While driving back from a wedding reception in Vermont, we got in a car accident.  Fortunately, my daughters and husband were unharmed.  I am so unspeakably grateful for that.  I was the only one injured, but nothing major — just some strained muscles, bruising, neck pain, and every rib popped out of place.  I was strapped to a board and taken to the hospital in an ambulance, which was a first for me.

I was afraid the whole experience would frighten my girls, but they seemed to take everything in stride.  The paramedics gave them little teddy bears, and not to be outdone, the firemen gave them bigger teddy bears.  At the hospital, they got stickers, graham crackers, and juice boxes.  While I waited for my x-rays, their aunt, uncle, and cousins took them out to pizza.  We were fortunate to be surrounded by family within minutes of the accident occurring.

The damage to our minivan was pretty extensive.  We had to rent a car to get home, and the biggest thing we could find was a Toyota Prius.  We had to leave half of our stuff at the cabin, but we got great gas mileage driving from New York to Chicago.

The driver who hit us was coming from the opposite direction and turned left in front us rather than yielding the right-of-way to us as we were proceeding straight through the intersection.  To top matters off, he was driving with a suspended license, didn’t have car insurance, was driving a vehicle with license plates that were registered to another car, and had a warrant out for his arrest.

I was supposed to fly to San Francisco today to help my cousin move into his college dorm at SFSU and to attend orientation with him.  Instead, I’ll be spending everyday this week at the chiropractor, trying to gently encourage those ribs back into place so that I can breathe and move again without pain.