Month: February 2008

Thank you. And an update

Life

First of all, I want to thank you all so, so much for all of your well wishes on my last post. They really made my day and helped me feel a bit better. Thank you!!!

Secondly, I wanted to kind up update you on how I’m doing. I am actually doing pretty well. I have stayed home from work the past couple of days. My entire body is really sore and I’m moving really slow. “They” are right about it being more painful two or three days after an accident like this. This is the third day and I am feeling a little more sore than I did the first two. I’m feeling some soreness in my shoulder that I didn’t feel before.

But the good news is that I have not had to take the hydrocodone because I have not had any unbearable pain. Just some soreness that Ibuprofen has worked fine on. I do have a follow-up doctor’s appointment with my regular doctor next week to make sure everything is working O.K.

I feel extraordinarily lucky. Seriously. This could have turned out so much worse. I think that, first of all, the reason that I didn’t break any bones is that I am in pretty good shape. I lift weights, do yoga and run on a consistent basis. My bones are pretty strong, apparently! The guy who hit me is lucky I wasn’t a kid or a older person! Since he was driving a sedan I was able to roll up on the hood of his car a bit, which prevented my knees from snapping. I am lucky he wasn’t driving an S.U.V. or a truck. Like I said, things could have been worse. I am counting my blessings right now.

I found out (by reading the police report) that the man is 87 years old! He said he didn’t see me. That is scary. Like I said, I was wearing a bright orange coat. People on the other side of the road could see me. He should have been able to see me. My insurance agent (who is dealing with all of the details of payment, thank goodness) called him to get his insurance information (he didn’t have it at the scene). The man didn’t know that I was taken away by ambulance! He thought that I was O.K. so he didn’t bother calling his insurance agent. What, did he think that I just walked away from the whole thing? Ugh! It just makes me shake my head.

Anyway, that’s the scoop. I think I’m gonna be O.K. Thank the gods. And Thank YOU ALL for all of your prayers and good thoughts. I truly appreciate it so very much. Thank you.

Today I was hit by a car.

Life

hit by a car
Yes that’s right. I was hit by a car. I took the bus to work and was crossing the street after the bus dropped me off at my stop. I was hit in one of the first two lanes of the four lane road. The car was turning left onto the road I was crossing. At some point as I was crossing I realized that the car was not going to stop so I screamed and turned to run back to the side of the road. I didn’t make it. He hit me as I was in mid-turn. I bounced off of his car and ended up on the side of the road on my left side.

I was hysterical. I immediately started crying. The driver of the car stopped and got out. He was a nice old man. He felt terrible. He said that he didn’t see me (which seems really weird since I wear a hunter orange jacket). He offered to take me to the hospital and he tried to get me to stand up but the other three witnesses said, “no!” They did not want me to move at all. One of them called 911 and another one kind of dragged me out of the road when I tried to move myself. They were truly good Samaritans to help me like that. A lady drove by and handed one of the witnesses a piece of paper with her info to give to the police officer because she was also a witness. The ambulance and police finally came after about 5 minutes. They asked me if I wanted to take and ambulence to the hospital. I can’t believe this, but I actually was considering not going with them and trying to walk to work. I was only about 3 blocks away from work and I didn’t have any broken bones, maybe I’m okay to work? I was obviously not in my right mind. I looked down at my clothes and I was covered in dirt and bruises. I asked the medic what he thought and he said, “it’s your choice but, generally, when people get hit by a car they should go to a hospital to get checked out.” So I went. My very first ambulance ride in my life.

I checked out okay. They took a pelvic x-ray because the left side of my lower back was hurting but there was no fracture or anything. Just muscle strain. Thank God. It could have been so much worse. I am so glad it wasn’t. I was pretty lucky, considering.

I feel pretty okay right now. They gave me some Motrin at the hospital and I took another dose so the pain is kind of numbed. The doctor said that I will probably feel really bad tomorrow. He prescribed hydrocodone in anticipation of the pain I might be feeling tomorrow. yikes. I’m a little afraid of tomorrow.

And just as a note to myself, the temperature was 38 degrees and the roads were fairly dry. There was no ice on the roads at all. In other words, the guy did not and could not have slid into me.

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Book Review: Click

Books, Music, Art, Movies

I read thisFor me, one of life’s little pleasures is reading a book that I can’t wait to get back to, or can’t put down. It makes me happy. This past week I enjoyed one of those books. It’s Click by a group of fantastic authors that includes Linda Sue Park, Nick Hornby, and Eoin Colfer, to name three. Each chapter is written by a different author.

The chapters revolve around a character named Gee (a.k.a. George Keane). Gee is a famous photographer and has died. The first chapter establishes this through a story about Maggie, his granddaughter. Maggie had inherited a strange box with 7 compartments. Each compartment contains a shell. And there is a message for her that says, “Throw them back.” Maggie surmises that her grandpa wanted her to return each shell to the sea it came from. His gift to her is the world. He wants her to see the world like he saw the world in his travels as a photojournalist.

The stories that follow don’t chronologically follow the first chapter. This is what I find so fun about this book. There are several chapters about people in pictures Gee has photographed. There are chapters that take place in the future. There are chapters about Maggie’s older brother, Jason. And these chapters raise some interesting questions and reveal shocking secrets.

This was a fantastic book on so many levels. The writing was magnificent. The stories were compelling. And it was just so creative the way the authors all worked together on this. As I read the book I wondered how they did it. What was their process? How did they come up with the stories that they came up with? I may go explore this after I write this post. There’s probably an interview published somewhere that answers these questions.

Anyway, I highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful read!