entire day scheduled out with shows and tours that run pretty much every 30 minutes if you’re so inclined. You can walk about the park on your own accord if you’d like, but we opted to mostly follow the schedule they have laid out as there was lots of information and entertainment to be had. They serve beer and liquor at the bar. They’ve got some food and ice cream and all that other good stuff to aid you in parting with your money as well.

Here’s a map of what to expect:
old tucson map

Check out this scene of Old Tucson from the movie Death Wish

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I’ve decided to try a photo group ride for the public. I’ve done many in the past for manufacturers and magazines and shootouts and the likes, but I’ve never previously offered one to the public. I’m only offering around a dozen spots though. I don’t want it to be too crowded or chaotic. Safety is still third. ;)

When: Saturday Oct 27th, 2018, 10am, ready to go.
Where: Meeting at the Chevron on main street Chevron: 2370 Main St, Red Bluff, CA 96080 to ride Highway 36, stopping at 5-6 various locations for professional action photos. There will be something for EVERYBODY.
Cost: $40
Sign up: Click here to sign up with paypal
What you get: at the day’s end, after an amazing day of riding some of the best twisties in California, I’ll email you your link to download all your high res photos from the ride!
Who: ALL motos welcome! If you don’t have a huge love for ALLLLL two wheels, then you’re missing out. Sportbikes, ADV, cruisers, and even scooters! Let’s do it! <3





Here’s the basic route where most of the photos will take place:

Here’s a few images from the last photo group ride I shot with the Busa Stampede on hwy 36:

The famous “twisties for 140 miles” sign
140 miles twisties hwy 36 red bluff
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