Bad things happen in Threes...or Fours?

This week seems to have been a not very good week at all for the people in my office, including myself. Monday was a holiday but the long weekend saw no end to work for me. It all started when a very important manager of mine down in Panama quit on me without warning. Saturday he called to say he was giving his 2 weeks notice. Sunday he didn't show up. Monday he called to say he wasn't coming back at all. Unbelievable...at least with 2 weeks he could have been able to train someone to fill his shoes...you think you know a guy. So that left me in a shitty predicament with LOTS of work to do over the weekend.

On Tuesday everyone comes in with a bubbly and rested attitude except myself of course, but I noticed that my Marketing Assistant was also less than bubbly. Turns out a very good friend of hers died over the weekend. Ouch. She was taking it extremely well however and I have already told her that I think she is amazing for that.

On Wednesday I am just starting to turn things around with work (found a solution/replacement for that position in Panama) so things were looking up until I get a phone call in the evening from a staff member to tell me that his father passed away in a sudden freak accident. Once again...Ouch. I am not really good in situations like that so I simply told him to take as much time as needed and do what he has to do and not worry about work.

So we are halfway through the week and we are looking at 2 deaths and a work-related crisis. Great. I was talking to my office manager about the whole thing and remember saying the phrase "Death Happens in 3's"....so they say...or is the saying "Bad Things happen in 3's"? She shrugged and pushed the thought out of her head. I on the other hand kept thinking about it. If it's Death that happens in 3's then I've still got one more to go. If it's Bad Things that happen in 3's then I'm done.... I wonder...

Well yesterday morning I believe I got my answer....

I had just finished meeting with my office manager and a Realtor at a location fairly close to my home. We left the meeting and she jumped on a street car and I jumped on my bike and told her I would meet her at the office. I didn't get 3 blocks up the street when it happened.

I always go on and on about how Toronto seems to have amazing infrastructure for people who ride bikes. It's a rare thing to find a city in North America as big as this one that supports bik-riders.

So I am on the right side (in the designated bike lane) of the rather busy street riding at a comfortable pace when this big black car comes out of a side street to turn onto the same busy street that I am passing on. The driver looked at me and saw me and I could have sworn he was slowing down. When I realized that he wasn't going to stop, I started ringing my little bell and screaming WOAH! but it was too late. The impact happened right at my right leg of the bike. He hit me hard enough to throw me off my bike and into the heavy traffic in the street next to me. THANK GOD a car who saw the whole thing stopped behind me before hitting me a second time and the driver jumped out of the car to help me get out of the road. I was stunned.

Something to note. In Toronto it is not law for adults to wear helmets while on a bike. It is law however to have a bell on your bike... yea well....I'm buying a helmet before I ever get on a bike again...Also, when you are flying in the air, you tend to close your eyes, brace your body and hope for the best... You don't quite remember details about how you landed and what happened to the bike etc... A bunch of witnesses told me the same story. I landed on the right side of my face first and then flipped over onto my left arm. The damage on my body definitely matches that story. At first I thought I was fine but as the minutes passed and the adrenaline in my body began to calm down, I realized that I had damaged my arm pretty badly. After about 2 hours I could not move it at all. After many hours in the hospital, begging for pain-killers (which I eventually got, thank god) and watching my arm visibly swell to twice the size of the other one, turns out I fractured my elbow pretty badly and so have to wear a sling for the next 2-3 weeks.

So in the end, it's all good. It could have been MUCH MUCH worse so I feel lucky. My face looks like shit and my entire body is soar today, including of course my arm...and I'm irritated as shit trying to do things with one hand all the time (including typing this story)...but I'll live.

I tell you what though - as soon as I realized that I was going to be hit, there was one thing going through my mind...it went something like this.... "NO WAY....AM I GOING TO BE #3??"