Bit of a miracle
May 13th 2009 06:16
Well, we seem to veer from one weird event or health issue in our house to another at the moment.
Last night my wife went to her gym class (with one of the students doing physical education at the Varsity). She was finished by about seven and rode her motor scooter home.
Meanwhile I was at home having tea, and then, at about 7.15 got in the car to go to rehearsal. On the way I drove along Arthur St, past Cargill St, where there was an ambulance, and a police car, and a tow truck, and obviously an accident.
A minute or two later my son rang me on the cellphone. My wife had had some accident near Cargill St, and they were taking her down to the Accident and Emergency.
You guessed it. The accident I passed was the one she'd been involved in. I raced into the rehearsal rooms to tell them that I couldn't be there, and drove round to the hospital to find my wife just arriving from the ambulance.
What had happened, as far as she can remember, is that she was driving cautiously along the road in the rain - on a very cloudy and thus dark night - when something hit her. She didn't see the vehicle beforehand, and was suddenly aware of being sent head over heels off her bike, landing on the ground and sliding in the wet some twenty metres along the road. Her crash helmet was badly scratched (probably badly dented, but she hasn't seen it since, and neither have I), and the poor little motor scooter is a write-off. How she survived and the scooter didn't is a miracle that only God knows about.
Someone she knew lives in the flats near the scene of the accident and this young lady came out and comforted her, and rang our home to let us know what had happened. The young man who'd been driving the car (fortunately it doesn't look as though he'd been going very fast), was disconsolate, and, unlike some people who cause accidents, not at all aggressive.
My wife could have been very seriously hurt; could have died. Instead she has a very sore left shoulder (the same one she hurt when she came off the bike last year after slipping in some ice), a very sore left foot, and bruises and abrasions. But even the abrasions aren't particularly serious: a bit of skin off her knee, some minor scratches. How she came out of it all so unscathed, really, is nothing short of a miracle.
Of course she's struggling to walk, and last night barely slept. (And neither did I!) But she's alive, and even today has made progress compared to yesterday.
Surprisingly, the hospital didn't think it necessary to keep her in overnight to check on her; they just sent her home as though she'd had a minor fall or something. Compared to the night when I had to go into A&E last, when I had the catheter changed in a most professional way, the place was shambolic, with nurses and doctors straying from one patient to another, and leaving people stranded for hours on end. Admittedly they had some forty people to sort out, but surely that's a time for more efficiency, not less.
Anyway, she's home, she's safe, she's alive and she keeps thanking God for getting through it so amazingly.
Now she'll have to get some physio on the shoulder, no doubt, as she did last time. (Might even have to get one of those strange-looking exercise units called a Kettlebell - how they're supposed to make you fit is anyone's guess!) Whatever, it's going to be a few weeks before she's fully back to good health - which has put her plans to remove the wall between the kitchen and my office back a bit. She'd got as far as taking the wall out on the weekend. I'm now able to type this and see right through into the kitchen at the same time! No doubt we'll live with the temporary chaos, as always.
Last night my wife went to her gym class (with one of the students doing physical education at the Varsity). She was finished by about seven and rode her motor scooter home.
Meanwhile I was at home having tea, and then, at about 7.15 got in the car to go to rehearsal. On the way I drove along Arthur St, past Cargill St, where there was an ambulance, and a police car, and a tow truck, and obviously an accident.
A minute or two later my son rang me on the cellphone. My wife had had some accident near Cargill St, and they were taking her down to the Accident and Emergency.
You guessed it. The accident I passed was the one she'd been involved in. I raced into the rehearsal rooms to tell them that I couldn't be there, and drove round to the hospital to find my wife just arriving from the ambulance.
What had happened, as far as she can remember, is that she was driving cautiously along the road in the rain - on a very cloudy and thus dark night - when something hit her. She didn't see the vehicle beforehand, and was suddenly aware of being sent head over heels off her bike, landing on the ground and sliding in the wet some twenty metres along the road. Her crash helmet was badly scratched (probably badly dented, but she hasn't seen it since, and neither have I), and the poor little motor scooter is a write-off. How she survived and the scooter didn't is a miracle that only God knows about.
Someone she knew lives in the flats near the scene of the accident and this young lady came out and comforted her, and rang our home to let us know what had happened. The young man who'd been driving the car (fortunately it doesn't look as though he'd been going very fast), was disconsolate, and, unlike some people who cause accidents, not at all aggressive.
My wife could have been very seriously hurt; could have died. Instead she has a very sore left shoulder (the same one she hurt when she came off the bike last year after slipping in some ice), a very sore left foot, and bruises and abrasions. But even the abrasions aren't particularly serious: a bit of skin off her knee, some minor scratches. How she came out of it all so unscathed, really, is nothing short of a miracle.
Of course she's struggling to walk, and last night barely slept. (And neither did I!) But she's alive, and even today has made progress compared to yesterday.
Surprisingly, the hospital didn't think it necessary to keep her in overnight to check on her; they just sent her home as though she'd had a minor fall or something. Compared to the night when I had to go into A&E last, when I had the catheter changed in a most professional way, the place was shambolic, with nurses and doctors straying from one patient to another, and leaving people stranded for hours on end. Admittedly they had some forty people to sort out, but surely that's a time for more efficiency, not less.
Anyway, she's home, she's safe, she's alive and she keeps thanking God for getting through it so amazingly.
Now she'll have to get some physio on the shoulder, no doubt, as she did last time. (Might even have to get one of those strange-looking exercise units called a Kettlebell - how they're supposed to make you fit is anyone's guess!) Whatever, it's going to be a few weeks before she's fully back to good health - which has put her plans to remove the wall between the kitchen and my office back a bit. She'd got as far as taking the wall out on the weekend. I'm now able to type this and see right through into the kitchen at the same time! No doubt we'll live with the temporary chaos, as always.
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