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!
