Yesterday was a terrible day that ended with a B"H.
The story starts earlier this summer, when we agreed to take our daughter Beth's dog Sofia to stay with us while Beth was in transition. Beth was leaving a house with a backyard for a tiny apartment for 3 months until she figured out her next step.
Sofia was rescued by Beth 6 or 7 years ago from the animal shelter in Jackson, MS. At that time, Sofia, a white Husky mix, was somewhere between 1 and 4 years old. No way to tell. She'd been living on the streets for some time. Her digestion was delicate and she was likely to throw up at a moment's notice. Nevertheless, she was the most affectionate and loving dog and a good, quiet companion for my city-dwelling daughter.
A couple weeks before we picked Sofia up from Mississippi and brought her north with us, she had stopped eating, lost weight, increased vomiting. The vet gave her some antibiotics, said, maybe it's cancer, maybe it's an infection, we'll see... and Sofia had improved somewhat.
We had her for about a month. Then, last week, she stopped eating, refused water, extremely lethargic, vomiting multiple times per day. We took her yesterday to our vet, who referred her to a specialist, and we spoke with Beth at length on the phone before together making the extremely difficult decision with the vet to let her go. Ken and I stayed with Sofia and stroked her during her injection and brought her home to be laid to rest next to our beloved Stormy. Very hard, very low.
By the time we got home, it was about 8:00 pm. About 9:00 pm we got a phone call from our son Adam. He had been speaking to Beth on the phone while she was driving (I KNOW, I KNOW!) when he heard her say OH SHIT! and then heard THUMP THUMP THUMP and then no response from Beth and then he heard some other voice saying, are you okay? are you okay?
He called us asking us to call her, to call her boyfriend to see if Danny knew about where she would be on this road trip. So Ken and I are making a flurry of calls, trying to reach her or Danny or someone in Mississippi...
Then AN ANGEL, a MENSCH of a truck driving man called us on our land line while Ken was talking to Adam again to get the full scoop-- at this point I don't know about the OH SHIT or thump THUMP THUMP, just can see by Ken's breathing this is NOT GOOD.
The truck driving MENSCH was with Beth. Most importantly, he said, SHE'S OKAY, although very shaken. I went and called Adam to relay that this all I know right now, but she's OKAY and I will call with more later when I know.
Through a series of phone calls with the MENSCH, the Rescue Squad, the hospital, and T-G-d Beth! we learned this:
As she was driving, a deer ran out in front of the SUV she was driving. Direct quote from two independent witnesses: the deer EXPLODED.
Hitting the deer caused the 18-wheeler driving behind Beth to hit Beth's vehicle from behind.
The impact of the 18 wheeler caused another 18-wheeler to hit Beth's SUV from the front.
This caused the first 18-wheeler to hit the SUV AGAIN.
The SUV was torn in two.
The only undamaged place was the driver's seat.
And another miracle: Beth got out of the SUV and WALKED AWAY.
The rescue squad took her to the hospital to check her out; the truck-driving angel FOLLOWED her and kept in touch with us and called us from the hospital.
By now, we had reached Danny- and so had the truck-driving angel- and he was on his way the 1 and1/2 hours to the hospital. By the time he got there, the doctors had run CT scans and X-rays and heaven knows what-all and were confident that she was well and took off the neck brace.
And said she could go home.
And Danny drove her home; very slowly, Beth said, because she was really not happy being in a car at that point.
All through this, we were giving Adam updates as we got them.
I am so grateful; I am so frustrated that we live so far apart.
I am so grateful, so grateful, so grateful.
