WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
I'm alive today.
Bruised, in pain, barely able to walk.
But alive. Because I have done considerable work on self-improvement, on giving up compulsive behaviors that lead to overwork and ill health, and because I have grown cautious in defense of my own health, I survived a major auto accident this week; and because I have lost 50 pounds in the past few months, I was able to survive the injuries, the ambulance, the x-ray and the vitals checks during the initial hours following the crash and am showing signs of recovery. follow me over the fold for a little gaspworthy photography.
I haven't been in a major personal injury crash in a motor vehicle since 1968, when my brother maneuvered the family car into a tree to prevent ditching us in the Charles River when I was 8 years old, so it's been a long time since I've taken a ride in an ambulance.
but as I was creeping out into an intersection on a green light, wary of the last-minute left-turn-on-red folks who always seem to be trying to cross in front, I saw a blue streak in front of me, jammed on the brakes, and skidded... right into the woman who had to have been going at least 30 on the turn and could not have had a green light, either:
I was on hour 72 of an unknown number of project hours, and already hurting from a torn meniscus in my left knee, and ironically, on my way to the rehab specialist at the clinic to get the swelling re-evaluated after spending hours in urgent care Friday afternoon to deal with an increase in the pain and the return of severe bloating in my knee due to long, sleepless nights.
I think that's called adding insult to injury.
But something tells me that had I been just THIS much more compulsive, if I had been a smidge less attentive and more aggressive at trying to get to where I was going before everyone else, and most importantly, if I had been 50 pounds heavier with severe edema... just exactly where would I be right now?
this is why attending to my health is so important; and why fitness and getting appropriate medical care go hand-in-hand. When the EMT took my blood pressure, it was 138/96, but considering I had just been struck by a Honda, my car totalled, and my life turned upside down for the foreseeable future, he was satisfied that it was within normal limits. They kept a monitor on me at the ER, but my pressure and other vitals never got into a danger zone.
and because I am now while still extra-large, within size limits for most human beings, I was wearing my seatbelt. I have an enormous bruise and contusions on my chest, but my past experience with being too big and bloated meant that there were many times I could not buckle a seatbelt. I was buckled in this time.
I may be going back to work again after a 4-day hiatus, it depends on what my lawyer thinks about pursuing a lawsuit including replacement for my lost income for the past several days. At any rate, when I've cut down on the pain medicine I have AAA that will reimburse me for car rentals even if my auto insurance won't. It's good to be covered, it's great to have multiple coverage.
I'll end this now, but this, like so many of my other diaries, is a cautionary tale. If an extraordinary health threat were to suddenly take the form of a 68 year old Black Friday shopper running a red light... would you be here to tell the tale?