The Snowstorm

I fell on the ice in the parking lot at work last month. We had to be at work for a meeting at 7 AM and as I walked around the back of my car I slipped on the ice landing on my hands and knees hard. Immediately my low back, neck, right shoulder and right knee started throbbing. By the end of the meeting, I scheduled an 11:00 appointment with Dr. Holcomb. When she saw me I was in so much pain, she sent me home for a few days. At the end of that time period I attempted to go back to work again. I made an appointment with OcMed which accomplished nothing. I had taken my previous radiology reports which showed my herniated disks and explained I hadn't needed nerve blocks for 3 years as it was under control. I told the doctor that something was drastically wrong with my low back. They just told me to go to work in two days. I said aren't you going to take xrays or anything? She responded, "You cannot see a herniated disk on an xray." My response was "No, but you can on an MRI." They don't like to rush things. I then asked if they would send me to an Ortho doc. They don't like to rush things.

The next morning my neck hurt so bad, then the pain went up into my head until I had a full-fledged migraine. I called OcMed and asked what to do at 2 PM. They returned my call at five minutes to 5 PM saying, the doctor doesn't work with migraines, to call Dr. Holcomb. Well great, now she's gone for the day. By 7 PM I was crying and Abby (my youngest) said she was coming to get me to take me to the walk-in clinic. They gave me two meds to knock me out which I thankfully took and went to bed. The next day I was scheduled to see Dr. Holcomb because the migraine was back with a storm. Speaking of storms, one was predicted for that day and the snow had already started by the time I got to the doctor. Steve met me there so he could follow me home as he was concerned about the weather. By the time I saw the doctor I was crying from the pain. I explained that I was supposed to go back to work and there was no way I could work in this pain. She was angry that OcMed told me to go back to work. She set up an appointment to see the Pain Control specialist who knew my history and said I was off work until further notice.

We made it home although the storm was really bad. Both the interstate and highway roads to our house eventually closed and then our electricity went off. The house lost it's warmth pretty quickly. We both put on extra layers of clothes trying to stay warm and prayed the electricity would come back on. Eventually we turned the oven on because thankfully it runs on propane. I threw leftovers in the oven to warm them up and we ate sitting on chairs on opposite sides of the open oven door. I had candles lit all over the house for light. Eventually the oven was cold and I walked Steve through how to make a cake from scratch as we didn't have any mixes on hand. It was pretty good, I must say. When the oven cooled off again we turned it on and sat on those same chairs just to stay somewhat warm. Finally I felt guilty using the oven for heat and we put our coats on and headed to bed. We made it through the first day without electricity.

By the second evening our kids were all worrying about us being there with no heat and no access to get from our house to any of theirs. Abby decided she and Justin were going to come save us. We had told her not to try it because there was no way to get through. She agreed not to but instead called the other kids and told them they were coming to get us and they would relay calls to each other so the others would know that Abby and Justin were safe, too.

Eventually I fell asleep and awoke to Steve's phone ringing. He got up so he wouldn't wake me (I suppose) and I heard him talking on the phone. Then I thought I could hear Abby's voice. I called out "Is Abby on the phone?" Then I heard her voice again and I got up and walked into the kitchen. There she and Justin stood and Abby said "Pack up stuff, Mom, we're taking you to our house."

I hurriedly grabbed my meds and clothes for the next day and just went in my sweats. There was no way I was undressing in that freezing house and putting clothes on. We went the back way to Highway 6 which includes going down a huge hill which my kids have been in three accidents on. At the bottom of the hill there was one car's width to squeeze through with snowbanks on both sides at least two feet above the car. I was a wreck by the time we made it to Abby's but thankful for the warm house. Justin and Abby gave up their bed for us to sleep in and they slept on the couch and love seat with blankets that they had borrowed for the drive to our house.

On the third day without electricity Steve rented a generator and Justin helped him hook it up to our house and by the time they had it ready to go, the electricity came back on. Hooray! Halfmoon!