healing in other ways
April 9th, 2012
On March 16th, 2007, a girl drove her lovely wife to work. Dropped her off. Went for coffee.
As she went through a yellow light, a careless driver made a careless turn and their cars collided.
He was a bully. He made the girl feel responsible, and shamed her into avoiding the police. He trivialized her injuries. He forced his information on her and then left the scene.
The girl, shaken and frightened and hurting, called her wife. “I can’t get you coffee,” she said; “I’ve just been in an accident.”
That afternoon, the girl wound up at the doctor’s office. Her shoulder, you see, had begun to hurt too badly to ignore. But when the nurse, compassionate and helpful, moved the girl’s wrist, they realized it, too, was damaged.
Her wrist had been crushed, in fact. Multiple fractures, a crushed carpal tunnel, and lots of tiny tiny tears in the soft tissue.
Her shoulder was abandoned in favor of fixing her delicate wrist.
But the fixing of her wrist took nearly a year.
By the time her wrist was healed (as much as it would be, in any case), her shoulder was permanently damaged.
The girl had to fight the bully and his bully car insurance to pay her a meager sum that just about covered her expenses. That she was permanently disabled didn’t bother them – she was a number, not a person.
Life goes on.
Now, five years later, the girl finds that her hands no longer work without pain. Her shoulder, constantly dodgy since the wreck, has taken to hurting – or flat refusing to move – with the slightest provocation. The stress and fear she felt through the weeks and months of healing from the accident pile upon her, and the doctors confirm.
This is permanent. This is from the accident, all those years ago. Injuries left untreated. Injuries unhealed.
The girl, now a writer and an artist, faces a decision.
To give up her heart’s calling?
Or to face her disability and stay strong in her path?
Funny how it seems so simple when you say it like that.
A monkey and a dog my sweet — a monkey and a dog :-)