One Year Ago---Not A sewing Related Post

This is not about sewing today and is a personal experience, some scary pictures are included.

Do you know where you were one year ago today? Where I live on the East Coast we were in the middle of a very hot heat wave. That day is was 105 and they were predicting bad storms later in the afternoon. My niece was visiting and I took her to get a pedicure and a manicure before she left to fly home the next day. It was a total girl day and we were having a good time chatting away in the car when out of no where the storm hit.

We had what they call "straight line" winds, which are fabulous at taking down trees. One tree in particular fell on my car and my head.

It's weird because I knew what happened immediately. We live along a tree lined road and they are always coming down in storms.

The East Brandywine Fire Company were there in 15 minutes which is amazing for all the trees that were down. They did a wonderful job of getting me out and were exremely kind. The fire chief called me a few months later to see how I was doing. They are all volunteers.......send in your donations, you never know who they are going to save!

Thank God my niece did not even have a scratch. She was able to call 911 and my husband who was working only 2 miles away. It took them 1 1/2 hrs to get me out of the car. As a side note I had a Ford Edge, it absolutely saved my life. We got another one.

 I spent the next week in the hospital with 3 broken vertebrae and a concussion. At that point I did not know that my life would be a roller coaster for the next 9 months. I would wear a neck brace for 3 months, have something called "post concussive disorder" which scrambled my brain, not be able to remember anything and have problems spelling, see a speech therapist, a physical therapist and a psychologist, take medication for depression, deal with the deaths of 2 family members, my level of fitness declined as I was not allowed to exercise or do anything to jar my brain and many more things too tedious to list. But I am alive and that is a great thing!  Only in March did I feel like my life was getting back to normal. I still have a lot of stiffness in my neck and that may never go back to the way it was but I can do just about everything else.
Everything is different now. I really have decided what I want and what I don't want. Small things don't bother me as much anymore and I am trying hard to focus on only the good things. I am eliminating the negative people in my life as well, there is not enough time and there is a lot of good out there.

I also had a wonderful circle of family and friends, who cooked, drove me around (I didn't drive for 5 months!) including taking me to quilt stores, even though I couldn't sew I could shop, and kept me entertained. My husband was a source of strength and encouragement. On some of those dark days he would always make me laugh and tell me we will get through this....notice he said "we", that's why he's my guy!

Kelly