Revisiting A Pivital Moment In My Life

Sunday, May 15, 2011...I had worked all day, though it was not a hugely busy day at The Grand Floridian but I still put in my full 8+ hours. After getting home, my love & I decided to go out to a local bar to hang with a few of our friends. My love had a nice day off so he offered to drive us to the bar. We're traveling down the freeway at 65 mph, music was on & happened to be new album just purchased. The next set of events happened in seconds & yet in my mind, it was a ten minute slow motion live action horror movie.

-My honey was talking about a particular track on the cd as I looked out the window, looking up I thought to myself, "man, that's a bright moon".
-The road starts to curve left & yet the car continues forward, just then we are driving on the divots on the side of the road that let you know that you're not on it.
-I look over & see my honey completely slumped over in the seat.
-Looking strait ahead I see the on ramp coming up on the right, headlights speeding up to get on the freeway & a sever drop off on the other side of it.
-I grab the steering wheel to try to keep us from hitting the guard rail & move us away from upcoming traffic
-We hit the guard rail on the right which threw us left.
-All this while yelling "WAKE UP!"
-Next thing I see is a beige cement wall with headlight shinning at it as we HIT the wall
-I see nothing for a moment
-Now I see us bouncing off the wall & back into it
-Bounce off the wall again & back into it again
-Bouncing a 3rd time against the wall but scrapping along it until we stopped

At this moment, I looked around me briefly, checking for any oncoming traffic that may be hitting us....none.... I take a HUGE breath throwing my head back into the seat, held it...& exhaled! Then after a brief moment, I looked to my baby who was by now starting to look around & asking, "'what happened"? The windows were all smashed up, airbags (thankfully) deployed, radio from the dashboard in my honey's lap. Upon our senses coming back to reality, I realized that my watch was now halfway up my arm & I could tell that it was broken just by looking at it. The car started to fill with a little smoke & upon seeing my honey's head bleeding tremendous amounts of blood, for the first time felt queasy & had to open a door for fresh air. My poor baby had NO idea what had happened & no one was stopping to help us out. Since I had my seat laid back, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket & called 911, telling them exactly what had happened & where we were. My honey & I are now fully conversing, going over what happened, if we were ok, etc.

I helped keep my baby calm while the ambulance arrived. They asked me for some of my information & upon asking my honey the year, it escaped his mind. He could not remember the year but instead answered the same question twice with a year 2 years before he was even born. Immediately we knew he had suffered a concussion or possible something worse like a stroke. We then were separated as I was taken out of the car. I found then that I could not get out of the car on my own as I had splitting pains in my right side lower abdominal area & I couldn't move my left foot at all.

Now, at the accident scene I was given a huge shot of morphine to relieve the pain that I was in or so that I was told I was in. As I'm laying on the stretcher, I was answering all the medics & police questions. At the accident scene I must have seen 15 meds/police & talked to more then half of them. I was then told that both my left wrist & left ankle were broken & I was not to attempt to move them anymore & got to have pants partly cut off me. They also cut my t-shirt off which just happened to be a vintage t-shirt given to me from my baby that he wore back in the day & it was my 1st time wearing it out. All along I'm asking them how my baby was. As I'm taken to the ambulance I see some of the medics working on my baby who was on a stretcher by then himself.

I remember the ride to the hospital as the inside was lite in a soft white-blue light, it was cold & I had them get me a blanket. I also remember being told that we were not going to be turning on the siren as my injuries appear to be not life threatening. While in transit to the hospital, was asking the medics if the hospital we were going to was part of my PPO network & if the ambulance was as well. The med next to me asked if I was a fireman or cop because I was WAY to coherent then I should be.  I also remember going across the railroad tracks & thinking "Jesus...that sucked!" (as in going fast over railroad tracts while strapped to a board with a neck brace on....not a nice jolt).

After arriving at the hospital, I am rolled into the emergency room & doctors & nurses are coming out of the wood works to see me & say over & over again..."Yep, that's a broken wrist & ankle"...Now, remember that I'm in those nasty hard plastic neck brace & strapped to board...all that I can see is the white ceilings with the little black dots in them, overhead florescent lights, & heads. Heads of all shapes & sizes...all looking at me & agreeing on the fact that I'm broken.

I'm then taken into a small room were I'm moved to the bed & given more drugs to help with the pain. For the next hour I'm bombarded with doctors & nurses coming in, answer questions, lifting this, wiggling that, & me being ME kept asking them about the PPO status of the hospital & asking any doctor not part of the network to not see me. This goes on for 3 hours. During which I have been unable to contact anyone I know. Each time I try to call, no signal & no one was able to get me a phone to call out on. It wasn't until the hospital Chaplin came in & she got me a phone that worked. Unfortunately I remembered my sister being out of town & being still fairly new to the area & coupled with the fact that my phone was new....I only had one number memorized to call...MOM...back in AZ where she could do very little. But she took all the info & got a hold of my sister.

During this WHOLE TIME....I'm asking anyone & EVERYONE about my baby...how was he, is he ok, can I see him, whats going on....ALL to no avail. All I'm being told by those few that would answer me was, "Your not immediate family, even if you are his domestic partner," I remember at one point while tears are streaming down my face...I asked the Chaplin the same thing a 3rd time....she looked around the room, back at me...eye to eye & with a small smile nodded a YES! Then luckily our friend Dougie came in the room who the Chaplin had been able to contact. He then filled me in on my baby while trying to keep anything from sounding to horrific. I was just so thankful that he was alive & going to be ok!

For the next several hours I was taken from this place to this place, be it x-rays or scans or whatever, saw 40 or so doctors, 100+ nurses. After finding out about my baby's health, all I wanted was to get off the stupid backboard!!! I was in more pain from that then the injuries from the accident. I say that with true convictions as once I was cleared to be off the board & the neck piece removed...I actually felt a TON better! At this time I'd like to remind you that I've now been put on several injections of pain meds including a pain med that is supposed to have put me into a state of amnesia to help the mind forget or not remember the pain. I remember the whole thing! I felt the pain in my body...not once during this entire time did I ever lose conscience & though the meds were working, I never was fully out of pain. To the point that several doctors & nurses where extremely surprised by how alert & easy going I was. Some even asked if a doctor or military expert as few can stay conscience all the meds that I was on.

Around 7ish in the morning, a new group of nurses came in with a doctor, looked again at my wrist & ankle, left, then the nurses returned & advised me they were going to reset my wrist. I then had a numbing pain killer injected into the area of the bones to be set, which hurts like a bitch, then 1, 2, 3...CRACK/CRUNCH/POP/SNAP & GRIND...my wrist is back in place. Now...this was the FIRST time I felt true pain since the entire accident happened. I mean coming strait up off the bed taking 2 or 3 nurses with me...PAIN!!! Then shortly after the setting of my wrist, a nurse team came in & advised that I'm now off to have my ankle & wrist surgery at which time I DEMANDED that I see my baby before I'd allow ANYONE to put me under. They scrambled around for a few moments, then wheeled me out of my room & over a few doors to where my baby was. His doctors where finishing up putting a metal halo on him for a fractured neck vertebrae & we couldn't sit up to be with each other but we were able to clasp finger tips together. He was pretty heavily sedated but we talked for a few brief moments assuring each other that we were going to be just fine & with a last I love you...was whisked out the door. I remember looking up at the female nurse taking me to the operating room, seeing the white tiles with little black dots...taking a HUGE sigh & then just simply passed out!!!

I awoke later that day in my own private recovery room, cast & bandaged up. My orthopedic doctor came in & advised me on all my injuries & what he had done. Apparently the ankle was totally shattered! Even to the point that he couldn't get all the bone pieces out but he got most, then put the ankle back together with 6 screws, 2 pins & a metal plate. My wrist was also shattered but not nearly like my ankle, only 5 screws & a plate. I also had been bruised up quit a bit but nothing more serious. I then found out that our estimated speed when slamming into the wall was 75 mph because once my honey passed out, his foot just when strait down on the gas pedal. EVERY single doctor & nurse kept telling me how lucky we were to have lived through that...unfortunately the car did not & is now in automobile heaven. The doctors were running lots of test on my honey trying to find out what made him pass out. As of a year later, the only thing we know is that it was possibly caused by the double blood pressure meds that he was put on just 36 hrs prior to the accident. We also don't really drink but once in a blue moon & nothing else came up in his blood. I also learned that I work extremely well under huge amounts of stress & in times of crisis. I also learned that pain meds, no matter how extreme they are, don't stop my memory or cause me to sleep, they just ease the pain levels.