It's interesting how unpredictable life can be. Last Monday I'm driving to lunch with my daughter on a beautiful, sunny day. Not a care in the world. Just a few business chores.
The next thing I know a car slams into my driver side door and I'm sitting in the driver's seat, thinking a lot about life and maybe death - with a crushing pressure in the middle of my chest.
Then I'm on a gurney, being loaded into an ambulance, and on my way to Banner Desert hospital. It seemed to take forever to get there and that the driver hit every bump in the road while on the way.
Finally I'm being pushed down a long corridor, then into a large room that's partitioned off with a lot of curtains. I'm hooked to a few high-tech machines that check blood pressure and other vital signs. Every so often they make strange noises that nobody but the medical staff understand. I find a strange comfort in having so much attention directed at my well-being.
Every once in a while a nurse or technician will come and take x-rays of my chest and other parts of my anatomy. Later in the afternoon one of them returns and tells me I have internal bleeding behind my chest wall, along with a broken sternum, broken left ribs and bruising along my left arm and leg.
After all of their scrutiny they decide to keep me overnight. After 12 hours of being in the ER I'm sent to the fourth floor to a nice corner room that has its own private balcony and a comfortable bed that vibrates my legs every so often. The nurse says that the vibration helps prevent clots.
My stay lasts for two nights and days. Finally, on the last day a trauma team comes to the room and discusses their plans, It's kind of like I'm not even present. They're trying to decide whether to keep me there and cut me open so they can repair my sternum or else send me home to let it heal on its own.
I have so many painkillers in me that I don't care what they decide, So now I'm finally at home.
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