I was driving home from work Monday the 16th. I had had a horrible headache which became a migraine. I guess it was more intense than I thought b/c I ended-up blacking out and coming to when I felt the rumble strips on the left side of the left lane to the hywy. It was almost as if I didn’t comprehend that it was me who had drifted, and my arms proved that as they tried to bring my car to some sort of a lane in the road. However, since I had blown a tire (I later found-out) it became near-to-impossible, and so swerving became my only option. Finally, screaming “NO! NO! NO!” With the car spinning twice across the middle and far right-hand lane, I collided into the cement barring that saved me from toppling into the 270 traffic below. I couldn’t nor did I dare move my left arm. It hurt way too much! Crying and frantic, I tried to grab some sort of reality as a guy on the scene opened the passenger’s side of the car and told me he was an EMT and started asking questions and taking my pulse. Another girl with a cross necklace draped around her neck asked if she could call anyone for me.
“Mom, I got in an accident.” I told her.
“No! You didn’t! Where are you?!” She answered.
I remember another woman yelling at me telling me not to move my head, and by that time she entered I suppose and they called the paramedics, because they arrived not too long afterwards. Another surprising fact was how very attractive all the guys were that started taking care of me. One took my head and told me, again, not to move my head or neck anywhere. Another one cut the air bag off of the right door he had successfully pried open, and I had a few trying to slide the stretcher under me and somehow move onto it from the passenger’s side. Funny that the thought that came into my mind as they were trying to find a good way of getting me on there, and I just helped myself onto it was, “I hope you can tell that I have really great arm strength.” Shoot! All these guys and I hoped I looked good. You can tell where my priorities were! Always… men on the brain…
They slid me on the bed in the back of the emergency vehicle along with my laptop and bag… and asked to see my license.
“HAWAII?!” One asks me. “What are you doing here?!”
“Shoot! If this stuff happens here, I need to go back!” I returned.
They got the information they needed and we drove off to Doctors West hospital.
“I hope this isn’t your favorite sweater” A paramedic states as he cuts into the shoulder of yes, my favorite sweater. However, I’d rather them cut it then otherwise. By the time we got there, I told them that God was the only one that could have gotten me out of Hawaii. One guy even asked what church I belonged to. What a great way it was to end the conversation as we pulled into the hospital! He knows I’m Mormon. Cool! They wheeled me in and moved me from one place to another softer one I was hoping, but then again, I still had a board under my back. Annoying and painful, my phone rang just the same. James. The nurse only handed me my phone because she thought it to be important. I hurriedly texted him, “I got in an accident, call my mom.”
Then, the tears came. They created their own trail down my cheeks and dropped off onto the bed. The neck brace seemed to be most uncomfortable next to the board who’s hardness seemed to be hitting the worst part of my head. I already was suffering from the migraine, and it was just getting worse. So, I manipulated my way into getting someone to finally come in and take me off that horrible plank. Mom finally got there after a while and crying was automatic. I’m so very grateful for my mommy. I was bleeding on my nose and kept seeing it through my peripheral vision.
After using a bed pan to relieve my faculties (because they wouldn’t allow me to use the restroom without having the x-rays), my nurse spilling it and feeling it up my back, I decided it was officially a bad night. Her and another nurse cleaned me off, changed me and I then got wheeled-into a room to scan my head and the x-ray room as well. What a time! After all was said and done, and getting settled into my new sling hung around my neck and arm, they sat me in a wheelchair and wheeled me out to meet mom who had pulled up in front of the emergency exit.
I couldn’t believe it was eleven o’clock. I was so tired and so very hungry! When I got home Elise and her friend Leslie were sitting and eating popcorn and talking. I ate a little and took some muscle relaxers and shoved-off to bed. No Yoga. No piano. I began thumbing through my head as I saw less and less freedom.
