WAKE UP CALL

Okay, I'll just come right out and say it: I was T-boned by a bus on Tuesday and have a type III odontoid fracture. I am now in a neck brace for 6 months but lucky to be alive and not paralyzed. I cannot even begin to explain all the thoughts and emotions that one goes through - from the coldly rational (wow, this is what it's like on a backboard, in a collar, in MRI) to the wildly emotional (DAMN DAMN DAMN, there goes the concert I was going to give, there goes the clinical study that was going to make JAMA, there goes the dressage show I'm ready for, and there goes vacation with the kids in the Carribean). But the one thing that is the MOST heartbreaking: not being able to scoop my kids up into a big bear hug.

Trying to be the optimist I'm struggling with what to do with months of non-physicality. Go ahead I think, perfect that Spanish, read all the library books, type up my diaries, catch up on all the movies - but somehow it pales in comparison to the dreams I was already embarking upon and achieving. And although I'll be home (always), I'll see the kids less because I won't be taking them to piano and swim and school and birthday parties like I usually do. But it's early yet - perhaps as a result, the kids and I will have more bonding time with the hubbie and our nuclear and extended family as well as friends may become closer still.

The weirdest thing is (harkening back to psych) that my schema of myself is slow to change. I keep having to remind myself that IF I move my neck the wrong way, or trip and fall, it could be disastrous. But it still doesn't seem real until in moments of sobbing I realize it is. Now excuse me while I go cry.