What I learned on my summer vacation

If a skateboard hurtling down a hill stops on a piece of gravel, its 47-year-old rider will not.

A head will bounce off asphalt if it hits just right.

Just because you aren't required to wear a helmet doesn't mean you shouldn't.

Emergency medical technicians can be talked out of taking you to the hospital if you bluff hard enough, and if you're out of your mind.

No matter how much something hurts, the pain will be nothing compared with the panic in the eyes of people who love you. You will remember that even if you can't remember anything else.

It will humble you. It will also send you to the emergency room. Eventually.

A concussion lasts for days. It can affect your eyesight and balance.

Road rash is as painful as pouring gasoline on your skin. And lighting a match. And scrubbing with steel wool.

It also produces ugly scars.

When a doctor tells you injuries will keep showing up for days, believe him.

A thumbnail is removable.

Doing so hurts less than the injections of novocaine.

Or changing the dressing.

Hospital emergency rooms can show you the American health care system at its best.

But only, it seems, when you are at your worst.

Otherwise, too many things - tests, appointments, insurance company permissions - will take more steps and time than necessary. Or understandable.

Which seems to be the point.

Doctors come in good and bad models, just like other people.

I have too many recommendations, but if you like a doctor in real life, chances are he's one of the good ones.

As you stagger in and out of medical offices, people will stare at visible wounds. Even when they pretend not to.

I am not as indestructible as I thought 30 years ago. Or 30 days.

Painkillers don't actually kill pain.

Busted ribs - or something equally unpleasant - can show up one morning as you get out of bed.

When they do, they make everything harder, including breathing. And moving.

Bacitracin both lubricates and sticks to everything. Buy it in bulk anyway.

Dogs know when something is wrong. They do not like it.

Week-old red, yellow, black and blue are not good colors on me.

Washing your hair is a luxury when you can't do it.

A beard grown in duress will not itch.

Blood and gore and unguent come out in the wash.

In our family, holidays so often involve a visit to the hospital that they can't possible be healthy.

But the only thing worse is no vacation at all. Or, perhaps, one spent in bed.

It is not possible to expire from boredom. Or from too many documentaries on Netflix.

You will just want to.

You will also want to go back to work before you are ready.

Ask somebody else to decide. Trust her.

For days, pain will force you to make sounds like your father.

Laugh when you can, and when others laugh at your foolishness. It lets people know you will eventually heal.

That won't happen before you recognize that thumbs - and brains - are critical.

For everything.

Donald Luzzatto is The Virginian-Pilot's editorial page editor. E-mail: donald.luzzatto@pilotonline.com.