Sorry I’m late with today’s post; whiplash is my excuse. I wish I was referring to Snidely Whiplash, nemesis of Dudley Do-Right, or even just a metaphorical pain in the neck, but alas, I had the misfortune to be in an automobile accident last Friday and headaches are slowing down my productivity. Cruising down New York Drive on my way home from Radio Shack where I had been looking at gizmos for recording telephone interviews, I came upon an obstacle; a large flatbed truck making a delivery was jutting out into the right lane. It was at the bottom of a short steep hill, so one would not see them from off in the distance, and even close upon it the cars in front of me blocked it from clear view. One or more cars must have veered around the truck, but the Altima directly in front of me came to an abrupt stop. The speed limit for that stretch is 50 mph, and I’m not a slow driver, but I do keep a fair distance behind other cars – something like a car length for every 10mph – and so I was able to stop safely, albeit suddenly, without hitting it. Unfortunately, the Ford behind must have been on my tail because he hit me full force; my rear windshield shattered on impact, the trunk of my car crumpled, and I became the gazillionth person to suffer whiplash, also known as acceleration flexion-extension neck injury, soft tissue cervical hyperextension injury, cervical sprain, cervical strain, or hyperextension injury.
When I got home (amazingly, my car was drivable), my husband thought I should go to the hospital to get checked out, so I phoned my doctor, hoping he’d say “take two and call me in the morning.” He didn’t, and off we went to the ER at 7:30 on a Friday evening. I have heard that at an ER, Friday and Saturday nights are second only to Halloween and full moons; I think it must be true. “There are 34 people in front of you,” the receptionist told me. “It will be about three hours.” They’ve got a pretty good system, but unless you’re bleeding out, it does take forever. First you register and they give you a bracelet. Then you wait. Then comes triage — a nurse makes some notes and you go “back to chairs” to wait some more. Then they took me to the x-ray waiting room, and after snapping four films…”back to chairs.” It was after 11 PM when the receptionist took us down a long hallway into another wing where there were more examining rooms. A really pretty nurse came in to say the doc would be in shortly. I thought that pretty nurses and gorgeous doctors existed only on TV, but I was wrong — the doc was quite handsome. He sent me home with powerful pain killing drugs, a soft cervical collar that he told me use nonstop for the first several days and intermittently after that, and a warning that I was going to hurt, a lot, for more than a few days. “Heat will help a little,” he said, “and I don’t see any fractures on the films. Check in with your doctor on Monday.”
Monday I called my doctor, Tuesday I had a CT scan to check for intracranial bleeding, and today I got around to checking the internet for information. What did I learn, besides the fancy names for whiplash mentioned above? The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons website confirms that symptoms may take several months to resolve, and eMedicine.com, boasting “the largest and most current Clinical Knowledge Base available to physicians and other healthcare professionals” concurs: “Most people recover completely from a whiplash injury in the first 12 weeks. Others’ symptoms continue to improve over the course of a year. You have a 40% chance of experiencing some symptoms after 3 months, and an 18% chance after 2 years.”
Whiplash or not, I’ve got to crack my own whip and get into gear…there’s research to be sorted, interviews to be conducted, and blogs to write before I sleep. Well, maybe a little nap….