Saturday afternoon, my sister Allison was in a bike accident.
She’s going to be fine, but it’s been a stressful couple of days around here. Any time your little sister cracks her shoulder and elbow into itty bitty pieces and then needs surgery to put them all back together… Well, let’s just say those aren’t going to be your best days and leave it at that.
(The surgery went great, btw.)
Allison has been training for the Pan Mass Challenge and she was out on a training ride when it happened. Luckily, she was wearing a helmet, so her noggin is completely ok. It’s a little scary to think about what might have been if she wasn’t wearing a helmet, so none of us is going there.
A good chunk of the family converged on the Yale hospital Sunday to look out for her.
Our contribution? Hello Kitty stickers and kisses for her boo-boos.
(I don’t care how old you are, stickers and kisses make just about any boo-boo feel better.)
Allison was tired (and in a lot of pain), but we did take her on a quick jaunt to the hospital’s healing garden. Lilian led the way, walking her ducky
Hospitals are also teeming with germs. Which is something that I’ve always understood on an intellectual level… but which I now understand on a much more visceral level after watching my child touch everything in sight and then put her hands all over her face and into her mouth. Let’s just say I said a lot of silent prayers that she stick to the cold virus and avoid MRSA.
(I sometimes joke at work about having a touch of the OCD, but we seriously got home and attempted to sterilize everything that she came into contact with on Sunday.)
(And, no, I don’t think it was over-kill.)
(Also, hooray for toddlers who pick machine-washable dolls as their lovies.)
Oh, yeah, and then there was that time we bought her a cookie for being such a good sport and she proceeded to:
1. drop part of the cookie
2. pick up the cookie piece
3. shove the cookie piece into her mouth before Kristian could grab it
She either gave her immune system a hell of a jolt, or we’re going to have fun times trying to figure out where exactly she picked up hepatitis.
(New Haven is not exactly known for being the cleanest of places.)
Can I get a silent round of applause for my husband, BTW? Because, by my reckoning, he spent approximately 17,456 hours driving in the car on Sunday. And he never once complained. Or took me up on my offers to do some of the driving. He left for a business trip yesterday, so he had a lot of stuff to do on Sunday (like, I dunno, pack), but he took one for the team and made the trek with me. Which meant that I didn’t have to spend 17,456 hours driving. And I had him there for emotional support.
It also meant that Allison got to have some kisses and songs from Lilian, but then Kristian could take her on a walk down the hall when it started to get over-whelming.
It also meant that he got to be the one riding the clutch in my car as we sat in traffic for over an hour while I-84 slowly tapered down from 3 lanes… to 2 lanes… to 1 lane… to the shoulder…
(No signs, btw. Freaking Nutmeg State.)
We did get to watch an amazing piece of human drama unfold as a couple of truckers worked together to box out a bunch of assholes who were trying to cut everybody off by zooming down the breakdown lane. One guy pulled hallway onto the shoulder, the other guy pulled up to the first guy’s left bumper. Between the two of them, they forced everyone who was driving 50mph in the shoulder like an asshole to slow down to a reasonable speed.
(Driving 50mph in the breakdown lane is freaking dangerous. Especially when you know there is construction up ahead and you don’t know which lane its in.)
We didn’t get home until well past 11pm. Kristian was able to transfer Lilian to bed fairly easily, but I think we got her good and sleep-deprived just in time for him to go out of town for three days. Yay?
Allison had surgery on Monday, and I’m told that it went well. I spent most of the day staring at the clock and my phone, doing mental math about how much time she had left. I was just about ready to lose the rest of my sad little mind when my brother-in-law texted to give us all the good news. And then I remembered how nice it is to breathe!
She still has a lot of hurt and healing ahead of her, but I have no doubt that my sister is going to come through this stronger than she started. Wise-cracking the whole time. And, hey, if you have a couple bucks, I know it would cheer her up if you could help her hit her fundraising goal. She’s not going to be riding across Massachusetts anytime soon, but it’s the principle of the thing, dammit.
[…] Pedal Partner event at Fenway Park. Allison wasn’t able to ride the PMC challenge last year ( shattering your elbow tends to have that effect), but she’s going to kick it into gear (see what I did there?!) […]