Club Obi Wan

Kelly wrote: The jacket is phenomenal! I love it! Makes his butt look cute!

SpeedRcrX wrote:

Kelly wrote: The jacket is phenomenal! I love it! Makes his butt look cute!

I want to see that, I need proof!

I appreciate the sentiments, but I'm not brave. I just don't know any better?

Michaelson wrote:

You agree that “Club Obi-Wan” has the right to remove, edit, move, use, or close any topic at any time should we see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have posted to being stored in a database.

_ wrote:On topic though? She arrived this morning. Fit is perfect. Threw her in the wash. Cold water. She's going to air dry. Don't want to lose any size.

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Before


After same spot

Hollowpond wrote:How bout you _? Any shrinkage?

_ wrote:Let’s see…

The first leather jacket I ever owned was given to me by my grandpappy. He bought it for – like - $7 in 1925 when he was 25. It was a Schott jacket and he bought it at an Ace hardware store in Chicago. He gave it to me in 1985 during an Easter break visit. It was a cool jacket – zips on the hand warmers and a chest pocket, and horn buttons and a belt. A lot like a Surrogates jacket in general pattern. Six month later he passed away.

I wore it always.

Two years later, the car I was driving was hit head-on by a drunk driver. I’ll give you the good gore – skip it if you like…

The last thing I remember was leaving school In Bellingham Washington – in early April. The next thing I remember I was waking up in recovery at Swedish Hospital in Seattle – in late May.

I was driving a 1982 Toyota Starlet. The guy who hit me was in a 1968 Cougar. He won. He drove through the left front quarter panel and directly through my left leg – which was apparently extended pressing the clutch. The car was thrown 60 feet into the woods alongside the road. They never did find the lower half of the engine.

He was driving one car, and he had friends in a car following him. They all got in the second car and went back to the bar and kept drinking. He called the police and reported that his car had been stolen. Meanwhile, I was unconscious in my car – 60 feet off the road in the woods.

I was getting ready for a power lifting meet. I had just squatted 835lbs that week. My waist was 34” and my thighs were each 38”. He drove right into my left leg extended into the clutch. My left femur literally exploded. Ten inches of it turned into powder.

Six hours later, a Pierce County deputy spotted the deserted Cougar and then found me. He thought I was dead. Apparently I was a little delirious though – I apparently started swinging and tried to get out of the car. As I had no femur? I collapsed and passed out. The deputy told me this six weeks later at Swedish. I guess I scared the #### out of him?

So, after they found me, I was taken to Good Samaritan hospital in Puyallup Washington. They stabilized me and put my leg into traction. Traction was a big frame that locked my lower leg in place with my upper leg and body through a series of screws that were run into holes drilled into my bones. They put me on a wide-open morphine drip and told my folks the only option was amputation, as there was nothing to “set.”

My dad asked for a second opinion. Dr. Lawrence Holland at Swedish Trauma Center was willing to give us one. I was his second guinea pig for what is now a pretty common fix. Swedish apparently was the place this was developed and perfected. The procedure was as follows. A series of muscles and nerves along the outside of my leg would be sacrificed. This was necessary in order to put a straight stainless steel tube through the upper femur and into the lower femur. This rod contained a titanium honeycomb insert that contained cadaver bone in order to create marrow. More cadaver bone was secured to the outside of the rod to attract the bone fragments floating in my leg. The rod was secured by two screws by my knee and one at the top. Over time, the fragments and cadaver bone would reform the femur.

Today, these rods are cork-screw shaped – not straight. This advancement allows them to not sacrifice the muscles and nerves mentioned before. The sacrifice of these things is why I have chronic and constant pain today. But then it was a choice between that or no leg.

The operation was done. It was a success. I never even needed a cast – I used crutches for a few days, but I was walking on it.

A year later, they removed the screws. Two years later they removed the rest. I am now metal free, but I have great scars. I did keep the screws. I gave the rod to another surgeon friend who does this operation today. He studied under Dr. Holland and just happened to be at Swedish when I was a patient. We met 20 years later.

What does this have to do with a jacket?

After all of this drama, I think the part that broke my heart was that they cut my grandpappy’s jacket off of me in the emergency room… Idiots…

_ wrote:
When I was waking up in recovery I grabbed the overhead bar. When I did this, a bone in the middle if my wrist stuck straight out. It was broken but nobody knew it. They later went in and rebroke it, cleaned out a bunch if calcium spurs, and set it.

_ wrote:
I woke up in my room - ticked off at the world. I remember being just fxxxgxn mad. I was going to get up and I was leaving.

I ripped the catheter out of my - well. And alarms went off. I swung my fresh new leg over to get out of bed, and Leslie came in and ran into it.

I remember HOWLING in pain. And I decked her. Orderly's came in. I felt a needle stick. And I was out....