It all started with a phone call at 630am, the long term critical care speciality hospital that is taking care of brother #2 called my mom to advise her that his blood pressure was rapidly dropping and his blood gases were messed up.
My husband goes and picks up my mom and races over to that hospital. By the time I get two kids dressed, fed and deposoited at my inlaws ( and I was stuck for an hour in construction traffic and I got lost going to this hospital) It was 11am.
My brother was stabilized and alert. My mom, naturally is on permanent Defcon 5 status, I drop down to my usual Defcon 1.
(My brother is on comfort measures, which means no blood pressure medication and it looks like he has pnuemonia again. Yeah. He had been going to rehab and walking with assistance. So, another set back. It won’t be the last.)
So after several extraodinarily dull hours at a hospital that does not have a cafeteria ( it only has vending machines) I start to get a hunger headache and the shakes and pretty much I manage to talk my mother into leaving early so I can beat the traffic taking her home because it will be terrible going back to my house. ( I was/am going to stay at my inlaws so I can go back home, pick up overnight stuff that I had forgotten in my overnight bag.)
I drop my mom off at her house. Grab a bruger and was turning left from a main road to go onto an expressway ramp.
I didn’t see the other guy who had the right of way. That’s all I can say, I did not see him. A Pontiac sunfire-ish sized two door older model car hit me at about 45-55mph in my passenger side quarter panel. Spun my beloved cargo van around and up over a curb. The front right wheel looked like it’s pigeon toed.
The other driver, I didn’t really see him because I was shaken up really bad , is about 19 or so and was taken away to the hospital. More on him later.
If I was not wearing a seat belt. I would probably not be here for quite some time. If I was driving anything but a large cargo van. I would not be here for quite some time.
If I was not wearing a seat belt and driving a smaller car, I would be breathing through a ventilator as we speak.
*Thank God and Everyone Else In The Choir Above * that my children were not in the van. I have always had a hard time fastening the car seats down tightly in the van. I managed to get my daughters in tight and nearly proper and her seat didn’t budge. My son’s seat was *sideways *. I don’t even want to think about the what if’s here. I can’t. I’ll start crying again.
I did suffer a head laceration from a flying missile like object in my van which was either a coffee mug or hair dryer. It hit me in the back of my head. I would like to give a visual that there was blood was every where to satisfy your cravings for all things lurid and yucky. But it was just a dribble. I didn’t want to be hauled the 1 mile or less down the road to the hospital for a mere head wound.
I called my husband ( who had just gotten back into his office that very moment) and he raced over to the scene. told the tow truck driver to take my beloved van to a specific collision shop of a friend of ours, who then pretty much declared it DOA. naturally we have to wait for the Kevorkian’s of cars, the insurance claims guys, to come and pull the plug.
Our friend was really good about telling me amusing ancedotes of one guy who was rear ended and had a set of bocce balls in the back seat. Those went through his windshield like they were fired out of a cannon.
I decide to go to emergency and have my head looked at. It’s a first for me and frankly, it is not all it’s cracked up to be. If I did not have my pack back with me full of stuff to do, I would have expired from sheer boredom after trying playing " What’s wrong with him" in my mind. For a monday, the ER was at capacity.
I end up having one staple - very miniscule and highly disappointing - put into my head. I was hoping for something that looked like a rivet.
I know that you will all find this hard to beleive that I kept the Physician’s assistant and the various nurses laughing from cracking jokes.
We asked a nurse to check on the other driver and she did not see that a young boy/man was admitted or treated during the time frame given. So either he decided to bail after the lift or was taken elsewhere, I don’t know, but I really really really hope and pray he is ok. ( He was able to stand and help the EMS get him out of the car, so I took that as a good sign.)
**So, let us recap what we have learned here today: **
- Always wear your seat belts.
- ALWAYS install properly your children’s car seats.
and lastly,
- Never ever keep bocce balls in your back seat.
God, my body hurts.
