Jim Dalrymple.com

Michael, Monique and Nicole sat down tonight and watched Scooby-Doo 2 Monsters Unleashed. I was going to watch too, but I had some work to do, so I got that done instead.

Sometimes listening to Michael watch a movie is better than watching the movie itself. He’s one of these genuine laughers that belly laughs — when he gets going it’s contagious.

All through the movie Michael was laughing so hard, it brought a smile to my face.

Sometimes it’s the small things in life that make me happy. Well that and lots of money would make me really happy.

On Saturday Michael, my father and I went to see 4×4 drag races about half an hour away from the house. It was a lot of fun overall, althought the event could have been better organized.

The three of us have gone to a hockey game, stock car races and now drag racing. I know it’s a good time for Michael, but it’s just as fun for me. Dad and I used to go to the stock car races all the time, but as I got older we stopped doing things — I guess that happens.

But now, it’s like a blast from the past for me too. It’s a chance to get away from work and spend some much needed time with him and Michael.

They had several different categories of trucks racing: street, stock, pro stock, modified and one more that I can’t remember. I was thinking of taking my truck out there for the street class — by the looks of the competition, I could have kicked some serious butt.

Maybe not, but I want to race one of these days.

At any rate, it was a good time yesterday — hopefully this summer, we’ll be able to go to some more races.

After a week of worrying about Michael, we finally have some good news to share. The first may seem small, but him it’s a big deal; the second item is huge for all of us.

Okay, the first item — He started eating again! Earlier in the week he had a few chunks of KFC, which led to some pasta and other soft foods. Michael lost eight pounds from his liquid diet, so seeing him eating is great for him and us.

The second bit of news — Michael went in yesterday for the first of his root canals, which were necessary because the teeth were dead after the accident. The doctor did some tests and Michael could feel the cold on his teeth, which meant they were not dead afterall.

The doctor sent him home and told Monique to come back in two months! If the teeth don’t die and turn black in the meantime, Michael is done with the accident. Of course, if the teeth die, we will have to do something with them, but we are keeping our hopes up.

He will still have to get a partial for the front tooth that is missing, but that’s okay. Overall, his spirits are very good.

I talked to my parents last night and told them all about Michael’s accident. Then we talked about how freaky my accident was compared to what Michael went through yesterday — the similarities are kind of incredible.

When I was 11 or 12, I had a similar accident to Michael. Most people don’t know, but I have a false tooth in the front — it came out through my lip when I crashed. For many years I had a mustache, which hid the scar, but over the past few years the scar has almost disappeared.

Here are a few of the similarities:

Jim: Riding down a hill a few hours before my soccer game and lost control of my bike.

Michael: Riding down a hill a few hours before his soccer game and lost control of his bike.

Jim: Went over my handlebars and knocked out my front tooth.

Michael: Went over (or sideways, we don’t really know) his handlebars and knocked out the same front tooth.

Jim: Two strangers (a young man and woman) stopped and took me home.

Michael: Two strangers (a young man and woman) stopped and took him home.

Jim: When I got home, my father said I just stood in the driveway bleeding. When I approached him, I stuck my finger through my lip where the tooth came out. I don’t remember most of that.

Michael: He got out of the car and just stared at us bleeding, not really knowing what to do.

Jim: My parents got the tooth (I’m not sure if they went back or if the people that brought me home picked it up).

Michael: I went back to the accident scene and picked up the tooth off the road.

Jim: My parents took me to see Dr. Christie to have my tooth put back in my mouth. We then went to the hospital.

Michael: We took Michael to see Dr. Christie (yep same guy) and he sent us to the hospital.

The next day, Michael and I both looked about the same. I feel so bad for him.

I seriously thought my heart was going to break as I watched my 10-year-old son lying in the hospital, covered in blood. earlier today Michael was driving down a steep hill on his bike and lost control. Besides the fact he lost nine teeth, we know very little about what happened.

Mike left the house with his friend to spend the afternoon bike riding — the last thing Monique said was “don’t race down the hills.” A few minutes later she walked into the family room and said “I hope he listens to me about going down the hills too fast — I would hate for him to crash and knock out some teeth.”

She turned around, walked to the front door as a strange car drove up and stopped in front of our driveway. The passenger’s door opened and a young woman got out with Michael, completely covered in blood. Monique screamed and I ran to the door.

After we made sure he had no broken bones, I hopped in the truck and went to the accident scene to recover the missing tooth. It was still in the middle of the road where it landed. I grabbed it drove home, picked everyone up and went to our dentists office. He quickly told us to go to the IWK Childrens Hospital.

They took care of us pretty quickly at the hospital. First they had a doctor check him out, both physically and mentally — until then Michael had no idea where he was or what happened to him. He checked out okay, although they were a bit concerned about him.

When the dental sergeon came, he didn’t have good news. He said they could not put in the front tooth that got knocked out. In addition to that, they had to pull three other teeth because they were so loose. To make matters worse five other teeth had to be wired in place or he would lose those too.

Even though those teeth are now wired in place, Michael will have to go through five root canals in order to save them. The doctor said those teeth are already dead.

Michael spent two or three hours in surgery this afternoon. We left for the hospital at 1:30 pm and arrived home at 8:30 pm.

At least he is alive and has all his limbs, eyes and was wearing a helmet or it could have been much worse.

Michael actually started Soccer season on Tuesday, but I was in Cleveland so I didn’t get to see the first match. No big deal really, the first night they get their jerseys and meet the coach and stuff like that.

Tonight was their first real game. They played really well, but ended up losing 2-1 – a heartbreaker considering they had two breakaways in the second half and missed. One was saved by the goalie and one went wide.

The first match the coach is figuring out who plays what position and so on, so perhaps they’ll win next time.

Michael and I are going to start working for a half an hour or so every night on some soccer skills. It should be fun, I have a lot I can teach him and we’ll get to spend some time together.