Shock in one phone call

I kept my grandsons Wednesday nite and they kept me up all night. First one then the other. The 3 year old gets so excited when he comes he usually doesn't go to sleep until very late. Wednesday it was 2 AM Thursday before he finally gave in. Then less that 30 minutes later the 6 month old woke up and decided he needed to be really cute for about an hour and a half. I finally doze off around 5:30 AM and hubby's alarm goes off. Didn't really wake all the way up but enough that I wasn't getting any rest. Grand daughter busts in "Nannie, where's my shoes?", 6:15 AM. 7:20 AM 3 year old says, "Nannie, up now Nannie. Wantta movie." 6 month old follows suite and I'm awake for the day. At nap time I think I can get a couple hours but oh, no. 3 year old decides it's time to fight the whole sleep thing. I decide that their parents need to come pick them up Thursday evening instead of Friday so I can recover before going to work Saturday. Parents get here and I'm beginning see a good night's sleep in my very near future. The phone rings.

My 34 y/o is on the other end. "I've been in an accident. Come get me. Pageland, right on hwy. 9." Click. I gather up my stuff, which includes changing into clothes, I was in my PJs, kissing grandsons good-bye. I call her back. "Are you all right? Where are you now, at the car?" "NO! I'm walking down the road, I'm trying to find what I ran over." My stomach turns. "What do you mean?" "I ran over something, I don't know what it was. It was big." I hear some panic in her voice and the quiver that comes with tears. "GO BACK TO THE CAR! NOW." A few other words passed between us. What I didn't ask was. Do you think it was an animal or a human?

I got to the scene. She's alone, on the side of the road, in the country, in the dark. I pull onto the other side of the road. What had happened is: she was the 3rd vehicle involved. The other two vehicles were about a mile up the road. It seems that an 18 wheeler lost a large part of his truck and the other two cars hit it first because they were behind the truck. The lost part jumped to the other side of the hwy. and directly in front of my daughter. It's dark and there's no where to go so she hit the broken axle head on. It hit hard enough that the air bags deployed. Damage done. The car doesn't look like there's much wrong with it. There's nothing hanging off under it or anything real visible. Where the axle hit the bumper there's a chunk missing. Now the insurance garbage starts.

The biggest problem is my daughter is all beat up from the seat belt and the air bags. I took her to the ER. We were there until 3:30 AM. Nothing serious, we didn't think anything serious was wrong but we knew she'd be in some pain after she slept. We wanted something stronger than tylenol. They gave her morphine while we were there, it helped some. Her breast, belly and face are banged up pretty good. Her face has become the worst of it. After all the adrenaline from the accident had gone away her face swelled up. She looks a little like a deformed pumpkin right now. Her eyes look like she's got golf balls behind her lids. It's going to be days before she's right again. Apparently the powder in the air bags causes some real problems for some people and she's one of them. It's deformed enough that the 6 y/o grand daughter stood in front of 'Mim' (that's what she calls her aunt) and stared at her for a long time. Then she said, "I don't like that. How long will she look that way?" Aren't kids great.

Still more. After the ER we have to go get Rx filled. To the pharmacy we go. Anyway, by the time we get home it's after 4 AM. I've had very, very little sleep in many, many hours. By this time I'm wired for sound. Laughing, babbling and acting a bit dunk. No alcohol involved just way too tired. It took me until after 5 AM to wind down.

I feel better now. Slept about 6 hours straight. That's good for me. Life's little tests are so interesting. Everyone is going to alright. No one was seriously hurt and the visions I have of how horrible it could've been make it almost comical. I'm a lucky woman and so is my daughter. Take life's little tests with a smile and a sigh.