Originally Posted by ramonajim

Bingo.

And just to add to the excitement, I fell on my head a couple years back (bicycle accident) and crushed C3, chipped C4 and C5, and shoved T7 80% out of line.

Got an ambulance ride out of that one. Trauma docs at the hospital declared "nothing broke, see your regular doc in three days." Regular doc gave me more mountains of pain meds and sent me home.

A month after the fall, my then brand new to me rheumatologist agreed with my wife that something was seriously messed up, and sent me for an MRI (which I drove my self to, since I was trying to 'walk it off'). Half an hour after the MRI was shot, I was admitted for emergency surgery. Surgeons using phrases like "if you'd twisted just right you would have severed some important stuff" and "no, we aren't letting you out of the restraints until after the surgery since we want to make sure you make it to surgery" kind of has a sobering affect.