My Story........

No dogs today....there will be plenty of new stories from this weekend......this story is about how my life was profoundly changed on this date 16 years ago.
I was coming home from work....it was a Monday , and stopped at the grocery store to get some dinner for my son before my boyfriend at the time and I went to our favorite sports bar to watch a Green Bay/Dallas game (I'm not a Dallas fan even though I live in Texas). Picked up the groceries and started home. There was a ton of construction near the store and traffic was at a standstill......so people waved me through four lanes....I had almost made it when a car coming out of nowhere hit me in the back....I went sideways and was t-boned by a truck going at least thirty miles over the speed limit. You can probably imagine how that went. I know and I was ready then.....I was dead. I'm not a religious person, but I had what is referred to as an out of body experience.....all I can say is it was really peaceful. But as I was leaving....someone said my son's name.....then I knew I had to change my course. I opened my eyes and was already covered with a sheet.....I coughed and screamed. The paramedics uncovered me and asked me who I was, where I lived......and told me I had been clinically dead......not breathing....no pulse. Of course I was taken to the nearest hospital......where I laid there for over an hour , bleeding, until someone wheeled me into a room. They took off the backboard and neck brace the paramedics had put me in and had me walk to a bed. I couldn't take my hands away from my neck, I knew something bad had happened to me but no one would listen. The doc was busy flirting with the girl in the next room and completely ignored me. My boyfriend came to the hospital and asked why I wasn't being looked at.....the doc said I  had sprained my neck and should probably be quiet.....they would bring me some aspirin. They asked me to walk to X-ray....but I couldn't do it.....so he decided to give me a CAT scan to shut me up. I got there and the tech started the machine......one minute later all he said was "Shit , don't move". A couple of minutes later the paramedics were back......strapping me back onto the backboard and neck brace. We were off to the medical center in downtown Houston. While I getting my head stitched back together, yes, I had sliced my head in the back from one end to the other.........my doc for the next many months told me that C1 through C4 vertebrae had been destroyed. He actually wondered why I was alive , and since I was why was I not paralyzed. That night changed everything about me........I was put into a Halo........check out this medieval device....and would remain with that for the next seven months. I came home a week later and spent all that time laying in a hospital bed in the middle of my living room. Since you can't drive, can't move that much and can't move your head at all........I had a ton of time to contemplate my life. I was always all about me.......why didn't things happen that I wanted to when I wanted to.....I was unhappy , not comforting or caring. Something in me changed........after I got out of my Halo......many months later.....I realized my life had to change. I started doing volunteer work.....something I had never done.....but something was missing. It took me many years to get to rescue.......but I found that was the one thing that made me whole.....there was a reason that I was saved that day 16 years ago. That's my story............