The Best Medicine

Day five of being home with Carter and her concussion, no thinking, no reading, no TV, no fun mode.  It is enough to drive us all crazy.  Our friends Lynn, better known as Baby Chick at our house and her daughter Ellis came by for a check-in-cheer up-half-day of-school visit.  It was a great distraction to have them here as the snow started to come down.

As we are known to do with our daughters Lynn and I started telling stories.  Lynn told Carter of her many falls from her horse Flika, with no helmet on and no grown-ups checking her for concussion.  If you know Baby Chick it explains a lot.

I related the story of my being hit by a truck on Mykonos while I was riding a moped with no helmet on.  I dislocated my hip, broke my leg and broke my arm in that accident, but was lucky enough to not hit my head.

In that accident I flew over the hood of the truck, which was my choice rather than veering away from it over the side of a mountain, I went twenty feet in the air, flipped and landed on my butt.  Fat saved my life.  As soon as I realized I could think and was therefore alive I looked down at my hip, which was a good six inches away from where I thought it should be.  My first thought was, “I’ve gained a lot of weight on vacation.”  It was then I realized that my hip was out of it’s joint and I pushed it back into the socket myself.  I was just thankful about the non-weight gain.

My friend David took me to the Vet slash Doctor on the island where he was told by the dubious medical professional there that I was a Strong American Woman and would survive this accident.

As I told the story Lynn piped in and said, “Oh Yeah, you are a STW.”  I burst out laughing to the point I gasped for air, and said, “STW?  What does the T stand for?”  Lynn then joined me in the three-minute bellyaching as our daughter looked on in themselves when laughing is something that horrifies the average fifteen-year-old girl.

Eventually Baby Chick was able to compose herself and explain the ST was for “Strong” she forgot the “American” and threw in the  “W” for “Woman.”  I think it was the best medicine for Carter to see that if she does not rest her brain until her headache goes away she could end up like Baby Chick and me.  Who knows how many head injuries we have had between us.