(no subject)
I tend to only write when I'm really really down, so I guess it's a good thing when I don't write much. I should try to write more often though when things are going good. But this is what's been up with me lately:
I got into a car accident the Tuesday before new years. I was in a rental vehicle (a Chevy something sedan) and stopped in traffic. I was noticing this big SUV stopping behind me too suddenly. He did this a few times, but when I decided I should switch lanes, he rammed into my car going about 30. I walked away nothing more than a little sore and adrenaline pumping for days, but I kept thinking about that SUV coming toward me. It was like slow motion like all the car crashes you hear about, like all the movies you see. I saw it coming and I knew that if I hit the car in front that I might get injured more directly. Instead, I held the break. I still hit the truck in front of me, causing minimal damages to the front exterior, no engine damage, and only a few scratches to the guy's bumper, but my car took all the impact and the most damage. What sucked is that the guy who caused the accident didn't want to file a police report, but I had to for the rental company. I ended up having to do all the leg work to take care of the accident properly. I called work and let them know what happened and that I wouldn't be in to work the next day because I needed to deal with the rental company. That Thursday I went to medical to document that an accident occurred, but I was feeling fine then. They gave me muscle relaxers just in case. It wasn't until the weekend that my lower back and leg started hurting.
I had also gotten into a pretty heavy argument with my mom over the weekend. I don't know if I can blame the medication or if I can blame it on a foul mood, which I had been in for a couple months now anyway. Part of it was money issues, part of it was the stress of training and deployment. The cause of the argument, which I started had nothing more than to do with the fact that I felt like shit so much so that I guess I wanted everyone around me to feel like shit too. But what I chose to argue about was something that should have never ever been brought up. I haven't felt like talking to my mom since and considered never calling her.
That Monday was the first day of grass week to qualify on the pistol and rifle range. I had to be at the armory at 6am and wouldn't be at work all week. Wednesday, when we had gotten out early, I let my staff sergeant know about my back. I had also gone to medical, but the corpsman I don't like much was there. I walked in limping with a bag of pain meds wanting to know what I should take after having developed a new injury. He wanted me to come back during sick call hours and was a little bit of an asshole. It would be nearly impossible to get into medical before the deployment and I clearly needed to be in some sort of physical therapy, so by Friday I was dropped from the deployment officially. I had mixed feelings. I was relieved that I was going to have a chance to heal, but pissed because I had worked so hard to become part of the FET team even if it was only as an honorary one... But POA covering FET?? I worked way too hard for that. Other female marines were envious.
And I did a stupid thing by not dropping from the range right away. I wanted to muscle through it and go to medical first thing this next Monday morning. Shooting is my favorite part. It's relaxing, weird as that sounds, but the first morning of live fire was freezing. The cold caused me to clench my muscles, which caused muscle spasms. I couldn't load my magazines or compose myself when shooting because I was in so much pain. I almost cried, which is not something you do before you are about to fire a weapon in front of marksmen. I was also getting frustrated because the marksmen were impatient. I couldn't do the reload drills fast enough and I realized I needed to be dropped. Now that I wasn't on the deployment I could qualify at a later date.
I decided not to kick myself for this since I'd been kicking myself for a little too long now. It's just really frustrating. Being a Marine, we train all the time. You feel like nothing can hurt you, then something does. You think you can recover, but end up hurting yourself more for not getting help. We're told to suck it up, but then when something's seriously wrong, we're asked why we didn't speak up sooner.
I'm going to medical first thing tomorrow.
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