Helping Michael Home

We all know deep in our hearts that tomorrow is never promised. But until we are faced with utter tragedy, we don't really KNOW just how quickly those whispers of promises can be taken away from us. On January 17th, 2024, the recklessness of one man altered the life of our family, possibly forever.

On January 17th, 2024, my husband Michael walked out the door to his office and prepared to go to his regular bus stop. It was a Wednesday, and he was heading home, not only to me, but to teach a class of writers at my studio, AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop. Wednesday night is his favorite night of the week. He enjoys this class, filled with writers of all sorts.

When Michael got to the intersection that he had to cross to get to the bus stop, he stopped, looked left, then right, then left again. He waited for the light and he stepped carefully into the crosswalk. Michael is probably the world’s best pedestrian. He was always terribly afraid of being hit by a car; he often had nightmares about it when he slept, for the whole almost 25 years that we’ve been married.

And that’s exactly what happened.

A minivan made a left turn, going around 30 miles per hour, and it didn’t hesitate or stop. The minivan plowed right into Michael. Michael fell up onto the hood, slammed against the windshield, and then dropped to the pavement. The minivan then ran him over.

To this day, now just over a month later, I don’t know how Michael survived. He was transported by ambulance to the closest hospital.

Michael has multiple skull fractures, a fracture of the T-10 vertebrae in his back, and a traumatic brain injury. Amazingly, he had no other broken bones or injured organs, although his body was covered with deep bruises, cuts, and scrapes. The skin on one knee was so shredded that it took a month before the scab, the size of a jar lid, fell off. He will always have scars.

In the month since the “accident”, Michael has been in the ICU twice. He had to wear a cervical collar to protect his neck and head. He had an NG tube running from his nose to his stomach to feed him. When he sits up at a greater than 30-degree angle, he has to wear a back brace to protect the healing vertebrae. Michael will walk again, but for now, he hasn’t set foot on the ground since right before he was hit by the minivan.

With the brain injury, Michael is in and out. It took over a week for him to keep his eyes open enough to indicate that he recognized me. It took almost two weeks for him to say my name, and to call our daughter by her nickname, Booger. Today when I visited him in the hospital, he knew it was me. But by the time I left, he thought I was his sister. He hallucinates about invisible people, some living, some dead. And yet other times, he zeroes in on us and asks about the accident, wonders how work is going, how the dog is, and the location of his wallet and phone.

The prognosis at this time is not set. He could have a full recovery. He might not. We just don’t know.

The driver of the vehicle is 76 years old. He was driving a sixteen-year-old minivan. His insurance company has declared him 100% responsible for this “accident”. And he had only minimal insurance – he’s covered for $50,000. Because he doesn’t own much, there is every possibility that he’s going to walk away from this “accident” without having to pay a single bill.

I always thought that when a person was fully responsible for a horrific accident he then became also fully responsible for the medical bills. This isn’t true. If there’s nothing to sue him for, the bills come right back to me and Michael. We will have to pay for something that isn’t even remotely Michael’s fault, and that has caused devastating damage to Michael. It has also caused devastating damage to me, to our daughter, and to Michael’s stepkids, as well as our granddaughter.

I keep putting quotes around “accident”. While this man didn’t intentionally hit Michael and run him over, the term “accident” just doesn’t seem big enough. This is a disaster.

Michael is 59 years old. He is a loving and giving husband, a loving and supportive father and stepfather. We will have been married for 25 years in October. He is an accountant by career and a writer by passion. His first love was old time radio, and I met him when he asked me to help him learn how to go from radio scripts to short stories. Michael’s radio plays have been produced internationally, he’s had many short stories published, and three novels. He loves the mystery and horror genres.

Seeing him now, not knowing what’s going to happen, is the hardest thing I’ve ever been through.

Michael and I met online, when we each signed on to the internet for the first time within 24 hours of each other. We both immediately searched for a writers’ chatroom, went there, and talked to each other on that first night. We both felt something, but didn’t know it would lead to a 25-year marriage and the birth of our daughter. We’ve both watched in awe as my two sons and a daughter from my first marriage, and then our own daughter, grew up under our care. Now, I dream of being by his side as we watch our granddaughter grow.

Tonight, Michael told me over and over again how scared he is.

So am I. He’s already been in the hospital for a month, and the next step is rehab. I have no idea how long his recovery is going to take. I can’t sleep at night for worrying about the cost.

It is very hard for me to ask for help. But I know I need to. I feel like an angsty fifteen-year-old when I shout and cry, “But this just isn’t fair!”

It’s not.

And so I have to do something about it. Asking for help is the first thing.