UPDATE: Here's photos, in case anybody is curious. There are recent (i.e., healed, not gory) photos of my leg, and xrays... when I get my hands on them, I will add photos of the Buddy. Here's the set on Flickr.
This post is to inform you that I have news regarding my situation. Today I met with my lawyer, and received my settlement; the legal part of my journey is over and I can safely be public about everything that has happened to me since January.
First and foremost, I want to expressly thank everybody who helped me, both with monetary donations and words of encouragement. You will never know how much you helped. Those of you who donated, in the next several weeks I will be going through my Paypal records and attempting to send you money back (I have no idea if Paypal has limits to how much I can send per month, etc., since I don't have a business account); your help was incredibly generous, and I know many of you sent me funds when you yourself were also in need. You must know that my family and I would have had a lot of trouble without your collective donations; for these I give you thanks not just from me, but also on my family's behalf. Regardless of whether or not you were able to send help in the form of a wire, I will forever be grateful for your hopes, prayers, thoughts, and kind words. There were many days they kept me going and positive.
There is SO much that I could never post before that I can now that many of you may want to know. Many of you probably have questions; I haven't been around for a few months on purpose, since being tight-lipped was decidedly the safest thing for the settlement. So, I'm going to try and address everything, methodically... be forewarned, this post will be long. In lieu of a TL:DR, I'll try to section it so that you can skip parts of the story if you like.
Pictures will follow.
How did the accident happen?
In the initial chaos, many people did not understand my report of the accident and how exactly it happened (by many people, I mean everybody except the first responding officer and those involved). I suppose I could blame it on the morphine
the truth is that it seems without knowing the intersection, unless I explain very carefully, people seem to have a hard time understanding how it happened... so I'm going to try and explain as well as I can.It was a Friday afternoon, I left Lokky's apartment alone on the Buddy. It was shortly before 12 noon, bright and sunny out, the road was dry as a bone, and it was 65. I was wearing my helmet, my Kilimanjaro with the quilt liner removed, khakis and flat shoes with low cut socks (it'd been so cold, it was a nice change of pace from boots, sweatpants and 2 layers of thick socks).
I was about 2 blocks down the road from the corner the apartment building was on; just ahead of me, the road would lose its large center median and shrink, pass a side street or two on either side, then come to a light at an intersection.
Just as I pass the median's end, I can see a small SUV pull out from a side street up ahead and to my left; the driver pulls across the two oncoming lanes and stops on the double yellow, because I am in the left lane and there is a car behind and to my right in the lane beside me, we are both headed towards him and he must wait for us to pass.
Then he begins to pull out; he didn't stop, he did a rolling stop. I know I can't swerve left, there are cars approaching from the light, and I can't swerve right because I'll be hit by the car behind me in the right lane. I was unnaturally calm as I looked right at his wheel well and thought, 'Oh shit. I'm going to crash. Right there.'
I didn't have any time to even think 'They didn't see me' or 'They didn't look', those thoughts didn't come until a long time after. Long. But that's exactly what happened. Either he thought he had enough room to cross the street, or he didn't see me and tried to pull into my lane. Either way, he was barely into my lane when I collided with his right front wheel well.
So, for clarification- initial reports by Lokky were that he blew a stop sign and hit me; this is not quite so... but it's not any less his fault, and in some ways even worse. He was in the middle of the street and could see everything, and he wasn't exactly going too fast to stop or anything.
What happened to you/what happened next?
The accident happened approximately 2 blocks west of the corner where Lokky lives. I/we are lucky enough that there happens to be an ambulance center 2 blocks north, and a fire station 2 blocks south of his apartments- both of them less than 5 minutes travel time from my crash site.
That didn't keep the time from passing as if it were years before they got there.
I have odd pieces of my memory from the actual crash; I don't believe that I passed out, but I do think that everything was too traumatic and happened too fast for my brain to process it.
I don't remember feeling or seeing the impact, I remember the sound. Then, I remember the feeling of moving through the air. Once things slowed down and I became aware of my surroundings and senses again, I was on my right side, with my face just an inch or two from a curb corner. My left hand was on the sidewalk in front of my face. I was a little confused. I realized there was somebody calling 911, I could hear them. Then I realized my hand hurt really bad (ironically, other than beating it really hard against the rusty storm drain set in the curb and having orange stains for weeks, my left hand was fine). But staring at it, I realized there was some blood and... let's call it organic debris. Then I realized I couldn't move much. And I got real worried.
The policeman arrived about the time I was examining the state of my hand, I just hadn't paid him much attention because deciding that my hand hurt took a lot of concentration. Then I tried to move and look at my leg, and I realized I was laying on my right arm oddly. I didn't have a lot of time to ponder that, because that's about when I started hurting. Folks, I have to say that I've been in pain before. I've been in a lot of pain before. I've broken a bone before. I've yelled "Ow!" (or various curse words) before. I've been in so much pain it's made me cry before. But before this, I had never experienced the kind of pain that is so terrible all you can do is scream at the top of your lungs. And that's exactly what I did, I laid in the street screaming.
It felt like I did that for half an hour, but I know it wasn't anywhere near that. The rescue squad and ambulance arrived shortly. You know something is really wrong when they scoop you and run- all they did was take a vital or two, take a visual of my leg, put me in a neckbrace, stick me on the backboard and go.
At this point, I was nauseous and upset. I was also compulsively thanking all the emergency response personnel. In the ambulance, they started an IV, gave me morphine and zofran (for the nausea). According to the police report, my crash happened at 11:50am. My mother says she got the call from the ER's social worker at 12:15. To survive a crash, have emergency response, be assessed and be transported in under 25 minutes is amazing. Part of it is luck- how close I was to the emergency response centers and the hospital itself- and part of it was the care I received. Without this luck, I would be an amputee.
My memory becomes spotty once I reach the ER- suffice it to say that large doses of morphine and fentanyl did their jobs. The first responder, Officer Rose, accompanied me in the ER; he was very nice. He and a social worker were both very impressed that I rattled off at least 4 emergency contacts and their phone numbers to them each; the doctors were impressed that I was lucid enough to recite to them each medication I was on, including dosages. I'm good like that. I remember my mother and sisters showing up; although I have no idea how long it took for them to get there.
When I came into the ER from the ambulance, I had no pulse in my foot. I believe it took them almost two hours to get a pulse there, and when they did it was weak. Around 4pm, I was sent into surgery after signing a consent for amputation; I had been told they would likely amputate below the knee.
I woke up at almost 11pm- the surgery took nearly six hours. I was completely confused and doped up. But when I looked down, I still had two legs.
The Hospital
I was in the hospital until the end of February. I would go on to have seven more surgeries in the span of a month. One of them, I woke up earlier than I should have- I dare say that ordeal was just as traumatic as what got me there. I moved floors, hated nurses, missed home, was depressed, couldn't eat, couldn't crap, developed anxiety issues that warranted medicating, and tried not to cry every minute I was alone and awake.
I slept a lot, though. A lot.
No, really. A LOT.
My right clavicle had a long, diagonal fracture, and my right shoulder joint had been separated in the crash. If you've never had one, clavicle (collarbone) breaks hurt like a BITCH. If I hadn't been so heavily medicated, I would have never slept.
My left leg was broken clean through. My tibia (the thicker bone that goes from your knee to ankle) was broken badly nearly halfway down; the surgeons inserts a metal rod secured with two screws at each end. My fibula (the thin bone in the same part of your leg) has a 3-4 inch gap in it; they said that I came into the ER like that.
That gap in my bone is too big and the bone too thin to bridge with metal or a graft, and is the direct result of the trauma to my leg. In addition to broken bones, my leg was damn near destroyed. The whole front of my leg was torn to shreds, down to deep tissue with bone showing; the back of my calf had a huge chunk taken out of it exactly where I am missing part of my fibula.
Surgeries in the hospital were to do things like remove skin from my left upper thigh and apply grafts to my wounds. I was very lucky and able to avoid having to have a skin flap removed- which is where they graft not just skin, but some of the deeper tissue below as well. This was due to miraculous machines they attached to my leg surgically called wound vacs- machines that constantly removed fluid draining from my leg wounds early on. Apparently the fact that I had three of them on one extremity is a testament to how serious a condition my leg was in. At one point I also had to have a nerve block (aka, an epidural) in my thigh to help manage the pain because IV pain meds weren't enough.
When they began talking about moving me out, I panicked quite a bit. I certainly didn't at all feel like I should be leaving the hospital- at that point I couldn't move or be touched without feeling the need to scream, and I hadn't yet mastered sitting in a chair like a normal person without my blood pressure rising (it happens when you are bedridden for a long time), or using the bathroom like a normal person. (Side note- seriously... take a moment and be thankful that you can sit on a toilet and take a shit. No, really.)
I spent the next two weeks in an inpatient rehab facility. I was the only patient under the age of 60. It sucked. I had to readjust to meds- I was no longer on IVs, spent several days nauseous and unable to eat, therapy caused me a a tremendous amount of pain.
By the end of the stay, somehow I felt like maybe I could be normal again. I had learned how to shower, regained the ability to use the toilet, my shoulder had become just barely strong enough to wheel myself around for a few minutes, my leg could stand a few minutes of being held down vertically towards the floor, and I had been taught to use a walker. My walker was modified with a platform for my injured arm, and a makeshift rubber-band cradle to prop my foot in and keep my leg from bouncing around; in other words, I had to use a walker while hopping on one foot. Take a second a visualize that, if you will. Yes, you can laugh, it's funny.
Mom took me home in the middle of March; the first few weeks home were spent sleeping and feeling very, very, very, very sick. They sent me home on arguably the strongest pain meds available. After about a week or two, I decided to kick them cold turkey and asked for something less strong; which put me through a week or so of what I must assume were withdrawal symptoms. It was late April/early May before I exhibited any real interest in eating food, other than the occasional bowl of buttered rice or handful of grapes. When I crashed, I weighed about 235lbs; at my lowest after the hospital stay, before I started to eat, I was 185lbs. My hair also came out in alarming amounts whenever I brushed it or took a shower... it seems that all the meds and anesthesia made me shed and grow a new coat.
I had a therapist and a nurse come to my home twice a week until the end of May. My mother had to change the dressings on my grafts daily. For the first few weeks, I also had to have daily injections of blood thinners that would prevent me from having a dangerous clot, since I was a post-surgical invalid.
In late May, my Orthopaedic Surgeon removed the two lower screws from the rod in my leg; this was to foster a little give and take at the break site, with the theory apparently being that encouraging the movement would encourage healing. This was discouraging to me, because the surgery put me in quite a lot of pain; both at the site where he cut in to remove the screws, and at the point where the break was. I had just begun to feel sound and safe putting full weight on my leg and using a cane around the house, and the surgery set me back to using a walker for a week or so at least- I have been in pain at the spot where the break in the bone is ever since. I got stubborn and forced myself onto the cane again; you see, in May I was able to go and stay with Lokky for the first time in months
After the screw removal I had a great deal of extra swelling in and around my ankle that has taken months to subside. In July, I was told I must stop using the soft, knee-high surgical boot they provided me with in inpatient rehab, and my Ortho instructed me to have a custom orthotic brace made. Also in July I began outpatient physical therapy. In August I learned that my tibia was not healing, and my Ortho warned me that if it didn't begin healing in the next few months that I may have to have a bone graft done. At my most recent visit last Friday, the xray finally showed small but distinct signs of the break finally being bridged, so we are waiting six more weeks and taking another look. If I have to have surgery, it won't be a traditional graft... they will go in and replace the rod in my tibia, and when they do, marrow will move into the break, and it will be like doing a graft, without having to take bone from somewhere else in my body.
So how is your quality of life/what is your prognosis?
Good question. I'm in therapy still, and will be for a LONG time- really, as long as my insurance will allow me to be. Insurance notwithstanding, I expect to still be in therapy next summer, at least. Currently, I have greatly reduced sensation on the whole topside of my left foot and some of its toes; no sensation whatsoever (not even pressure below the surface) above the left side of my ankle and just above it, the left and some of the back side of my lower leg, up until the gash in my leg (where my fibula is missing). Mr. Deeds jokes have been made. The real problem, however, is that in those same areas, I also don't have any muscle control.
Without muscles there to help me counter balance, and with my fibula permanently broken, I am forever at risk for rolling, spraining, or breaking my ankle very, very easily. I can also slip more easily than other people, and don't have a normal gait because I can't control my ankle and foot properly. I am supposed to wear my orthotic brace and good, supportive shoes basically at all times... but I can't stand them.
Part of it is me being stubborn. Part of it is that the brace is really really uncomfortable- my surgeon will NEVER convince me that I can get used to that thing (seriously, its a plastic sheet wrapped around the back of my leg that extends down under my foot... I have to walk on it too). Part of it is that I'm kind of self conscious about it- you can see the bulge of it through pants, and wearing it make me feel even more like a cripple- it's just a constant physical reminder. I feel more capable and normal when I am not wearing it. Part of it is that I sincerely believe that it doesn't do me good to put my foot in the brace and forego the opportunity to force myself to try and use muscles and flex in ways that I should have control over and do not. I have been wearing flip flops, and I realize how crazy that sounds, but I promise I wouldn't have done it if I didn't feel safe, and I honestly believe that my teeny improvements I've shown in therapy recently have been a direct result of my insisting on wearing them and forcing my foot to try and use those muscles on its own.
However, the brace does let me wear shoes I wouldn't otherwise be able to. You see, due to my loss of sensation, swelling, and curvature of the foot due to loss of muscle control, I have a lot of trouble getting on shoes. Any shoes. My left foot is permanently swollen about half a size bigger than the other, tilted inwards, curved down, and I can't control my big toe so it gets jammed up when I try and put my foot in a shoe (other reasons I made the executive decision to put on flip flops again). Without the brace, I can only wear sandals, stretchy slippers, clogs, flats that have very open tops and flexible soles or sneakers that lace waaay down the foot and have flexible soles, like converses. The brace sort of acts like a shoehorn, so with it on, I can shove it into some better sneaker-type shoes.
My improvements in therapy mostly amount to becoming more and more stable walking, and gaining a teensy bit of finesse in my toe movements. My right shoulder joint is very weak and is often painful, or pops; my Therapist says that is in part because of having to use the cane. She says my rotator cuff is injured and need strengthening; she also says my hips and knees need strength training, because I've been so sedentary.
Currently, I can walk very short distances (i.e., around the house for a short time) without my cane or brace. Outside the house, I take the cane everywhere. On good days I can walk a lot with the cane; on bad days, I don't get out of bed. I'm still on strong pain meds, although I take them as needed, not constantly... I realize I will be dealing with this pain for the rest of my life, and most days I try to suck it up and take OTC's. It will get better once the bone has healed, but breaks this bad take a long time to heal, and I hear that the pain can linger for a while after that. Both my knee and ankle hurt sporadically and can't take a whole lot of pressure.
I can't run or jog, ever again. I can't kneel. I can't squat. I can't get on my tip toes. I can't sit on the ground because it's hard to get up. I'm not allowed to carry heavy things. I have to be very careful going up and down stairs. I have to be very careful in the shower. I can't carry much. When I go to the store, I use an electric cart. When we go somewhere with a lot of walking involved, we use the wheelchair I am still renting.
Personally, I don't expect too much of a change. I'm not being pessimistic... I just feel it. There was a lot of damage done. I don't expect lifetime movie miracles.
So what does this mean for your near future?
Well, lots of things. Technically, I may be able to go back to my job and work... but there is no telling when. Once I go back, my work will have to make 'reasonable accommodations' for me, as per the law; even so, it is a possibility that they may be dissatisfied by the sheer number of things I cannot do... I have no way of knowing. They could also get tired of waiting and terminate me before I am able to return. Regardless, if they fire me I will receive unemployment benefits (at least temporarily); however, I would be uninsured and because I have received my settlement, I will not qualify for Medicaid. Should that happen, I will have to pay for insurance out of pocket, because I cannot be without insurance.
I could qualify for Medicaid if I were declared disabled by my doctor, but my Orthopaedic Surgeon is completely unwilling to entertain this idea at the moment; he feels it is much to early in my healing process to deem me permanently anything and what's more, he seems inappropriately optimistic. He seems rather convinced that within a year's time, I'll be power walking around with no cane and be able to do most things any normal person would do; I think he is an arse and expects too much from a leg that damn near didn't make it. He will not even issue me a permanent handicap tag (I do have temp tags). This makes me very angry, because I very much meet the requirements- one must not be able to walk 500 feet without needing assistance, and since he deemed the ankle brace necessary for my safety, technically that is walking with a device assisting me, regardless of whether or not I ever lose the cane for good. Regarding disability, I am of the impression that I can be declared disabled, work a certain amount of hours a month, receive Medicaid, and later be declared no longer disabled if that happens to become the case... in short, my doctor is looking at it backwards. I am going to see my Primary Care Physician to see if she would consider writing the papers; if not, I will look to another Orthopaedist for a second opinion.
You may be asking yourself why I am worried about all this... well, because I won't be able to return to work for a long time. My bone won't be healed for a long time. It won't be safe or comfortable for me to stand or walk for entire shifts at work for a long time. I still need at least one reconstructive surgery which will prolong my recovery. If I make any significant, substantial progress in therapy, it will be after months of it. I have to LIVE off of my settlement, with no income, until then.
The past eight months, I have received NO government assistance. I did not qualify for food stamps because I had $4K in a retirement fund that I couldn't touch. I didn't qualify for Medicaid because my employer was still paying my insurance. I didn't qualify for unemployment because my employer is 'holding a spot' for me; despite the fact that they hired two part-timers to replace me, and there is actually no spot for me to return to if I were to call up tomorrow and say, "Put me on the schedule!" Until now, I have lived entirely off of my mother, and all the donations I received.
Also, I recently found out that instead of absorbing the costs as I was led to believe they were by my manager, I actually owe my employer $1000 worth in premiums, and am lucky they did not spontaneously cancel my insurance. I was also told that it recently 'came to HR's attention' that I've been out of work, and since I was 1 1/2 months shy of being there a year, I don't qualify for the Family Medical Leave Act- thus, I have to file with my employer for a Leave of Absence, and it must be approved. I have to admit that this, and the insurance shenanigans make me nervous.
I'd like to take this moment to say that if, after reading my story, you do not believe that there is something wrong with our nation's current healthcare system, and believe that universal healthcare would be detrimental, you are out of your mind. I would not be quite so financially ruined right now, and I wouldn't have had to pull my family down with me, and not so worried about my future, if we had universal healthcare.
What happened to the guy?
He was charged with 'Failure to Yield'. It was thrown out in court, provided he pay for and take a driving class; Officer Rose said that the judge likely did that because the man had a previously clean driving record, and he felt sorry for him because he knew there was a personal injury suit pending. I don't agree with the charge, or the judge's decision, but it's not my place, and I don't need to stress about it. I feel like there was probably very little damage to his car, so a $75 Saturday class and $100 court fee for a dismissed charge doesn't satisfy me. I hope that his insurance carrier hiked up his premium, at least (I sure cost them a bunch).
I don't say this because I am all that angry; I'm not. I want him to remember. But I don't think there's a way he'll forget. I'm pretty sure he was standing there on the curb. I feel sure it was his voice I heard that was absolutely beside himself, asking Officer Rose if there was anything else he could do. But maybe I am wrong, maybe that was one of the two witnesses. All I know is that he has to live with what he did to me, and I'm glad. I hope he wakes up every day, and thinks about it. And I hope he learns from it. I hope he tells the people he knows not to do what he did, to pay attention when they are on the road. That's what I want from him.
I won't disclose the amount I ended up receiving, but I will say this- it was not enough. Part of that was by my choice- I settled with the maximum payout from the gentleman's insurance carrier, and chose not to go to court and sue him personally for additional damages (lost wages, diminished quality of life, permanent disability, emotional distress, etc). There were many reasons for this; I did not wish the stress of a court case upon myself or anyone else, there was the possibility of not being awarded enough to justify the effort/stress/money (or even worse, the judge maybe deciding that I didn't even need all of what the insurance company gave me), the court case would have taken a long time because I would have had to wait months and months and months and make extra doctor visits and paperwork to be able to prove things like permanent disability and emotional distress... but also, were I to sue the man and be awarded anything, I could end up garnishing paychecks or pension checks, and I decided that in this economy that was not something I was willing to do to somebody.
So, how are you? What have you taken away from all of this?
This has been a multifaceted experience. It's been harrowing, and enlightening. I have learned that my mother is the strongest person I know- the way she handled everything, taking care of my grandmother, going to work, and then going to the hospital and visiting me every night was astounding... and then all the care she gave me once I was home.
I have learned that things like this are hard on relationships, and I'm really proud to say that Lokky and I weathered this and came out stronger. I've learned who, out of all of my friends, was really and truly there for me when I needed them the most. I learned to bury the hatchet with my ex for good; we've been back to good friends for a while now.
I learned, too little too late, the true importance of wearing gear. ALL the time. Not just when it's convenient or comfortable.
I went through a unique kind of depression. I've been depressed before. This wasn't exactly like what I had previously experienced; not really worse, exactly, just different. Maybe because I didn't have the choice of getting up and doing something about it. I was stuck. What really brought me out of it was being able to be around Lokky again on a semi-regular basis; it wasn't just being around him, but his apartment. His apartment had become something close to home for me, and for six months I had been removed from it... it was comforting to be back somewhere that I felt was routine, safe, and normal.
But mostly, I learned how to lose. This whole ordeal has been about losing. I learned how to lose gracefully. When to give up; accept the loss and move forward. When not to give up, to fight for what you want. These are things I thought I knew; I learned them all over again, with a new kind of gravity. When you have something so significant taken from you without choice or warning, there's a new kind of light shed on the acceptance of loss. Different kinds of loss. And it's unexpected. And humbling. Very humbling.
I feel like I'm a more peaceful, more patient, more insightful person now. Like maybe I have a better view on life.
Whatcha gonna do now?
My first priorities are to secure an alternate mode of transportation, pay off ALL of my debts so that I can kind of have a financial reboot on life, do a few appliances and small projects to the house I am living in with my best friend, and invest a little money in myself (i.e., get new glasses, Invisalign braces, and laser hair removal since it is dangerous for me to shave or wax my left leg, with all the skin grafts). Other than that, I'm buying some fancy camping gear for rallies so that I can go camping gosh darn it, and trailer for towing the Stella.
I am looking into some contracted editing projects I can take on from home to pull in a teeny bit of money, and am going to research what I'd like to go to school and get a certification for.
I'm going to write my bucket list. Then I'm going to start looking at crossing some stuff off.
I am considering writing about my experiences in a more in-depth manner; I am interested in finding a way to express my experience to the public. There are other people out there who are going through similar things that need to know they are not alone. But first and foremost, I'd like my tragedy to become a learning experience for the world; I believe strongly that education and awareness would honestly, on a widespread scale and over time, help the roads become safer. If I can use my experience for public outreach and safety and awareness education, then something truly good will have come from it.
And just for shits and giggles, I'm going to buy a lotto ticket.
There was just so much to tell, that had built up over the last several months. I tried to section it and make it easier on the eyes...
I haven't heard of Thistly Cross... I am okay with Crispin and Hornsby's. I didn't know Ace's had a pumpkin cider, I'll have to try it!! A few of the Krogers around here carry Ace's, but I think I'll have to go to the specialty store to get it. I prefer the Trader Joe's brand (I think it's called Newton's Folley?) over Hornsby's, tbh. 
