As the fog slowly started to lift, reality started to sink in. My friends and family kept things organized and flowing in my personal life while other family and friends dealt with my Mom's store and tying up her financial loose ends. I was given some details of what I had been through medically and some idea of what was to come.
At this point I found out exactly how Mom had died and the details of her funeral. I felt like had let her down. I would cry, uncontrollably at times, because the person that was always there for me had died alone. Whenever she was in the hospital, I barely left her side...even on the night that it meant sitting up all night in the worlds hardest chair. I had been to most of her oncology appointments and most of her cancer treatments. Now all of that didn't matter because I wasn't holding her hand as she died. Even though I was fighting for my own life at the time, I still felt incredible guilt. This was the start of a period when I couldn't picture her face or remember her voice. I would lay awake at night trying so hard but it was like it had been erased from my brain. Now it all seemed like a cruel joke God was playing on me! The only thing I could remember was the touch of her hand after the wreck. It wasn't until the following weekend when Mary and Michael came to see me and brought me a picture of Mom, that I could remember. That picture was what I would look at when things were at their worst because I knew that Mom would have wanted nothing more than for me to recover and move past this. Also, the saying we all laughed about at Mom's store, if Momma's not happy, nobody's happy, was very true...Mom wouldn't be happy if I gave up!
I started concentrating on getting back into the swing of life. Nell had brought my purse to me and Shermaine would let me know if a bill came in so I could call and pay it. Mom's best, Doris, was quick to jump in and take care of all the financial matters in Brownwood. I contacted the insurance company of the girl that hit us to start the claims process. I won't go into all the details but will say that, if you have insurance from any of the companies that are run by Safeway Insurance, please, please stay as far away from me as possible!! I don't think I could take having to deal with them again!! Also, MANY THANKS to my insurance agency, Allstate. They went above and beyond dealing with Safeway and always made things as easy as possible for me.
Once the business side of my life was straightened out it was time to get the physical comeback started. They did testing to make sure my brain functions were normal...thankfully they were. The pins in my pelvis and the rod in my femur were healing well. Now the main focuses were my lower left leg and getting me out of bed and mobile again. There had been such a large area of my leg ripped off that they had to build a healthy base before they could attempt a skin graft. The larger the skin graft, the smaller the chance it will all take the first time. To achieve a heathy base, they attached a weird vacuum thing to my leg. This is going to sound gross but it continually sucked nasty looking liquid from my leg. When they were changing the dressings under the pump, I could see my leg and it honestly looked like a piece a raw meat...I guess that is actually what it was, my meat! I had no feeling so I can't say what any of it felt like. The plan was to do the skin graft before the end of January and then I would go to a rehab facility to learn how to walk again.
You don't realize how quickly you lose muscle strength until you have been laid up for a while. My legs were so weak that I needed help just to move them across the bed. There was also a big concern about my left foot dropping (kind of continually pointing down). With the large area of future skin graft extending almost down to my ankle, they couldn't use any of the traditional treatments for foot drop so all the could do was try to work my foot each day.
The next step was getting me out of bed. I NEVER expected it to be so hard.
No comments:
Post a Comment