The Accident

February 22 2012, my mom and dads 20th anniversary. It was 15min before my skating lesson, and I was practicing my sit spins or a flying sit. I accidentally slipped off the back of my blade and fell on the side of my head. Everything went black if only for a few seconds, the next thing I knew somebody was picking me off the ice and almost everything was black except for a couple colors. Being that I could hardly see, I almost slammed into a wall. Somebody helped me sit down so I could try to regain sight. One of the skaters moms offered to call my mom, but I told her I could do it. After I phoned my mom so she could come and get me, my coach came over asked me how I was. I told her what happened, and she offered to call the ambulance since I still wasn't seeing right. My eyes felt like a kaleidoscope, I kept seeing all of these colors. After about 10 minutes of sitting in the cold with a throbbing headache, my mom finally came. Mom and I rushed to the nearest hospital in Oxnard, but they were very busy so she took me to the Camarillo St. Johns Hospital where it wasn't full and the wait was only about 15 min. Now, 15 minutes to me felt like 15 hours since my head hurt, I was feeling nauseated and my balance was off as well as my eyesight. Finally, they called me back to do some tests, like what were my symptoms, blood pressure, height, weight, and stuff? After that was done, I had to wait about and hour or two until the could give me a CT scan. After the CT scan we had to wait another hour or so for the results. Until then, my eyesight was getting better but my head still hurt like crazy. Since all the rooms were full, I had to sit in an exam room where they had to roll in a bed so I could lay down.
 Then the results came. I had a 3mm bleeding on the left side of my brain. I fell on the right side, so I had to have hit the ice pretty hard to be able to make my brain bleed. Anyway, the doctor wanted me to stay overnight at a hospital with a neurosurgeon that could monitor me throughout the night. Turns out they had to transport me to a hospital with the equipment and the doctors. They would have kept me there, but every hospital in the area was full, UCLA, Northridge, and everything other hospital was completely full. so after about an hour of making phone calls, the nurse finally told us that there was a room open at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara. I was transported by ambulance with this really nice paramedic named Adrian. She was very kind and sweet. By the time we got there it was about 12:00 in the night(or is it morning?)and they put an IV in my arm so they could put anti-seizure medicine so I wouldn't have a seizure (obviously). Once I got into the room, they hooked me up to all of the monitors and told me that every hour they would have to wake me up and ask me questions. I only remember being woken up about 2 times. On Thursday morning they finally gave me the go to go ahead and order food from the menu, so I ordered some yummy french toast and orange juice. Before they could discharge me, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist and speech therapist had to come in the room to test me like talking, answering questions, and walking around. After I passed all the tests, the nurse came in with three toys, an Elmo with a magnet pen, a 50th anniversary Barbie and a little Einsteins doll. He told me to pick two toys, so I picked the Elmo,(for pastime) and the Barbie.
I was finally discharged at around 3:30pm, and we drove all the way back home. But it was a very nice drive since it was on the coast. We stopped at a little town named Summerland to get some fresh air and to walk around. The ocean air felt so good on my weary face. After about 10 minutes, we got back into the car and drove all the way home. I was very tired for the next few days, but on Monday, I was able to visit the rink for a couple minutes. Everybody was so concerned, it was so sweet. My coach came up and gave me a get well card and some balloons tied to a hockey puck. On the way home I opened the card and I was 6 pages long filled with sweet notes and signatures. I started to cry, I had no idea so many people cared about me.
Some of my other friends came and visited me at home too. I love my friends so much.
Over the past 3 weeks, although I have been feeling much better, I still can't jump around or dance (trust me I tried it and I ended up with a massive headache for the next 3 days) or do anything that raises my blood pressure to much. Last night I had an emotional breakdown. I was so done with not being able to do anything, done with having headaches, and done with staying at home all day. But this morning I'm feeling much better. I'm ready to begin a new day and live again.