Crash!

And now for something completely ridiculous...

On the SECOND DAY of my new job I was rear ended on the way to work! I mean it was the worst luck EVER! I was slowing down to a stop on the exit ramp. There was so much traffic that the cars wanting to exit were stopping up on the highway still. Well the dude driving behind me (who had cut in super close behind me to begin with) did not see all the traffic??? so he slammed right into me. Since the traffic was starting to stop up on the highway and there is an entrance ramp in the same lane as the exiting one, I was sort of pulling toward the shoulder so people could get onto the highway behind me. Luckily I was not pushed into the car in front of me but I felt my head whip forward and slam back into the head rest as I screamed "NOOOO" at the top of my lungs and slammed on my breaks to try and stop my car. As soon as it stopped I could feel shooting pains in my neck! I got out and went to the back of my car to look at what this jack ass had inevitably done to it. The guy came over and asked if I was ok and to look at my car too. My car seriously looked fine, like maybe a few scratches on the bumper, if that (keep in mind it was 6:45 in the morning, the sun wasn't up and he had turned his car off so the headlights weren't shining on my car). I told him my neck hurt so he insisted on calling 911. I sat in my car and started crying and called Jeremy. He told me that if my neck hurt that I was absolutely to go to the hospital and to not worry about the job, they would understand. I was so worried because I was going to be late on my second day of work!!! Since I am a temp, I only have the phone number for the temp agency and they don't open until 8:00 am. The people at Nestle would have no idea I was going to be late and would just think I wasn't coming back! Thank God for rational boyfriends who can talk you off a ledge when in a shitty situation, I was really freaking out!! When the cops showed up, one came over and stuck his head in the window to ask if I was ok so I told him my neck was hurting. He stood up and yelled at the top of his lungs "NECK!" and then the ambulance guys came running over (they had parked behind the other car so were talking to him first). An EMT guy got in my back seat and held my head straight until another guy showed up with a neck brace. They put that horrid thing on and put me on a freaking stretcher. They took me to the emergency room where I was poked and proded. At some point my pelvis (yes, my pelvis) started hurting at the spot that sometimes bothers me from my previous accident. When I mentioned that, they wanted to xray it as well as my neck to make sure nothing there was injured again. After a few hours, blood work, pee work and the xrays I was declared fine to go home but not back to work for the day. I had to wear that lovely neck brace for the remained of the day. I seriously felt like some kind of shady, cartoon character in that thing! Like I was about to try and sue somebody! I walked out of the ER to get into my sisters car and she couldn't stop laughing at me. I had also been in touch with the temp agency and of course they were understanding. Now all I had to deal with was finding my car (they towed it), the insurance company, getting a rental car, and the cops. UGH!
When I woke up the next morning I was extremely sore on the whole left side of my body, my back, my arm and neck. I called the temp agency and they said I could take that day off as well since apparently every one is usually more sore the next day and she was expecting to hear from me! I also had a horrible pain in my stomach and believed it to be really bad gas (I once went to the ER when I was 18 because I thought my appendix burst but was told it's cholic). I get it every once in a while, essentially I have gas in my stomach and it won't come out. I lay in bed, rub and massage my stomach til I either burp or fart (very lady like as you can imagine) and it goes away after a while. I never really know what it's from but I knew I had eaten a stupid amount at dinner the night before so just thought it was that. However, it didn't go away AT ALL. For the whole day I just kept burping and was all full of gas, it was really uncomfortable. I tried to figure out if I was allergic to anything I ate or drank but mostly just tried to ignore it and deal with all the car stuff. Then Friday morning I woke up with the same horrible pain right under my ribs and was all gassy...again I just thought it must have been something I had eaten. Well by Saturday it hadn't gone away and everyone was hounding me to go back to the hospital because "What if you tore an intestine or something?!??" so I did. Turns out I had an "Inflammed Pancreas". There isn't a whole hell of a lot they do for you with that other than give you some pain killers (not even any good ones) and make you eat a bland diet until it goes away. It was almost another week before I was back to normal AND I found out that my car was MUCH worse off than I had thought. Almost $5000 worth of damage! Essentially the entire trunk of my car "accorrdioned into your back seat" the adjuster said. I still have a damn rental car and won't get mine back until January 8th!!
Of course I am lucky that nothing worse happened and I have had the best experience with all the people at Progressive. They really made everything as easy as possible for me. The rental car isn't too bad either, it does have heated seats but I miss my automatic starter, CD's and the thing I use to listen to Pandora on my phone through the car radio (I hate the normal radio).
Plus...tell me I don't look so silly in that picture!!

Have a great day and drive carefully out there!

Jamie