My biggest dream isn’t anything for myself at all.
My biggest dream is actually to be able to repay my Momma the $10,000 she has ‘loaned’ me over the past 7 years. She is the absolute BEST MOMMA and always gives even if it will cause a setback or hardship for her. She always says “don’t you worry about paying this back I will be just fine”. But it always nags and weighs heavy on me because I want to always do right by her, but I’ve never since been in a position to be able to return it to her. You see, I was a Registered Nurse for 18 years. I say “was” because, One day about 10 years ago as I was headed into the hospital for work, I was waiting to turn left to go north on a very busy highway. As I was sitting still in the “safe” center turn lane awaiting a break in the traffic, I see, out of the corner of my eye, a driver coming southbound drifting out of her lane toward my car. She had just driven through the intersection so I know she had to be traveling at about 55 to 60 mph. As I noticed her coming closer to me, I also caught a glimpse of her holding her cell phone by her ear. Well, in that split second after I noticed her, I felt a huge jolt as my head violently struck my driver side window at least 3 times. My seatbelt jerked tighter against my chest taking my breath away and I could feel my car moving out of my control. As my vehicle came to a halt, I realized that it was now turned at least 60 degrees further and I was nearly in the lane of traffic. This woman had slammed into my driver’s side rear quarter panel tearing the corner off my bumper and annihilating the brake and reverse lights and lens. She was absolutely fine, no injuries whatsoever and drove off after the police spoke with her. I, however, was taken by ambulance to the nearby hospital and, although nothing was broken, I did suffer a moderate concussion, whiplash, herniated disc of my c-spine and 2 herniated discs of my lumbar spine with mild nerve damage affecting my legs. The only positive was that, even though my car had damage exteriorly, it was still drivable without any problems. There was no real police intervention, she was cited and fined, and other than her car insurance paying the majority of my medical bills, I was out of work for a week and a paycheck also. My husband and I had consulted an attorney, however after reviewing our case, he advised that I truly wouldn’t be able to recoup any money from her because, although she was at fault for the accident and all damages, she was a senior citizen living on a small social security check with no other savings. And, after a week of rest and recuperation, I was feeling better, started back to work and figured that would be the end of that. Well, I was very wrong!! I regularly worked 12 hour night shifts, 4 days in a row before having another day off. However, by the second night back, I was actually crying and contemplating crawling to my car because both my legs were swollen double their normal size from mid thigh down to tips of toes and the pain pulsating from my mid lower back and radiating down my legs through to my toes was at least a 20 on the 1-10 scale. I was in absolute misery and after consulting my family doctor, I was told to resign my job and was revered to an orthopedic surgeon. married to a beautiful amazing man but as ever hard-working as he was
