resting in my chair after a long day & night yesterday in which we went to iowa, i had surgery, and came back to see many many trucks on the side of the road east of west branch, after a harrowing set of accidents on saturday night.

the surgery went well but took too long; i was getting another cochlear implant like the first so i knew what i was getting into, and was somewhat drugged up as my wife drove us through it, stopping for gas in west branch before we saw the remains of the accident.

though the accident was saturday and this was monday night, there were still dozens of cars and smashed trucks on the road, and in two cases trucks on the shoulder with their blinkers on. this was probably because they couldn't move them, and were told to leave the blinkers on, but it slowed traffic down so we could all have a proper rubberneck on the other destroyed trucks that were also on the shoulder and the median. quite a lesson on truckers and ice!

over sixty accidents were involved in that one, just east of west branch, but nobody died. apparently back at the hospital they'd had to decide who to treat first as so many came in. but this had been two days earlier and still wasn't totally cleared off, though the roads themselves were in much better shape, and there were two lanes going all the way through. still it was about a ten-minute delay.

the ironic thing was that i once lived just east of west branch and the accidents could have been right there, near scattergood school, but i'm not sure really because i was in kind of lousy shape to look in the darkness across lanes to see exactly where we were. I spent a couple of years there but didn't recognize anyone at the west branch casey's, in fact that casey's might not even have been there when i lived there. time has make a new west branch. i am in my chair, dog on lap, getting used to the new hearing condition.

what will happen is that they will turn on the right implant in a couple of weeks and slowly i will hear better in that ear as i do in the left. in the meantime i have only the left and have some adjusting to do. with implants out i have almost nothing, as opposed to before, when i had very weak hearing on the right and implant (if charged and functioning) on the left. now i have to be more vigilant, and make sure i always have left, especially when out on the road.

as i began to come to this morning, i became aware of several crises, washer broken, kids need stuff, way behind on everything, laundry, christmas to organize, etc. but sun is out and it's warmer. snow is coming off roofs naturally.

And the dog is very attentive, and sticking right on my lap as i more or less stall in getting up and organized, and take my time. the accident took almost as much out of me as the surgery. my son is, after all, a new trucker deciding whether to go 50-state, as opposed to just CA-AZ. The truckers were heavily criticized for driving too fast (on ice/snow) or carrying 'dry loads' but i don't know exactly what happened, more than sixty people were unable to stop at some point, and whose fault is that? it could have been anyone.

vaya con dios, truckers. welcome to iowa!