Fear and a revelation

My brain has been twitching to write a new post since June.  It was 9 years in June since our car crash and I had started thinking 'if only... would things have been different? Could I have avoided the crash?'  For instance, one of the recurring thoughts has been 'if my headlights had been on, would she have seen me in time to get back to her side of the road?'.  Why, when it was not my fault apart from being on the road at the wrong time, do I ask myself this?

Perhaps it is because I am now more aware of the question of blame in any incident, and what a thin line it can be, and I try hard to ensure I will not be seen to be at fault if anything happens.  It is probably this thought that makes me put my lights on much earlier than I used to these days (our cars aren't new enough to have automatic headlights).  I don't want anyone saying "I didn't see you".   One of the effects of the crash is that I now find myself nervous of even the smallest potential incidents on the road, especially when I am not driving. Sometimes if I am feeling hyper-vigilant I just shut my eyes or try and sleep, or study things on my phone.  What I don't see can't bother me.

I know that since June 2010 I am more aware of, and afraid of, the possibility of pain.  You know how sometimes someone tells you about an injury they had, and they describe it and it makes you cringe with horror but they don't seem that bothered?  I found this if I showed my x-rays to people (to be fair they did look pretty awful, but to me they were just fact).  The power of the imagination is such that the thought of something is often worse than when it actually happens.  When it happens to you it is usually so quick there is no time to imagine it or be afraid of it.  It's done and you deal with it.  But now I am afraid of what might happen and how much it would hurt.

The reason for wanting to write this was that I realised that although I am scared of accidents and pain and having another crash or being knocked off my bicycle, I do not wish our crash had never happened.  This realisation was quite a revelation to me.

Of course, I wish that the other driver had not died. I wish that she had not left a partner, and a young boy without a mother.  I wish that she had come out of it pretty much OK physically and mentally, like I and Mr H have.   

The truth is, my life has been a whole lot better since June 2010.    My relationships are healthier, I know that 'life is too short to...' , and I have a new hobby in motorsport that I love and that Mr H and I enjoy together, and a fantastic motorsport 'family' that comes free with it.  I am better at knowing what is important and what is not so important.  Much of this is a direct result of the crash and the aftermath, and the jolt that it gave our lives.

Not being able to run and jump any more seems a small price to pay.

Competing in our Hillman Imp at Doune hill climb in Scotland

photo:  eddiekelly.co.uk

Beating demons

Happy New Year to you all!   Today the sun came out, it has been raining seemingly constantly for the last couple of months so it was lovely to see the big yellow sky thing.

Mr H, Django and I went off for a walk on the Forest, which is still very wet underfoot but with blue skies everything was feeling spring like.   I decided that today would be a good day to drive That Bit of Road, which I haven't been on since June 2010; it coincided with the place we had chosen to walk and was one option for the starting point. 

I felt a bit nervous going up there, but when we came to go home so were going the same direction as when the crash happened, it was actually fine. Neither of us mentioned it although we were both aware of it and I had said about going that route.  The main thing I noticed was that I couldn't work out where exactly the spot was that we had ended up between the trees - nowhere looked as though there was enough space without hitting a tree. Something else (part of a LONG list) to be grateful for, perhaps. 

So, I have started the New Year by beating that particular demon.  I don't know if there will come a day when I don't think of it at least once, but at least this is a good start.

I wish you all a happy, peaceful and fulfilling 2013!

Juniper x

Today

Today is one of those dates that none of us will forget: 9/11.  A date that will be forever etched in history as one that changed lives and the world as we knew it.

This post is not related to 9/11 as such, except that it is today's date.

For me today is a day for moving on.  The claim arising from the crash has been settled out of court, and that means that I can put all that behind me; no more repeating what happened, what I can and can't do or how I feel about things to solicitors and lawyers. That slate is clean and finished with and it feels quite strange in a way.

Perhaps this is related in my mind, but I have decided that I want to work on coming off the Dihydrocodeine again; this time I have Mr H here with me instead of 450 miles away. I hope I get further with it than before, I would love to be independent of it, and I'm sure my body and mind would like that too.

Also today my new OU course books arrived for 'Crime & Justice'. I had a quick flick through and they look really interesting; I can't wait to get started once the website page is up and running and get my brain working again after the summer break.

So, today is a different sort of memorable day for me.

Shower thoughts

Thinking in the shower, often a mistake for me.  This evening I was mulling over some of the things said on Monday.

On Monday, Mr H and I drove 3 hours to see my solicitor and a barrister about my case, well worth the trip as the barrister was very nice and explained everything extremely clearly.  It is 2 years since the crash and my physical improvement (ie. discomfort and pain) over the last few months has slowed to a crawl; psychological improvement is better, with the odd relapse. As I have mentioned on here before, I detest spurious personal injury claims, but this one seemed to happen of its own accord after our crash, and it's not spurious in most people's eyes. Therefore however much I shy away from talking about it, I will because this is what I was thinking about - not the fact of there being a claim but some of the details, and the insight into how the legal system works (not having done this before).

Two things came out on Monday that annoyed me in the shower:

1.  The other driver's insurance company hasn't admitted liability yet.  This surprised me, since they have already accepted our claims for uninsured losses and made an interim payment.  So it is just them playing games - but to hear that they haven't admitted liability automatically opens up the possibility that they will suggest it was somehow partly my fault, despite all the evidence showing that it wasn't.  In the weeks after the crash, the grandparents of one of the passengers in the other vehicle put in a claim against my insurance... Mr H and I were gobsmacked - they had to be f*ing joking right?  I guess no-one had told them what actually happened...

2.  The barrister half joked that the law might consider a dog to be a 'chattel' and therefore argue against us claiming for the excess we had to pay on insurance for Django's veterinary bill.  I didn't think about this in the meeting, but how could someone argue that they won't pay up for that, yet not argue in the slightest about the cost of the replacement dog cage or a T-shirt? (chattels in anyone's language). The whole point of uninsured losses is to cover costs that we wouldn't have incurred had we not been hit in a head-on collision. And as for looking at Django as a chattel... well that upsets me a bit.  

Just thinking about the nitty gritty of things, now that we are likely to get to the arguing stages about wear and tear on my lost sunglasses and how much the pain I experience really affects my life, makes me want the whole thing over as soon as possible.

Then hopefully I will feel that I can truly move onwards and upwards.

After effects

One of the things the psychologist definitely got right about me was my sense of vulnerability since the crash, both on behalf of myself and others. 

Life is threatening. Anything could happen, from anywhere, without warning. People's behaviour isn't to be trusted.  I'm not talking about meteorites hitting earth but physical vulnerability in every day situations.

When I am driving, or when I cycle or walk towork, I am so much more wary of what cars / cyclists / pedestrians may do. It may be something that would affect me, or the thought of seeing a crash happen to someone else. People driving fast (too fast in my mind), or overtaking in a bad place, set my heart a-thumping. The other day I saw someone playing with their dog by the road, it kept running out in the road and back again. I wanted to shout at her, and my nervous reaction shocked me.

Mr H can tell you that my reaction if I think he is driving too fast or close, or taking (what I think of as) risks is that of a nervous wreck. 

Yet when I'm driving, or in control of a situation, or feeling relaxed, I can forget about it.  Until that car in front decides to overtake on a blind bend, nooooooo!

What are the chances?

So, my husband starts the first job of his new forestry career two months after our car crash and moves to Scotland; 16 months later he has another career change and moves home.

And then finds that one of his new colleagues, who is a reserve fireman, was one of the ones that cut me out of the van after the crash 18 months ago.

What are the chances of that?

And yes, I felt rather odd when Mr H told me today.  It brought it all back as if it were yesterday.

On a more positive note, hey maybe I will get to meet one of my hunky fireman rescuers after all!

Strutting my stuff .. or not!

Hmmm, it's now 18 months since That Crash, and maybe some of you are interested in how The Leg is....

So the simple answer is that it is still aching quite a lot, sometimes twinges in my hip, still tender to impact on the outer side.  I don't limp unless it's a particularly bad day, but sometimes I often feel as though I'm walking laboriously - no sexy hip-swinging down the street!

I'm still planning to get out in the dinghy when Spring comes (I have bought a new, less twitchy one!), and probably get back on sailing club safety boat duty. It's time to tell it who's boss while not doing anything stupid.  

The solicitor's file must be getting pretty thick, and she says one of the problems with the assessment is my age....  The problem is that I'm too young!  No-one knows how long it's going to take until I'm doing long distance walking with 15kg packs again, or what the possible side-effects will be as I get older.

I read an article about how humans have a bias towards thinking positively, and life having a 'silver lining'.  Guilty as charged as far as the last 18 months are concerned, as you'll know from my various posts.

Onwards and upwards towards that sexy walk!

Flutterbies

I have butterflies. Great big fluttery ones.

Tomorrow I have the psychological assessment for the accident insurance and I am ridiculously nervous about it.  The only reason for this, I think, is that I have no idea what to expect. I'm scared of what his questions will be and how I will react to them.

Next weekend I go to Paris for three days for our annual international meeting.  "Fabulous!" everyone says, Paris in the Autumn.  But I'm not a big fan of large meetings (40+ delegates) anyway, and I'm worried about not being able to squirrel away on my own (but my GP says I have to make myself be sociable!). Also, apart from the Brits, most of them I haven't seen since the crash. I missed last year's meeting because of it, so I'm going to have to go through the 'how are you' rigmarole with them. Not that I blame them, it's just that sometimes I'd like to forget about it and be normal.

So, my anxiety levels are teetering, despite telling myself It Will Be Fine.

Sorry that I haven't written the promised blog posts, I haven't been in the right mood for it. So they may materialise or it may be something completely different!

A strange feeling day

Tomorrow is 27th June, a date that has been etched on mine and Mr H's brain forever now. A date that has been written over and over in statements, reports, forms, diaries and numerous other documents over the last year.

27 June 2010 was a Sunday, so today is the day that I feel strange.  It was warm and sunny, just as it is today.  If Mr H and Django were here instead of in Scotland, today is the sort of day we'd say 'let's go out and sit by a river with a picnic', just as we did last year.

It's almost 4.30pm now and I feel as though I'm waiting for something, almost as if it is some kind of premonition.  It feels as though the day is being repeated somewhere in a parallel universe; as if every day is going to go round again on the same cycle, but without us in it.

I know that feeling 'out of sorts' (that phrase makes it sound like a bit of indigestion) is normal on the anniversary of trauma.

I also know that I (and Mr H) have come a long way in the last 12 months, and many things in my life have changed for the better, that might not have done otherwise.

So after this discomfiting couple of days are over, I will be back on the track - onwards and upwards. I reckon that I'm currently about 75% towards my 'normality' (a subject for another blog post), so just another 25% to go...

Listening to the evidence

This evening I listened to the audio recording of the inquest. I had asked My Nice Policeman if I could get a copy expecting a written report, but it came through on a CD with a friendly note from the Coroner, and it was audio.

I thought at first there had been a mistake because it came up in iPlayer titled as some Latin music by a bloke called Les... albeit 46 minutes long!  blimey, that would almost be worse than one of the self-indulgent guitar widdlers that I hate!

So, it was the recording from the court, complete with scuffles and sniffs. The most interesting part was the report by the road investigation team about the vehicles and the marks on the road, and what they could ascertain from them.

What I have discovered, that I didn't know and had no recollection of, is that the evidence points to me being tucked right into the nearside and using my brakes at the time of impact, though there was no evidence of emergency braking on either side.  The being tucked in is no surprise as that would be a natural avoidance reaction.   But they asked me in my statement whether I'd braked and I had no idea, but apparently they can tell because the brake light bulbs were blown.  So that made me feel better, as if I had actually reacted in some way instead of just sitting there like a lemon.

I still feel no emotion about the other driver dying, even after listening to the inquest.  It just seems very factual and cold to me, which is odd because normally I am a very emotional person.

It's hard to believe that it is now almost a year ago, I can't decide whether it seems longer or shorter, or neither.  I do keep coming across things at work that I would normally do, but can tell that someone else did it - when I check I find they were done in the period when I wasn't in the office, which feels a bit strange.

My solicitor wants me to see a psychologist for an assessment, to do with my driving anxiety and just general negativity about recovery that hits me sometimes.   Her suggesting that has made me feel the opposite, ie. incredibly normal, but it will be an interesting experience. And who knows maybe it will even help.

Medico-legal

Today I got the letter advising me of my appointment with the medical expert for insurance purposes.   I'd been waiting for it so it wasn't a surprise, but when I opened it I realised how much I'm suddenly dreading it.  I know that it's for my own benefit, but on the 30th March I'm going to have to go through how the injury happened again, just has it had started fading.  One consolation is that hopefully this is the last time I will have to.

File closure

The file is closed.  I can throw away the police blood sample that I've been faithfully keeping in the fridge for the last 7 months!

PC Phil came to see me, complete with flak jacket and a crammed full lever-arch case file. After a lot of noise at the door, Django decided he was OK and after 2 minutes was his best friend. I was pleased to hear that I'm looking a lot better than last time PC Phil saw me, at the scene, not that I knew he was there.

Being traffic police, he's been through all this a million times and the most common question people ask is "Why?" just like I did, hoping for some tangible explanation. I suppose it's our need to categorise things, and also in my mind I wanted to have reason to think it was less likely to happen again.

The passenger was apparently asleep, and the two children were playing together in the back seat.  In reality, she just failed to correct for the slight bend in the road and went straight on.

It was just one of those things.   I now know all I'm going to know about it, and I can move on from it.

As PC Phil said, how long have I been driving?  27 years.
How many times has this happened to me?  Once.

Yep, statistically I'd be damn unlucky if it happens again, or someone has got it in for me as he put it.

If only people were like dogs, we agreed - the average, well looked after dog doesn't worry about cause and effect. Life happens, then you go to sleep and wake up and it's another day. No expectations, no regrets, no worries; no 'what ifs', no 'if onlys'.

Maybe I should ask Django for some tips.

Schemas and their destruction

I was thinking about my post that I was (am) going to write, and thought you'll be fed up with me writing depressing posts and talking about the accident.. but it's because the last couple of weeks have brought it all back to me, right to the front of my mind.   Over the 5-6 months after the accident I was concentrating more on my health and getting better, and not really talking about it. But now all the legal stuff has started and I'm driving, my leg is looking after itself and it's my thoughts that are distracting me.

Somebody asked me the other day whether I'd had any counselling. I should have answered "No, I write a blog", because this feels like therapy to me.

How many times do you hear people say "It's restored my faith in humanity" when somebody does something good or thoughtful?  It makes it sound like the person usually goes around thinking the worst of everybody. All Humanity was bad but now someone did something nice so all Humanity is good again.   Although I have my share of cynicism (that was an example right there), in general I think I have quite a lot of faith in humanity, and I'm sure most of us do.

Well, I realised today while driving across the Forest with Django (40mph limit, hurrah!) on a long straight road watching people driving towards me:  I have lost my trust in people on the road.  I know that is a generalisation in the same way, but statistics and logic play little part in emotions.  It's not as specific as being scared of white trucks or tree-lined roads.  After 27 years of driving I have finally discovered that yes, it can happen to me; and yes it may be totally unpredictable. 

Most of the time, we expect people to behave on the road in a predictable way, we are not constantly on Code Red looking for danger.   Obviously people don't always behave predictably - otherwise there would be no traffic accidents - but as far as basic driving skills are concerned we expect them to drive in their lane, stop at junctions, etc..   The fact that Ms.E (the other driver) did something so apparently random has sent my expectations crashing.   I was watching those cars driving towards me today, and if they moved two inches towards the white line, I was slowing down and creeping nearer to the edge of the road.

Linking here to a post by Alexia about some youngsters recently killed in a car crash, we are in charge of these machines that have the power to kill, yet we treat it so casually.  It's our right to be on the road, in a hurry to get where we're going, driving too close, having fun on the bends, going to the pub and 'one drink will be fine', thinking about problems at work and not bothering to really pay attention.

Watch people driving while you are out (preferably while you are a passenger!). How many are actually looking at the road and other vehicles? how many are fiddling with something, or looking out of the window at the view, or at their passenger while they talk; on the phone, or checking a map or looking as though they are on another planet, or doing their make-up.  [A woman followed me once, spending most of the time looking in her rearview mirror doing her entire make-up while driving. I pulled over and let her past because I was spending too much time looking at her in my rearview mirror, wondering when she was going to drive into the back of me.]

I'm not saying I've never done any of those things, of course I have.  We all get complacent, especially after a good number of years of uneventful travelling, and our minds wander.  And I've always enjoyed driving, the skill of it, the fluidity of getting the line on the bends just right. I miss that enjoyment of driving, I hope it comes back.
 
On Sunday, PC Phil is coming to see me to go through the inquest report.  I am hoping that I will find out a reason for Ms E's drift across the road, that there was some evidence that sets it apart from Complete Randomness.

Friends, walks and inquests

I had a stroll along the cliff this morning with a friend and her young Labrador bitch. We were chatting away and I didn't realise how far we were walking... suddenly I realised that we'd gone much farther than I'd intended and we still had to walk back!  But it was fine, and on the way back we bumped into mutual friends who neither of us had seen for a while, so stood around for 20 minutes chatting to them while the two young dogs played and Django looked on from the shelter of my side. 

The conversation culminated in one of our friends saying "What would really be perfect now would be to have a table, chairs and windbreak and a massive cream tea (scones with lashings of cream and jam for those of you who are wondering) here on the clifftop".  At which point we all realised we were hungry and went our separate ways.

With it being almost 7 months since the crash, over the last week or so everything has started moving on the legal/admin front.  Yesterday I received an interim payment from the insurance company. When my solicitor told me last week I'd be getting one in advance of the inquest I was very surprised, I guess they aren't in too much doubt about the outcome.

The inquest is set for this Thursday 27th, thankfully I don't have to attend since the only witnesses called will be the police and the pathologist.  The lovely policeman who is handling the case has offered to come and visit me afterwards to go through it all, which I really appreciate since he must be busy.

Now I'm spending the afternoon studying, having been enthused to get on with my assignment after yesterday's OU day school.

Oh and I'm writing my blog and eating chocolate too.... and I have the ingredients sitting on the side to make some scones.

What the eye doesn't see... or does it?

I've had a couple of 'palpitation' moments in the car....   the first was yesterday afternoon when I was driving home from the sea in bright sunshine.  The sun was behind me and all the cars coming towards me were really bright in the sunlight. I don't know whether it was because I knew they were driving into the sun and couldn't see so well, or that fact that they were glaring bright, but I felt nervous for the first time in the week I've been driving.

The second time was today when I drove to the railway station at 7.50am, it's in the next town so there is a straightish stretch of road, which is a 50mph limit but most people go faster.  I really didn't want to go over 40mph, and that didn't feel slow to me, but as it was relatively early and the road was quiet, I made myself speed up to 50.  Yikes it felt so fast!!  and then cars were coming towards me, and some of them were white... I really noticed the white ones. 

I didn't get upset or have to stop, but I was conscious of being nervous and my heart rate rising, and feeling very aware of the feeling of speed, and the white cars but not so much of the dark coloured ones.  And it was a relief when I could slow down again without thinking someone behind me was banging their steering wheel and shouting "It's not a bloody 40 limit on this road you stupid old bint!!!"    And yes I have been the person shouting that, in the past.

Picture from here

One of the women in my class today was telling us how she had been badly shunted in her car yesterday, someone drove into the back of her quite hard.  She said she couldn't believe how shocked she felt aftewards, and hadn't driven today but had got her husband to give her a lift, .  And one of my friends said that about 7 years ago her husband was spun several times on the motorway in very wet conditions when a car clipped the corner of his. She said that even 7 years later, there was a noticeable change in his driving and just the way he 'was', when he drove now in similar conditions.

Mr H phoned me just as I'd started writing this so I was telling him about my 'moments'.  He has mentioned to me before that since the crash he's felt as though the roads/carriageways are really narrow, and he has no space.  He also notices far more what other drivers are doing and their position on the road.  It's interesting how he has been affected slightly differently by being the passenger at the time.  I suggested that maybe he has taken away a feeling of being crammed into the verge/trees as I inevitably hugged the side of the road just before the impact. 

I think it's safe to say that our eyes take in far more than our minds consciously remember.

Interim post and paperwork

Hi, sorry I've not posted but time ran away with me yesterday, I ended up working till 6.30pm and then flaking in front of a movie.  This evening I have been collating paperwork, receipts and photos etc. for the solicitor who is dealing with my damages/uninsured losses claim. It sounds like a date for the inquest will be forthcoming soon and things are moving along after what seems like a long, quiet period. 

She asked me for some photos of the scarring and the scar tissue on my hip so had to have a session with the camera.  In the end I sent her a disk full of various photos, who knows what might be useful.   It sounds as though I'm going to have an interim medical examination, which is good; if they waited until I'm completely better and back to the fitness I was before that could be the end of 2011.

****

This morning I spent an hour down in the boatyard with the two guys from work, doing some research.  Of course I snapped a couple of artistic shots in between the work photos!

I'm not sure the hole in the bow is such a good design idea.....

"Take her down!"

I never even had a detention at school. I attended all my classes every day ; I didn’t hang out in the Bunny Run between lessons and smoke; I didn’t snog boys behind the bike sheds; I wasn’t in any gangs and I never got into trouble (although I did get sent out of Biology once for chatting in class but I don’t think that really counts). I kept myself to myself and studied.

All my life I have been law abiding and scared of getting into trouble, I’m sure some psychoanalyst somewhere would attribute this to my relationship with my parents, which was – normal. I have no points on my driving licence (although have had 3 terrifying experiences of warnings, in the days when real policemen talked to you instead of a camera and a letter in the post), but to be fair that is more by luck than judgement. I pay for everything in shops; I don’t push little old ladies into the road; I pick up my dog’s mess from public paths. Even the thought of being seen by a member of the public doing something illegal makes me break out in a cold sweat.

Oh ok, that is all too good to be true.  I admit I occasionally cycle on the pavement (but I stop and stand aside if I meet a pedestrian) and I cross the High Street at places other than the pedestrian crossing. And at the moment I (or rather my designated driver) park in the disabled parking at the supermarket, even though I don’t have a blue badge, because you can’t get temporary ones for broken legs.

But you get my drift.

Some odd things have happened in my psyche in the last 3 months, some more obvious than others. One of the less logical ones is that I have started imagining what it would be like to be tried in court and sent to prison.

The imagined feeling is so vivid that I actually start to feel anxious. I am reading about such a situation in the current novel, and I realised that there is that rising anxiety again.

I have tried to fathom out why this would be, and I can think of two possible reasons:

a) I was living happily when one day I was in a car crash and somebody died. What if it had been my fault? What if it had been me who lost concentration? What if I were due in court on a charge of dangerous driving? What if I had had a glass of wine at the picnic?

b) I know that at some point in the not too distant future Mr H. and I will have to attend the coroner’s hearing, and may well have to stand up and speak. Even though I know I am not responsible, just the fact that we have to be there is nerve-wracking.

The other thing that I find interesting is:  what is different in the brains of those people who routinely break the law that mean they have no fear of punishment?   And, is it they who are the exception, or is it me.....?

27th June 2010

The 27th June 2010 is a date that will stick in my mind as 'mixed'.  

It was the day that England played Germany in the World Cup.   Now for people who know me that would seem irrelevant since I don't follow football, and neither does Mr H.   It was a warm, summer's day; the sort where all the car parks and the best dog walking places in the New Forest are full of people and you can get no peace, especially as on a hot day we like to walk near water so that Django can cool down.

Because the England-Germany match was on, we thought maybe the Forest would be a bit quieter, and I suggested taking a small picnic - bread and cheese, fruit and cake, a bottle of squash and a flask of tea - out to a small river near Burley with our books, and chilling out for the afternoon.  In fact the place was deserted; the car park was EMPTY!! never before seen except on a cold, wet winter's day; and we didn't meet a soul. We spent a lovely few hours doing the afore-mentioned chilling until about 5.30 and then headed for home feeling good about life.

That's when someone decided to spoil the day for us... I was driving our VW Transporter and on rounding a long bend all I saw was a white truck coming towards me with it's wheels straddling the white lines.  I waited for it to pull back to it's own side of the road. It didn't... but instead carried on to our side, I remember saying "Oh, what...?" before the inevitable happened, head on drivers' sides impact. We ended up with the back end of the van in the hedge; the truck turned over.  Mr H. says I sat there and said "Oh, no."  The whole thing seemed so inconvenient, unnecessary, unbelievable.    I'd never been in a road accident before and had no idea what to expect; I'd never seriously injured myself or broken any bones, the whole episode was a series of new experiences for me.

Edit 10/8/10:  The combined impact speed was probably around 100mph, we calculated afterwards. The photos in the press looked horrendous, but were taken after the roof had been cut off our van.

I was relieved to see that Mr H. was apparently undamaged as he checked on me... I couldn't breathe as I was completely winded, but that only lasted a minute or so.   I didn't really feel any pain, just the discomfort of realising that I couldn't move - my right leg was jammed between the dashboard and the seat.  A nice lady from one of the cars, who worked at the hospital, came and sat with me while Mr H. called 999 and got Django out of the back of the van.   After that there were lots of people around but no feeling of panic at all, it was all very calm and professional. Apparently there were 20 firemen, about 4 ambulances, and the police.  They had to tend to the people in the truck first because she was more seriously injured, so I sat in the van with a couple of paramedics talking to me and asking me to wiggle my toes.  They said I had broken my leg but the only pain I felt was the sort you get when you've been kneeling down for too long and then you get up and the feeling starts coming back.

The fire-service came and cut the roof off the front of the van, the noise of that was loud and a little scary; they protected those of us inside with a large sheet of polythene, and bits of board which reminded me of my dad's old 1950's home-made surfboard for some reason.  The worse bit was when they had to lever the dashboard away from my leg to make some space - I was scared that something would slip and spring back onto me. But they have amazing hydraulic jacks which they use to hold everything apart.

After about 90 minutes I was freed, strapped onto a stretcher and off to hospital; a vet had been to see to Django and take him back to be looked after; and Mr H. remained at the scene and came up to the hospital with a paramedic.   A & E was just a blur of needles and X-rays; and having my leg pulled back to where it should be, which amazingly didn't hurt - I must have had a lot of morphine at that point!

The driver of the truck sadly died from her injuries the next day, and a nurse came to tell me on Tuesday.  That was the first time I cried.

I had my first op the following day (Monday) to put an intramedullary (IM) nail into my femur; I also had bad soft tissue damage to my left knee which needed debridement (cleaning out) and stitching up. Alex said later that it looked like a split-open sausage - mmm!  Other than that I just had a very sore chest, and some very impressive bruising.  Mr H. escaped with some cuts around his eye, and a damaged intercostal muscle in his ribs which will take a few weeks to heal.  

Some check up X-rays a few days later showed the IM nail was 'telescoping' so I needed a 2nd operation to refix it, which set me back a couple of days.

After 2 weeks in hospital, during which I learned to use crutches (another first!), they said I was fit to go home.  Mr H. is luckily in between finishing his degree and starting his new job in Scotland, and his new boss has been very understanding; so he is at home full time to look after me.  He had set up a sofa-bed in the sitting room, and we have a downstairs bathroom, so I do not have to worry about stairs at home.  I have named my corner 'Base Camp' and it is my haven of peace, books, computer and chocolate.

Related pictures: 
Photos of our VW Transporter after the crash
My X-rays