1996 - Part #1
Many years had passed and the events of the past where just that "the past". I was busy with the REAL world and making my way in it.
I was fighting with my own humanity, and the lack of compassion there was in the world.
I met what would be my future husband, and father of my children. We found a home, not the best of homes but it was a roof over our head and stability. We had been married for five years at this point.
My husband working for my parents and I was a receptionist for a fortune 500 company. We felt stable and complete, and other than finances nothing could go wrong. I had a new car & my husband drove our old Ford Thunderbird, which I might add was in the shop.
It was Friday, February 23,1996. I put the kids in the car and we started our journey to pick up my husband. We never made our destination. That night we where in a horrific car wreck, thanks to a man who crossed the double yellow line, and hit my car head on.
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I vaguely recall a kind lady asking who she could call for me, and I spouted out numbers to my mothers home & to my husbands work. I tried to reach to the backseat to comfort my children, but my arm didn't feel right. It would not move. I told the children as softly as I could, every thing is going to be all right.
I was scared and I started to shake. I felt so cold. I knew these where classic signs of shock. I kept saying to myself, “stay awake, damn it stay awake” Shock meant something was really wrong and I knew it.
The next thing I recall was a woman dressed in all white standing at the back passenger door. I couldn’t see her face. She called in to me, ”Leslie you’ve been in a car wreck. The children are fine.” I felt so much comfort in her voice and words. I driften into the blackness that comes with shock.
Diagnosis
My right wrist & ankle where completely crushed. My left leg had been gashed open. I had glass slivers embedded in my face and head. Fortunately my two small children where only bruised.
I spent four days in the hosital and before Iwas released, the orthopedic surgen inofomed my family and I that in two weeks, after the swelling reduced she would scheduled me for surgery. The damage to the right leg was not ever going to heal. There are bones in you body that after puberty will not mend after a break. Mine was shattered.
She placed a titanium alloy plate with seven screws in my right leg and four external pens as well. My right arm also had four external pens. Now these pens go into the bones, and where connected with a black plastic tube that keeps the limb in position. The pins where to be in place for 9 weeks.
The ordeal to follow was much worse emotionally.
Panic attackes in the car, dealing with lawyers, bill collectors and insurance companies doesn’t help and can only tear a emotional rip in what fragile state we call sanity. I was running thin on sanity, and in overdrive on emotions.
I slipped into the belief that common human kindness & compassion had become very uncommon.
I had just had my third surgery and my doctor just told me that if my bone didn't make two millimeters worth of growth that she and I where left with two options. Either a cadiver bone or amputation.
We would know it two weeks, then she added If all goes well I could be walking as soon as December. It was only April.
From April to December seemed like an eternity. My emotional wall, had a crack and the foundation was being torn apart.
I don’t think I had every really cried until this point. I had been a rock, unmoved by anything! I can deal with it, I would say. I'd cracked jokes every chance I got just to keep from crying or busting out into a rage. I couldn’t fall apart, but I was. With every breath I took I felt as though I was betrayed by life.
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