H ~ Hit by a Car

These are the continuing adventures of a Swedish immigrant during her first year as an American. She boldly went where she'd never gone before...please come along on Adventures in America.

I hope a picture really IS worth a thousand words cuz I'm trying to keep these posts short. However, Our Youngest Teen found my picture embarrassingly inept, so I have incuded his version and my inept version for your comparison.  Yes, mine sucks.

Basically, I was crossing the street during rush hour, Grandma Vivian was dropping me off, only for some reason she was across the street from our house. She waved me on, I trusted her. I stopped at the double yellow line to look some more. The stopped car waved me on.  What none of us knew was that a 17 year-old driver with a brand new license was barreling straight for me.

I woke up, lights flashing, The Swede and The Nutritionist talking to me, EMT's talking to me, sirens blaring as more emergency vehicles arrived and I didn't really get what was happening.

“You were hit by a car, honey, and they're going to take you in the ambulance to the hospital and I'm coming with you.” (Mom)

“Why do I have to go to the hospital?”

“You might have broken your leg.” (Dad)

I remember the EMT's picking me up to put me on the gurney and a pain so severe it didn't seem real washed over me. I think I fainted.

I woke up in the ambulance. Tubes being attached. I asked my mom to tell me what else was wrong with me.

“Well, you kinda have a lump on the side of your head the size of a...potato. They're a little worried about it. And you scraped off all the skin on your right heel.”

“What happened to my shoe?”

“Honey, why don't you try to relax, and we'll just let these smart men take care of you.”

“Ok, but it hurts a LOT.”

They must have given me some pain medicine, because when they moved me from gurney to hospital bed I didn't scream quite as loudly, and from hospital bed to x-ray table was down in volume, and then I stopped counting how many damn times they were going to move me and tried to just pretend I was playing in the woods in Sweden with my friends.

I woke up in a hospital bed, in traction. Mom was right there (it just doesn't seem right to call her The Nutritionist when she's my lifeline to sanity and my comfort and hope).

“What's wrong with me? Do they know?”

“You broke your hip, you have a bad concussion, and they stitched up your ankle.”

“Ankle? What ankle?”

“The one that was missing all the skin.”

I didn't really care at that point. I was tired. I was in pain. I was sleepy. So I went to sleep.

To be continued at another letter...and yes, one of them is tomorrow.