Update Nov. 19. She’s up and running again. The meds were the problem. Much relief.
Update Nov 16, 1pm: We thought she was okay at the time, but now she’s really dizzy and nauseous and we aren’t sure if it’s the pain medications the hospital gave her or if it’s something else that happened during the accident. The worst thing is that it’s hard to guess what the cause is so we have to sit and wait until her pain medication wears off completely to see if the symptoms are still there. I’m feeling pretty distressed.
My wife just had a car wreck today. A driver t-boned her on the highway– drove right into her side as she was going 55-60mph. Big screaming accident. The car shredded down the driver’s side. Cops and ambulances on the scene. But, other than a sore shoulder, the doctors say Anjula should be fine. Our cute little Honda Civic is probably totaled and we’re feeling pretty shaken up, but hey, it looks like our life gets to be put back together.
Some thoughts:
1) I would be really sad if my wife were dead. I still feel frightened by this. I can’t help thinking about how lucky she was that she was hit where she was, that she was seat-belted, that the airbags went off, that the car didn’t flip, that there weren’t any other vehicles involved, etc. A lot of luck goes into walking away from a high-speed wreck. Anjula seems to have gotten all of it.
2) Sometimes, it feels like the universe is trying to pinch you and squash you like a bug. A friend of mine, about fifteen minutes before Anjula’s accident, said to me, “I’m feeling really nervous today. I keep getting the feeling something bad is going to happen.” And I made a joke about it and mentioned that my computer ran chkdsk again when it booted this morning, and the hard drive is probably about die permanently, and that’s probably what he’s feeling, blah blah blah — And then Anjula called me from the crash site. I’m still a little weirded out by the coincidence. I can almost feel these big universal fingertips reaching down and squeezing and saying, “Damn. Missed again.”
3) The one time it’s been good for Anjula to be the token South Asian in Delta Country, is when she’s in a car wreck. Despite the high speed of traffic on the road, three different acquaintances of hers recognized her as they zipped by, and pulled over to help — so within minutes she had lots of support on the scene. Apparently, if you’re the only brown person anybody knows, you really stand out. I’m still tickled by this.
PS: the above word is tickled (as in tee-hee), not ticked. (thanks for pointing out the odd way the word reads, Charlie) We were quite touched at the amount of support Anjula got on the scene, some of it from people who we only know as acquaintances. It’s actually pretty humbling to have so many people leap out and want to help.