Introduction

I’m writing a multi-part series about finding happiness, in work and in life, and how that shapes the way I think about architecture and the built world.

• Post #1: Going on an Adventure

• Post #2: Into the Valley

• Post #3: The Only Way Out is Through. And It’s Going to Hurt.

Where we left off:

I was exhausted and running off cortisol and stress.  My sleep was absolute crap.  I was operating at my limit and hitting the danger zone.  But I could also see the light on the other side.  There was hope.  I just needed to endure a little longer.  

Then I got hit by a bus.

Part Four

It was August 2021.  I’d just purchased a 2002 Tundra two weeks prior from a generous client we were remodeling a home for.  It felt good!  Like I needed to shed the old GMC that I’d been driving since 2017 with all kinds of emotional baggage from difficult years.  It reminded me of all the things that had gone wrong.  I gave the GMC to one of my construction staff –  it was 10 years newer anyway.

This was the first asset I’d bought for the business besides scaffolding and small tools, and it felt oddly good.  Driving it felt like a new me, stepping into a new season.  I remember telling my wife exactly that.

And it was a new season.  Little did I know that season was Death – of a mostly metaphorical kind.

I was lucky, all things considered.  It could have been the end.  A city bus plowed through a red light at 40+ miles an hour.  I saw it out of the corner of my eye, flying towards me from my left and about to t-bone me on the driver’s side and smash my body into smithereens.  

I slammed on my brakes and slowed just enough to let the bus pass right in front of the nose of my truck before smashing into the side of it – not even going that fast. My truck just bounced off. It was totaled. So yea, I suppose I hit the bus, in the end.

I was lucky.  Really lucky.  I was fine; it was just a foot injury.

Turned out I was also very unlucky.  My foot was slammed hard against the brake when I rammed into the bus. I would later discover it messed it up in complex ways.  

The bus driver blamed herself for running the red light, and so did the passengers.  At least there was that.

But then a couple days later my insurance called me to drop me.  Later I found out via the lawyer I’d hired that, in the end, after I left the scene, everyone on the bus, including the driver (who had explicitly taken responsibility for it to my face) were now blaming me.

Over the weeks my lawyer started to doubt my story.  “All the witnesses say you ran the red light, and we can’t find any other witnesses.”  That was disconcerting.

But then my insurance company (which had dropped me) sent my lawyer video evidence from the bus, saying “they weren’t paying out any claims.”  My lawyer thought it was the end of my case.

Until she watched the videos and realized they weren’t paying out any of the claims to the people on the bus.  Because it wasn’t my fault.  The video showed the bus explicitly running the red light.  

Thank God.

Skipping Forward

It’s impossible to communicate all that has happened since that wreck in August of 2021 – three years ago as of this month.  And when it happened, I had no idea just how much it would upend my life. It was a spiraling progression over three years of getting more surgeries and becoming more crippled each month. 

I’m on my fifth surgery (on crutches as I write), with a sixth needed to remove the hardware from the latest fusions. That will probably be my last, for now. Thinking after each surgery, “this will fix it, and I’ll get back to normal!” How wrong I’ve been.  

Foot surgeries are incredibly painful, by far the worst I’ve ever had (and I’ve had numerous other kinds), particularly when they are fusing bone.  It feels like they took a mallet to your foot and just smashed the whole thing, over and over. And it takes forever to heal. Graphic image ahead…

I tried not taking pain meds the first time, not out of toughness, but because I don’t like what they do to me.  After the first surgery, I woke up in the middle of the night screaming when the nerve blocker wore off with the worst pain in my life.  I scared the crap out of my wife.  

The prescribed Vicodin wasn’t working, and I moaned for hours while my wife woke the doctor up to call in new, more powerful meds.  That finally got it under control.

The worst part about pain meds?  Stopping.  Even after just a few days, the withdrawal is intense.  I’ve learned to just pencil in four-ish days of debilitating depression once I’m off them.  Ultimately, it takes about a month to start feeling myself after a surgery.  I think it’s just really hard on your body, all the chemicals and trauma.

I’ve spent half a year in total on crutches, completely non weight bearing on my foot.  The wretched things.  It’s impossible to do anything.  You can’t carry so much as a piece of paper without folding it into your pocket, let alone a glass of water.  They’re exhausting to get out and about.  I end up on my hands and knees trying to throw away something in my office sometimes, or trying to get into a shower.  

I’ve spent another half a year in a boot.  And then the rest of the time, walking, the very little I could, with ever-increasing pain in each step.

Death of an Identity

Your foot is an amazing piece of technology.  It’s also your foundation.  My left one just…moves my weight along like butter.  It’s so smooth.  I don’t even notice my weight.  I feel light as a feather.

My right?  I feel like I’m carrying an extra person on my back.  I feel heavy.  Too heavy, like my bones can’t support it.  And then it feels like all that weight is coming down on a sharp rock in between my joints. 

Each. And. Every. Step. 

Every step is a practice in mindfulness, guiding it through just so to minimize the pain, constantly making slight adjustments.  Any wrong or fast movements can result in crippling pain.  And it gets worse the more steps I take, until I simply can’t handle even the base-level pain anymore.  

Obviously, it’s completely upended my life in every conceivable way.  Walking is a critical piece to most activities, and now I am limited to maybe 500 steps before things start getting too painful.  Everything has changed — including my job, as you can imagine.

But it’s not just walking.  Any fast or sharp movement causes extreme pain.  It’s the feeling of instability.  I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s incredibly disconcerting, standing but not feeling stable.  Always protecting yourself so someone doesn’t bump you, worried you might have to take a quick step.

Knowing, even though it’s unlikely, that if someone were to attack my family or take my child, I’d be completely helpless.  Knowing if there was a fire, I wouldn’t be the one running into the building to help anyone.  I can’t even help carry a piece of furniture.  

It doesn’t matter the scenario.  I’m action-oriented.  Ready to move and respond.  Always have been.  And to lose even the possibility of taking action?  And then after three years of things getting worse, wondering if this will be forever?

Holy crap.  

That’s a Death all of its own – worse than any of the physical pain or suffering.  It’s been the death of part of my identity. That confidence, that readiness, that strength and vigor, was replaced by something that scared the crap out of me: helplessness.

But You’ll Be Rich, Right?

Wrong.

One of the worst entities in the world to get in an accident with is the Oklahoma Government.

Yes, in the land of personal responsibility and holding government accountable, the Oklahoma State Government decided, in 1978, that the government’s max  tort liability is $175,000.

No matter what happens.  My injury lawyer has all kinds of stories, many worse than mine.  A child left a quadriplegic from a negligent government act? $175k!  

Do you know what $175k in 1978 equals in 2024 inflation adjusted dollars?  $842,977.

For me, by the time I pay my lawyer and pay the existing medical bills, I may walk away with $10k - $30k, with more surgeries ahead and a lifetime of physical therapy.  So yes, the Oklahoma Government gets to ruin my life, change the trajectory for my entire family, put me (and us) through years of pain and suffering, so that we can be out tens-of-thousands, and thousands of hours lost, just to try and walk with as little pain as possible, for as long as possible. 

At this point, even if I can get back to walking, with so many fusions, I’ll never be the same.  The doctor has made clear I’ll be dealing with arthritis in my 50’s.  Currently, that’s the least of my worries.      

And by the way: I still have not received any money three years in (August 12 is my three-year anniversary). They offered to settle for $75k – quite literally not enough to cover my bills, so I had to sue for the full $175k.  My court case is in December.

As my lawyer says, they delay as long as they can to try and wear you down.  If they can save $50k?  It’s a win for them.

No, it’s not fair.  

The Injustice is as Bad as The Pain

The injury lawyer space has been brutal, too.  I’m on my third lawyer.  The first I had to fire for lack of communication and missing a deadline.  They just didn’t care – likely because it was a government tort claim with limited upside for them.

The second? After five months of no progress, and eight weeks of no contact, I requested an update as they told me I’d be seeing a medical specialist that month but I hadn’t heard anything.  I had to send multiple emails and leave voice messages.

Their eventual response?  They fired me for being a nuisance to them.  A single email: “Upon further review of your file, it does not appear we are able to meet your demands and expectations.”  Their exact words.  Five months wasted and a dozen hours went up in smoke with that single email because I asked for an update. 

I had no idea where my case stood at this point after nearly two years of horrible communication from two lawyers.  I called the city attorney.  They wouldn’t tell me anything “because I had a lawyer attached to the case.”  You’ve got to be kidding.  

No one could tell me what was going on.    

I went to hire a new lawyer, but he couldn’t take on my case until I had an official letter from my old lawyer showing I was no longer their client.

I had to spend three hours writing the Oklahoma Bar Association, outlining the case, to get them to open up an investigation of the firm that had wasted five months of my time, and to get a termination letter from them so I could move on.

After weeks, the Bar Association informed me they would not open up an investigation (it’s malpractice in my opinion – I find it shocking a professional practice can treat people like this and get away with it), but would write the firm to request they respond to my request for a termination letter within two weeks.

Weeks later, I had the termination letter in hand and could hire a new lawyer and start over.

Rage

I was so angry at times during this process.  Enraged, really. How dare these people?  The government.  The lawyers.  Who the f*** do they think they are?  You get to waste five months of my time, treat me like absolute crap, and put my case in jeopardy so that I have to waste hours writing a letter to the Bar Association so that I can prove you fired me as a client so I can start all over?  So that I can fill out hours and hours of new paperwork?  

From a wreck due to a grossly negligent employee that lied and blamed me?  At a time when my business was already on the brink?  And suddenly I couldn’t even walk on a jobsite?  I’m about to go bankrupt you assholes and I’m dealing with this?!!!  

So that I can maybe get $30k out of all this, to get more painful surgeries, and be in the hole tens of thousands from a lifetime of treatment?  And all those lost hours over a lifetime?  I’m already a thousand hours in!  

All so that I can be handicapped the rest of my life?  All those lost experiences? The things I won’t do?  The effect on my family? The moments I won’t have with my kids?

And I’m dealing with this while trying to keep a business afloat during its most difficult season, during a tyrannical government shutdown and the proceeding supply chain shocks and inflation I can do nothing about?

You get to ruin my life, change the trajectory forever, and I’m still here having to negotiate with you so that I can walk away with $30,000 f***ing dollars because you only offered to settle for $75,000?

WHAT. 

THE. 

FUUUUUUUUUU***********!!!!!!!!!!! 

I’d scream that in rage often.  In my car out loud. In my mind.

I felt so POWERLESS. It was all so UNFAIR.  

And then the perpetual question of why.  Why did this happen to me?  What the hell did I do to deserve this?  I’m trying to do some good here with Building Culture! To make the world better.

I felt so indignant. 

It’s not that I was in a rage at every moment.  All of this is a process, and I was doing my best to work through it, and work on myself.

But rage is like a Hydra – cut off one head and another emerges.

Plus, I didn’t have time to be mad all the time.  I was too busy trying to survive, keeping my business afloat and being a father and husband however I could.  

But underneath, the rage lurked, and the slightest provocation could make a new head sprout up with venomous anger. 

Is This the End?

I was exhausted.  Ripped to shreds emotionally.  My identity in tatters. The strong, athletic, active person I was? I kept thinking I would get back to that, but over three years of getting worse, I had to start accepting that person might be dead and never coming back.

I was now a weak, feeble, handicapped person walking with a cane. I didn’t even know what to do for fun anymore. Nothing was fun. Everything fun I knew was tied to being able to move: traveling, hiking, sports, yard work, playing with my kids.

I was mourning the loss of a life I would no longer have.  I was dealing with hundreds of hours of medical and legal issues.  I was enduring substantial pain and suffering through all the surgeries.  And when not on crutches, each step a painful struggle.  And I was terrified it was about to all collapse.  My life.  My business.  

And while I won’t get into it, 2021 through 2022 were even worse business wise than the previous due to the chaos caused by the response to Covid.  The toughest years yet.  

I was hitting 100 hours on some weeks, and everything else was 80’s.  For years.  In 2021 I canceled flying to Indiana for Thanksgiving with my wife to visit her family at 10pm the night before, nearly in shock from how overwhelmed I was.

She was so kind about it and went on without me.  And thank God I did. I spent a week without taking a phone call or seeing a soul catching up.  And if I hadn’t the business might have been finished.  That was my third Thanksgiving to miss over the past few years.

I felt like everything I’d been working towards, my business, my life, my plans, were crumbling.  I was on a cliff’s edge, and I was a step away from plummeting off and never coming back.

But then one night I was lying in bed, playing it all through my head in a rage, indignant at the injustice of it all, mad as hell at God, scared to death, practically in tears.  

And then I saw something. 

To be continued…

Next Post: Part 5 - Dragging the Monster From Its Lair

Conclusion

Thank you for reading along with my journey. Reflecting and writing it out is helping me process my emotions and integrate what I’ve learned in surprising ways. I hope you find something in my story you can relate to and is valuable to your own journey. I promise, I’ll be tying all this back to architecture and the built world soon 🙂 Architecture is a profoundly human endeavor, so it makes sense to start with the human experience.

If you’ve been enjoying the newsletter, I’d appreciate it if you share it with your friends. Until next time!

Austin