Friday, June 27, 2014

December 2012

December was a crazy month. Here is a picture of the kids doing dishes
 I crocheted a ninja turtle for Leah
 A robot for Daniel
 A monster for William and a Kitty for Eden
 Jordan and Melissa got Married on the 15th We are so happy to have Melissa in our family.  She is perfect for Jordan and hopefully he is good for her too :)
 It was a beautiful cold day for a wedding. 


Jon myself and the kids tried to go but got hit by a jeep on the freeway near Draper. We didn't make it very far on our journey to Logan.  It was a snowy morning. About 7:15.  We were driving in the fast lane with the HOV lane on our left. When I saw a Jeep that looked like it was driving straight across the freeway from the slow lane.  Jon didn't see it coming, he was driving.  I brought my knees up and wrapped my arms up over my head when I saw it was going to hit us. It did. I closed my eyes and screamed and listened to the concussion and tried to keep my head protected, we hit something again or got hit again. I screamed again.  The kids screamed and yelled "what is happening!" We finally stopped and the kids kept talking and asking questions and crying. I opened my eyes and saw snow falling through a missing windshield, dropped my arms down to see tiny bits of glass covering everything. 
I tried to turn around and check to see if the kids and Jon were ok, I knew they were alive from the questions and crying. I had been answering their questions...It hurt too badly and I had no strength to lift my head from the headrest. (I also know that if you have a spinal injury you shouldn't be moving/twisting so I decided to stay put, even though I really wanted to look at the kids) So I focused on keeping myself calm and breathing. 
Me: "We've been hit by a car" "we had an accident"
 Leah: "our car is broken. How are we going to get to Jordan's wedding?" 
Me: (laughing) "we're not. Our car is broken. We will have to go back home"
Leah: "how will we get home?"
Daniel: "will we have to walk?"
Me: " No. the highway patrol will come help us and someone will drive us home, we will call someone to come pick us up"
The highway patrolman finally came and checked how we were doing. I was doing my best not to freeze to death. Jon put his jacket on me and the kids had some pillows that they piled on top of me. I guess I was the only one freezing. Jon and the kids seemed to be fine thank goodness. At this point I was feeling very blessed for how bad it wasn't. No one was bleeding or broken. I had the worst of it and I was glad about that. My chest hurt a lot, probably from my seat belt, and I had no strength in my neck, my shin and foot and been hit by the dashboard and side of the car. I thought maybe my shin or a toe might have been broken or maybe I had a cracked sternum...but I have never had a broken bone so I had no reference for that. A lot of pain though. The ambulence finally came.  I was pulled out and put on a stretcher.    I was told not to move. It was really hard for me not to help them get me out. But I had heard enough horror stories that I did my best. They covered me up with a sheet because it was still snowing. The people driving by probably thought I was dead. It was weird.

Jon had called his brother Spencer and by divine intervention he had left his phone on when he usually would turn it off at night.  Spencer drove out and rescued Jon and the kids while I got an ambulance ride to the hospital.

The ambulance ride was really short. About five minutes.  they cut the sleeves of my long sleeved shirt up to my shoulders to take my vitals. Once we got to the hospital they did a quick check of my neck teeth etc. to make sure nothing was broken.  I discovered my tongue was bruised and swollen when they had me feel around to check for missing or loose teeth.  After I was cleared for neck injury they sent me for ex-rays.  The lady in there told me to stand up and get on the table. Up to this point I hadn't been allowed to move.  It was pretty painful.  But I had become a adrenaline educed  comedian.  I was quite silly by this point and started cracking jokes with the ex ray tech about how I was bat girl because my sleeves were now drapey and floppy.  "Look I'm bat girl!!" I said flapping my arms haha!  She was unimpressed. Didn't even crack a smile. Tough audience.  I was just so happy to be alive and free of a broken neck. Also very thrilled that I was the only one injured and so for not too badly.  They decided that I was only bruised and not broken so I was released with all of my bad jokes from the hospital.   Spencer drove us all back home to Provo where we were happy to be as well off as we were for such a bad accident.  I called Mom to see how the wedding went.  It went amazingly well considering that some people had heard the news of our accident right before the sealing.  Mom was blessed with strength and comfort and was able to keep calm through the whole thing.  We were sad to miss it. The kids were really sad. They had been really excited to go. 

Later. Probably the next day James Drove me and the kids out to look at the car and get our random stuff out of it. I looked for my cell phone but it must have been ejected from the car on impact.  I couldn't believe how munched it was. I hadn't been able to look at it from the stretcher with my neck brace on. 
The scrape on the bumper confirmed to me that we had hit twice. The first impact from the jeep and the second when we spun around and scraped the bumper on the median.  Jon had thought that we had stayed straight because all he could see was air bag and he kept his hands in a vice grip on the steering wheel.  Because of his steel grip on the stearing wheel, he had numbness/ tingling in his hands for over a month.  We spent a lot of time at the chiropractor getting massages and adjustments. In my opinion this made a huge difference in the speed of our recovery.   He even did adjustments on my wrist and beat up knee.

Poor Bluey Cablooey.  All smashed up.
I was so overwhelmingly grateful for the Lords hand in our lives that day.  I'm grateful that I was able to remain calm through my pain and explain to my kids what was going on and that we were going to be ok. I'm grateful that the wedding went on without us and my brother Jordan and his Beautiful wife Melissa were sealed together for eternity. I'm great for for our tough little car that ran well and protected us. I'm grateful to the Lord for helping Spencer not turn off his phone. So many blessings. I am grateful for all of the prayers on our behalf and the support from friends and family.  The list goes on and on.
 I am so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord and that he has given me such a wonderful family to cherish and love, and that we are still here to enjoy each other.