The Surgery Saga aka The Car Wreck Part 3

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As previously blogged, now you know that I wrecked my car.  But there's more to the story - the worst part, really.

When the car stopped moving, I was stuck in an awkward position, and couldn't move.  I knew I wasn't hurt.  Kim was calling my name and I told him I was okay and he said he was okay too.  As I struggled to right myself, finally the darkness lifted and I saw the empty spot where Annie should have been.  "Annie's gone!"  We both started calling her, and not seeing her gave me the energy to untangle myself from the car seats and various belongings.  I still couldn't see Kim (he was under the dashboard up front), but all of a sudden, he was outside of the car, walking around it, and picking up dollar bills that had been in my purse.  I threw a blanket at him, and screamed for Annie.  I was sitting on the windowsill in the back of the passenger side, because my feet were bare and there was at least 2 feet of snow.  And glass.  Broken glass everywhere.

A car stopped up on the freeway, and a lady was screaming at us, asking if anyone was hurt.  I screamed back that we were okay, but my dog was missing.  That's when I saw Annie's legs BEHIND her car, meaning the other side of her car. Annie was BETWEEN her car, and the freeway, which meant she had to have been ON the freeway.  My blood froze.

We called her and called her but she was too terrified.  She tried to come to me, but the snow between us was too deep and it scared her.  A man dressed in black was trying to catch her and she's scared of men in black, thanks to an idiot here in the building.  She kept running around their car, and on the freeway, as cars and semi-trucks sped by her.  Finally, she realized who and where I was, and she just muscled her way thru the deep snow, and I pulled her into the car, glass and all.  My dog was safe and that's all that mattered to both me and Kim.  Kim isn't really fond of dogs, because of shedding, but he too was just focused on getting her safe before anything else. 

By that time, Kim said he was losing his eyesight, and the lady on the freeway was on the phone to 911.  She asked if there were any injuries, and I screamed no, but that we were on our way to Seattle to have brain aneurysm surgery, and he'd been hit on the side of where the aneurysm was.  I could see the look of amazement on her face, and she repeated the info into her cell phone.  I was looking for my cell phone so I could call my sister.  Kim gave me his phone, and I realized that I don't have ANY numbers memorized, except for her work number, because it's the opposite of the local newspaper's number.  Soooo weird how the brain thinks ... or doesn't think at times of crisis.

The whole time, I was thinking about Annie, and how I'd let her down.  Part of the training for service dogs is that they learn to trust that their handler would protect them and keep them safe.  For instance, I wasn't to allow strangers to zoom towards her, or loom over her, or let men in black pet her without OUR permission.

I felt so guilty.

To be continued...

Best regards,

PeeLister@yahoo.com

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Posted in: Paying it Forward