Baka’s Corner

Birthdays come once a year. I tend not to think of it as anything special, especially since my birthday usually falls during the trade show that my parents do. This year is no exception, as my birthday is on the show’s closing date, which means I have to help pack up the booth.

However, that was the least of my worries. Though nothing bad really happened to me, people who are close to me are taking the full brunt of some unfortunate, yet fortunate events.

• First was my dad. On Sunday night at home, he slipped and fell couple of steps of staircase. I was down in the basement at the time when suddenly I heard this loud thud from above. As I got upstairs, the first thing that I saw was my dad lying face down, one hand on his back, and hardly moving.

  He was conscious and moving, thankfully, but it just hurt so much if he tried to move or get up on his own. Apparently he fell on his buttocks and hurt his right “cheek”. Eventually we got him up, gave him a message, and he rested for the night.

  Luckily, after seeing the doctor and a couple of professional message sessions to relieve some pain, it was simply just some muscle bruising. It still hurts for him when walking or sitting the wrong way. But past few days he’s been doing better.

  It was one scary scene, seeing him lying face down on the floor. It is definitely something that I do not wish to see again in the future.

• Birthday is a day of celebration. However, the unkind mother nature threw her whip around and swung a snow storm our way. And a sudden snow squall near Cobourg (1.5 hr drive east of Toronto) caused a major 30 vehicle traffic accident on Hwy 401. Unfortunately, among those cars was my parents’ Quebec sales-rep who was suppose to be driving home.

  She was one of the cars at the front of the chain collision. And a fuel truck that crashed behind her later burst into fire that burnt for hours. We tried to phone her in the afternoon and see if she was caught in the traffic, and my mom said she sounded like she was in shock and crying before the phone connection got cut off.

  As bad as the accident was, it was very lucky that our sales-rep was not injured in the crash. After the accident, she said “I’m never driving down to Toronto in the winter.” It wasn’t as fortunate for others, however, as two people died in the crash.

• This third event isn’t as dramatic since it doesn’t hurt physically. Where it may hurt the most is deep in pockets.

  My brother got a cochlear implant last month and have been wear a new processor device that magnetically holds on the side of the head. As we were packing up on the show floor, he put the processor device in his jacket pocket. After we came home, I noticed he was frantically looking for something before going to sleep.

  I didn’t realize at the time, but we found out the this morning that he had lost the processor device. And just so happens that he was suppose to have an appointment at the hospital for the processor tuning. What bad timing it was.

  How deep in the pocket is it hurting, you might ask? Try $7000 deep. Yeah, a device that is the size of current MP3 players with a string attached costs $7000. The original device was mostly reimbursed by the government, so we didn’t have to pay for the full amount. But if we are to replace it, we may just have to. We’re gonna contact the hospital and see what we are going to do from here.

Well, a rather forgettable week, wouldn’t you say? Two scary events in a week. As forgettable as it is, what is fortunate and memerable about it is that ultimately, no one was seriously injured, and that little bit of luck was all we needed to safely get by the week.