Ouch

Nick's chest is really hurting today. I think he probably hit the steering wheel rather hard Sunday in the car accident. There are no seat belts in the car. I gave him the choice of a heavy duty pain pill (hydrocodone) or alternating ibuprofen & XS Tylenol. He took the ibuprofen/Tylenol.

Sunday after the wild ride, I gave Mother a tramadol pill for pain. I thought it was the pain pill she can take. Must not be because she said she had a hard time sleeping Sunday night. She went on the ride without her oxygen. I carry it in my car all the time & no one thought of it until after the ride. She's been suffering all week & is "terrible."

Sunday driver

Don-Mike took Mother for a ride today in his blue Trans-Am. Nick & Don went in Nick's red Camaro. I think I jinxed them with this entry from another blog:

So, while my family is out enjoying a Sunday ride, I hope they are enjoying it & not broken down somewhere on the side of the road, I am nursing my headache.

At 5:41 this afternoon I got a call from Amber Hayes wondering where Mother was. She had a gift she wanted to give her. I told her about the ride & I was frankly getting a little worried about where they were. So, I said I'd call Don & call her back. I called Don asking where they were. Well, they were NOT along side the road, they were out in some field in Riverdale. I don't remember why, but they were on the old Riverdale highway. Don-Mike had passed a truck & then Nick decided to pass, just as the driver decided to turn left. Nick clipped her bumper & ended up out in a field. Don-Mike said he is amazed the car didn't roll.

The police were not called, but I've been thinking since, if he ended up in a field, was a fence broken? Will they be cited for leaving the scene of an accident? Nick can't afford another ticket & it was his fault. His license will be suspended for having too many points. Don says there was no fence, big sigh of relief. The other driver stopped & they exchanged insurance information.

So, Don-Mike came on home, stopped at Mother's & hared into the house because he had to pee so bad, leaving Mother to get out of the car herself. The door swung closed & shut her leg in it. She has this huge black lump on her leg. Amber was there & helped her in the house. Meanwhile Amber had started alternating ice packs & heat. Mother called me & wanted me to come right over. I wanted to see the damage on Nick's car. 

Don-Mike had come home, got the black Camaro off the flat bed trailer & gone to get Nick's car. I did wait until they got here with the car. There isn't much damage to Nick's car, but he is certainly depressed.

Recipe analogy

Saturday evening there was a terrible accident on John Palmer's Corner on HWY 91. An elderly man pulled out in front of a car on the highway. The speed limit is 65 mph. right there on the highway. Meryl Bloxham, 84, turned left off of 2400 East into the path of Sally Whitaker, 52, traveling north on HWY 91. Whitaker was driving a 2002 Toyota Camry & Bloxham was driving a 1970 Olds 88. All three occupants of the cars, Bloxham & his wife, Leora, 83, & Whitaker were transported by ambulance to Franklin County Medical Center.

Leora was in the passenger seat of their car. According to Elaine Dunkley, her visiting teacher, Bloxhams had just had supper at the Arctic Circle & were heading home. They celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary recently.

Nancy Dent, Elaine & I were talking Monday in the copy room at The Citizen. Someone made the comment, "What would we do without the gospel?" Elaine told us that she once told a non-member friend the gospel is like a recipe. Everyone has the same recipe, but we take it into our kitchen & everyone makes additions & subtractions. The dish never turns out exactly the same. I love the analogy.

Part of the chorus from McArthur Park has been running through my mind.

Someone left the cake out in the rain
and I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!

I know McArthur Park is a lover's lament & is written using symbolism, but ... the recipe analogy struck me. I had never thought of the gospel in that light. Thank-you Elaine

A day of thanksgiving

I thought today was Sunday. I kept thinking about working a production day tomorrow & Don was asking me to trade days to cook with him. Don cooks Monday, Friday & every other Sunday, plus practically every holiday. So, I was thinking, "How can I do that???" I was also thinking I should've gone into Parenting Bipolar Kids & changed the weekly update before I went to church today. Since it wasn't Sunday, I didn't go to church. It's been such a long day, you could've fooled me.

I didn't finish all my wrapping last night, because I was just so tired & irritable. So, we had to wait for me to wrap my presents. Then after we unwrapped presents, Nick decided he would go home until dinner was ready. He called about 5 minutes later & I could hear him talking to someone in the background about calling someone. He told me he'd call me back. I told Don that Nick was in some kind of trouble & so we left.

We finally saw him as we rounded the corner by Stokes MarketPlace (grocery store). We could see two pickups as our street turns off HWY 91. Nick's green 1969 Chev pickup was in the snow bank with a big black pickup beside him. I thought the pickup had forced him off the road. No, Nick was driving too fast & couldn't make the corner, slid into the stop sign & snapped it off. The black pickup had pulled up to see if he could help. So, I pulled beyond our street in the far lane of traffic that hadn't been plowed, put on my hazard lights, & a city police officer pulled up behind me.

I called Don-Mike to tell him about Nick's accident. He'd been out in his driveway shoveling snow. To answer his cell phone & hear me, he'd stepped back into the car port. While we were talking, a Toyota king cab pickup left the highway, jumped the canal & plowed right into the driveway & broadsided his car. He said, "Oh, my gosh, a truck just hit Liz.!" Liz is his 1979 Chevy Impala. It is Mother's old car & she named it Liz. I thought maybe he had taken Liz & was coming to see what had happened with Nick, so I said, "Where are you?" He told me he was in the carport & Liz was in the driveway.

We were blessed this day. If Don & I had not driven off to check on a phone call that had been cut short, my car would have been parked right where the pickup came to a stop. If I hadn't called to let Don-Mike know about Nick's accident, he would have been out where my car was parked & would have been run over or worse yet pinned between the pickup & car. If his car hadn't been parked there, at the speed the pickup was going & the direction they were heading, they would have ended up right in Mother's living room.

I told Don-Mike I'd call the sheriff's dispatch & tell them about the accident. The dispatcher told me it would be a few minutes because the officer was investigating another accident. I said, "I know. I just left it. It's my younger son. This is my older son." She asked me if anyone was hurt & I said I didn't know. She asked me to call & see if she needed to send an ambulance.

The pickup came so fast, & hit with such an impact, the car was pushed about a foot over. Liz is a heavy car & that panel is pushed right into the trunk. I had to move out of the officer's way so he could take a picture of the damage. It didn't look like the pickup sustained any damage, but Don-Mike said the passenger door was hard to open. Nick explained that the "crumple zone" had collapsed. It's gonna cost the guy a "pretty penny" to get that fixed.

The speed limit right there is 45 mph. Don-Mike said all 4 tires were bald & she, the 18-yo driver, was driving too fast, hydroplaned & flew off the highway. We have stood in Mother's big picture window & watched huge fire engines catch air as they hit the bump where the canal crosses the highway. Her mother explained to me that she was only going the speed limit.

There were 5 people in the car. I was talking to Nick on the cell phone when they started piling out of the pickup. I'm going, "OMG, there must be a dozen people in there." He asked me to take pictures with my cell phone, so I did.

This is how close the pickup came to Don's car. As they were leaving, Don-Mike wanted to know if we should get the guy's car insurance information. I asked them if they had given their insurance information to the officer. They assured us they had. I just hope they had insurance, but she didn't get a ticket for no insurance. We had to give the officer Liz's registration & insurance information, even though she was parked legally in her own driveway.

Don-Mike said the driver was given a ticket for driving too fast for conditions. The police officer told her to be glad it was Christmas Day, he was letting her off easy because he could have given her a "reckless" driving ticket.

Nick got off easy too. He wasn't even given a citation. It didn't look to me like his pickup even has a dent in it.

It has been a wet & snowy day. I spent the day at Mother's. Don-Mike spends most of his time here. He came home about 8 p.m. He asked me if I wanted him to drive me home. I said no I could make it. I crawled at 20 mph., through town. Don had just shoveled about 5 minutes before I got home. It had snowed 12 inches then, but it's supposed to snow all night. I'm worried about Don going to work in the morning.

There have been 2 major accidents on the corridor between Preston & Logan in the past 2 weeks. One was a fatality. One a pickup ran a red light & flew through the air, did a couple of flips in mid-air & hit a utility pole by the Hyde Park Maverik. My friend Kim & her daughter Shari were filling up. If the utility pole hadn't been there, the pickup would've ended up in Kim's lap.

So, we do have many things to be thankful for this snowy Christmas day. Not the least of which is the celebration of the birth of our Savior. I spent about an hour listening & watching YouTube & different renditions of the hymn, Mary, Did You Know.