It's kind of weird for me to watch people drunkenly celebrate a day which has so many bad memories for me. This Saint Patrick's Day happens to be the ten year anniversary of the day I got hit by a car. I think it kind of sucks that this incident is such a defining moment in my life, but I can't deny that it is. I can't even begin to wrap my mind around how different the past ten years would have been, if it had never happened.
In 2001, March 17th was a Saturday. I was 14 years old then, a freshman in high school. The day itself was relatively boring. I spent it at home, probably watching TV, or playing video games, or something. In the evening, my friend, Laura, asked if I wanted to come over. Laura lived close by; about a 10 or 15 minute walk from my house. I asked my mother if I could walk over to Laura's house and hang out for a few hours. My mother said I could go, as long as I was home by 10, and Laura's mother drove me home, because she didn't want me walking back so late. I said okay, knowing that Laura's mother was at work, and wouldn't be home until much later that night. Back then, my mother worked an early morning shift at a nursing home. She woke up at 4:30 in the morning, and usually went to bed really early. I knew she wouldn't be awake when I got home, and figured I could get away with the lie. I just wanted to hang out with my friend, and I knew my mother wouldn't let me go if I told her I wouldn't have a ride home. It's not like we were planning on doing anything bad; We watched Water World with her grandmother, and ate knishes. When it was time for me to leave, Laura offered to walk with me half of the way. She brought her dog, Heidi, with us.
I am sometimes surprised at how much I still remember from this night. My memory is kind of if-y; I remember some strange things really well, and don't remember other important things at all. I was wearing a big, poofy silver jacket. One of the North Face-esque ones that were popular at the time. It was cold, and rainy that night. We came across a section of Bloomingdale Road that had no side walk on either side of the street. There were woods on both sides, and a line of cars parked on both sides. We walked side-by-side, with Laura and Heidi closest to the cars. I noticed a big puddle on the ground, and looked down as I stepped over it. I looked back up into a flash of light; the head lights of a light-colored car. In the few seconds I remained conscious, I remember seeing a guy driving. He had his head turned, to look at the girl in the passenger seat. I feel like I must have lost consciousness before the car even hit me, though I don't know why I would have. Maybe I fainted out of fear? My body seemed to work on instinct in a few instances that night, and I am grateful for it. The next thing I remember is waking up, laying in the street. Apparently, I had done some crazy flip over the car, because I was laying facing the opposite direction that I was walking. I didn't feel anything but cold, confused and unable to move. I could hear Laura yelling, “Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” and wondered what was going on. Strangers peered down at me, and asked if I was okay. I remembered seeing the car, and started to piece together what must have happened, but I think the shock kept me calm. A stranger thrust a phone to my ear and said, “It's your mom.” I assume my cell phone fell out of my pocket, and they picked it up and found “Home” in my contacts. I could hear my mother yelling about how it was after 10, and I was supposed to be home already, and why wasn't I in Laura's mother's car? I turned my face away and asked the person to take the phone away from my ear. At the time, I was angry that my mother was yelling at me for lying, when I had just been hit by a car. Now, I can only imagine the terror she must have been feeling, being woken up by a phone call from a stranger, saying her daughter had been hit by a car. I was completely unaware of the normal passage of time. Though I remember the events, they seemed to have happened in a blur, to me. It seemed like my mother and sister had arrived on the scene almost instantly after I had asked the stranger to take the phone away, and the ambulance arrived right after that. I remember briefly worrying about Laura, as the paramedics loaded me into the ambulance. I knew she must have been very upset and that she would now have to walk back home alone, and spend the night worrying.
At this point, I was still in shock, and I wasn't really thinking about what having just been hit by a car might mean. The paramedics strapped a neck brace on me, and put me onto the gurney and into the ambulance. My mother and younger sister road in it with me; My sister was crying, and that made me feel bad. I also remember arguing with the paramedics. At this point, though I still wasn't feeling any sensation other than “cold”, I was becoming aware of the physical damage. My left elbow and right knee were swollen to about the size of footballs. The paramedics kept insisting that they weren't broken, and I was getting annoyed with them because, clearly, they were. I'm sure now that it was just part of their job to try and keep the patient calm and with positive thoughts. I recall the ER being kind of busy when we arrived. Though I had no concept of time, time had certainly passed rather quickly, as it was quite late by the time we arrived at the hospital. It was Saint Patrick's day, and the ER had some extremely drunk people who had been dropped off by the cops who had been called to remove them from the bars. I was annoyed at this, too, because the ER staff were busy trying to get control over the rowdy drunks, rather than immediately attending to the poor girl who had been hit by a car.
When the staff was able to attend to me, they had to cut off my jacket and jeans, because the swelling had made it impossible to just remove them. I was kind of annoyed that they had destroyed my clothes. I remember the feathers from the jacket flying everywhere. I was also kind of embarrassed because they had to remove all my clothing themselves, and therefore see me naked, to put one of those little hospital gowns on me. I remember the x-rays, and the doctors confirming that my right leg and left elbow were broken. The break in my femur occurred from the initial impact of the car hitting me dead-on. It was just above my knee, missing the knee itself by less than an inch. Though I was unconscious during the actual being hit part, and didn't regain conscientiousness until a few minutes later, this was another time that my body seemed to act on instinct. While falling to the ground after flipping through the air, I landed laying on my back. I somehow put my elbows back, to take the initial landing blow on them, rather then my skull. I was incredibly luckily to end up with only these injuries. At this time, I had started to feel another sensation; I had to pee, really badly. I told the doctors this, and they gave me a bed pan, but did not leave the room. It was at this point that I realized that they did not remove my underwear. So I had to pee through my underwear, in to a bed pan, with people in the room. This was also extremely annoying and embarrassing for me, but I really had to go.
Up next was an MRI. Or a CAT scan. Are they the same thing? Whatever. As they were getting me ready for the MRI/CAT scan thing, somebody thought it was a good idea to send a police officer in to get a statement from me. I don't recall at all what I said to him at the time, though I later found out that what he claims I told him was not at all what happened (he wrote down that I had told him that we were crossing the street when the car hit me, when we were not. We were walking straight, and it hit me dead-on. This sounds like a trivial thing, but makes a big deal in court.). After they had gotten me all ready on the table, the doctors left the room and started talking to me over the intercom. They told me I was about to go through the little MRI tunnel thing, and told me to hold very still. And that's when it hit me: Holy shit. I've just been hit by a car. I've been hit by a fucking car. I've got two confirmed broken bones, and who knows what else? Possible brain damage, or other serious problems. What if I'm paralyzed? What if I can never walk again? What the hell is going to happen to me? At this point in my life, I had never really gotten hurt before. Never broke a bone, or needed stitches or anything. I started sobbing uncontrollably. This annoyed the doctors because, obviously, sobbing uncontrollably is not holding very still. Eventually they were able to calm me down enough for the MRI, and in the early hours of March 18th, I was happy to be moved into a room, on to a bed, and to get some sleep.
I spent the next week in the hospital. A day or two after I was admitted, I went for surgery. An orthopedic surgeon reset the bones and put in some “hardware”. He put two pins and some wire in my elbow, and two bolts in my leg. The week was a miserable blur, and I can't recall much of it, thanks to some fantastic intravenous pain medications. They tried to start me with rehab, and I hated every second of it. I met with lawyers to discuss a lawsuit. Someone came in to take pictures of my injuries, and myself in my miserable state. My pediatrician came to see me, and I thought that was really nice. They sent me home in a wheel chair, which I also hated. I had to use it for three months. It was not at all easy to use in the tiny apartment we lived in, so I had very little freedom to move around. I spent most of the day in bed or on the couch. I remember the day I came home, my mom was helping me into bed. My bed happened to be right across from a dresser with a mirror on it. After one glance at it, I demanded that my mother cover the mirror. I think she thought I was being over dramatic, but the image in the mirror upset me; I felt I looked like I was dead.
At the time, we (my mother, sister and I) were living in an apartment on Marisa Circle. My mother had opted to take a sabbatical from work to stay home with me. At the same time, the landlords had decided that they were going to sell the house our apartment was attached to. Between this, and us not having any income, since my mother wasn't working, it led us to moving in to the apartment upstairs from my aunt's house on Rockne Street, where she let us stay, rent free, while my mom was out of work. I don't know why, as there were kids who went to my high school who were permanently in wheel chairs, but it was just understood that I would not be returning to school that year. I don't think it was even a discussion. Life was a boring blur of physical therapy, doctor's appointments, meetings with lawyers, school lessons (I only had one teacher coming a day, to do one subject, for about an hour), and doing not much of anything else. I hated physical therapy, and did not work very hard at it. I greatly regret this now. Eventually I graduated from wheel chair to walker, and from walker to cane. Of course, being endlessly embarrassed to be a 14-year-old having to use walkers and canes. A few years after the initial surgeries, had I surgery again to remove the pins and wire from my elbow, and the bolts from my knee. Though the surgeon had told me that I would be able to live with them in forever, they were very painful and I just wanted them out.
It's hard to believe ten years have passed. I still bear the physical and emotional scars as much as ever. The actual scars on my elbow and knee from the surgery are still prominent, and probably always will be. Even though the break occurred right above the knee, and not on the knee itself, I have been dealing with knee problems ever since. I suffer from arthritis in that knee, now, and an almost constant pain that waxes and wanes with changes in the weather and my activity level. Recent visits with doctors have confirmed that I never regained the full strength in that leg. My problems with depression and anxiety started with this, as well. Obviously, I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have these problems if it had never happened, but I know that it started with the accident, and they are getting worse as the years go by.
This feels like a kind of a whiny, self-pitying post, but I don't intend it to be. I don't sit and brood like this all the time. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever actually written it all down and shared so much with people. After ten years, I've accepted it as a part of my life. I can't help but think about it at times, though. Especially tonight. I wonder if he ever thinks about it? I don't even remember the guy's name. He was a 17-year-old kid, a senior at my high school. It must have had some impact on his life, right? I feel like if I hit a person with my car, I'd never forget about it. I can't help but wonder what he's gone through in the past ten years.
I'm feeling a bit distracted tonight, and so I'm having trouble finishing this post. I think I've said about as much as there is to say on the subject, anyway. It's just about 10:30pm now, which makes it exactly ten years. I think that's a good place to leave off.
