She's a Warrior - And Has the Battle Scars To Prove It

I'm not even sure how to write this blog post. I've started and deleted it multiple times. This weekend was a tough one for me, but an even tougher one for my mom. It was filled with ups and downs, pain and a few doses of laughter. I guess I should start off where it all began, which was Friday morning.

My mom was hit by a car on Friday morning. It was around 6:00am and she was doing her morning run, as she usually does. As she was running across the sidewalk of a shopping center, she was hit. She was able to walk home* on her own and let me tell you, seeing your mother with blood all over her face, arms, legs, and clothes is one of the scariest sights in the world. But she was walking, talking, and completely coherent so I knew her injuries couldn't be all that bad.

We got to the emergency room around 6:30 and were there for 5 hours where she had multiple x-rays and a CAT scan done. Her biggest problems were a fractured elbow and laceration above her eye, requiring two rows of stitches. She also cut herself up good on her knees, elbows, and hands, as well as bruising up her thumb.

As a side note, I just want to say what an awesome staff the hospital we went to had. We went to Bardmoor Emergency Center which was just built a few years ago and is pretty top of the line. The staff was amazing there, as well. The doctor who stitched up my mom was pretty spectacular, even stopping halfway through the process to get my mom a Diet Pepsi and blueberry muffin! And they were so thorough in their x-ray process and making sure she didn't have any gravel/debris in her skin. They actually were out of our way, but I'm so happy we went there. (Plus, we had zero wait time!)

We left the hospital around 11:30, armed with information on her injuries and a prescription for a painkiller and an antibiotic. I went to Walgreens to fill those and then got my mom home. If seeing my mom with blood all over her was a horrible sight, getting her from the car to the apartment was even worse. After sitting for a good 6 hours and then having to walk in the 90-degree heat to the apartment made my mom extremely dizzy. It's about 30 steps from our car to our apartment and twice she fell down she was so dizzy. The second time, her eyes blanked for a second and that, my friends, is the scariest sight in the world. My mom's CAT scan came back clean, but they did send me home with a paper talking about the minor head trauma she experienced and if she got dizzy, she needed to go to the ER. To say I was scared is an extreme understatement. She hasn't had any dizzy spells since then and we think it was just the heat getting to her because she's been fine since then.

The rest of the weekend consisted of me playing nursemaid, making sure her glass was always filled with Diet Coke and took her pain medication. (Although she's only had 1 painkiller and has been taking ibuprofen for the pain instead.) We've been catching up on our DVR (and I'm getting hooked on Days of our Lives), watching movies, reading, and just celebrating the fact that my mom is alive and well, and I'm not sitting in a hospital room while I figure out how to live with a paraplegic, or making funeral plans.

This experience does make me a little frightened to run outside. I run in a suburban area, but there is a lot of traffic and a lot of stores. There are many times I have to watch out for cars as I cross streets and places where cars will be coming in. I'm usually very cautious about this, but now I'm even more so. I won't be wearing dark clothing, no matter what time of day it is. And my mom and I will be heading to Sports Authority to buy her more reflective clothing to wear. (And maybe a headlamp!) It's also made me more cautious of pedestrians and whenever I turn into a shopping center or onto a street, I'm doing it much more slowly and with more awareness to my surroundings.

The bottom line is, my mom is OK. Her injuries are very minor, in comparison to what could have happened. She's feeling pretty rough right now, and keeps saying how stupid she was, but she is alive. Her spirits are high, most of the time. And she will still be running that marathon in January. I'm making sure of it.