Be thankful for what you have...

I wanted to write this and let you know (if you don't already) that life is fleeting and precious.

On July 5, early in the morning I was going to take my son to the airport so that he could visit family.  Aaron (12) was in the back seat  while waiting for other members of my family to come out of the house.  I was backed up straight out of the garage at the end of my house waiting for them.

After a while, we were going to be late, so I got out of the car to get them.  When I stepped out of the car and closed the door, the car started to  move backwards.  I immediately saw the possibility of the car (with my son) going straight back into the neighbors house.  Not wanting him hurt, I opened the door and jumped in the car to hit the brake.  As I did this, the car backed up off the driveway where it dropped a little.  I live on a basement lot which slopes down.

As the car dropped, my foot got caught between the brake and the floorboard, slipping off of the brake.  I was jerked out of my seat and fell out of the open door as the car picked up speed going backwards with my foot stuck.

I was hanging upside down going backwards up to 15-20 miles an hour going down the hill behind my house.  I was then smashed into my neighbor’s metal fence where my right leg was basically torn from the knee to the groin in pieces to the bone.  As the car continued backwards, my leg was wrenched free, where the front of the SUV then drove over my pelvis, basically splitting my body in half.  It broke it straight through from front to back and crushed part of the right side.  

The last thing that I remember was the paramedics.  I don’t remember anything at all for the next 6 days while I was in ICU.  I have been through 7 operations, all within 10 days.  They told me I went through 3 separate operations the first day for a total of 12 1/2 hours to keep me alive. 

I spent almost 30 days in the hospital and am home now. God must have other plans for me because I am still here and was told that I departed 3 times the first week.

I am currently confined to a hospital bed in my home and a wheelchair. 

The good news:  I’m alive, though I wasn’t when I arrived at the hospital (so I’m told), I am not paralyzed (though they weren’t sure the first few days), I will walk again in another 2-3 months.

I truly feel blessed about all the things that I have just stated and I can run my business from my hospital bed, a phone and the internet.

I have a family that cares deeply about me and helps me to do what I used to take for granted.  It has been said to me that something like this and all the stress that it brings either rips your family apart or brings them closer together.  I am happy to say that through all of what we have been through, we remain strong, stronger than before the accident.

Love your family and be thankful for what you have, you never know when it can be gone.