M: Need A Break
June 21st, 2008The last few months have been horrible. First, I found out my sister, Jan(30), has thyroid cancer. We had a vacation planned for Mexico so she decided to wait until we got back to get her Thyroid removed. We left on April 4. While we were gone, my brother, Tyler(26) found out he had a hernia and needs to have surgery.
We were on our way home on the 13. My dad and sisters, Kami(32) and Marijka(15), were driving ahead in the truck and trailor and the rest of us were going to catch up along the way in the van. We came around a corner and saw dust settling from an accident that had just happened. A trailor was smashed upside down and mangled with belongings scattered everywhere. The truck had rolled 3 times and was smashed to pieces. It was our truck and trailor. We stopped and ran over. There was no movement from the truck and I thought everyone was dead. Finally my dad got out of the truck and I saw Marijka. Kami stuck her hand out the window to let us know she was alive.
The first few cars to come upon the scene were a doctor, a nurse and an EMT. Talk about luck. The doctor called for life flight. He thought Kami’s legs had been amputated. Luckily, they were still attatched but badly cut. Three ambulances were called and everyone was transported to the Fillmore hospital. My dad and Marijka were discharged with scrapes and bruises. The doctors worked on Kami for seven hours. With a doctor working on each knee, it took over two hours just to clean and sew them up. She was discharged around midnight and we finally got home about 4am Monday morning.
Jan was having surgery that Tuesday, so we were up bright and early at 8:30 am Monday morning to get the house ready for the sick and afflicted. We spent all day monday cleaning and taking care of the injured. On Tuesday, my parents took Jan to Ogden for her surgery and I stayed home to take care of Kami.
On Wednesday, some of us went back to Fillmore to see what could be salvaged from the remains of our RV. We were very blessed by everything we recovered. We also found out that the lugnuts had come loose on the back tires and that is what caused the trailor to fishtail which caused the rollover.
Jan came home on Wednesday night in terrible pain. She went to bed and my mom and I spent the night tending to our patients. That night we had the washer going and heard a strange noise. We thought someone was vaccuuming but it turned out our washing machine is dying. Super great! On Thursday, Kami had an MRI on her knee and there is still metal and debris inside. She has to get into a specialist who will probably have to cut her open again.
Jan went to the doctor that Friday and found out she needed to have radiation. We woke up on Friday morning to a freezing house and our furnace had broken. We called the repairmen and they were to come at 3. Finally, at 5 we called them and they didn’t have us in their computer. Eventually, someone showed up and got it fixed. On Saturday we were finally able to settle down a bit. Until my mom, who is still recovering from a major surgery on her shoulder (the second surgery since Marijka and her were in a serious accident and totalled her van 8 months ago,) was in with Jan and tried to stand up and her back had gone out. We add one more patient to our ever growing list.
My brother had surgery on his hernia on Monday so we had have yet another patient to tend to. My poor dad is very sore and in a daze. He is in bad mental shape and blames himself for the accident. Overwhelmed from financial and family worries, he collapsed on Friday morning and spent the whole day in bed and we didn’t see him until Saturday afternoon.
Jan had radiation on May 9, my birthday. She had to drink it and spend the weekend in isolation. When she went back to the doctor for a body scan a few weeks later, it showed the cancer hadn’t spread.
Things finally seemed to be settling down until a few weeks ago when I got a phone call at 4 in the morning. Jan was having horrible stomach pains. We went to the ER and she ended up having emergency gallbladder surgery. A week after the surgery she went to the doctor and had infection in her incisions.
Meanwhile, my dog got really sick. He had a rare form of Anemia and had to have an emergency blood transfusion. I was beside myself. He is my baby. Luckily, over the next few days both my dog and sister started feeling better.
Things have been going smoother in the family for now and we are keeping our fingers crossed that nothing else happens.
Tonight is Saturday night and everyone is getting ready for bed. I am praying things will keep getting better and then I see my family and know that it couldn’t get any better than having them all alive and here with me. It is hard to complain when I know how blessed I am that all my family is safe and alive. We truly have angels looking over us.