Never Saw It Coming {Accident Anniversary} / Life

It started out to be a day like any other day. But Wednesday the 28^th May 2014 will be etched in
my memory forever. 

There wasn’t any screaming sirens signalling danger, going off in my bedroom when I reached for my slippers. There was no huge neon sign flashing ‘Warning, Warning’ as I walked into the bathroom for my usual shower. When I sat down to eat breakfast there was the same quietness about the house, no pulsing tones of impending doom. And as I drove to work, there were no voices in my head urging me ‘turn back, turn back’. I never saw it coming.

I thought 2013 was a dreadful year! My older sister passed away from Pancreatic Cancer on the 6^th April 2013 after just 7 or so months after diagnoses. My brother, who had been battling cancer for 8 years, passed away on the 7^th September 2013. Two weeks later, my husband’s Father passed away. Their passing rocked our family to the core and things have just never been the same since. When someone you love dies, life just loses a little bit of lustre, fullness and meaning.

So when a traumatic accident on the 28th May 2014 caused my family to be once again facing uncertainty and pain, I hated that this time, I was the cause.

I had just completed two days of Fork Lift training and was preparing to sit the test on the Thursday. To get in a bit of practice before the test I was moving stuff around the car park. I won’t go into the ducks guts of the accident but the upshot is, two 50 kg wooden pallets fell from a height of around 3 metres and landed on me. The first one hit me in the head and I lost all feeling from the neck down.

I remember very vividly the words I spoke as that first one hit me in the back of the head forcing me to the ground…

‘Dear Lord, please don’t let me die. If I never walk again so be it, just don’t let me die and put my family through that again’. 

At that instance, I felt as if someone had scooped me up and gently placed me on the ground. I felt no panic or fear nor much pain. In fact, I felt a peace and a certainty that no matter what happened, no matter what injuries I sustained, I would live and the Lord would get me through whatever I had to face.

Daughter # 3 my right hand girl.
She was by my side almost every day at the hospital
and my nurse when I went home.

And what I had to face was an epidural haematoma from a head injury requiring 30 staples. In my back was T11 fracture, T12 fracture with anterior displacement and L1 fracture along with a compression fracture of L5. Both major bones in my right ankle were fractured as well as the metatarsal bones (long bones in foot that connect your ankle to your toes) fractured on my left foot. Two fingers on my right hand were fractured, a collapsed lung along with an assortment of internal and external bruises, scrapes and other injuries that I don’t even understand or know what they were but, I know enough to be sure that I am one very blessed woman to have come through the accident at all.

Today it is 12 months since that horrible day. I have slowly recovered from most of my injuries and with physiotherapy and hydrotherapy 4 days a week and lots of hard, painful work, have gradually gotten better at walking and standing and sitting and all those things we just take for granted. I will never be the same physically though and there are lots of things I simply will never be able to do again whilst other things will take a lot more time before I can manage them without pain.

For around 6 months after the accident I was at the mercy of other people having to do everything for me, which has made me appreciate the little things that I took for granted, so much more. Like getting myself into a nice hot shower and washing myself. Being able to attend to my own toileting needs without assistance. Always dependent on someone being there with me should I need a drink or my medication or a meal. Dropping something was always a pain because it pretty much had to stay on the floor until someone came along to pick it up for me.

Some of my wonderful family who were always there for me

Now I can do those things for myself, with varying degrees of difficulty, but I will never forget what it felt like to be so helpless and I am so, so thankful to my husband and children who absolutely went above and beyond to care for me and every day I thank the Lord that I have come so far and that they were so selfless.

You learn a lot about yourself through something like this accident and there are things that I am trying to work on to be a better person. You also learn a lot about other people, often well meaning people, but that’s a story for another day.

I would not wish something like this on my worst enemy and I can’t truly say that I am happy it happened, but, I am glad of the lessons it taught me and to discover a strength and determination born out of my trust in the Lord as it is He who brought me through some of the darkest days of my life and every morning when I wake and every evening before I go to sleep, I thank Him with my whole heart that I'm still here to tell the story.

“You may never know that JESUS is all you need, until

 JESUS is all you have.”

Corrie ten Boom

P.S. Anyone want a used pair of Moon Boots?

Cheers

Mare