I was bloody and broken on the roadside, knowing my legs wouldn’t move. I was in shock so some of my thoughts were never expressed: only a warning to anyone moving me to not twist my body. 2:00 am
I was thinking about my daughter and me and our financial state. I had/have double indemnity life Insurance if I died, but only $17.00 to my name--$5.00 in my purse, $5.00 at home in my jewelry box, and $2.00 in the bank. June 7th and I was awaiting my June 15th payday: some financial shape.
Then I zoomed like a twirling set of Xmas lights, at a 45° angle to the southwest and had left my body. I saw a man put a blanket over me. I saw another focus his spotlight on me. I told myself that my daughter would be okay. It was the most fantastic feeling in my life—dying.
I ’backed up’ and was in my body again and could feel the dew on the grass on my face. I told Al that I couldn’t get my legs down: they felt bent up at the knees while lying on my tummy. He said they were down.
The ambulance arrived and I told them to not twist me. Then I was asked my doctor’s name. I gave it and they radioed in for him. He was waiting at the hospital in Barrie, I was cleaned up and stitched, my right ankle, my right finger, my right forearm and right upper arm (that one sealed in a piece of windshield for 7 years) Those were veins that needed closing. Then it was x-rays. I was in no pain until I was put through the gymnastics on the x-ray table.
Then my doctor gave me a shot for the trip to Toronto where the closet neurosurgeons were. 4:30 am. He asked me for a number to call and I gave my sister’s, as my mother was already in a wheelchair and had been for 13 years re spina bifida and scoliosis. Then a call went to a sister in Toronto who arrived at Emerg when my ambulance arrived. 5:30 am. I was dying. The whole upper part of Toronto’s street into TGH was cleared to let my ambulance have full access.
Well in spite. There was all the paperwork and I had to sign for surgery and went under the knife from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. And came to in the “cold room” where the critical ones were. That was 6 days.
Since I am typing, I lived. That is just the beginning and my therapist says I can call it my own accident, since no one ever came to me with comforting words, no counseling to let me know I was eligible for Provincial Disability immediately no one to hold me and tell me to cry—because I couldn’t.
I told the therapist that if I had Queen Latifah from “The Bone Collector” who looked after Denzel Washington, who could move only one finger, I would have had a speedier recovery.
Well I made it anyway with a mess of nurses, physical therapists and one very sweet nurse who I couldn’t see, as I was already laying face downward on the stryker frame. She came in about 4:00 am and washed my hair for me. The glass and gravel just plinked into the basin. Then she went around and scrounged up some rollers to set it. And I was 3 weeks overdue for a shampoo! What an angel!!
Izzy
