When I was barely eighteen years old, I rear-ended a lady’s vehicle with mine. We had both been stopped at a stop sign and when I thought she was pulling into the intersection, she, instead, put on her brakes. This stupid act of irresponsibility (on my part) caused a year-long, life-changing drama to unfold. Having never been in an accident before, I had no idea what to do. Right after vehicle contact, we pulled into a parking lot across the street and I got out and asked if she was ok. She stated yes and I checked both vehicles for damage and found none. My brother had been in my passenger seat and based on how close his head was to the windshield and the fact that he had a baseball hat on, backwards, his head hit the windshield and caused a crack. He was not injured, though, and there was no other visible damage. So, I (being young and ignorant) left the scene. This incident then turned into a year long process of being sued and brought to court, with a full-on jury and me getting on the dreaded witness stand. This girl was suing me for over fifty thousand dollars. She claimed to have severe injuries, though doctor’s couldn’t prove this and stated that any pain or strain in her shoulder/neck area was quite possibly due to her topless-dancing-waitress job. She also claimed to have extensive damage to her vehicle, though she could not produce one picture or receipt proving this fact. The jury found in my favor and even had her pay my lawyer’s fees. Based on this experience and from that day forward, I vowed to never put anyone through the pain of a lawsuit.

That is, until three months ago, when our family/van was rear-ended. Instantly, I had family members stating I could “get millions” and that maybe this was God’s way of providing a better financial situation for our family. In shock and disgust at the materialism of it all, I wrote off all of the superficial comments.

However, I never thought that this accident would turn my life upside down like it has been. I never realized that my children and my husband, my house, my physical body and psyche would be as negatively affected as it has been. Several times, I’ve felt like my pain, from my torn discs and protrusions, would be never ending. On several occasions I wished I wasn’t a stay-at-home mom and that I could take “normal” sick days from work. For three months, I’ve been in pain, almost every day. For several weeks, I was in physical therapy a couple of times a week. I never realized how hard it would be to coordinate car rentals and car repairs and physical therapy and MRIs, XRAYs, insurance phone calls, and coordinate medical billing, all while managing a house and three children. It’s been intense. Overwhelming. I’ve never felt as unraveled and disheveled as I’ve been for the past three months. To make matters worse, after two weeks of being nearly pain-free I developed shingles. Dear God. Having this for the last two weeks has been a serving of intense that I wouldn’t have dreamed on my worst enemy. Also, the claims adjustor for the at-fault insurance company told me, over three weeks ago, that she would have a settlement quote for me exactly three weeks ago, today. She’s been on vacation while making me believe she’d be working on my case and she’s stated that she’s had “all medical records” only to make me wait for days while she tracked down more medical records. That’s happened twice now. Three weeks ago, I was done. I just wanted to close this case and move on with my life. I wanted to move past the point of medical offices and hospital providers contacting me for payment. I wanted to move past the paranoia of making notes and saving files on EVERYTHING regarding this case. I wanted to move past the fear and shock of having a laptop, full of pages of notes on this accident, possibly being on a dead hard-drive and not retrievable. I wanted to start all over and allow my children to again see, the carefree mom that loved to find ways of making them laugh and smile every day. I just wanted to be compensated for the money that I was already out and to pay off the $15k+ in medical bills.

I’m not the only one that was affected by this accident, though, and I see that now. So, after three months of dealing with the chaos of it all, I contacted a lawyer’s office this week. I don’t know what the outcome will be but I know I need to start with getting a second opinion. I just hate that I have to be so close to the line that was so wrong, years ago.