About a month shy of our fourth wedding anniversary, my husband Raul was in a work-related motor vehicle accident in Salmon, Idaho.
I arrived in Salmon later that evening with my good friend Gabby. Raul's employer, NIFC/BLM, had arranged for a room for us and we stayed at Solaas Bed and Breakfast in the next little town. Them having been able to find a room at all really was a miracle being that all rooms in that area were booked due to the raging fires that had brought my husband up there n the first place. The room became available when the couple who had booked it was not able to come up after all.
In celebration of our third wedding Anniversary just the year prior, my husband had booked a room at Salmon, Idaho's Greyhouse Inn for us and so I had become somewhat familiar with the beautiful drive up and the little town that now holds bittersweet memories for both of us.
As I write, the memory of that day is extremely vivid in my mind.
Driving him home from Steele Memorial Hospital in Salmon the next day we had no idea YET that this accident would result in Raul acquiring what is known as a Traumatic Brain Injury.
Nor would I have guessed that the man that I was driving home that day was not the man that I married almost 4 years ago. At the beginning the changes were there but I was unable to pinpoint exactly what those changes were. It was twenty days later that the real shocker would hit us all and we would discover that Raul not only suffered the mild concussion but a traumatic brain injury.
Nine years have passed and personally, I have experienced a multitude of feelings brought on as a result of the accident. There have been feelings of sadness, of anger, of disbelief, of hope, of helplessness, loneliness, pain, lots of numbness, extreme stress, confusion, frustration and the list goes on...certainly my faith and my faith in God has been challenged.
Monday, August 20, 2007
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