UMDF Symposium and other excitement

Well, I've made it to Chicago and back.  My husband, mom, oldest daughter and I all drove to Chicago on Thursday for the UMDF annual symposium.  We returned today, Sunday.  It was an excellent trip.  We all had a great time.

However, I am exhausted.  Not only was it a busy couple of days at the symposium but we also had a little excitement on the way home.  There was a car accident right in front of us on the highway.  Someone pulled a high speed u-turn from one side of the highway to the other right in front of another car.  She had to quickly swerve to avoid hitting them, which put her and her boyfriend's car in a deep ditch at highway speeds.

Well, obviously I couldn't just let my mom keep driving, (not that she would have anyway) not knowing if they needed help or not.  There were others that stopped to help, but I thought my emergency room nurse experience might come in handy. So, I stayed there on the roadside, helping them both until the medics got there.  I was glad I did.  I think I was able to help.

After being on the side of the road, getting up and down to check on both people in the 90 degree heat, I am going to need quite awhile to recover.  That alone probably would have done me in for a few days.  However, I was already struggling to get around after the symposium.  BUT... it was all well worth it.

First of all, the symposium was awesome.  It was so great to learn new things about my disease, but it was even better to get to talk to people going through the same thing.  I have talked to a few people with mitochondrial disease online, but there's nothing like talking to people face to face who are going through, and have gone through, the things that I have.

There is also nothing else like knowing I was able to help someone.  I absolutely loved my job.  I loved being a nurse.  I loved being an ER nurse.  And I loved it because I loved helping people.  I took pleasure everyday in knowing I was able to help someone, even if only in a small way.  I don't know how much I was able to help the two people in the accident today with my nursing knowledge, but I know I was able to at least help in little ways.  Such as calming her down, convincing her to go to the hospital, and reassuring her that her and her boyfriend were going to be okay.

After feeling so useless for so long, I don't care how shitty I'm going to feel for the next week.  My heart and my head feel wonderful knowing that I did something good today.