===THURSDAY, 10/16/14, 3:48 AM===

here's another super fun life update from turner for those of y'all who aren't following me on tumblr/twitter and weren't on the chat earlier

so on our way to dinner earlier tonight we got into a car accident. I don't have any pictures on my phone but my dad's car is pretty much totaled. We were turning left and someone gunned through a yellow light that was about to turn red, so we were going like...2 miles an hour and the other car was going at LEAST 40 or 45, probably 50, though. the car spun around 270 degrees and air bags deployed. At the time I was in the back seat, passenger side, sending a message to the Dr. Mario RU on GFAQs to set up a time for the other blank spot when we got hit, literally interrupting me mid-sentence:
http://i.gyazo.com/bbaae41b6e23122c02d34ebe659bc3e5.png
(the 'imt' is when we got hit, and fortuitously, I sent that message immediately after getting out of the car, so I had a very accurate time at which the accident took place to give to the cops)

My brother and I were in the back seat and we are fine - my knees are a tad scraped up and Tucker has plans to see a chiropractor, but we're just fine. My parents, unfortunately, were lucky but not AS lucky. Because the front of the cars collided, they took the brunt of the impact. My dad's right foot is broken in a few places and he WILL need surgery to fix it with some pins, and my mom's left knee is broken and they're pretty sure her left ankle is broken too, but she likely won't be needing any surgery. Her chest is giving her a lot of trouble, though, since she was actually on the side that got hit, and the whiplash from the seat belt and the passenger airbag is likely to blame. Nothing's broken up there, though, but she can barely sit up more than like...15 degrees without some really bad pain. They're gonna be seeing an orthopedist this week, likely on Friday but maybe tomorrow afternoon, and they'll know more about surgery and all that jazz then, and I'll keep y'all updated.

so for the next few weeks, likely well into December, too, my parents are pretty much out of commission. Thankfully they have 3 grown children (2 of which can drive...really kicking myself for not getting my license STILL because right now it would be REALLY HELPFUL TO HAVE) who can take care of them, so that's what's going on here. If at any point I seem really tense and terse, let me know and I'll do my best to settle myself. I know you can't actually feel your blood pressure, but mine feels sky high right now. So just check me if I'm starting to get snippy, but at the same time, cut me a TEENY bit of slack here and there.

and yeah that's about it on my front for now



===FRIDAY, 10/17/14, 6:12 PM===

so fun updates!

a) my psychiatrist diagnosed me with acute stress disorder caused by the crash - the crash itself wasn't bad, but I keep getting nightmares and shockingly vivid mental images (like if I had any artistic ability, I would be able to draw these perfectly with zero references) of ways it could have been worse, such as:
-my parents getting killed in the crash
-the car catching on fire
-us being in my mom's car, in which my brother would have been in the middle of the back because there's a carseat back there which makes it hard to buckle in the middle so he would have been thrown from the vehicle
-moving the side curtain airbag aside to see my mom dead
-us getting hit by a car that was big, like a suburban or a truck, instead of a sedan

taking care of my parents and stuff like playing nestalgia and crypt of the necrodancer keep me busy so I don't have time to stop and think, but if I ever have a moment when my guard is down, all it really takes is looking at my scraped knees or my parents' broken legs and I just

fall to pieces

like leaving lunch some jackass wasn't paying attention when we were backing out and my dad warned my sister about the car and the tone of voice he used was identical to the tone he had when he told us to call 911 right after the car hit (minus the uh...crippling pain of just being hit by an airbag) and it seriously was like I got transported into one of my nightmares. Elevated heart rate, broke out in a cold sweat, almost threw up, the whole nine yards. I had to have a talk with him when I got home about being careful about what tone he chooses to say things in because that legitimately triggered me just a tad and I can't do that when I need to be up and ready as my parents' caretaker

in every scenario I turn out fine and it's everyone else who was in the car dead so uh, I'm on a new medication for this (fun fact, if I have an erection for more than 20 minutes, I have to go to the ER!) and my psychiatrist set me up with a counselor who specializes in this sort of thing that I see on Monday

b) BOTH of my parents will be getting surgery - my dad's fourth toe is dislocated and can't be moved back into place because there's some plate that the bones rest on that has gotten between the third and fourth toes that makes putting it back into place normally impossible, so that has to be surgically fixed (happening Monday, early afternoon), and while the surgeon is in there, they're gonna pin his middle toe bones back together rather than risk them not healing right, which would mean he'd have to get TWO rounds of surgery. Mom's getting a CT scan on Monday later in the day to see just how screwed up her knee is, as the orthopedic surgeon wasn't able to clearly see the injury, and so he couldn't definitively assess whether or not she NEEDS surgery or not, and right now has left it up to her. I think she'd get it even if she didn't need it, but she could turn out to not have a choice in the matter. That'll require a plate and some screws so that's fun, I guess.

c) guess who has HANDICAPPED PARKING UNTIL APRIL, BITCHESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

and according to my sister, whose in-laws have BOTH gotten knee surgery (in a few weeks her mother-in-law gets her second knee replacement), if Mom does indeed get knee surgery, she gets handicapped parking for the rest of her life

i know it's really horrible to sound happy about that but hey, gotta find SOME silver linings in all this, right?

and God bless her, one of my parents' friends is about to be here with some dinner for us so that's also good