“Hurtin’ for Certain,” but at Least My Hands Have Stopped Shaking

(www.sass-pants.com) — I think it was God’s way of telling me that fast food really is bad for me. Okay, not really, but I won’t be swinging by the local McDonald’s for a snack again any time soon. When I stopped for a Big Mac Meal on Tuesday, I got in a car accident in the parking lot.

Let me describe the setup for you:

The building is fairly long and narrow, and perpendicular to the road. There is parking on all sides. If you’re facing the front, the drive-thru line starts on the right and exits on the left. The right side is one way toward the back of the building and the left side is one way toward the front of the building. When you exit the drive-thru, you can go straight out onto the road or you can drive through the one-way lane in front of the building, cross over the parking-lot entrance, and exit through the adjacent business’ parking lot. This is what I was trying to do on Tuesday.

I looked both ways, double-checked to make sure no one was pulling in from the road, and proceeded across the McDonald’s lot to exit next door since the drive-thru line was completely blocking the rear exit. And then, CRUNCH! The woman who was last in line for the drive-thru apparently got impatient and decided she wanted out. So, she backed up. Right into my car.

The woman was very apologetic and called her insurance company, StateFarm, and told them it was completely her fault, which I appreciated since it WAS. Like, seriously, who doesn’t look behind them before backing up? This chick, apparently! (She also hugged me and asked me not to let my husband hunt her down and killer her for what she did, which was decidedly strange.) But my car is still all dented and scratched up, and my back HURTS and it’s her fault for being a moron.

Imagine being T-boned. Now imagine that the car T-boning you is backing up at a low speed. That’s what happened. So while I didn’t feel injured at the accident site, about 2 hours later the pain started and climbed down to my tailbone and up to the base of my skull over the next 6 hours. And it’s still here, when I turn my head, sit still, move around, sigh, cough, yawn, chew, swallow, sneeze, go to the bathroom, push a dog off of me, reach for a drink, everything.

But back to the accident day. After spending a considerable amount of time talking with Scott from StateFarm and then Terry from StateFarm, they told me they’d be covering the accident and, assuming there is a verifiably accident-related injury, medical costs. Nice, since my deductible with GEICO is $500 and I don’t have that kind of cash just lying around. Also a relief to know on the very day the accident happened that it was going to be taken care of.

That decision came while I was driving to my doctor’s office. Happy happy! Until I got to the doctor’s office and discovered that he was closed. All week. And when I called to see if there was some kind of referral on their answering machine, I got a fax machine. Well, crap! Not so happy happy after all.

So then I drove to the urgent care center that had treated me for some kind of insane stomach bug like 3 years ago. A 2-hour wait. And I didn’t bring a book. And it was like 43 bazillion degrees in there. And sick people were coughing on me. And children were screaming. Cranky cranky.

After 3 hours (2 hours in the waiting room, 45 minutes in the exam room including about 30 seconds with the actual doctor, another 15 minutes in the waiting room awaiting prescriptions), I went to the pharmacy for painkillers and a c-collar, and then the hospital for x-rays. Another 2 hours later, I made it home.

I’m still waiting on x-ray results (because the holidays are a GREAT time to get injured, let me tell you!) and still in pain and don’t know if something is cracked or if it’s just muscular or what. Terrified to move in case something IS fractured because I don’t know what could happen if there’s a break that isn’t stabilized or otherwise treated.

The meds are helping some, but not as much as I would like. I can sit down for only about 30 minutes at a time before needing to walk around or lie down, which isn’t great when you spend your work day in front of a computer. And the lack of response from the doctor’s office isn’t doing anything to relieve my stress level, that is for sure. Oh, and did I mention that my dogs ate 10 lbs of flour last night? That was really fun to clean up with a sore back.

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King