My body jolted upward—slamming into a car windshield. A spiderweb of fractures spread on the windshield beneath me, then I flew 15 feet, skidding across the asphalt.
On a Sunday morning run, halfway across an unmarked crosswalk, my body jolted upward—slamming into a car windshield. A spiderweb of fractures spread on the windshield beneath me, then I flew 15 or so feet, skidding across the asphalt.
Just seconds earlier, I’d completed mile nine of my run with the morning sun glowing on my sweaty face and gravel crunching underfoot. , coming up in a month, I was pushing for an under-four-hour pace. At 26, life was a checklist of attainable goals leading to whatever I set my mind to. This one was the big run: 26.2 miles to match my age.
The man who hit me got out of his sedan. My eyes locked with his, and I recognized a mix of emotions painted on his face: relief that I was alive, but despondency that he’d hit me in the first place. He was on the verge of tears. For a moment, I felt worse for him than me.
Another man at a nearby gas station came running over. He explained to me he was an off-duty paramedic and had already called an ambulance. Pain in my shoulder started to radiate, and I had a few gashes on my face and hands. I clutched my shoulder, wanting nothing more than to finish those last five miles.
It was on my training calendar, and I was so close. I looked ahead at the welcoming trail, shaded by trees. The pain in my shoulder deepened as the initial adrenaline wore off. I tried to will myself to stand, to finish what I’d started, but then my thoughts began to spin, and the world blurred.
My goal shifted to:I’m so glad I didn’t wear my Lululemons today. Only later would I remember that I also had almost brought my toddler on this run, strapping him into the jogging stroller. Instead, I’d left him sound asleep, home with my husband. People moved around me efficiently.
I was polite, cooperative.
“Yeah, all the time,” she said, with a weary smile. No, I said. Morphine was for the seriously injured. I was fine.
It was just a shoulder. I could do with ibuprofen. He entered that room, his eyes round with shock, his mouth trembling. Our 2-year old, in his arms, whimpered, half afraid of me, half reaching his arms for me.
“You’re pretty beat up,” my husband said, voice cracking. “I thought I was going to pick you up with a few scratches and take you to breakfast. ” “According to my Nike app, I ran a mile in 1:51 seconds,” I joked.
“You know, the drive from the scene to the hospital. ”The nurse threatened to put a catheter in, and I willed myself then, with my husband acting as my walker, to hobble to the bathroom.. During my hospital stay, the medical staff shared horror stories with me of patients and friends struck by cars who hadn’t fared as well as I had. They discharged me two days later with pain medication and an orthopedic follow-up.
At home, I stopped taking the pain meds within days. Propped up on the couch in my toddler’s room, my arm immobilized, his small body pressed against mine at night like an anchor, I survived. My husband returned to long hours at work and his internship. My sister and some friends pitched in to help me care for my toddler, but I needed more.
I hadn’t yet learned, at that age, how to advocate for myself. When my male orthopedic doctor asked gruffly why I was still wearing a sling at my four-week follow-up appointment, I wanted to snap back, “Because you’re my doctor and you didn’t communicate with me that I wasn’t supposed to wear it anymore. ” Instead, I shifted my thighs on the exam table, the thin paper crumpling under me, kept my eyes cast down, and shrugged.
Inside, I crumpled, too. Then, when he told me I was healing fine and no longer needed physical therapy, I was nervous to push back, but I also couldn’t justify the expense of the physical therapy I’d been doing: Caring for myself at $100 a session wasn’t a priority.
Then there was the doctor treating my road rash, who held my hand so gently while inspecting my injuries that I felt my throat tighten for reasons I couldn’t explain. I nodded, aware of how young I was and how I was too busy caring for a husband and a toddler to do much for myself.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the accident was the beginning of the long road I’d go on to learn how to prioritize myself. The following January, I ran another half marathon just to prove to myself that I still could. I didn’t train, and had to stretch my I.T. band every mile or so. Afterward a friend texted, “Hey, you really shouldn’t do that to yourself.
Your body needs more consideration—take it from your wizened old friend in her 30s. ”My daughter was born three years after my accident. As a newborn, she became critically ill and spent two weeks in the intensive care unit of our local children’s hospital. For the first few days, I responded the way I always had—with compliance.
But when answers didn’t come, and her condition remained uncertain, something cracked in me. I started asking questions and pushing for explanations. I requested doctors walk me through their thinking—why she wasn’t allowed to nurse, for example. When I won and she latched, it was the first sweet promise that we’d figure this out.
A nurse friend of mine who worked at the hospital watched the change happen in real time.
“When you first got here, you were so compliant with the doctors,” she said. “I love watching you find your voice. ” I found it for my daughter long before I found it for myself. It’s easier, I’ve decided, to advocate for someone you love more than it is for yourself.
Over a decade has passed since my accident, and I often wake up at night feeling my shoulder pinching or aching—the price I pay for not taking better care of myself when I was younger. Ironically, I did finally go back to P.T. last year—for my daughter when she broke her collarbone. We spent two months there, twice a week. For her, I never questioned whether the appointments were worth the time or money.
For myself? I still haven’t gone back. But as I inch toward 40, I’m beginning to realize I deserve the same advocacy I offer my family. When I hiked the Grand Canyon at 35, I thought about my friend’s word of warning to train, so I created a hiking schedule and stuck to it.
A few months ago, I joined a book club. This week, I scheduled bloodwork. Took a yoga class and even foam-rolled afterward. I’m trying to prioritize sleep and eat my greens.
Drink more water. Though I haven’t mastered self-care, I’m slowly learning that my health isn’t something I need to earn after everyone else’s needs have been met. Getting hit by a car at 26 changed my life in a split second. But learning to advocate for myself has taken more than a decade.
Do you have a personal essay you want to share with Newsweek? Send your story to MyTurn@newsweek.com. Kris Ann Valdez is an Arizona native and freelance journalist with essays appearing in Business Insider, HuffPost and Scary Mommy, among others.
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