thinking back . . .

Four years ago today Curtis and I were in a terrible car accident.

You've heard the details before, I know.  But I can't help but reflect back on that day.

A car came into our lane and we collided head on at about 60mph.

I had never experienced such pain in all my life (and hope I never do again).  I felt like I was dropped from a tall building with only cement to break my fall.  I was in pain from my head to my toes.

We spent a week in the hospital with injuries that included broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a collapsed lung, bleeding kidneys, cracked vertebraes, broken tailbones, and swollen, black and blue feet....and not to mention poor Curtis had a head full of gouges and glass from hitting the windshield.

That first night in the hospital, I couldn't sleep.  Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a car crashing into me.

I had stressful dreams from there-on-out.  For about 3 years.

When looking back at our accident, a lot of memories flood my mind.  Memories of the ambulance ride to the hospital, memories of the emergency room...doctors coming in and out...nurses never leaving my side...worrying about Curtis...getting a CT scan, the daily chest x-rays...the liquid diet...using the nurse call button, etc.  There was so much going on.

The one thing that stands out to me though was the love and support that was shown to us during this time.  It was overwhelming.  It began immediately following the collision.  Passersby came to our aid right away.  They called 911.  They put blankets on us.  Sat with us.  Comforted us.  Told us we were going to be okay.  One guy who was on scene even contacted us weeks later to see how we were doing.

We had just moved to a new state only six months prior....so...we didn't know very many people from our new town...but we never once felt alone.  So many people reached out.  People from our community who we hardly knew called us at the hospital to check in on us and to let us know they were praying for us.  People came to visit us (even though the hospital was an hour and a half from town).  People sent emails daily.  Our friends from Utah called and sent messages of love and support.

When we got home, the love and support didn't stop.  People brought us food.  People came and sat by my bedside and cared for me while Curtis was at school.  People sent us money to help with the bills.  My boss donated her own 2 weeks worth of paid vacation time to me.  People sent letters, people prayed for us, our families braved the Wyoming cold weather to come and care for us.

I will never ever forget the kindness people showed to us.  It changed my life.


I think about our car accident a lot.

I have my daily reminders with my constant back pain, my two bulging ribs and my bouts of anxiety when driving.  But, I also have a greater appreciation for life and what is really important.

Today I am thankful to be alive.  I am thankful my sweetie pie is alive with me.  I am thankful for the wonderful people who continue to touch my life everyday with their kindness.

This world is full of really good people...and for that, I am grateful.

>>D.A.A.

[Driving Anxiety Anonymous]

Hi, I'm Jennifer and I have driving anxiety.

At some point in my life (I can't exactly pinpoint it) I became fearful of getting in a car accident. I think it might have happened when I was a sophomore in high school and a senior student at my school died in a car accident. I'm not fully sure if that is the cause, but that is the only thing I can think of as to why I developed this fear. No one in my family nor myself had ever been in a car accident (at that time).

This fear only worsened as I got older.

When driving with others, I would pay particularly close attention to the road and to every car around us (even though I wasn't driving). This way, I could "help" the driver in case they missed something (like a light turning red, or a car changing lanes). If I saw brake-lights ahead, I was sure to warn the driver to slow down. Basically, I was an obnoxious "back-seat" driver.

I would drive Curtis nuts because I would get nervous and breath in abruptly and grab the door. He would be like, "what???" all tense like he was about to hit a car. "I thought that car was going to change lanes into us" I would say, when really the car was driving just fine in their own lane.

Driving in rain or snow was especially a challenge for me. I would get so tense and nervous I would feel sick to my stomach.

Then, one day it happened. The car accident I had been so incredibly fearful of, happened. We were hit head on at 65 mph by a drunk driver. We spent a week in the hospital with bruises, broken bones, and a collapsed lung. Unfortunately, the passenger in the other car wasn't as lucky and died at the hospital (she was ejected from the car and suffered great internal trauma).

Since that time, all the fear I just described above, well, it has now doubled, tripled, possibly even quadrupled. My stomach is tensing up just thinking about it.

Some people have said, "you don't have to be afraid anymore because now you know that you can survive a terrible car accident." Others have said, "the chances of getting in another fatal car accident in your lifetime are pretty slim, so no need to be fearful." These statements don't help and in no way did our car accident help me not be so fearful.

I'm terrified of dying in a horrible, fiery car crash. I'm serious, too. There are times when driving, I begin to feel so overwhelmed at the thought that I may possible die on this road trip. To make matters worse, I worry about my loved ones doing the same. It's bad because it limits me. I don't want to go places because I don't want to drive. I don't want Curtis to go places because I don't want him to drive.

(Just to clarify, I'm fine with in-town driving (most of the time, anyway)...it's driving on highways, freeways, etc that get me...especially, 2 way highways where oncoming traffic is right next to me.)

Something I struggle with now is holding my breath while driving. It's awful. We get done driving somewhere and I am sore just from being so tense the entire time. Most people don't understand my fear, so they think it's funny to scare me and drive kind of crazy...just to get a reaction from me. Let me tell you, IT'S NOT FUNNY. Of course my sweetie-pie doesn't do this...at least not on purpose, but other people have and I don't like it...so don't do it anymore.

The reason why I bring all this up is because we now live in a place where we have to travel on 2-way highways and through canyons to get just about anywhere. I get anxiety just thinking about driving home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So much so that I sometimes consider just staying here (where it's safe) for the holidays.

I also have to travel for my job. I travel to Casper every six weeks, which is about 2 hours a way. About a week before I have to go, I get sick. I think of reasons why I possibly shouldn't go. I think about stupid things like quitting my job, just so I don't have to drive. But I love my job and it's a really, really good job, so why would I want to quit?

I don't know what to do. Curtis thinks I should get hypnotized to see if it could rid me from this fear. I don't want this fear to limit me anymore. I want to travel and go places...lots of places.

Do any of you have this same fear? What do you do? Any suggestions?


On a side note, what do you think of my new Halloween blog header? Curtis thinks it needs more bats. :) Isn't Halloween fun?!?

>>WHO IS THIS GIRL?

It has taken me awhile to post these pictures because, well... I have been too embarrassed. :) I have always wanted to have a pixie haircut and I finally got up the nerve to do it...but now I'm not so sure what I think about it. I think I look like Peter Pan...Curtis thinks I look more like Tinkerbell...he he. Sometimes I forget that I cut my hair, then I look in the mirror and think..."whoa, who is that boy in the mirror." Then I remember, "oh yeah, that's me." Anyway, here are some pics for your viewing pleasure. Do I look like anyone else besides Peter Pan or Tinkerbell to you guys??



In other news, Curtis pulled a piece of glass out of his head last week. It is from our car accident that was almost 2 years ago. Crazy!! He still has more in there too. He can tell. Poor guy. And speaking of car accidents, we were almost in another one the other day. A car blew right through a red light and almost slammed right into us as we were driving through our green light. It was scary. We noticed they weren't going to stop and we hurried and turned our car as we both slammed on our brakes. The other car was within a few inches of smashing into the back side of our car. Had we not turned, they would have for sure hit us. Argh...crazy drivers!

>>HIGHWAY 287 AND A TID BIT ABOUT OUR CAR ACCIDENT

Last Friday, Curtis and I drove to Fort Collins, CO to pick up...you guessed it...a scooter. We decided to take highway 287, which is the highway we were on when we got in our car accident last January ('07). When we got to mile marker 368 (the place where it all took place) I noticed off to the side of the road, just up on the mountain a little bit, a pile of rocks that had been strategically placed by someone with a few fake flowers coming out the top of the pile. I'm sure this was done by the family and/or friends of the lady who died in the car accident. It was kind of weird to see that there and it brought back a lot of memories about that dreadful day.

For those of you who don't know the story and for those few of you who have recently asked about our accident, here are the details...

On January 26, 2007 Curtis and I were driving home from Fort Collins. It was a nice, sunny day, the roads were dry, and it was about 5 in the afternoon. We were driving on highway 287 which is a 2 lane, canyon highway that connects Laramie to Fort Collins. We were coming around a small curve and heading slightly uphill when out of the blue a car coming the opposite direction of us swerved right into our lane. As the driver tried to correct her mistake, their car slid sideways and we collided into each other at about 65 mph. It all happened so fast there was nothing we could have done to avoid the accident.

Our truck spun around and landed just off the side of the road. Their car ended up on the mountain side and was literally in 2 pieces. This is at least what we were told by spectators...we never actually saw the scene of the accident because we were both too injured to get out of our truck and look around. Many people came to help us and gave us blankets and jackets to keep us warm. It took about 30 minutes for the ambulance to arrive, then it took another 30 minutes to get to the hospital. The driver and passenger from the other car were taken by helicopter.

The passenger of the other car was not wearing her seat belt and she was ejected from the car and later died at the hospital. The driver was pretty banged up (I don't know the details of all of her injuries), but she ended up staying just down the hall from us at the hospital. We spent a week on the trama floor at Poudre Valley Hospital in Colorado.

As far as our injuries...I blacked out for a few seconds right after the accident. I didn't know what had just happened, other than I was in tons of pain, I couldn't breathe and I was totally freaked out by all of the blood on Curtis. His seat belt broke and he hit the windshield pretty hard. His face and hands were all cut up and were bleeding quite badly. He bruised his sternum, cracked a few ribs, and we were still pulling glass out of his head weeks later. I had a collapsed lung, broke several ribs, broke my collar bone, cracked a couple of vertebraes, and knocked a bone out of place in my foot. We are both pretty sure we broke or cracked our tailbones because it hurt to sit for several weeks.

The passenger and driver of the other car were both illegal immigrants, had NO car insurance, and to top things off, were both drunk!! The driver is now in prison for vehicular homicide.

I still think about our car accident all the time...obviously. It was so scary and I am just so thankful that we both survived and are doing so well now. Those who first approached our car after the accident told us they weren't sure what to expect, meaning they didn't know if we were alive or not....pretty frightening. I know we were being watched over and protected. There is no other way to describe it other than that.

I'm so thankful for all of the people who emailed us and sent us such kind letters, for those who helped us out financially, who brought us meals, prayed for us, etc, etc. We felt so loved during those rough couple of months and I'm so thankful for all of the wonderful people who were there to help.

If there is any advice I can give...say your prayers, wear your seat belt and don't drink and drive!!!

Here are a few pics of the accident. We were in the Toyota pick-up and they were in the Ford Escort.

(You can see here how their car was torn in 2)

(Here's our little truck. We sure miss this truck, but he sure handled the crash like a champ.)

>>WE FINALLY DID IT

We finally paid off the last of our medical bills from our car accident!!...and it only took us a year to do it:) It feels so good!! The hospital bills, doctor bills, radiology bills, etc have placed such a huge financial burden on Curtis and me. I'm so glad we don't have to worry about them anymore! Now if we could only get our Insurance company to pay us back. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that they will:)

So...what did we do to celebrate you ask??? We finally got the Internet!! Wahoo!!! We got it with the cable package so now we have more than 2 TV channels. Believe it or not, I have done this much blogging, plus survived 5 online classes this semester without the Internet in our home. No more staying late at work to turn in assignments or tagging along with Curtis to the Law School to use the Internet there. Now I can do it all in the comfort of my own home:) Yippee!! Now I can finally keep up with American Idol....I have really missed not watching it. Curtis is happy too because now he can watch Cops:) Oh how he loves Cops! Now we just have to hope we don't become two couch potatoes.

>>HIGHWAY 287

My family will not be too happy about this, but on our way home from the Denver Airport last week, we took Highway 287. Highway 287 is where we were in our terrible car accident and we haven’t driven on it since. I have never had any desire to take this road again, but ever since our accident, Curtis has wanted to go back and see where all the excitement took place. I only agreed to take this road because it was a nice, sunny day and it was 2:00, so I knew traffic would not be bad.

It was kind of weird driving on 287 again. As we went along, we were both like, “ok, I remember this part…I remember driving here….Is this where it happened…no…I think this is where.” Once we got to the place where we “thought” was it, we checked out the mile marker so we could compare it with the accident report once we got home. Sure enough, it was at mile marker 369. I was kind of surprised we were both able to remember right where it happened. We never saw the scene from inside our truck while we were waiting for the ambulance. Our windows were all shattered, so we couldn’t see out of them, and neither of us was able to move to actually get out of the truck and look around. All we could remember was that it was around a curve and there was a mountain right next to us. Pretty crazy!

I really HATE driving on two-way roads these days….so I was pretty nervous about taking 287. Luckily, there were not many cars at all on the road and the weather couldn’t have been any better. I told Curtis now that we have gone back and seen where it all happened, we never have to go back again.

I’m glad we made it home safely from our trip. I still get the chills when I hear that anyone is going to take 287. I think to myself, “Are they crazy? Why on earth would they take that dangerous, dangerous road!” I still can’t believe I actually agreed to go on it again. Since Curtis was the driver of the car, I can see how he would want to go back and check it out. He has a different perspective on it than I do. So, I guess that is why I did it…for him.

>>ONE YEAR AGO

Our car accident was one year ago from Saturday (Jan 26). Crazy! It doesn't seem like it has been that long...I remember my time at Poudre Valley Hospital so well. I never thought I would ever be able to feel as good as I do today. Every now and then my shoulder or back will ache, and we are pretty sure Curtis still has a piece of glass in his head...but other than that, we feel great. We definitely were being watched over and protected. I'm so thankful we are both okay and doing so well!