Good Enough Farm is back online.
Mostly to keep me focused and sane.
You see, friends, on May 29, 2014, on our way home from the Kingdom Hall, we were hit by a drunk driver. All I remember was hearing Ronny say “This is going to hurt” and he was right. I was in the back seat for some strange reason, a fact I will forever be grateful for since if it had been my son and not I who was injured I would be in jail for murder right now.
The air bags deployed and the front seat occupants were totally physically unharmed. I, however, was in the back seat and unbuckled. While this is legal in Virginia, let me assure you it is not without consequence. We were traveling 50 mph and the drunk driver was accelerating out of a driveway into the wrong lane. So I hit the back of the front seat at 50 mph and then was tossed back and to the side, a free object in a slow motion disaster.
I only remember being in pain and voices in the dark calling and me asking the EMT to not give me too much morphine as it frightened me. I had diagnosed myself with a dislocated shoulder and told everyone. I have since learned you should tell everyone that in fact you are dying and all your bones are broken. They will not be gentle enough otherwise. X-Rays showed that my shoulder was dislocated. And broken at the ball. They call this a fracture/dislocation of the proximal humerus. There is nothing humorous about it, so I don’t know why they call it that.
I had to wear a diabolical device called an ‘immobilizer’ for one week, the sole purpose of which was to make sure my arm did not actually fall off while they waited for the swelling to subside enough for surgery. Because now, I, the Princess who senses the pea or smells the offensive odor through a thousand mattresses and doors, I was now going to have a plate and screws in my body. While I would love to praise the surgeon and such, I found the whole thing painful beyond measure and it is only Percocet which saw me through.
I started physical therapy two weeks ago and while I have seen progress–I can button buttons and raise my arm away from my side a bit–there are several times a day that I despair, quite literally, that I will ever be truly functional again.
During all this difficulty, which would have been enough for any one family, I think, my brother in law was staying with us while he pretended to be trying to get back on his feet. After he exhausted our patience and pocketbooks he went back to where he was from, no better off than when he had come to us in the first place. He called us to tell us he had broken his arm and didn’t have a place to stay and wouldn’t call his son or his daughter; We gave him the number for a homeless shelter and heard nothing back for a week. When he finally called again he told us he was in and out of the Wilmington, Delaware VA Hospital and they were helping him. I hope they have better success than we did. I think he wanted to come back and stay with us but I have a rule: only three disabled people per household. He has children but he must have exhausted their sympathies as well. I think this is how people end up homeless. They make no efforts to help themselves and don’t appreciate the efforts other people make in their behalf. I would feel bad about it but he has carefully crafted exactly this bed his whole life and now, like it or not, it is the only one he has to lie in.
There. I think I’ve vented enough for today. I’ve had to stop for a half of a percocet and a hot water bottle during the course of typing–did you notice? I apologize for all misspelling and grammar errors: Blame it on the drugs and the limited arm usage, please.