The Split Second Lament

As a wound nurse, I often heard my patients lament how quickly life can change- all in a matter of a split second- with a life-altering outcome. Compassion, I've learned, is usually the costliest virtue. It's the things and people that we feel the most compassion towards, that we've paid the highest price to feel compassion for. As much as I wanted to understand what my patients had experienced when they described the split second event that landed them in my care, I never really did. I had never paid any sort of price to feel their pain until this week. And yet, I realize I still don't fully understand. But perhaps now I can relate to a small sliver of the "Split Second Lament" that my patients talk about.

Last Monday as I was driving home from work, I took a different route home on back roads. A mile from home, that split second happened. A car missed a stop sign and hit my car. We were both driving at about 55mph. The impact sent my car into a spin, throwing it against a power pole that split from the impact and fell onto my car. 

Thankfully, I remember very little other than waking up to the woman who I collided with, standing at my car window, distraught and trying to wake me up. The police and ambulance had already arrived, and I was quickly taken to the emergency room. I had been unconscious for about 13 minutes.

My memory of the day prior to the accident were gone, and it was surreal trying to piece the events of the day back together. Slowly and with deliberate effort, I was able to get most of them back. By nothing short of a miracle and guardian angels, the only injuries I sustained were a bad concussion, difficulty walking for a few days, and a laceration with a few staples to the back of my head. The concussion is what seems to be taking the longest to heal.

I remember thinking how odd it was having the nurses and doctors ask me the same questions to assess alertness and orientation that I had been teaching my nursing students that same morning before the accident. I learned first-hand that it's surprisingly easy to fake knowing the right answers to these questions. 

The week has been slow with plenty of rest and an empty mind, per doctors orders- without reading, screens, music, or lengthy conversations. The headaches, dizziness, and nausea have been steadily improving. My mom thankfully came to help me and has been wonderfully kind and attentive. She has always been the best nurse.

The strictest part of my doctor-ordered "brain rest" ended yesterday, but my thinking still seems slow  and concentrating is painful. I've caught myself being repetitive and forgetful. Even writing this has been a struggle. It's like there's a slow and ineffecient secretary in my head that's struggling to retrieve the files I want from the back room. I've questioned if I'm pushing my recovery too fast by sitting down to write this. The lazy secretary from the back room is complaining and says she thinks so.

I'm optimistic though. To bemoan my situation would be ignorant and to ignore the hand of God would astoundingly ungrateful. I see the smashed car in our driveway, as we await the insurance assessor, and I can't believe that so much destruction could happen in 2 seconds, with the person inside sustaining only relatively minor injuries.

As I sit here writing, I weep as I think of the little boy in the school bus who died in that same interesection a few years ago, also because of a missed stop sign. My doctor told me to expect feelings of weepiness in the coming days. But it's my first good cry that I've had since the accident, so I'll just let it be. Tears of sorrow for the little boy who never made it back home that day. Tears of gratitude for my second-chance and the outpouring of kindness we've received. Tears of tenderness for the Idaho Power lineman who worked on removing the pole, who has called several times for updates and sent flowers. 

I'm so thankful for the meals, kind words of encouragement, and support we've been given. I'm grateful for so many reasons, more than I can possibly express.

I loved the earrings I was wearing at the time of impact and I wanted to recover them from the car. The impact was such that they were knocked out of my ears. I found one on the passenger seat. The other was in the back corner of the passenger side of the car. I learned that day how much I had underestimated the power of centrifugal force.

I'm thankful that my mom took this picture one day when the headaches were particularly bad. My sweet dogs haven't left my side.