As Promised...

Pictures of my helmet after being run over by a car. (Again, if you are just tuning in, scroll down to the first "and then I got run over by a car" post to start at the beginning.) Yes, my head was in the helmet. No, I don't have brain damage. The only damage to my head was a couple of minor contusions and a chunk of ripped out hair.

The helmet already had all the tape on it. It is designed that way to hold it all together so that if it is crushed, the foam will stay in place and not just split into pieces. It's a good design.

The first three pictures show how the helmet cracked just like a hard boiled egg. That would have been my skull. If you click on them, you can really see the detail and how significant the cracks are.

The last picture was taken by my sister, Jane, who came up to take care of the kiddos while I was hospitalized. It puts the punctuation mark on exactly why you should strap on your helmet every single time you get on that bike.

A lot of credit has been given to my helmet for saving my life. It's true. It did save my life. But that's not the only reason I am here today, the best looking car vs. bike patient my ER doc has ever seen. There were angels with me that night, and without them I would have been a goner. So in your prayers, thank Heavenly Father for sending angels to protect me and allow me to return home to my DH and 5 small children. (and my dog. I love you, Olive!)







I strapped on my helmet before heading out on my bike and then I got run over by a car.

"I'm going to be okay",

even though I just got run over by a car

The strangest thing about my accident, and maybe the best, is that I never thought I was going to die. (If you just tuned in, you may want to go down the the first "ran over by a car" post so you don't miss the beginning of my memoir.) I never had a sense of impending doom, my life didn't flash before my eyes, I never saw a light or a tunnel. The PA who was by my side heard me say again and again, "I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be okay." She kept encouraging me and reassuring me that I was right, I was going to be okay, but I'm not sure she believed it. I wish I knew who she was. She was a guardian angel that day.

The ride to the hospital was nothing less than torture. The paramedics kept asking me a million times if I was allergic to anything, if I was diabetic, what my name was, how old I was, what my address was, blah, blah, blah. Then one made the mistake of asking me my medical history. I actually said, "Medical History?!? You'll (breath) have to (breath) look it (breath) up!" (If any of you have ever seen Malcolm in the Middle, I sounded (still do) a lot like Stevie.) I really didn't want to go into my whole history there in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I wasn't about to go over the checklist with him about family history and explain about 5 c-sections and a gallbladder. Anyway, I kept begging for drugs (I was really really hurting) and they kept trying to find a vein. (Thanks, M&D.) They never did find one in the ambulance. They are just too small, so after digging around for several minutes and leaving a huge hole in my arm they gave up and let the ER staff do it. I still have a scab on my arm from that.

The trauma section of the ER is bizzaro world. I know these nurses and docs do this a lot, but so much of it seemed overly routine to me. Like one of the nurses kept saying she was going to send a photo of the helmet to Schwinn (maker of said helmet) as a testimonial that it saved lives. I think every single doc and nurse in there took a photo of the helmet. I heard a million times about how they were going to show the picture to their son/daughter/husband/neighbor/co-worker/stranger-on-the-street who refuses to wear a bike helmet. Now, I have nothing agaist being a shining example (better than a blaring reminder, especially in this case!) but could we focus on getting me some pain meds, please?

Finally, they got me some drugs. They didn't help a whole lot. It lasted about 3 minutes, got my pain down to about a 6, and then it would fade out. I have an extremely low tolerance for pain, so this was agony for me. I kept begging for them to just put me under, but they said they couldn't until they knew what the damage was, just in case I had to go into surgery to get my arm cut off and then I woke up and was like, WHAT?!? I told them I didn't care, they could do whatever they wanted, but they wouldn't give in. I punished them by groaning and complaining a ton. I was hoping to become abnoxous enough that they would do anything to shut me up, but they must be used to the ploy because it didn't work. Next time maybe I'll try lewd comments and crude language. Maybe that would work better.

I went to get an MRI (I think they were playing a fun game called: "How many times can we move a trauma patient from bed to bed?"). This was interesting as well. "Take a deep breath and don't move." Take a deep breath? Are you kidding? Shallow breathing is killer, and I can feel my ribs crackling as it is. A deep breath would have knocked me unconscious. (Wait, maybe I should have done it!) Don't move? Uh, okay. I'll try really hard to stop tap dancing from my bed. Like I could move if I tried! (I was strapped to a table, wearing a neck brace and in an MRI machine, not to mention I JUST GOT RAN OVER BY A CAR!!!) They asked if my wedding ring would come off. I said yes. They tried to pry it off, and it killed. Finally, they unstrapped my arm so I could get it off myself. The guy didn't think I could do it and turned his back to get some soap. I got it off in .5 and told him so, but he wouldn't listen. Finally, the other guy yelled at him and said it was off. Then there were some "funny" comments about how of course a guy couldn't get the ring off my finger....ha ha ha, now can I have some drugs, PLEASE?

The worst part about the ER was seeing my kids. Dale had no clue I was there for over an hour because he wasn't at home and I accidentally gave the staff his work number instead of the cell. Oops. Blame it on the Pain, yeah, yaa! (Take ten points if you laughed, minus five if you don't get it.) He showed up at the church as planned, saw I wasn't there, dropped of the girls, and headed to the hospital in hopes I decided to go to the Diabetes Support Group meeting. Just as he was arriving at the hospital, I realized my error and they called the cell. So Dale came trotting into the ER with Logan, Lily, and the baby. My face had not been cleaned up yet, I had a million nurses and docs milling around, I was wearing a neck brace, and was lying in the bizzaro trauma world. The kids were pretty freaked out. Dale was worse. I had to calm everybody down and tell them I was okay. Lily was fascinated, but Logan was really not pleased with the situation. I told him I got to ride in the ambulance, and he started to perk up. I'm so grateful for the spirit. I cannot tell you how many times I have known exactly what to say to that boy to keep him from totally falling apart. He started asking me questions about that, and I told him that there was a fire truck and firemen there, and he thought that was pretty cool. Then I told Dale to get the heck out of there, I was fine. He did.

Later, a friend was driving them to Danitra's house. Lily kept talking to her about the accident. Then Logan said, "We're not talking about mom anymore." End of conversation.

I got to ride in an ambulance and meet a bunch of firemen. That's cuz I got run over by a car.

and then I got run over by a car...the summary

Okay, so here's what happened. Dale and I have only one vehicle, and I had a meeting before YW at the church at 5:30. Sarah and Rebecca have activity day girls at 7:00, and there was a pediatric diabetes support group meeting at 6:30. We worked it out so that I would bike to the church at 5:30, Dale would drop the kids off at the church, and then he would head over to the support group at 6:30. Then he would come back to the church, switch the van for his bike, and go to his night job at 8:00.

So much for carefully laid plans. Dale made it to neither his meeting or work. I snapped on myh helmet cruised out of our neighborhood and pedaled to Lake Otis, which is a major street here in Anchorage. I approached a side street, and a car pulled out past the sidewalk attempting to turn right. I was traveling at a slow pace because Dale got in an accident about a year ago in a similar scenario. The car came to a complete stop, and I thought she saw me. Clearly she didn't, because when I was about a yard away from the intersection, she started to go. I braked hard with both hand breaks and flew over the top of the bike. It was so surreal. I kept thinking, "Oh my gosh. This same exact thing happened to Dale last year ! I really don't want to break my elbow like he did." Then the car ran over my head with the front tire and my chest with the back. I will post a picture of my helmet soon. It is unbelievable. It literally saved my life.

The whole time I was being run over, I kept thinking, "I wish this car would hurry up and finish running me over, because this really hurts." I may have been screaming; I can't remember that part. I never lost consciousness, and I think that is because the Lord knew that if I blacked out I would not have been forcing myself to breath. A lady who turned out to be a physicians assistant came running over immediately. She asked if I was ok, and I said no, call 911. I couldn't breath. There was blood running all over the pavement, but that was mostly from a bloody nose. Then a huge guy came running over and started to pick me up. I tried to protest, but I couldn't because I was struggling to even breath. The PA screamed at him for me and said not to move me. He said he just wanted to get me out of traffic and she snarled at him to go and divert traffic, then. The lady who hit me (Who turned out to be a friend of a friend) was in the background shaking and crying. It was terrible.

The fireman showed up in about 2 minutes, as I was less than 3 blocks from the hospital. The PA (who kept asking me questions to keep me awake) told the paramedics that I was 30 years old, not diabetic, and not allergic to anything. She then tries to give me a handful of twisted metal and glass. "Here's your glasses!" she said cheerfully. Then she realized how ridiculous that was (adrenaline is a funny thing!) and hastily said, "I'll just put them with your things!" The firemen cut off my backpack, helmet, and clothes and promised that they would get me covered very quickly. It's funny how the human mind works in moments of adrenaline. I'm laying naked and bleeding in the middle of the road and I couldn't care less. All I could think about was the fact that my mom gave me that outfit before she left for Mexico and I only got to wear it for about 15 minutes before it got cut off my broken bod.

The firemen were funny. They kept almost fighting with each other, like one of them would say, "We need to hurry, she's said more than once that she can't breathe!" and the other would say, "We know that! We're moving as fast as we can, okay? Give us a break!" The mother in me wanted to tell them to stop fighting, but again, my air was being used up by forced breathing and answering a billion questions.

Well, that's all for now. Typing is killer! I'll get some helmet pictures posted as soon as they get taken!

I was thinking about being on time to a meeting the other day and then I got run over by a car.

And then I got run over by a car.

Howdy! I know some of you have been anxiously waiting for me to get this blogged, and none more than I. Typing is actually quite painful, so I have to go in short bursts. For those who don't know, I got ran over by a car 2 weeks ago.

Jessica came to visit in me in the hospital a week ago Sunday, and it seemed like the end of every story was, "...and then I got ran over by a car." So that is how I'm going to end every story from here forward, cause, really, who else can say that? (I hope none of you...EVER.)

I'm having a hard time knowing where to start this post, especially since I can't really go back and do a lot of editing. Imagine that you have a cardboard box with a hole cut in the top for your head, kind of like you decided to be a pair of dice with your DH, but you forgot to cut the holes for your arms. That's what it's like for me right now. My range of motion is really that limited. I'm sore already after typing just these few paragraphs, so I'm going to have to come back to this later today. It is so frustrating. I know that I'm lucky that I'm alive, but it is really hard to sit her like an invalid and not be able to talk on the phone for hours or type because it HURTS.

For now the story just has to be this short: I was on my way to a meeting and then I got run over by a car. TTFN!