Two and a half weeks later, I’m almost back to normal in terms of mobility. The only wound that was really any bother to me was the knee, not being able to walk properly for almost 2 weeks. My calf muscle was constantly rock solid stiff from all the strain it was taking to compensate for a knee joint that couldn’t bend without causing quite a lot of pain. Now I only have a slight limp and I can pretty much bend my leg to 90degrees without any pain, beyond that it’s still extremely stiff and causes some pain in the joint, at least the skin on my kneecap is healing nicely and not dragging on my pants anymore. Mostly it was the stitches and the dressings that were catching on my pants. Half my stitches were taken out last Tuesday, which for some odd reason made that evening and the whole of Wednesday an absolute nightmare, the pain was pretty excrutiating and the painkillers (myprodol) were doing nothing to help. I think the pain was mostly due to the fact that the wound had got infected, so I was on anti-biotics for a while there.

Otherwise I’m still taking anti-inflammatories, as my knee and hip are still slightly swolen. My hip is still quite bruised, even though the skin has healed now, the pain is still there when I apply pressure, same with my elbow.

My knee and its healing progress.

Personal injury isn’t the only damage that has been done, my wallet is going to be bleeding quite a lot in the coming weeks as the bills stack up.

I’m sure there are going to be more costs that I’ve overlooked. Fortunately my medical aid was kind enough to pick up R660.60 of the ambulance fees, and my insurance will pick up another R2000 of medical fees, as well as the towing fees. I only have a hospital plan, and I was treated as a casualty patient and not checked in, so the rest of the medical fees aren’t covered, I wish I had known this at the time, I would have got myself checked in and stayed over night. Other than that, the rest comes out of my own pocket. My helmet has to be replaced, and I’ve decided to get an upgrade at the same time so that will probably end up costing me an additional R2k-R3k as I had a pretty cheap helmet to start.

As for the person I hit… well she didn’t have insurance, so she will be trying to claim off my insurance as third party, and if I’m found at fault (I had to cross a solid barrier line to pass her), thats gonna suck, I’ll probably end up paying her excess, as well as have an increased insurance premium. If she’s found at fault, chances are she will get nothing, but then there’s always the potential lawsuit.

And those are the immediate costs, I still have all my other bills to pay, as well as upgrade my gear which I was going to do with the money that I now have to spend on all the bills above… at least I get paid this week :).