One stupid choice

 Although this blog entry is not exactly about disease or illness per se, it is about the human toll of someone's actions. I am now going into my second week of a migraine and a mouth lesion that has taken a toll on my body. I don't need someone else's stupid decisions to affect my life, it's bad enough to just try and maintain. Here's a glimpse into the stress in our lives, all of our lives, that exact a "cost", not all of which is money.

Last Thursday I had to take my son for nasal surgery to a small community hospital about 20 miles from our house. I had decided to flatten two birds at the same time by making an appt for my mammogram at the same hospital earlier in the morning. We headed out, first one freeway, then the next...notorious for accidents both south and north. We were headed north for milepost 9. Keep that number in mind. It was a 65 MPH on this freeway and we were flying! (And running on time, but for me that is running late) Then...coming up to milepost 6 I see red brake lights. Crud. No, No, No! I am getting a very sinking feeling in my belly.

Now a full stop. Now a dead stop. T H R E E  more miles.

3 miles might as well be three hundred. Three thousand. I am doomed. I make the call that I "may" be late. oh ha ha. Duh! We creep. We crawl. My GPS says it is 2.9 miles to exit. 10 minutes later 2.8.
Panic. Sweat. I HATE BEING LATE. Then, up ahead, I see flashing lights. Getting close to actual accident (or what I assumed was the accident) It is now 9:30. My check-in time was 9:15. I want to puke. I am still in Migraine territory. I have had a migraine for almost a week at that point. I have had a horrific lesion on the roof of my mouth for almost a week. I cannot eat anything except small sips of liquid. The pain is amazingly, frighteningly, painful. But all I can think about is "we're late" lol.

I see the bumper of the car smashed into the guard rail on my right. Literally. The bumper, not the car. Oh dear. The car is across two lanes, in the median on the LEFT, backwards. What the? How in the world did it get there? The southbound traffic is slowing to rubberneck. The northbound is slowing for the cones/flares/police.

We finally arrive and much to my joy(!) they are running late because the techs didn't arrive due to the accident. but my joy was short-lived. The surgeons, the nurses, etc were also late and his surgery, once scheduled for 1:30 gets bumped back again and again due to the accident.
He goes in finally around four, and we leave the hospital at 9:30, hours after I thought we would be home.

I got to thinking, I am almost certain that speed played a part in the accident. That accident probably will cost the car owner $500-$1000 deductible. The insurance maybe another several thousand more.
Renting a car, maybe time off his/her job, medical bills...well it adds up tremendously. And that is the one person who got into the accident.

Try this on for size: The police/fireman/medical response=$$$
People late for their jobs=$$$
Someone misses their flight=$$$
Someone returns their rental car late=$$$
They haven't arrived to their shopping destinations costing merchants $$$
The hospital revenue cost $$$ for people being late, even something so simple as the cafeteria closing down before I can eat because of the lateness of my arrival.
The entire economy of the area suffers because someone decided to speed that day. I'm sure if I thought about it more, a lot more people would be affected exponentially. Sad, isn't it?

Since I first wrote the above words, but hadn't published them, word came of a shooting at the mall on this exact freeway. They closed down the freeway and all roads surrounding it. The mall has now been closed for the second day. Lives have been lost, one teenage girl fights for her life. Over 100 police personnel were involved in this horrific investigation. One young man decided that day to take an assault rifle to kill people at the mall. He made a choice to wreak havoc in many people's lives that day. Parents grabbed their children and ran, Santa hit the floor, people hid in dressing rooms, a young woman's life was spared because the gun jammed, two families got word that their husband/wife/father/mother were killed, one family got the word that their son had done this deed and killed himself. It has stunned the entire community. One stupid choice...