Scary but Merry Christmas

Alan says that every family needs at least one Christmas story they tell every so often. This year certainly qualifies as being memorable, and this is what happened.

Alan and I left Saint Louis at 3pm on Friday (Christmas Eve) to drive to Knoxville and surprise my family on Christmas morning. Alan's family was in on the surprise, so they played along and helped to convince my family that we were so sad that we were not coming to Knoxville this year...but we were! I got off work early, and we intended on arriving in Knoxville by midnight. It had been snowing all day, but the roads looked pretty clear. The interstate didn't really get bad until about 3 hours into our drive. Alan was doing a great job driving slow (about 40 mph at times) and very carefully.

At one point in Kentucky, around 7:30pm, Alan hit ice and our car fish-tailed sideways. Alan has had lots of experience driving on ice, and easily corrected, and steered us to the median where we stopped. We took a second to take a quick sigh of relief, and Alan preceded to then get the car at the right angle to pull back onto the interstate. While we were waiting to pull out, another car hit ice, over-corrected and hit our car head on. There was a loud crash, our air-bags deployed, and then everything was silent and dark. I began screaming Alan's name, and he responded letting me know that he was okay. My nose was bleeding badly, and the right side of my face was starting to swell up. Alan grabbed the airbag in front of me and held it under my face to catch the blood from my nose. Once he confirmed that I was alright, he called 911 and then got out of the car to talk to the other driver. Everyone in the other car was okay. Alan also called our parents to tell them what happened, and Alan's parents got right in their car to head our way. Alan came back to check on me, and gave me some napkins to start getting the blood off my face. I flipped down the mirror to begin cleaning up, and it was then that I realized I couldn't see anything out of my right eye. It was like trying to see through wax paper: I could identify sources of light but that was it. I thought that I had gone blind. It was so scary. I began yelling for Alan again to tell him what happened. Alan was very comforting, and so loving and supportive. He kept repeating, "God has a plan, everything is going to be okay...."

About an hour later a tow truck arrived, and the driver called 911 back to have them send an ambulance for me. Another hour or so passed and first responders came, and then an ambulance, but the ambulance could only take me to a local hospital (which did not have an Ophthalmologist) so we declined going with them, knowing that Alan's parents weren't too far away and could take us to Vanderbilt in Nashville. We continued waiting on the police to come because the tow truck couldn't load our car until after the police inspected the accident. About 4 hours after the accident, police finally arrived. After documenting the report, the tow truck loaded up our car and drove us to their garage. They dropped us off at a gas station down the road where we waited for Alan's parents. Susan and Mitchell got there about 30 minutes later (at this point is was about 1:30am) and loaded up everything that was in our car, and then headed to Vanderbilt. We got to the hospital around 3:30am and I was quickly admitted.

The diagnosis was that I had Hyphema, which is bleeding in my eye that prevents me from being able to see because the red blood cells are blocking my vision. The Ophthalmologist stated that she could not see any structural damage to my retina and a CT scan confirmed no fractures or broken bones. This was a huge answer to prayer. The Doctor said the recovery timeline is about 1-3 weeks and for me to basically do nothing and keep my head as still as possible. I was released at 8:30am on Christmas morning, and we drove home to Knoxville.

The rest of the day was spent rejoicing with our families that we were okay, opening stockings and presents, and celebrating the birth of our Savior. God is so good, and we are so thankful!

Please continue to be in prayer over my recovery as there is still quite a lot of inflammation to my eye which is causing my vision to be about 20/60. My Ophthalmologist in Knoxville, Dr. Hildebrand, believes that my eye will heal on its own over the next several weeks with the proper treatment of Atropine which will keep my eye dilated until it heals, Prednisolone which are steroid eye drops, and rest, but he is still not making any promises. Alan and I would also appreciate prayer as we now are also in the midst of handling all post-accident reports, insurance claims, etc. While this was a very scary time for us, we are so thankful that God spared our lives and protected us. We give Him all glory, honor, and praise!