Tuesday, November 9, 2010

*The* Story.

When people asked me where we were going on vacation, I always managed to confuse people with the answer: Indiana, Wisconsin, and Texas. Most people followed the whole Indiana/Wisconsin concept, but Texas normally brought about a "whaaa?" moment. Naturally:o).

My in-laws live in Texas as well as some good friends of ours, so we decided to go now to do our holiday visiting, rather than during the actual holidays. Working at a bakery doesn't allow a lot of wiggle room for trips in the midst of the busiest time of the year!

We chose to make the 11 hour drive to Indiana to spend time with my brother and his family, drove the 3 hours to Wisconsin to spend the day with Nat's brother and his wife and also a college friend of mine, drove back to Indiana, and then flew to Texas. We were going to take our car to the airport, but then decided my brother or his wife could use it while we were gone so we left it at their house. My sweet sister-in-law dutifully drove the hour to Chicago Midway Airport to drop us off and wished us a happy time in Texas. At least I think she did. Since this took place at the crazy hour of 7 AM, I was barely functioning:o).

We did have a happy time in Texas (for those of you who were wondering) and we were finishing out our trip with a missionary friend of ours in Fort Worth when we got a phone call. My brother very nonchalantly asked me when our flight returned to Chicago and then asked me if I wanted to talk to my sister-in-law. When she got on the phone, her voice was raspy and muddled. She proceeded to tell me she just had a surgery because there was an accident, but I must admit the first thing I said was, "No way! You're joking with me... quit it!" She tends to be a prankster:o).

She actually wasn't though (surprise!) and when my brother got back on the phone, I asked him what in the world happened. He replied, "it's complicated... there was a car accident in the driveway. I'll tell you tomorrow." Uh-oh. I got off the phone and told Nat I just had this feeling our car was involved with her accident.

When *the* story finally came out, it was quite *the* story. Now my brother has to be the most laid-back man in the world, because he didn't seem fazed at all. I know that's not really true deep down inside, but there wasn't a frazzled reaction on the outside at all! But back to *the* story. My sister-in-law had used our car Wednesday morning, but left a light on so that drained the battery. That afternoon she was going to take her son out to eat but had to first jump our car with her car (which my niece had to use to get to work). Since the battery in her car is in the back, she told her son to back her car up to our car to jump it. Meanwhile she spotted something in the backseat of our car and went to quick grab it. As she leaned half-way into the car (with the door open), my nephew backed up her car and hit our car door. The car door closed in on her leg, but of course he had no idea. All he was thinking was, "Oh man, I'm in big trouble" so he just sat there. That whole time the car door was on her leg and she was praying for him to pull forward. After 15 seconds he finally did, much to her relief!

Her leg instantly swelled up into what looked like a drumstick around her calf to her ankle. If it had been any higher, it would've severed it off (details I'm sure you're glad I'm sharing!) or even cut off the main artery that would've killed her. As it was, she went through surgery on her leg, hoping to relieve a big chunk of pressure. There was still the possibility of amputation if infection set in, but we are so grateful that was not the case!

The doctor is giving her a 3-month recovery period, which is a long time to not walk. But that's a better option compared to not being able to walk ever again!

Obviously our main concern was making sure she was going to be alright. Once we were fairly certain she was, we looked into fixing our door. While not the biggest deal at the moment, it would've made the 11 hour trip home windy, to say the least! The bottom part was bent at a weird angle (thank you leg), so Nat got on the phone to see if he could find a replacement door. He knew the salvage place here in PA didn't have any parts for our car, but the Lord directed him to the right salvage place out in Indiana who had a matching door! Saturday morning Nat and my nephew spent a couple of hours putting the door on and we left soon after to return to Pennsylvania, minus the wind blowing through:o). Isn't God good???

Soon after my brother told us about the accident, Nat and I had a couple of minutes to ourselves. He instantly said it was no use playing the "what if....?" game ("what if we had taken our car to the airport?"). Instead we started to pray. Pray for those involved and for issues that God was dealing with. Would I choose to have this situation play out again? If God would get the glory, then yes! We serve such a mighty God Who knows all things and I'm excited to see what He is going to do through this situation!!!

3 comments:

Chuck said...

Wow...What a Story.

Kali said...

Hi! I've been reading your blog for a while now, and figured it was time to reveal myself! I'm from Jackie's home church, but have recently moved because of our Highway 20 project. You may or may not be familiar with that...Brother Majors came to your church early summer.

Anyways, I just wanted to introduce myself and say how much I've enjoyed reading your blog!

I'm sorry to hear about your sis-in-law...hopefully her leg will heal quickly!

Tiffany said...

I had read about Kim's leg on facebook, but never heard how it happened. I have been praying for her.