By Mike Weland
I was surprised and delighted to get a phone call this afternoon and hearing a long familiar “how ya doin’?” the voice tired but still strong and unmistakably Mikey. “I got hit by a car,” he said. “I’m pretty beat up.”
His dear friend Connie Mieryteran was with him, amazed again at his progress. Hit by a car as he crossed Highway 95 while walking to the Liberty Qwik Stop at about 5:48 p.m. Tuesday, November 19, Mikey Bjoraker, 45, was unconscious the first two times she saw him, the first time in the critical care unit at Kootenai Health, the second at Northern Idaho Advance Care, Post Falls.
Today, the respirators are off, feeding tube out. He chafes at the cervical collar he’ll be wearing for the foreseeable future, seems not to fully grasp why he still can’t walk. He had potatoes for breakfast.
I ask if he got the drawing I sent him the day after he was hit and he laughed that Mikey laugh. “Love me too much!” he chortled, referring to the caption, something to the effect of “hurry and get better so you can come home … we love you too much.”
We weren’t able to talk long, but after the trauma he suffered, hearing the sound of my good neighbor Mikey’s voice at all was an indescribable burst of joy.
He still has a lengthy recovery ahead. “Are you chasing all the nurses yet?”
“Nooo!” But you can hear the inflection in his voice reflecting the twinkle in his eye.
There are no promises as to whether or not we’ll see the exuberant man we’ve known, walking with a smile, a wave for everybody. A slight forward lean to propel him forward to the next place he needs to be just a wee bit faster, but never too fast to forgo the chance to say “hi!” to a friend or to stick his head in a neighbor’s door for a quick check, “how you doin’?”
But to hear him laugh, to talk, there can be no doubt that the magic that is Mikey remains unharmed, that he loves us all too much.
Mikey Bjoraker is a patient at North Idaho Advanced Care, 600 N Cecil Rd., Room 414, Post Falls, ID 83854.
Send cards and letters at will. Call (208) 262-2800 before you go in to visit or send flowers. And please, keep him too much in your prayers.
Thank you so much, Mike, for passing along this powerfully cheerful update on Mikey. I especially appreciate getting his new address because the card we sent to Kootenai Medical soon after he was hit came back “addressee unknown.” Now we can retrieve it from Mikey’s house and send it to the address you provided. North Idaho Advanced Care is a wonderful medical facility full of loving, caring staff. I picked up a dear woman there years ago when it was named something else. A bell rang, and as she was pushed in a wheelchair toward the front door, dozens of staff members, including doctors and nurses, clapped and cheered her on. Mikey continues to be in good, capable hands, and he continues to be in our prayers.
Oh such beautiful news! Praise God. I’m so excited for Mikey. My prayers continue for his total recovery. 🤩