So everything on my last post was pretty straightforward and self explanatory, except for the last two I suppose, because people have been IMing me asking what in the world happened. It's not, "How were the strippers in Vegas?" or "Wow.. congrats on the promo!" or even "Finally, you got a new car!".
Yes..I was a bit into myself there for a second.
It's mostly been, "How/when/where/etc did you get into an accident?"... "And WTF happened with your sense of smell?"
So to alleviate the need to IM people with the story multiple times (yes, i almost put the story in notepad for me to copy/paste to people), I'd rather blog about it. Bear with me on the background facts.
So last Tuesday, coincidentally, the shuttle forgot to pick all the San Mateo people up. I guess the driver was in his/her zone and went straight from SF to Mountain View. 5 or 6 of us stood there waiting, only for one of the guys to get a call from someone else on the shuttle to inform him. He then told us and we all piled into cars and carpooled to Mtn View. I knew I had to be home early so I volunteered to drive in. That all worked out fine. On the way home, though, things started getting yucky as they usually do in Palo Alto on 101. I slowed down and waited for traffic to pick up again, thinking in my head to myself "dude, this guy in front of me sucks. his tail lights don't work. Thank gawd, I noticed people were slowing down and stopped in time. Pheww!" I looked up at the rear view mirror and within seconds realized that the guy behind me was trying to brake and wasn't slowing down anytime soon. I braced for the shock (apparently the worst thing I could have done), got slammed into, and was then sent slamming into the car in front of me. Almost immediately, I was pretty dazed and dizzy. Bleh. I had a headache and debated between acting on my emotions or just seeing if everyone was okay. I chose the latter, after sitting there a few minutes and safely moving over to the shoulder. The other two drivers were fine and I seemed pretty okay so I finally got out of the car to exchange information with the two other guys. The guy behind me tells us that he didn't realize people were slowing down and couldn't stop in time. (Sounds like a familiar feeling from way back when.) He didn't really apologize. Instead, he's like, "Oh well, that's what insurance is for.. to take care of issues like this." Again, I was ready to act on my emotions and deck him for being snide but I played it cool. I headed home, called my pops to tell him what happened, and rested up.
That night, while I was sleeping, I woke up to sharp pain in my neck and my head.I couldn't find a comfortable spot so I had to sit up for a while and fall asleep that way. Basically, I didn't sleep much so I went to the chiropractor the next day to get checked out.
As for the sense of smell deal, that's just plain weird. The next night after I got into the car accident, my roomie tried to give me some herbal meds to help me sleep. (Yes, they were really meds..not what you think!) She warned me that they were really stinky though so I'd just have to plug my nose when I took them. She popped a few on my palm and naturally I tried to smell them after her warning. They didn't smell like anything at all. "She had to be joking with me," I thought to myself.
Almost like I was the weird one, she gave me this look like I was on crack after I told her I couldn't smell anything she was talking about. She takes out some perfume. I can't smell it. I run downstairs to smell anything and everything. Nothing. I sleep on it, thinking I'm probably just stuffed up. I wake up and run downstairs to smell coffee grinds. Nothing again. At this point I was starting to freak out so I called my aunt, an ENT doctor and tell her about my accident and the symptoms I had been feeling - ringing in my ears, nonstop headaches, no sense of smell, etc. She explains
sheering to me. Almost immediately, she asks me to come in to see her and her associate, as well as to see a neurologist. Apparently, the two work hand in hand to figure these types of things out.
It's a full week later and I still can't smell anything. I've had a couple of random teases, where I'd smell a really random thing (ie cleaning supplies in a movie theatre instead of the popcorn) for a few seconds. Outside of that, my taste is pretty jacked too. Everything's either bland or sour to me. I even tried something super spicy tonight at dinner and that didn't even affect me.
I'm tempted to almost blame the shuttle or the guy behind me but bleh, crap happens. It could have been worse. TB's pretty messed up, but still drivable. I'm still sore and can't sit comfortably for long periods of time, but slowly I'm starting to heal thanks to the wonderful Dr. Eva. And I guess we'll see if I can smell anytime soon.
