Buckle up for safety! No, seriously, buckle up.

Things moved a little faster from there just because I was getting shuffled around in what was apparently a busy night in the ER. After wheeling me out of the ambulance, they brought me inside, shifted me onto one of the hospital’s gurneys so they could bring the first one back to the ambulance, then I had to wait in the hall for a couple minutes before there was a room available.

I got into the room, had a heart monitor clipped onto the index finger of my left hand, then they shuffled my right arm out of my jacket so they could use the blood pressure sleeve. Trying to get my jacket the rest of the way off proved to be a little more difficult since rolling around was kind of uncomfortable at that point, but they managed to drag it out so it wouldn’t get in the way of any more tests.

(Incidentally, I had a flashback to the day of my ACL replacement surgery when the nurse clipped the heart monitor over my middle finger instead of my index finger. It was on my middle one last April—when my brother Brent walked into the room where they were keeping me before surgery, I flipped him the bird and said, “Check out my heart monitor!” Good times…)

Eventually, a doc came in and did some basic tests: push and pull against his hands with my feet, squeeze his fingers with my hands, pressed on different parts of my body to test for screaming in pain… everything felt okay, but because of that neck pain, he said I should get an x-ray and CT scan of my neck to make sure there weren’t any small fractures or anything they couldn’t feel.

A nurse came in to lay a warm blanket down on top of me (which felt awesome, by the way) and that’s about when I heard Mom and Dad show up. It’s not just that I was still facing upward because of the neck brace—it’s because Mom was using hiking sticks and I heard the rhythmic clicking while they were still out in the hall.

I was okay, they were glad I was okay, then we had to hang out for a while until I could go get scanned. I felt really stupid when telling them the specifics about what happened—I couldn’t stop the “What if I had done [blank] differently?” list from building up in my head. Then they told me something that was bad, but made me feel better at the same time.

I was apparently the first of multiple vehicles that wiped out in that section of road. There were two cars that slid into the ditch driving north on 35E, several on the exit ramp (two more went off the road while Mom and Dad were still there), plus a three-car accident on the 35E bridge that goes over the top of 42. They also got to see a plow truck that was dumping loads of salt on the road heading down the ramp and back up the entrance ramp on the other side. So while other people crashing isn’t good, knowing that it wasn’t just me was somewhat comforting.

They eventually brought me back to get the scans done; during the trip, I was heading there while another was heading back, so the nurses swapped gurneys and I ended up with someone new. (Naturally, I don’t remember any of their names.) When she brought me into the room to get my CT scan, I had to shuffle myself from the gurney onto a table that moves in and out of the machine, which is when we came upon a new set of obstacles: my necklaces.

I like to wear a couple, one of which has a clasp that screws apart. There were some open spaces in the neck brace to reach through, unscrew the clasp, then drag it out. The second is a medical emergency necklace that has an imprint on the back. In case I can’t actively tell someone, the person can look and see my name, the fact that I have epilepsy and the medications I take. That necklace does not have a clasp. I had to grab it, then wriggle it around as I shifted my head in various directions until I could pull it off over the top of my head. Chalk up one more item on the list of things I did that a doctor would frown upon, but even the slightest bit of metal will screw up the test, so it had to be done.

Since it was just a scan of my neck, it only took a couple minutes, after which I had to wriggle back onto the gurney (which was becoming a more uncomfortable process as time wore on) and she gave me the necklaces back in a little plastic baggie. Then it was over to the x-ray room. Woo hoo!

It was also the first time that I got to be upright since I got into the ambulance. They needed me to sit upright for the scans; thankfully, my abs were strong enough to do most of the dirty work and I didn’t need to push with my arms too much. After getting some pads behind my back, the woman working in the scanning room asked how old I was, then told me that at my age, I “might still want to protect these” and put a little metal shield over my crotch. What a sweetheart, right?

But she, the nurse and I were all chatting and having a decent time under the circumstances. When it was time for a side scan of my neck, though, not so much of a decent time. They needed me to reach up and grab a pole that was about head height so my arms wouldn’t get in the way of the scan. Not a big deal with my right arm, but trying to lift my left arm that high was a painful process. Remember back when I said how the left side of my neck down to my shoulder was hurting? Apparently, it was getting worse.

But I got it up, they did their job and it flopped back down again. (Nice innuendo, huh?) They asked if I wanted to lay back down again, but I asked them to keep me propped up. My back was okay in that position and I was tired of staring at the ceiling all the time. When the nurse was rolling me back through the area outside my room, I exclaimed, “Look at all this stuff!” A few people looked up and smiled. Score one for me.

She leaned me back a little bit after we got back, but I was still upright enough so I wasn’t staring up people’s nostrils all the time. I was talking with my parents some more, then Mom pointed out that my shirt was unbuttoned about halfway down my body and asked if I wanted to fix that. “Nah, give ’em a show.” Not that I’ve got much to show off, mind you, but I didn’t bother with my shirt until it was time to leave.

The doctor eventually came back and told us that the scans were negative, there were no fractures—it was just strained muscles from rolling in circles. He told me to go home, take some Advil and use ice to keep the swelling down. If I had any problems, call my doctor in the next few days. (I was in the ER at 2:30am, I was no longer an emergency case and things were probably still busy with the bad weather, so I don’t blame him for being in a hurry.)

Oh yeah, and he also said that I’d be even more sore “tomorrow or the next day.” It’s Sunday evening and I can honestly say that he wasn’t kidding. When I’m lying in bed, it hurts to put weight on my left elbow or lift that arm up very high. It’s not so bad if I do it slowly, but if it hurts, why do it? Oh, and simple gestures like shrugging are painful, too. It’s kinda like when I nodded while talking to the police officer: it’s natural enough that you don’t think about doing it until a sharp pain reminds you not to.

So the ER doctor officially cleared me, I got home and stayed up for a little while, then slept for about three hours. It might have been pain or nerves, but I blame the light shining into my room and hitting me in the eyes. Honestly, it’s surprising how rattled I haven’t been after all this. I might be lucky to be alive, let alone only sore from the accident, but other people have been a lot more freaked out than me.

In other words, you don’t need to write a comment in here like “OMG, r u ok?” The answer is “yes, i r ok.”

Anyway, after waking up, I started writing this for a couple hours, then called the car insurance company to let them know what happened—both agents I talked to said they were both glad I was okay. The towing company wasn’t going to open until noon, so Mom, Dad and I had enough time to drive to the Hwy 42 exit ramp and check out where the accident happened (we found a few things like pens and a box of tissues halfway up the hill). After taking a few pictures, we headed south to the yard where the Explorer had been towed.

There were a few things I was hoping to find that weren’t on the hill: along with my glasses, I had a stocking cap that fell off my head while we were rolling. (I’m not sure why I keep wanting to refer to myself and the Explorer as a collective “we”, but it seemed appropriate for some reason.) It’s the only one I’ve found that will cover my whole head including the bottom of my ears. I also wanted to see if my parking pass for Augsburg was still in there. It wouldn’t cost that much to replace, but ten bucks is ten bucks.

As it turned out, Dad found both of them on the floor in the back seat. (He did a lot of the searching because I was taking pictures again.) Thankfully, it wasn’t that hard to search in back because the doors opened up just fine. The ones in front… because of the way things got bent, we couldn’t open either one more than six inches or so. (If those guys at the exit ramp hadn’t been able to pull me through the window, it would have been a long climb out.)

Seriously, though, the back of the Explorer looked fine. It was dirty and salty, but you wouldn’t know I’d been in an accident just from looking at the gate. Given that I spun around 180 degrees and my momentum would have been moving backward, I think that says something about the weight of the engine.

So now our driveway is one vehicle shorter than usual and looks really naked. I’ve been achy and sore, icing my shoulder, taking Advil from time to time, trying not to move around too much… I sent an e-mail to my soccer team last night to let them know that I wouldn’t be playing today. Go figure, right? But given what could have happened on Friday night, I think life is going pretty good.

The moral of the story: Don’t watch Troll 2! Well, that’s a moral of the story, but the big one?

BUCKLE UP FOR SAFETY. SERIOUSLY.