Good with the bad....

I was not going to blog about this, but a wise person told me that I should write about the good with the bad, and I want to relate the wonderful things that have happened because of an accident, so I thought I should quickly write about what happened over the weekend.

  We crossed the border into Minnesota on Friday afternoon, and we were going to stop for a grocery run, when I hit a bad patch of gravel, along with a cracked and split road surface, resulting in me taking a bad fall. I have no memory of events afterward, but Tino tells  me that he turned around to find me unconscious, tangled up in my bike.  He flagged down help, and as they tried to get me up, I kept going in and out of consciousness, asking where I was and what I was doing there.  That made them call 911.  Long story short, I spent the night in the hospital, after being transported by ambulance to the trauma unit in Marshall, 20 miles away.  They did a CAT scan and found a concussion, a few cracked ribs and also I kept fainting because  I was dehydrated.  I was given iv fluids and monitored overnight...poor Tino sleeping  in a chair beside me.  The next morning, I tried to convince Tino to let me try to continue the trip.  He wasn't sure, and talked of flying home from Minneapolis, until the doctor came in, and told us that if I could keep the pain under control while biking, and if I felt up to it, I could go ahead and try to keep going, after a few days rest, whereupon Tino agreed to let us try.  He had been through the worst of it, since I hardly remembered anything.  

   We realized that I had no clothes to wear out of the hospital, since they had cut my clothes off in the ER in order to take the CAT scan.  When we told our nurse, Deanna, she said we could take her car to get me some clothes at a nearby Wal-Mart, after she tried to find me some clothes to wear in the donation bins.  So I was discharged and Tino drove us to Wal Mart, thankful for this generous nurse, so willing to help us. We were thinking we would take a motel for a couple of nights so I could continue to recover, but we needed to figure out how to get our bikes from the nice people that had stopped to help us the day before. When  we called them, instead of simply getting our bikes to us,they invited us to stay with them for the weekend, so I could recover in their beautiful lakeside home, instead of a motel room.  That is how we met Shirley and Charlie Warren, along with their daughter Tammy, her three kids, their son Brian, his little girl,  and her uncle Howard.  They were all at the house when we walked in, and I found out that they had all been at the scene of the accident, and had been part of the team that had helped us before the ambulance came.  We have spent the weekend with these wonderful people, and we feel like we have found a new family in them.  They have shown us love and care and accommodation far beyond what anyone could have expected.  We are feeling so blessed and overwhelmed with kindness from these gracious people. Thankful and blessed!  God shows His love for us in such wonderful ways!  We try to leave tomorrow, with a 40 mile goal to see how I do.

(Since writing this, we did leave, and made 60 miles the first day, and although a bit sore, I felt pretty good overall. Looks like p2p13 continues!!! PTL)

   Here are some pics from the weekend:

One of the last things I remember....

Swelling down and healing already!

Minimal bike damage...

Reminder about the importance of wearing your helmet, kids!

The scene of the crime.....

Our wonderful hosts....Charlie, Shirley and their son-in-law Blair, and daughter Tammy.

Our angels of mercy and new friends, at their lakeside home.  Thanks you two....you are awesome!