I didn’t even really remember what had happened. One instant I was on my way to work, turning left from Folsom Ave onto Highway 27. Next thing I knew, I woke up, disoriented and confused, in this damnable hospital bed.

Turns out a sleepy trucker had run the stoplight and plowed into me at about 50 miles per hour. When my sister came by the hospital the next day and showed me pictures of the twisted wreckage of my poor Accord, I could hardly believe it was my car that I was looking at. Moreover, I could hardly believe I had survived the accident at all.

I didn’t come away unscathed, though. I awakened in the hospital bed with my left leg bound and wrapped in a cast and air-packed sleeve that looked like something an astronaut would wear. I had a few bandages around my head and realized there were a couple of stitches in my cheek.

John was there to explain to me what had happened. He looked terrible; his cute, pudgy, little face all drawn and forlorn with heavy, dark circles under his eyes. Evidently, I had been unconscious for nearly 36 hours, and he had waited patiently by my side without a wink of sleep that entire time. I didn’t have any doubts that John loved me with all his heart.

He told me the tale of the accident with a great deal of trepidation and a fearful tremble in his voice. Seems my femur had been shattered upon impact, and my head had struck the driver’s side window, rendering me unconscious and lacerating my face and forehead.

Everyone was saying how lucky I was to believe. After the doctor explained to me that they had already performed one emergency surgery on my leg and that at least two more would be necessary before I could even try to walk again, I didn’t feel so lucky…

I wasn’t really in a tremendous amount of pain. They had me more than well enough medicated for that, and I was even in control of my own painkiller drip through the IV they’d put in my arm. No, not a lot of pain, but what I was feeling was a great deal of discomfort. As accommodating as they try to make hospital beds be, the human body just isn’t meant to lie in one position for days on end. My back was aching and my right leg was just numb.

And the stressors of the situation had sunk my mood to its darkest depths. I worried about work, my insurance, and the medical bills. I fretted over whether or not I’d be able to regain mobility. I was terrified at the prospect of having to gimp around with a cane for the rest of my life – or even worse – to be bound to a fucking wheelchair like some feeble cripple.

Needless to say, I had become a bit pessimistic about the whole experience. This led to my lashing out at the doctors and nurses over little things like cleaning my bed-pan or bringing me my meal tray. I even snapped at John a few times, who had been a saint, never leaving my side for more a day and a half.

I had finally convinced him to go home and get some sleep. But he still came to see me every morning before work and stayed with me every evening after he got off. He put up with my