Waking up unaware

INDIANOLA, Neb. - We used to raise hogs on our farm which I’ve detailed before. They were a lot of work but were a great cash flow for a growing family.  Farmer Tom and Larissa had taken a truck full of hogs and the two younger kids and I had driven a pickup trailer full that we delivered to a sale barn in Curtis. 

I don’t remember what day it was; only that the kids were not of school age yet.  I know that Seth was an infant as he was in a car seat.  We had been getting rain in the last few weeks, so the county roads were rutted deeply.  I remember passing a road grader on the way home that morning but most things after that are still a blur.

Somehow my trailer had jack-knifed and propelled our pickup into the ditch.  It appeared to have rolled, but I can’t be sure.  The neighbor had driven upon our accident, and he told me later that he had asked me how many children we had, and I had told him three.  He had located two kiddos but could not find a third.  He said I wasn’t very coherent, so he didn’t know what to do.  About that time, Farmer Tom and Larissa drove up and told him that all the kids were accounted for.  The fear that one of the babies was under the wreckage was put to rest.  

Farmer Tom told me days later that he and his little brother took me to the emergency room and they both thought I had lost my mind.  Evidently, I had X-rays and I don’t know what all, but I do remember waking up in the hospital with the baby in a crib beside me.  It just so happened a male nurse that came into the room was someone I recognized.  He told me I had talked to him several times throughout the day, so he was weirded out when I told him I didn’t remember how I got there.  

This was the second time in my life that I woke up from sleep and didn’t know how I had been put to bed.  One would probably say I have had several major concussions.  In nursing school, I was the only person our instructors had ever seen that had a positive Babinski reflex.  For those of you that have never heard of this, it is a response elicited when the sole of the foot is stimulated with a blunt instrument and when the foot splays upward it can signify disease of the spinal cord and or brain.  

So ... that must be what is wrong with me!  I’m sure everyone that knows me has always wondered.  Anyway, when I say I’m a candidate for dementia, it’s probably a huge possibility!!   Ha Ha!

Have a Good One!