This blog isn’t going to be like the others. There are no tips involved, just me following some of my tips in the many ways I got home after school was over. The title will make sense as you go along. Warning: There are some graphic details later on, so if you are squeamish, skip over them. Also this is a very long blog post, but it only gets better with each part. Please enjoy!
It all started with the graduation at St. Mike’s.
I had to be up to go to the graduation ceremony at 7:45 and had so much stuff
to get to Grandma’s house that I woke up at 5:15 and drove all of my bigger and
bulkier items to Grandma’s to put away so that I would have less stress and
fewer trips to take in the afternoon after the ceremony was over.
I made it back to SMC by 6:30 and started to get
ready by straightening my hair and putting on my dress. I wore my 2012 Target
summer collection black and white striped dress with my favorite silver
strapped flat sandals; it was the perfect outfit to look classy and
professional to work the ceremony. When it was 7:40, Caitlin and I drove to
Dunkin’ Donuts to have a jumpstart with iced tea and drove over to Ross to help
set up the last minute things. When we arrived, I went right to the food
because that’s what I thought I had to do. I ate a whole bagel and drank my
tea. We then got settled for the jobs that we had. My job was to collect the
tickets for the special seating in the balcony. The job was easy because only a
small number of people could go up there.
Once the ceremony started, I sat in the balcony
with the other senior week workers and watched the ceremony. I couldn’t sit
still since I was bored, so I moved around and drank some water in between
watching the ceremony. Since Teresa and I were both bored, we were texting
during it, which made the time go by faster. As they started to call the names
of the graduates, I was getting sad because as they called each name, I knew
that they would not be coming back to school next year. As the ceremony came to
a close, the senior week workers had to help to make sure the line of graduates
would not be interrupted by parents taking pictures and hugging them. After
everyone left, we cleaned up the gym from all of the garbage that was left
behind and moved all of the purple ribbon stations that held the crowds back.
Once that was all complete, we were able to go to the outdoor reception at the
library lawn. I was able to see some of my friends that graduated and had a few
pictures.
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| I thought it would be great to wear a hat even though I wasn't graduating. Cait is to my right. |
When enough people left, we started to take the
large white signs from the lawn to the gym. These signs were held down by 25
pound weights, which would come back to haunt me. I took two signs in at once
to help expedite the process. Once the signs were taken in, we had to move the
weights onto a golf cart to move to McCarthy Arts Center. Since Mark, the
director of the ceremony, had an open seat in the cart, I hopped in and started
to put the weights onto the loading dock.
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| All of the weights were piled on the "bed" of this golf cart |
I took three seperate weights onto the dock and as I picked
up the fourth one, another weight slid from the pile and fell onto my foot. As
I said before, it was a 25-pound weight. This hurt like hell and I screamed
because of the fact that it hurt and I didn’t really realize what exactly
happened just then. There were two people around me that moved me from the dock
where I supported my weight to the golf cart to sit down. As they started to
move me, I saw the blood pouring out of my foot onto the ground. This is when I
covered my eyes and didn’t look again until I was in the ambulance.
The first to respond was Public Safety and Officer
Earing, I don’t know his name, came and I don’t remember what he said or did.
At this point Mark and many other of the volunteers came over. Jackie came to
my side and held my hand. She told me that I could squeeze her hand as much as
I needed since I was in a ton of pain. I started to shake a lot and I tried not
to think of the pain I was in. Rescue came over from the Sutton Fire house and
started to do their rescue procedures. They felt my foot and took off my
sandal. There was so much blood on my feet they didn’t know which foot was hurt
they both had blood over them.
They started to feel my feet to make sure that I
hadn’t been paralyzed in the foot from this blow. They put a vacuum cast/brace
around my foot to transfer me to the bed to go into the ambulance. This felt
like it took a long time since my foot was hurt. Once we got in the ambulance,
Jackie came in the front seat to be with me as we went into the hospital.
During the ride there the only thing to do was make jokes about the situation
and be upset about the fact that I would not be able to work out for the
summer. We arrived at the hospital around 2:30 I think and I was taken to room
34.
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| Stuck in the hospital with my dress on. |
I was looked at first by the P.A. Sue who cleaned
my feet of the blood. I was then taken into the X-Ray room to have my foot
looked at to see the damage. I asked for a copy of the x-rays to show off since
this would be a very eventful story to tell. When I was in the emergency room,
I thought about the fact that I would not be able to say goodbye to any of my
friends who were graduating, other than the few I saw at the reception, which
made me cry even more than the tears that were coming from the pain.
Many other nurses and physician assistants came to
my aid to take care of me. I had an IV put into me with a plastic catheter that
allowed for narcotics to be put into me and the saline solution with the
antibiotic in it. I had to wait a long time to get the narcotics and I think it
was 4:00 when they finally received the IV in me with the narcotics. Jackie and
I had to figure out a way to get from the hospital back to school, so she had
someone drive up to the hospital and drive her back to pick up her car.
When she arrived back at the hospital it was
around 6:00 and I was being released to go back into the real world. They told
me my big toe was broken and the paperwork said it was a crush injury, after
looking at the x-rays I expected that I would have a bunch of tiny pieces of
bone in my toe.
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| I have three hairline fractures on between the two end toe bones |
I was given an oversized sandal and crutches to get
around with for now. Jackie took me back to school and we packed up the rest of
my room. As I said before I had all of my larger items already at Grandma’s so
I didn’t have to pack as much — a blessing in disguise to have much less to
transport especially with this toe now broken. So if that wasn’t bad enough I
now had two more days until I would get back home. We unpacked what I had left
and I slept at Grandma’s house. That was a very difficult sleep since I am used
to tossing and turning all night long.
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| The caption says it all, this is my new friend |
The next day, Monday, Grandma and I had to go back
to school to get her car from campus since I couldn’t drive it back after
getting a high dose of narcotics at the ER. Jackie came out to Grandma’s house
and drove us back, stopping at Rite Aid to get the prescription for the
antibiotics I needed. When we were at school, I made copies of my paperwork
from the hospital to send to my parents. I stopped into the bookstore to see my
roommate, Taylor, to let her know that I was okay and see her since I had not
seen her since Saturday night. When Grandma and I were about to go back home, I
ran into Laurie from campus ministry who suggested I fill out a form to get
workman’s comp for all of this hardship. Grandma and I drove to the fire house
to get the forms at Public Safety. I ran into Officer Earing, as I later learned was Officer Steve, again who I
thanked for helping me out yesterday with all of my pain and suffering from the
injury.
Once the sheet was filled out, Grandma and I went
back home and got the antibiotics and some painkillers. The rest of that day
was filled with sitting, icing and relaxing after all of the movement of the
morning. We ate both meals in her house and had some down time. It was extra
difficult to not be able to do much of anything, especially not being able to
do it myself. The next day I was to travel home — finally, after all of this
trauma and difficulty, I would be home with my parents — at least that’s what I
thought.
The next morning I woke up at 8:00 to be picked up
at 9:00 by our family friend Jeff to go to the airport. Everything was going as
planned. I had a wheel chair to get me to the plane and help all of the way.
The plane even boarded on time. When we were about an hour into the flight, the
captain came on and said some bad news: There was smoke with a possible fire in
the Chicago air traffic control and we would need to land in Detroit to figure
out what would happen from there. This was at 1:30 when we landed in Detroit.
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| I didn't sign up for this destination. |
We weren’t able to get off the plane until a
further update. They didn’t have a wheel chair ready to get me off, so I had to
crutch up to the check-in counter. It was a long way up, and a little bit of an
incline made for a great challenge. When I was up there I was put in a wheel
chair and sat down to put my foot up. I was given really great hospitality by
some of the other people on my flight. Someone bought me a bottle of water and
another guy shared his sandwich with me. There was a short window to get onto
the plane to go back to Chicago at 3:20. My new friend, Jason, in the seat next
to me, wheeled me down and took my bag to help me out. Once they loaded the
plane we had to wait because it started to downpour.
Twenty minutes after we loaded the plane, the
captain made an announcement that the flight was cancelled. Cancelled after all
of that! I tried to remain patient because there was nothing I could do to
change all that happened. I was the last one off the plane and this time I
insisted I get a wheel chair since going up the ramp once was difficult enough.
Because of the fact that I was a flyer with special needs, they allowed me to
get help first. I had a new flight for Wednesday morning at 7:55 booked and a
one night stay at the Airport Howard Johnson.
This is when things really started to get
interesting. While I was waiting for assistance, I wrote two thank you’s to the
assistants at the gate who were helping rebook the flights for the other
passengers and myself. I figured that they never get thanked enough by the
passengers and I would not have been able to do this by myself. I had to wait a
long time to get assistance from the gate to the baggage claim to get my two
bags that were under the plane. I had a high school senior who helped me along.
With the cancelled flight I was given $21 in vouchers, which I spent on a
chicken Cesar salad, and a corned beef sandwich; it cost $20 to eat that night.
I was taken to the van pick-up center and met up with some other stranded
passengers.
Lucky for me I am good at making friends and
received help from a married couple and a Canadian, all three of whom I would
not have been able to get around without their help and who I am so grateful
for. The married couple, Tom and Nicole, helped me take my things into my room
with a luggage cart and Tom showed me how to lock the door to prevent anyone
from being able to open the extra safety lock with a hanger since the hotel
doors were not enclosed in a building. All of the doors were outside so anyone
would be able to get into them if they tried hard enough.
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| Two queen sized beds for one queen. |
After getting settled, we planned on meeting to
have dinner together and use the vouchers. Since I already used mine, I was
just going to spend the time forgetting about the fact that I was injured and
alone. The closest place was 0.9 miles away and it would have been easy to walk
if I wasn’t crippled, but I couldn’t and my three friends stayed at the hotel
and ordered in to make sure that I would be there with someone.
I went to bed at 10 while my friends went to the
bar to get some drinks after the adventures they were having on their own. My
Canadian friend, Steve, and I had planned on going to the airport at 5:30 the
next morning to catch our planes at the 7:00 hour. I had a wakeup call at 4:30
planned to be ready for going back to the airport. The first thing to do was to
check my flight. The first thing I saw about my 7:55 flight was cancelled. Are
you kidding me — cancelled again?!
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| No I was signed up yesterday for this to be on time. |
I called my mom to find out what to do, then called
United. They told me that the only other option to get home was a connection
flight Detroit to Houston, Houston to Chicago or the 7:55 flight out the next
morning, Thursday. I couldn’t do either option, so I looked into my options. My
mom was ready to drive out to pick me up from Detroit since there would not be
another option to get to my doctor’s appointment at 2:30 on Wednesday
afternoon. I did have one other option, the Amtrak train. I looked at the
website and there was a train at 6:30 that morning. I went to the lobby and
booked the train ticket to arrive at Chicago at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.
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| Yes calendar I am late for my flight when I should have been home already. |
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| Going from Detroit to Chicago and taking stops in some of the dotted spots. |
Along with this I had a taxi booked by the front
desk to take me to the train station. I was surprised when a full-sized sedan
pulled up to pick me up. I had a great driver, Monty, who took me to the train
station. He told me to be careful and not to talk to anyone because Detroit is
a very rough place where there are so many unsolved murders due to a corrupt government
structure. He bought me breakfast from Tim Horton’s and got me an iced coffee
for the way. When he came back he helped me all of the way onto the train and
carried my bags. I don’t think that any other taxi driver would have gone above
and beyond this kind of service. I really appreciated all that he did since I
was struggling to not only travel with a broken foot, but I was all by myself.
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| No one was on the train yet so a great time to show it off. |
I got onto the train and had all the room in the
world to set my foot up and relax in comfort. There was so much more to see
since I normally fly over all of this scenery on plane rides. As the train
exited Detroit, I saw many junk yards with cars and a ton of graffiti. After
hearing from Monty about the corruption, I was able to see some of it for
myself. I was really scared to be on the train from Detroit, especially after
seeing the state of the city.
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| What a great train name, I drew the wolverine in the corner. |
I was in my own car for only a stop when a large
amount of people came onto the train. There was a woman who was traveling with
her child and I offered the seat next to me so she could have her 6-month-old
baby sit at her feet. I wrote this blog on most of the train trip because I
wanted to remember all that happened in the past 4 days, so I didn’t look out
the window as much as I probably should have. The train took five and a half
hours to get into Chicago where I finally got to see my mom after over 24 hours
of traveling for a trip that should have only taken 2 by plane.
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| I made it! |
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| After 24 long hours I finally saw my mom. |
She had arms wide open and a wheel chair ready to
push me back to the car. Although it is hard to admit and fully realize right
now, having my foot broken was the greatest blessing I could have realized. I
was able to see how our society still has good in it by the help that I received
in all parts of my trip, from the small gestures of other passengers that
helped to the large ways that my driver Monty treated me as if I was family.
I have been given a great amount of blessings on
this trip that I would not have been able to complete without all of the
experiences that I had in my life and the kindness of strangers only wanting to
help. I have so much gratitude for this trip and this experience that brought
me home. It would not have been possible without my mom, all of the employees
of the services I used, and the strangers who helped in my time of need. I
don’t know how I would have been able to do this without all of the help that I
received. I have so much gratitude in my life and I know that if I can do this
with a 48-hour broken toe I can do anything I put my time and energy into. I
have been being looked out for by someone who cares and loves me.
Keep SMCing,
DJ Q
