Blog Number 288

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Today was supposed to be "Panera Saturday".  It was duly marked as such on our calendar that we keep on the wall in our kitchen.  We started marking planned outings last month.  We set aside $80 for eating out each month and split it up into 4 outings: 1st Sunday lunch, Panera Saturday, Family Fun Night, and Ice Cream Social.  For Panera and Ice Cream, we allow $10 and for the 1s Sunday and Family Night, we allow $30.  If we are under for some reason then we can throw in an extra treat.  The 1st Sunday Lunch is something that our ABF does.  Basically on the 1st Sunday of the month the entire class (or as many of us as can) go out to dinner after church.  We have a few favorite spots as the choices are limited based on our class size.  Our family really looks forward to this each month.  Panera Saturday is self explanatory as we basically go to Panera on the predefined Saturday and have bagels and coffee (water for the kids).  This rarely comes to the $10 allotted.  Family Fun Night usually happens in the 3rd week of the month and we try to make it on a Thursday to avoid the crowds.  Depending on how much under budget we were for the first 2 outings we can go to a nicer restaurant.  The Ice Cream Social is usually on the last Friday of the month and we head to Braum's for a scoop (or in my case, two scoops) of ice cream.  Planning the outings in this way has helped us stay in budget and when once of us gets the desire to go out to eat, we can usually pacify ourselves by knowing that we have a planned outing coming up soon.

The wife is still going through the slow and drawn out healing process.  Yesterday was her best day so far.  She is able to sleep in her bed for about 4 hours a night before she needs to return to the couch / recliner.  Our couch reclines on both ends and since her left arm is in a cast she preferred to sit on the right side of the couch.  That is until the recliner lever broke and that side would no longer recline.  She then migrated to the left side whose lever was already a little suspect.  This morning the lever broke off in my hand while the couch was in a non reclined position.  I was able to get a screwdriver wedged into the lever and get it reclined.  So now we are in a race.  Can the wife's need to be reclined be over before our one good side of the couch gives out?  Stay tuned to this channel to here the results.

I was IM'ing with a friend the other day about how much the traffic has increased on this blog since the accident.  Over the past 20+ months, I have averaged about 15-20 hits per day and now I am up into the 30's easily.  Of course it is mostly people checking on the status of my wife but still I feel the pressure to perform well on my blog entries.  Once the "excitement" of the crash settles, I will have to rely on new material everyday and not merely updates.  I can tell you that the insurance company is going to give us $8400 for our van.  I am not super excited about this amount but it is probably fair based on the model, features and mileage.  I was joking with the insurance adjuster yesterday explaining to her that we had recently made a commitment to keep the van and "drive it until it was no longer driveable."  Well, we kept our commitment as it is truly no longer driveable!

Well I gotta get into the shower as we have some visitors coming over today.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 287

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My mother arrived last night after making the 900+ mile drive by herself (over 2 days).  I am hoping now that I can get some sympathy since mostly the sympathy is falling toward the wife (go figure).  Today we drove back to Parkland Hospital to de-staple my wife's head.  I still cannot get used to the idea of having staples in your head.  Somehow the phrase "let's remove those staples from your head" just does not sound right in any context that I can think of (other than maybe in an episode of The King of Queens).  After a frustrating 35 mile drive (that took us every bit of 90 minutes topped off by taking 20 minutes to do the last 3 miles - ironically due to a car crash) we arrived at the hospital.  My mother (who came with us) had to secure a wheelchair as the wife isn't walking to well still.  90 minutes after that we were back in the car (only 50 minutes to get home).  All told, the excursion took over 4 hours but we are staple free now.

The wife is still living pain pill to pain pill (with some Ben-Gay tiding us over for the last 30 minutes or so of each pill cycle) but she is getting better (albeit at a pace much slower than she would prefer).  We have 3 weeks left with the neck brace and a few doctor's appoints to follow up with her various ailments scheduled in the coming weeks as well (most of which are at the same location as the de-stapling).

I have called the insurance dude a few times asking about the van.  When I went to retrieve our belongings from the van from the wrecking yard, I neglected to grab the car keys.  They are not much good of course but on that keychain was our house key.  The keychain itself is from my trip to Argentina so it would be nice to have that as well.  They were supposed to call me when they had the van hauled to their place.  Every time that I get ahold of the insurance dude, he always leads by asking me if I have a preference of body shops.  I then remind him (every time) that the van is totaled and they just need to pick up the van to avoid the $20 / day fee the wrecking yard is charging them (emphasizing that I am not paying for their delays).  Anyway, I am hoping that I can eventually get my house key, the keychain and our only garage door opener (it was on the side of the van that took the hit so I did not find it anywhere)..

Well, I gotta get some family time in before my 8:30 PM meeting with Malaysia tonight.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 286

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

As I was getting ready to take the son to school this morning around 8:40 I noticed that my rear passenger tire was flat.  A few weeks ago my rear driver side one was flat, but repairable.  I borrowed the sister-in-law's rental and drove him to school but knew that the jack and the joke tire awaiting me when I returned.  I did not get a chance to get to it until early afternoon (18 minutes total replace time (I hope Jimmy Johnson is looking for pit crew help) and when I got to the tire place I found out it just needed replaced.  The tire is the original that came with the car (which is pushing 7 years old) so I guess it had a good life.  I had just replaced the front 2 tires a few months ago so I opted to replace both rear tires with the same model as was on the front of the car.  $240 later and I was good to go.  As I recall, I just spent $800 on the van last weekend and 3 days later it was totaled.  I am hoping this money invested lasts a little longer.

Picking up where I left off of in the last blog, I had arrived at the hospital where the wife was at 8:30 PM.  I went up to the trauma ward (floor 5) only to be told she was still in the emergency room so I headed back downstairs.  Some friends from church were there waiting for me (only one person was allowed to be with the wife at a time).  They double checked with the person at the desk and we found out she was on her way to her room.  I was happy not to have to spend too much time in the emergency room as the crowd there looked a little scary.  Another friend had warned me not to bring the kids since he was already at the hospital and the emergency room would be enough to scare them.  I was afraid that a fight was about to ensue between the Bloods and the Crips.  Anyway, I went back upstairs and finally saw my wife.  She looked awful.  She had a head bandage wrapped around her entire head and she was wearing a neck brace.  I was able to spend about an hour with her and fill her in on the kids conditions and try to let her in on what happened as she did not have a very good idea of the specifics of the crash.  I had to get some cash from the ATM in order to pay the $4 for hospital parking.  You paid for parking by sliding ones and fives into a machine as there was no person working the parking garage.  I bought a large coke at the McDonald's in the hospital so I would have change (standing in line between a Blood and a Crip).  The ATM hit me with a $1.50 charge as well.  All told, I spent over $3 for a coke just to get change.  When I got to the exit of the garage, they had just left the gate up so evidently there was only charges during normal hours.  Around 10 PM I left her and picked up my daughter from a friend's house.  I let the son stay at another friend's house but I did want to be alone so I selfishly picked up the daughter.  I took care of emailing everyone that I could (along with making a blog entry) and also called my insurance company to get the ball rolling.  I got to sleep around 1 AM but was woken up by my faithful cat at 5 AM.  I forgave him and got up anyway as I knew that the day ahead would be just as long and tiring as the previous one.

It took a while to get the son home, get some breakfast and get the kids to (yet another) friend's house and I did not arrive in my wife's room until 10 AM and I was able to stay until around 4 PM before leaving to fetch my kids.  The wife was living pain pill to pain pill that day and survived various specialists poking and prodding here.  Eventually she got a splint put on her left wrist and was sent down for even more x-rays.  We had hoped that she could be released but they wanted to keep her for observation since she also had a bruised lung along with concern over her neck specifically the C6 cervical vertebrae where there was a crack.  I got home around 6 and we ate some dinner that someone had made for us and then we all went to bed early and slept so deep that we missed the almost tornado like winds (we could see the damage caused as we drove the next morning).

Well that is enough for now.  The wife is still living pain pill to pain pill but the last 2 days were her best.  Her family is leaving Thursday but my mother is on the road as I type this and should be here Wednesday evening.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 285

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am trying to piece the last week or so together in the correct order.  Some day ran into each other and some event are a little unclear as to what day they actually occurred upon originally.  I do remember Tuesday afternoon just after 3 PM very clearly though.  I received a phone call from "a concerned citizen" that my wife and kid (he was unclear at the time that there were 2 kids in the accident) were in a bad accident.  He stressed to me that this was not a fender bender.  Since our cell phones have Indiana area codes, he was trying to explain everything in great detail but once I assured him that I was 10 miles away he just told me to get here fast but that the kids appeared to be fine and the wife was bleeding a lot and was going to be taken via helicopter to the hospital.  I received a second call from him minutes later (from another phone number, he had borrowed someone's originally as his was left in his car) giving me an update.  I assured him I was 20 minutes from the scene and would get there as fast as I could.  He handed the phone to a paramedic who updated me and then he passed the phone on to the fire chief who gave me more details.  Eventually I had to give permission for the daughter (who only had scratches) to be taken to the hospital with her brother.  I arrived on the scene after the wife was gone but before the ambulance left with the kids.  I jumped in the back of the ambulance and did not even get a chance to look at the scene at all so I have no memory of it.  The kids were relieved to see their dad but were still quite rattled from the event.

We left shortly and were on our way to the local hospital (about 2 miles up the road).  The son was strapped down on a stretcher and had a neck brace on (as a precautionary measure).  We arrived and everyone was out quickly and the kids were put in two different rooms.  They had a lady (Dora) who appeared to have the job of calming and staying with kids who came in without parents.  Since their rooms were down the hall from each other, I could not see them both.  I stayed with the daughter at first.  In about 20 minutes, a good friend from my ABF arrived (who the kids knew) and he swapped rooms with me back and forth.  The daughter was taken to get x-rays and the son (later) was taken for a CT scan.  I got to wear a nice lead apron both times.  Sometime during that time another friend from my church arrived.  After inspecting and cleaning up the scratches and reviewing the reports they were released.  This was sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 I think.  The son was not able to put any weight on his right leg so it was a chore getting him into the car.  My car was still back at the scene of the accident (parked across the street at a Starbucks) so we had to go there first.  At that time I passed the daughter off to the "first at the hospital" friend from our church (he had daughters) and the son to the other friend (who had a son), reviewed the instructions on watching them that we received from the hospital, and then I got in the car and headed to where my wife was at.  I had got a few updates on her while with the kids but details were sketchy.  They were enough to tell me that she was not in critical condition.  I got on the road not really knowing where I was heading but called my mom (who is in Indiana) and had her look up directions.  I then called another friend who was at the hospital with my wife to confirm directions.  He gave me a slightly better way to go based on some road construction.  It was not until 8:30 that I arrived at the hospital.  That was 5 1/2 hours after the accident.

I will save the details of the rest of that evening for later.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Retraction Note: I have changed the reference to the people that helped me from "a guy" to "a friend" as this better indicates the relationship.  My apologies to the guys, er friends.

Blog Number 284

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I want to start out by thanking anyone and everyone who has helped us during this difficult time.  From the emergency people at both Medical Center of McKinney and Parkland Hospital, to the doctors, nurses, techs and specialists and stretching to the church friends along with our friends up and down our (what our neighbor calls Beaver Cleaver) street.  We have had so much sincere offers to help that I am starting to feel bad that we do not have more for folks to do for us.  After people see my son's beat up face and my wife in her sling and neck brace, folks just want (need) to do something.  It is hard for me to turn them down so for now I am just taking rain checks as this will likely be a long road to recovery for the wife.

Where to begin?  I have made a lot of mental notes of things that would make good blog fodder but let me just lash out a little here.  Yesterday I went to get what I could out of the van.  The daughter was concerned about her new ($3) flip flops and her gymnastics suit.  The good news is that most of our belongings in the van were salvageable (including the flip flops and gymnastics apparel).  It was a little surreal coming upon the van in all its crushed-ness, wondering how my wife ever survived and wondering how my son (who was on the drivers side) got off with bruises and scratches.  The man at the wrecker yard was very nice and I imagine he has to deal with people in my position more often than he would ever like to in his line of work.  So far my bill with them is around $300 with $20 / day for storage.  I am pretty sure insurance will cover that.  Next I headed to the police station to get a copy of the police report.  It seems that it would take much longer for the insurance company to get it than if I just got it for them.  I was banking on having to show my ID and prove why I needed to see it.  Shockingly, you just need to ask for the report by number and shell out $4.  The report said about what I thought it would say, namely that the other driver was at fault.  It was interesting to note that not only was the other driver almost 80 years old (her 80th b-day will be in May) but that she did not go to the hospital and evidently walked away from the accident.  Here is what happened...

Unit 1 is the lady who hit us (98 Lumina Sedan) and unit 2 is our 2003 Montana extended length minivan.  The wife was stopped at a red light facing West.  The light turned green (according to my wife, son and several witnesses) and the lady ran the red light heading north and hit our van in the driver's side.  Now our van could not have been going more than 10 miles an hour since it just started moving.  The other car was going fast enough to cause the damage to the van in a previous blog entry and flip the van upside down (at least once).  I don't have the math skills right now to figure our her speed but let's estimate it at "way too freakin' fast" (approximately).

The folks at the McKinney Police Dept. were very nice and even kept my wife's purse in the evidence room instead of leaving it with the other items in the van so I was able to retrieve that very easily as well.  I scanned and uploaded the police report on my insurance company's website (GEICO is too cool) and then called the insurance agent to confirm that he received them.  He had and he suggested that I contact the other insurance company and offer to email it to them.  The other insurance company's information was on the police report so I gave them a call and explained what I was offering to do.  Now, this is almost 3 days to the minute of when the accident happen and would you believe that the other driver has yet to contact her insurance company!  They said that emailing them the report would do them little good until they had a claim to tie the paperwork to on their end of things.  I don't know but this just surprises me.  The other car was towed away from the scene (to a different wrecker yard) so I would think one of the first things you would do (after confirming you were not injured) would be to call your insurance company.  Who knows what is going on really?

Well, I have lots of thoughts on the Parkland Hospital (and the McDonald's restaurant contained therein) but I will save that for another blog.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 283

No more words needed. - Jon

Blog Number 282

The wife is now home from the hospital.  Her final list of injuries include...

• Fractured left wrist
• Torn muscle in upper left arm
• Bruised lung
• Concussion
• Laceration on her head going from the tip of her left ear to the top of her head (all held together with staples)
• Fractured vertebrae in her neck (requiring her to wear a neck brace for at least a month)

The kids are doing great.  The son still has tenderness in his right arm and knee and his face is still very swollen.  The daughter seems no worse for wear and is her normal bouncy self.  No word on our dog as of yet.  My wife's mother and sister arrived last night so we are in good hands.  Today I start the process of chasing all the paperwork (which I am no looking forward to).  I will try to resume blogging soon as I have a few things to talk about (as you can well imagine).

Jon