So do I have a fun story for everyone! I was at work yesterday when a huge cabinet (around 100 lbs.) fell over and hit me square in the foot; breaking it. The initial pain was burning and severe, and the swelling immediate, but that all soon subsided to numbness. After hopping to the office on one foot to inform them I needed to go to the hospital, I jumped in my car and started the drive to the nearest hospital about five miles away. Naturally I got stuck behind every granny in the area out taking a leisurely (read: 20 mph under the speed limit) Wednesday drive, which at least doubled the normal time it would have taken to get there. I finally arrived at the hospital, pulled in, started driving up a hill toward urgent care and then, next thing I know, I woke up in the middle of the woods! Despite not feeling light headed in the least, I had blacked out mere seconds before I would have been able to park, went over an embankment and crashed right into a tree. When I came to I was disoriented. It took me a minute to figure out how I got there. Thankfully, excluding the previous foot injury, I was not incapacitated in the crash itself. The damage was entirely on the passengers side, so I was able to get out of my car and put it into park so I could turn it off. I then fished around and found my wallet and phone lying in the floorboard and then made my trek through a bunch of thicket bushes, up a muddy hill, into the complex and finally made it to urgent care.
While I was waiting in the lobby looking a mess, I felt something warm running down my face. Yes, I had gashed open my cheek in the crash. Not only that but my lip was swollen and busted, and my legs were all sliced to smithereens by thorn bushes. In just half an hours time I had broken my first bone, had my first car accident and had my first non-alcohol related blackout. And here soon I will be having my very first surgery, so we're hitting on a lot of firsts here if nothing else!
Yesterday and today have been nearly nonstop tests, texts and talks with doctors, nurses, cops, insurance people, my bosses, worker's comp people and the list goes on. I woke up today with both my foot AND face (apparently my head had hit the steering wheel during the crash) swollen. I learned my vehicle is likely totaled, but I won't find out for sure about that for a few more days. I have a doctor's visit here in a few hours, another tomorrow, will have to get a cat scan (to make sure I didn't suffer any internal head / brain damage from the crash; something that may not immediately be evident) and I will have to find a way to do SOME work in between all of that. Once I can walk properly again I'll have to go car shopping. And that quite sucks because I've been working a massive amount of overtime the past year so I could put down a large down payment and over-pay to try to get it paid off as soon as I can. That's all now lost, so I'm looking at even more overtime in the future (after I'm well enough to go back to work full time) until I can catch back up again.
My mind is still reeling from all of the bam, bam, bam that hit me over just 30 minutes time that I don't think I've even really been able to process it all. Despite all of that, what happened COULD have been way worse. Even though I'll have to get pins and such, my surgery isn't likely to be one of the more complex foot surgeries. The recovery time is said to be anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks. Had my blackout while driving occurred almost anywhere else than where it actually did, I could have caused a car crash, ran into a building or perhaps even killed myself, which I would have much preferred to harming someone else. Big lesson learned here, though. If something like this ever happens again, regardless of how I feel (my foot was merely numb when I left work and I didn't even know if it was broken), I am going to demand an ambulance or someone else drive me. But it is what it is now. I can't turn back time.
So I'm writing this to let everyone know that I have a little battle upcoming over the next few months and I may not have too much time to update, which I really hate. I know that once I'm back on my feet again I'm going to have to put in a lot of work hours to get back to where I was before this all happened. I hope everything goes smoothly and will try to pop in whenever I can. Perhaps during my surgery recovery time, if sitting upright in an office chair for a long period isn't too painful, I'll try to get some more stuff up here. I'm just not sure right now.
Thank you all and I'll return here to update my condition and what direction all of this is going in when I find out myself. Take care, friends!
Really sorry to hear about your heaping helping of bad luck. As you say, it could have been even worse if your blackout behind the wheel happened any sooner. Hope you are on the mend and hang in there!
ReplyDeleteGood luck.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are well. I just had my car breakdown which is about to financially cripple me, so I know that feeling.
ReplyDeleteThank you guys. I really appreciate it!
ReplyDeleteFF, absolutely. Can't express how fortunate I feel about that, especially seeing how my whole trip was 55 mph UNTIL I pulled into the hospital, where it slowed down to 10, so I didn't go off the road at a high speed. Whew!
Jbow - I'm doing alright. The worst part is being in limbo about the surgery date with my job breathing down my neck about coming back. Urgh! Good luck to you w/ the car situation, too. It's damn hard to get ahead nowadays. Seems like a lot of the time when you move forward an inch something's always lurking around the corner to knock you back two. Guess that's life for most of us.
Oh my landlord, I felt horrified for you as I read this! 😨😰😱 I do hope you're doing all right!
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not trying to bug you to see them this instant, but I just wanted to know in the days leading up to this, I had posted some more comments on your reviews, including two more (which actually make up one big comment, but I had to separate due to the character limit) for TPWF and another for NOES in which I responded to your previous comment about the other movie and Sybil's interview. So if they went to your spam folder, like how maybe my last previous one or two comments for TPWF might have, I just wanted to let you know in case they may be overlooked at first glance when you find replies in your inbox.
But worry about that later. You need time to recover. Get well soon. 😊🥰❤
really sorry to read this -- what a nightmare!
ReplyDeleteyou never know what's looming. i had a medical issue late last year. nothing gravely serious (i've slowed down a good deal & will need surgery at some point), but it really threw a scare into me -- did the whole "life is so fragile" bit, quickly dusting off some long-dormant creative projects and staying productive for a few months. now i'm largely settled back into dull routine, wasting time on autopilot again, ha.
anyway, i hope things improve quickly for you... keep us updated!
Thanks! It's now been a full week and I'm still waiting to hear back about a surgery date. Had no clue it would take this long but I already knew having to deal with workers comp was gonna be a nightmare.
ReplyDeleteAbsolute worst part is not being able to do ANYTHING while I wait. Can't work, cook, clean, shower, take care of my pets, sit at the desk for too long, WALK... Urgh. Enough to drive anyone mad. Getting back to my usual "dull routine" doesn't sound bad at all at this point! Glad that whatever was ailing you is better now.
HA... Once I have the surgery stuff behind me and am able to get out of bed and sit for a decent period of time without too much pain, I'll get back to those comments. Thanks for being patient.
ReplyDelete> not being able to do ANYTHING while I wait.
ReplyDeleteugh... sucks. i have an as yet unrepaired inguinal hernia. mild in my case, but even the most basic every-day physical things can still be a challenge. try to stay positive. this'll be behind you before you know it!
damn! That's a whole mess. I'm glad it wasn't any worse, particularly the crash. I've never really felt the need to comment but I've followed the blog since I was in high school a decade ago. get well soon, and keep your head up. the worst part, having to just sit on your ass will seem never-ending but most likely will actually go by pretty fast. best of luck for both your recovery in general and all the red tape with workman's comp and doctors.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about this! But glad you are ok, despite all the stress and pain!
ReplyDeleteI do want to say that I have been an avid reader of this blog for at least 7 or 8 years. Maybe more. Time flies.
And I want to say that I appreciate you taking the time to be a historian on the genre that I have loved for near 30 years!
I have learned so much by reading!
Wow! Sorry to hear this. Hope you are up and about soon! Take care!
ReplyDeleteThank you all so much for your kind words. Still have some crap to deal with but at least I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
ReplyDeletespooky, we have several people where I work who've been dealing with hernias this past year. In fact, I'm usually the guy who helps them lift the heavy stuff. They're probably missing me right about now. ha
Hem-Bro. thanks for finally saying hey. And that honestly means the world to me you've been a regular reader here for a decade. I was still in school myself (freshman in college though) when I first started this place.
Nicholas - Holy hell, you made me look and I started here about 15 years ago now! Used to have a decent network of horror bloggers in my circle but, as time has gone by, most of them have unfortunately disappeared...
Except for, ironically enough, the guy who posted right after you, CavedogRob, who started his blog the exact same year I started mine here, is still at it and is currently whooping my ass on the reviews for 2024. He also obliterated me in 2023 so I'm gonna have to make it a mission to catch up to this guy one day.