14 months since being hit by a car -- August 23, 2010

Image by Chris and Jenni via Flickr

Though this picture isn't me, I can remember the experience.  :)

I was hit by a car, on June 23rd, 2009, while walking across the street (in the crosswalk, with a green light and walk signal).  Ambulance came and I spent several hours in the emergency room.  No broken bones, was able to walk out of the ER, but continued having pain -- lots of soft tissue kinds of stuff -- hand, wrist, shoulder, neck, knee.  At the beginning, making the motion to close a ziploc bag hurt, I switched to a small purse and small water bottle because otherwise the weight was too much for me, and I was easily exhausted.  Mid-fall things began improving medically, and continued to do so slowly and steadily for a while.   I don't have health insurance and that has added an additional struggle on top of everything else.

Heartfelt thanks to those of you who've been walking with me these past 14 months. 

I've been trying to write journal entries periodically with the thought that they may be helpful if we need to go to court while at the same time giving me the chance to think about my progress.  Here's the latest one.

Fourteen months since the accident -- I continue to realize just how much the effects from it are still with me on a day to day basis.  In the past four months I have been getting closer to being as good as I'm going to get, so to speak, body-wise.  My physical therapist released me from care, saying that she had done as much as she could do for me.  My original doctor has moved to a new office and I have started seeing Dr. Pham.  She says that I will never be back to 100% -- that I may have some 100% days but that I will also have 50% days.  Simple daily activities are so much harder now.  Carrying my daughter's car seat, washing dishes, pulling wet clothes out of a dryer -- even writing, if I do it for too long -- cause pain in my wrist, my shoulder, my forearm, and/or my neck.

I know that I'm so lucky that the accident wasn't worse than it was -- so lucky.  And yet the impact it continues to have on my day-to-day life is significant.  I am able to do so much more than I was able to do directly after the accident, but I know that often, if I try to accomplish too much in a given day, I will be in pain later on.  I continue to take two different pain medications and sometimes wonder what will happen when I stop taking them --- if there will be a resurgence of a higher pain level.

I saw the massage therapist on Thursday and he said my body is allowing him to work much deeper than it ever would have 8 months ago.

I continue to struggle to pay my medical bills and field phone calls from creditors and see my doctor every 2-4 weeks.  I have an appointment with her tomorrow and I'll be interested to see what she has to say. 

Journal -- 11 months after being hit by a car & Read Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee

May 23, 2010

It's really lovely to think about how much my body is healed and how many things I can do now that would have been very hard to do even four months ago, let alone eleven.  Last night a friend was visiting with her young child and I was actually able to lift him high above me in the air while sitting down.  He's very very light for his age and my right side definitely felt pretty different from my left while I was doing it -- but I could do it and without pain! 

I continue to take amitriptyline daily.  I take the diclofenac as little as possible because of the heartburn issues that came from that (still experiencing that from time to time -- Dr. Banwart says it'll take a while for my stomach lining to heal).  I take flexeril once or sometimes twice a day still.  My pain is down enough that I sometimes forget to leave the house with it (whereas when the pain is high and constant it wouldn't occur to me to forget it)  but still present enough that I often wish, once I'm out, that I had it with me.

At Lani's suggestion, I began go to to physical therapy once a week instead of twice, starting the week of May 3rd.  I think that she is wanting to see how that reduction will affect my body.  So far it seems to be okay -- and it's certainly different schedule-wise to only need to be there once a week!  I continue to do all of the home exercises that Lani has given me -- a combination of stretches, strengthening exercises, and exercises focused on improving my posture.  

I saw Dr. Banwart on Friday.  She has encouraged me to continue doing physical therapy weekly at this point and said that massage is also still a good idea. I will see her one last time (she's leaving the clinic) on June 14th.  In the meantime, she asked me to see another doctor who does osteopathic manipulation work in the same clinic.  So I will see Dr. Pham on June 7.  Dr. Banwart says we are probably getting to the point where I will be discharged from care but that she thinks my body has a bit more it can improve before that point -- and that perhaps Dr. Pham can be a part of that improvement.

I continue to be able to do more and more with my body without giant pain increases.  Activities that involve "elbow grease" or concentrated strength (scrubbing a pan or trying to lower the storm window in our front door) are still difficult and painful as are some weight-bearing tasks -- especially ones that last more than a minute or two. 

Financially and emotionally, this accident continues to kick my family's collective butt.  Its impact on our life continues to diminish and that is definitely a good feeling.  Even better will be when it is all completely behind us!

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On a separate note, I absolutely love anything that Marla Frazee does and wanted to post about Roller Coaster.  It's not a brand new picture book (published in 2003) so it should be easy to get it from the library.  She does an amazing job of portraying different body types and races and relationships in her illustrations without making it a big deal ("look at me I'm so multicultural and aware") -- simply as acknowledgment of all the variety found in this world of ours. 

A physician's blog about breastfeeding

I thought this was a great post!

an excerpt:

Now, I have a question: Why do we accept that malfunction of a major part of reproductive physiology is untreatable, and that the acceptable solution is a synthetic substitute and a pat on the head?
Consider that we spend more than $1 billion a year on Viagra to treat another type of reproductive malfunction. I suspect men with erectile dysfunction would not respond well to being told “We’re sorry, we don’t have a treatment for this important aspect of your reproductive and social well-being. But here’s an artificial substitute.”

Journal -- 10 months since being hit by a car

I was hit by a car, on June 23rd, 2009, while walking across the street (in the crosswalk, with a green light and walk signal).  Ambulance came and I spent several hours in the emergency room.  No broken bones, was able to walk out of the ER, but continued having pain -- lots of soft tissue kinds of stuff.  At the beginning, making the motion to close a ziploc bag hurt, I switched to a small purse and small water bottle because otherwise the weight was too much for me, and I was easily exhausted.  Mid-fall things began improving medically, and continue to do so fairly steadily but also slowly.  I don't have health insurance and my husband is a full-time student who no longer qualifies for student loans (because he is in the dissertation phase) but who still needs to pay $900/quarter to stay enrolled. 


I've been so thankful, throughout this entire affair, to all of those who have tried to make it all a little easier.  Friends who bring meals, who invite us over for dinner, games, and the use of their washer & dryer, who pick me up from appointments, who send care packages, who call to check in, who don't say, "I can't believe you are still talking about this," who collect money to pay a parking ticket for us, who plan fundraisers at church, who took dictation when I was too sore to write, who bring me extras from their pantry and a new heating pad to boot...obviously I could go on and on.  Heartfelt thanks to those of you who've been walking with me these past 10 months. 


I've been trying to write journal entries periodically with the thought that they may be helpful if we need to go to court.  Here's the latest one.

April 23rd marked 10 months since the accident.  Things are certainly better than they were back in early fall or even December.  The days where I'm completely worn out happen less often.  I can work in the kitchen with less pain during -- but I sometimes "pay for" lots of chopping, stirring, kneading, etc. with increased pain after  -- but I can at least usually accomplish the task.

My birthday was April 19th and we had a coupon for bowling so my husband and I went to celebrate my birthday at the bowling alley.  It was definitely tricky -- those bowling balls are heavy!  I started with an eight pound ball and went down to a seven but it still felt quite heavy.  I tried to move slowly and steadily and that seemed to help it not be too painful.  I felt pretty okay at the end of the day but boy did my shoulder hurt the next couple of days!  My wrist was where I was feeling it most while we were playing, but the shoulder, right in the center of the joint it felt like, is where I felt it when when all was said and done.  I'm glad I was able to do it and it was fun to be there with Jeremy but, man, do I wish that I could have done it without being in pain for 2-3 days afterward!

It's times like that when I wonder just how much this accident will just always be with me -- little reminders of it as I go about my life.  You know how you hear people talking about their "bad knee" or "trick elbow"?  Well, I "get" that more than I would've at this time last year. Though I try to think in more positive terms -- "That's my arm that's not as strong as the other."  :)

I'm doing physical therapy on Mondays and Thursdays and having therapeutic massage once a week or less.  I'll see my doctor again on May 21st.  At some point, my physical therapist will say that she's done all she can for me and we'll see what happens after that.

Teaser Tuesdays -- England's Health Care System After WWII

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

  For the teeth and the glasses.  

  That was the reason so many coloured people were coming to this country, according to my next-door neighbor Mr. Todd.

  
  

  ~p. 93, Small Island by Andrea Levy