Car accident and set-backs

While trying to get some control over my life, I go through daily ups and downs. One minute i'm super optimistic...the next I'm debbie downer. But it generally seems at the end of the day, or at least by the end of the week I'm making it a little bit further ahead. I referred to this in a comment I made on another blog as taking giant babysteps. But right now, I feel like I am on the cusp of plummeting straight down to where I was the lowest.

ON Friday night, right after I made my last post on here, I was driving home from the library when I got into a car accident. Nothing too serisous. I had slammed my breaks in time to miss a guy who decided to bisect 4 lanes of oncomming traffic, only to be hit from behind by an SUV. (I drive a honda civic... it's like a tank). for the first two minutes i was ok... then i started shaking and then i started crying. It was just so frustrating to know in the back of my mind that even though I knew I had done everything right, I lost control over yet another situation. And then I couldn't function. LIke my brain was going full force, I could see what the cops needed to do, I understood what was goin on, I managed to call my parents, as I was less than a mile from home. My lawyer side kicked in and I could map out in my mind who needed tickets, and what they could do for indemnity. But my mouth didn't move. I just let the officers do their thing, and I only said a handful of things. I fetl very childlike.

I didn't go to the hospital until the next day. By then I was dizzy, disoriented, pain in the neck. And then suddenly I couldn't spell my mom's last name. And thats about when I became scared. They said I had a cervical sprain and probably a mild concussion.

I have never had a situation where I felt more helpless. With cancer, my parents are sort of useless. I remember after the first surgery, I was the only person able to pay attention to the doctor, remember all the instructions, think clearly and know what I needed to do. I tried to do that with the accident. Just a stupid fender bender. And failed. I couldn't process things people were saying to me. I couldn't find words I was looking for on a page. Trying to tell my insurance company what was happening nearly sent me into tears b/c I couldn't get things from my brain to my mouth.

I broke my diet. And the first thing my step-dad did was yell at me, told me I was falling into my mother's trap. And I just wanted to yell... FUCKING CONCUSSION GIVE ME A LITTLE FUCKING SLACK. I was trying to replace food w/ exercise as my comfort tool... that doesn't happen when your off balanced, and your neck isn'texactly moving. I don't understand why people in my family never take me seriously when I say something is wrong. it took a doctor saying i had a concussion for them to get that maybe they should have givine me a hand the night before w/ basic things, like carrying my laptop out of the car.

I think this is the biggest reason I've turned to support from strangers. They get wrong what bothers me the most. When I need help, and what I need help with. Today, its not the physical pain thats the worse, its the emotional stuff. its wondering how long till I'm able to actually understand what I'm reading again. When I'll stop feeling dizzy. When I can get back into my fitness routine. When I can stop worrying that I might have more than a mild concussion. When I'm upright, I'm still getting dizzy. I don't do well w/ pain meds, so I spent yesterday trying to figure out if I was queasy from vicadin or nauceous from head injury so I need to go get an MRI.

And then theres the big question, how much of this is worth it? I'm most frustrated b/c I was trying so hard to get on track. Make myself better. If I hadn't been trying so hard, this wouldn't suck as bad as it does. It wouldn't be something screwing up my life and plans... it would just be another hickup to deal with. Normally it's the cancer that takes that role, has the ability to fuck up all my grand schemes.

So yeah, I'm feeling this as a set-back. Yet another debilitating incident in my life that I have no control over. And I feel helpless, and hopeless, over something that wasn't stupidly huge, but enough for lasting impact... again.