At one point or another, I’m sure we’ve all heard someone say (or said it ourselves!) “Life Happens”….as I think about it, that quote may be so widely used it’s on tee-shirts and such. And then there’s this one (which I’ve used, but try to focus on things more positively though it still amuses me!): “Shit Happens”.
Well, as is so often pointed out, over the last several months, both “life” and “shit” have happened to me…..This post is to tell my story, but it’s also a call for action, for assistance to get us caught up, with extra medical expenses, and to replace the car I need to use for my work.
After I got home from the hospital
I’ve helped families, foster parents, and children in several counties for several years now, but last fall, many of us started losing our jobs and I was included in that. I used the opportunity to make and share my crystal creations, delving more into gemstone healing properties, and looked for a job as well. Unemployment benefits last only so long, and in my case, that was until the end of January.
Fortunately, I found odd jobs to help me and my 6 year old son stay afloat, and in February interviewed for a job that was offered to me. But I didn’t get a chance to start that job, and then lost the offer, because of “Life”, or more accurately in my book, because “Shit” happened.
24 weeks ago, on my way to pick my son up from school before heading to a vendor event to showcase and sell my healing crystal jewelry creations, my car went off the road to crash into 2 trees and tip over onto the driver’s side, trapping me. The front airbags of my Honda Civic didn’t deploy on impact, and the side curtain airbags didn’t deploy when the car rolled either. I was unconscious and came to hearing metal, loud voices, glass, and being more than a little confused about what was going on, what had even happened, or where I was. I could feel my feet were trapped so I couldn’t move, the glass & gravel grinding my elbow, my seatbelt squeezing me – and I could feel the pain in my lower back, right above my hips, like nothing I’d ever felt before.
That pain screamed at me. That pain made me think-scream at every medical professional for the next 8 hours, made me realize that I may know more curse words than I should, and I think it caused me to invent some. If there was a Guinness Book record for pain endurance without screaming or cursing everyone out, I was sure I was winning it under the categories of pain level and length of time in pain (without medication and being moved countless times). And that pain, from the moment I was conscious again on, scared me. It was in my back, it was at my spine, I was still trapped in the car with rescue workers cutting my car apart, cutting my steering wheel in half, cutting my seatbelt off, and having to move me still. I’m not a neurosurgeon, which I ended up having, but I know enough to know there was something seriously wrong, and more could still go wrong for me.
Test after test later, moving me countless times to make it hurt a little more, a neurosurgeon came into the ER to tell me, “Well, you broke your back. It’s a very painful (no shit, Sherlock!) injury at first, but gets better with time. And you’re young and healthy enough that I don’t think you’ll need surgery, it’s a compression fracture of your L2 vertebrae.” He went on to say a little about needing a back brace, having PT, and being unable to bend, twist, or arch my back, lift more than 3-5lbs, or reach over my head. Well, I couldn’t lift one foot at first, let alone walk any, and worked slowly up to shuffling with a walker and so on.
We still had no answer about how I’d crashed a mile from home, a mile from my son’s school. I didn’t remember anything about it accident, but remembered the left-hand turn I’d made out of our complex and my thought at that time. Answering questions and hearing what rescuers saw happening, we realized a seizure caused the accident, and figuring that out with no history of them, brought us to a medication I’d started 2 weeks before. A medication induced seizure crashed my car and broke my back!
So, Life Happened. Shit Happened. And I’m lucky and grateful for so many things despite it all. That fractured vertebrae was just past the spinal cord, so I wouldn’t have been paralyzed, I can walk. No other cars were involved, no pedestrians walking on the sidewalk – no one else was hurt – so I don’t have that added guilt. I was on my way TO my son’s school – so he wasn’t in the car with me, he wasn’t hurt, and he wasn’t traumatized by being in the accident like I was, crying while trying to even say what happened! Tests have cleared me – it WAS a medication issue, not a seizure disorder, so my brain is okay, it’s normal. I’ve slowly recovered mobility, ability to pick more things up, and though I have pain daily, it’s decreased tremendously. And I had amazing friends and community supports helping me – as well as an awesome son who dealt with everything as he went from 6 to 7 and was as patient as he could be, as well as his happy, loving, silly, fun, snuggly self to help me avoid depression!
I’m better now, with a job to start working (visiting families with babies and young children, to give them what they need for the best start possible), and a life to restart. So, while I continue to get back to normal physically, a GoFundMe page was created to help financially, and I’ve started a personal FB campaign, to promote that page and contributions in general. I hope the event is shared and spreads widely, and the success of this week will determine additional FB Events periodically. These pools will help us, but are also a chance for someone participating to benefit as well.
I called this week’s Facebook Event “Broke-Back Catch-Up Campaign”, and encourage you all to participate, invite people to it, promote others to do the same. I also hope it draws attention and contributions to our GoFundMe page as well. So please check both of these out, take advantage of the FB Event opportunity this week as well, and share with everyone!
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/649795611851922/
GoFundMe Page: https://www.gofundme.com/yguq56ss
Thank you all!
Tap Into Empowerment 
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