ON ACCIDENTS

Every week I send out a weekly update email to friends. And for the past two months or so, each update has contained a quiz with questions about friends on that update list. Today's quiz was about a girl I went to high school with named Annie. My original draft of the quiz had a question about her phone number in high school. Since I wasn't 100% sure of the answer, I went to change the question. I tried to think about different aspects of her life and personality to ask about when I remembered that she was in a very serious van accident while she was in college.

I did some research to find out when she was in this horrible accident - 1999. She made it through, though, and is now happily married.

Thinking about the timeline for this accident, I remembered that a different friend got in a terrible car accident in late 1999. In fact, when he sent pictures of his face (taken right after he was admitted), I thought that he had dressed up as a zombie for Halloween and done a fantastic job on his makeup. But he recovered, and is now happily hooking up with many different women.

And as I was struggling for a subject for today's blog, I learned that one of my RA's ex-boyfriend got knocked down while playing indoor soccer and FRACTURED HIS SKULL. He was in hours of surgery, and appears to be fine at this point. It's still pretty scary, imagining having to deal with that.

I guess it's kind of amazing what the human body can deal with - shattered hips, zombie-like facial injuries, fractured skulls. And yes, modern medicine probably had a lot to say about their recovery. But I think it's more amazing that people can MENTALLY recover from accidents like these. The toll it takes on me just IMAGINING having to deal with this is pretty massive.

As I am an insomniac, I often let my mind wander at night, and think about dealing with something like this. And I honestly don't know how I would handle it - questioning why and wondering if I could have done anything different to avoid the accidents.

In any event, to those who have dealt with huge accidents like this, you're in my thoughts today.