A MORE SERIOUS ACCIDENT

Our phone rang early on a Sunday morning.  The caller said there had been an accident and my mother was in the hospital.  The previous evening she had gone out to celebrate her birthday with friends.  I was just eighteen years of age and really irked because I thought that after I had walked about two or more miles uphill to the hospital that she would be all right and there was no reason for me being there. I arrived at the emergency room and they showed me where she was.  I saw this smashed up woman and said that’s not my mother, then I saw the pearl ring on her finger and realized that it really was. She was unconscious. I just stood there not knowing what to do.

I was told she probably fell asleep at the wheel and smashed into a tree.  They didn’t know how long she had been there before being found.  Her right side, from head to toe had been smashed.  When they took her into the operating room the next day to wire her jaw shut, they found the upper jaw had been broken into so many pieces they cancelled the operation and returned her to her room.  The surgeon then formulated a plan to make a plate to fit roof of the mouth which had little hooks on the outside, he then circled her head with a plaster cast, put little hooks in that and had tight rubber bands put on the hooks to hold the plate rigid.

A friend of mine who was a nursing student told me that their entire class was ordered to view the operation which had never been done before. Mom’s right hip had also been crushed and the emergency room doctor had placed in a lot of screws to hold it together. A year later she had radical surgery on the hip again by a more experienced surgeon in another hospital where after a long recovery she was able to walk without a limp.

My aunt’s brother-in-law was a surgeon and he filled me in on all that was taking place.  A nurse cousin did private duty care during the night.  They helped take the pressure off me and were very kind. Every day after work I walked to the hospital to visit. I also took care of our apartment and my younger brothers. Naturally family did visit when they could.  My grandmother came often when she could get a ride with relatives. About two or more weeks later Mom returned home in an ambulance.

Mom’s insurance didn’t cover all the costs, naturally, so it seemed every time I visited the hospital I was told to visit the bookkeeper’s office. I was always asked when payments would be made on the enormous amount owed. Actually, anyone visiting her was asked the same thing.  Even her divorced husband, my father, was furious when they spoke to him although it didn’t seem to bother him that I was being harassed.

Another little fact, the hospital head bookkeeper was also the sister of the head bookkeeper in my own office so they both knew my whole family situation. I think the hospital eventually just wrote the whole thing off.