One year later, and absolutely nothing is the same.
February 13th, 2024. Just 4 days after our family returned home from our trip to the NIH.
Our lives would truly be changed forever.
It was a Tuesday morning. I dropped the my oldest son off at school, a first grader just beginning his school career. I had my then 15ish month old in the car with me as we drove to one of his biweekly physical therapy appointments. My 5 year old, my middle child, stayed home on mornings like this, with my parents. As he was neither in school yet, or having any Tuesday morning appointments.
I’d just pulled into the parking lot for our 8am PT appointment with my youngest son. My oldest safely at school, and my middle child still at home.
I get a call. It’s moments before 8am. 7:57? 7:58? Right around there. I’ll never forget it. Unfortunately.
He calls me.
Ha says my name.
That’s it.
My name is
And I knew.
I knew.
He was hurt. He wasn’t okay.
Little did I know just how not okay he was.
He told me “he hit a deer“.
What I later found out was that he didn’t hit the deer. The deer hit him.
It ran head on through the drivers side window. The deer collided with my husband inside of the car. It sent the drivers side mirror flying through the car. Glass, deer hair, and car parts were everywhere.
It totaled the car. It embedded huge shards of glass deep into his face, into his ear, and just BARELY missing a direct hit into his eye. It broke a bone in his skull, his frontal sinus.
Today looks wildly different than it did a year ago.
We are, unfortunately, a one vehicle family now. That’s probably the most impactful change we’ve been unable to recover from.
This morning, we drove the kids to school, then to his work, and then I drove home. Later, I’ll do the rounds and go pick everyone up.
But aside from that, the logistical changes…this has been a trauma I’ve been unable to recover from. Or really even begin to process. The scar between his eyebrows from where the largest shard of glass was embedded, a constant physical reminder of that day.
Of his call, of him saying my name. The phone call I’ve been dreading forever, playing out in my worst reality.
Of him not being okay. Months of physical recovery, and a lifetime of the emotional recovery.
I’ll spare you the most graphic pictures. But believe me, this day is burned into my memory for the rest of my life.
I don’t really know how he’s feeling today. I’ve brought it up in a lighthearted way, that today is the anniversary of the deer who tried to kill him.
I got him a coffee and a breakfast sandwich from Starbucks this morning, and while he did appreciate the gesture, he didn’t acknowledge the day, or why.
We handle emotions and trauma quite differently.
For example, I experience emotions and trauma. And his preferred method of dealing with it is avoidance and not thinking about it.
I’m hurting today. The day is a painful reminder of easily one of the worst days of my life. I still haven’t even begin to process this event in the slightest. And I’m worried I’ll fall apart and lose my shit tonight. I already started to last night, but got amazingly distracted by music and the storytelling of a particular suggestion made by Derek instead.
I do have therapy tonight, so that will hopefully help.
Either way, I’m feeling a bit lost and broken today.
Atlas has PT later this afternoon. And I feel like pulling into that very same parking lot might just be the thing that breaks the cracks open a little bit too much.
Things could have been so much worse. I do understand that. He could’ve lost an eye if that glass was centimeters lower. He could’ve needed surgery to repair his skull fracture, but he didn’t. Shit, he could’ve straight up died.
It could have been worse. And I’m so thankful that it wasn’t.
But I’d be lying if I said I was okay today.
Because while it could’ve been worse, it still took so much from us.
