I'd Give Up The World For You

Daisy Miller woke up with a gasp. Where was she? What was going on? And why on earth was she crying?

She noticed the physical sensations of something being wrong first. She had something on her face under her nose, on her hand, and wrapped around her leg and one of her arms. She was also in a lot of pain when she tried to move.

'What happened to me?' she thought, unable to speak. 

Her vision was a bit blurry at first but as it cleared she realized she was in a hospital bed hooked up to a bunch of machines. She was attached to a ventilator and an IV drip and had casts on her left arm and leg. 

Was the pain why she was crying? She had never been the type to cry over an injury though. There hadn't been anyone who cared when she got hurt so there hadn't been a point. 

These weren't basic watery eyes. They had run all the way down her neck. It was rather uncomfortable but considering how much it hurt to move she didn't think it was in her to wipe them away at the moment. She was stuck. 

Daisy felt like she was missing something. Something big. But what? 

"You're awake!" a nurse exclaimed as she passed by her bed, doing a double take before taking the ventilator out. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got hit by a truck," she said honestly in a hoarse voice.

The nurse actually laughed. "Fitting, considering you were. You were brought in four days ago after a semitruck had faulty brakes and ran a red light. They smashed right into the driver's side door. It's a miracle you weren't worse off. 

"Four days ago?!" 

"Yes but don't worry about work. We got a hold of your emergency contact and they called in sick for you." 

Daisy heaved a sigh of relief that hurt her ribs. At least she didn't have to worry about being out of a job because of this. She vaguely remembered the accident now. A screech, a crunch, and then nothing. 

Four days. How had she been unconscious for four whole days? What happened to her? Everything hurt and she didn't even know what was broken beyond her arm and leg. 

"Thank you," she said fervently. "What's the damage?"

The nurse clucked sympathetically. "Well, you shattered your shoulder and collarbone. Cracked your knee too when it hit the bottom of the dashboard. You might have some whiplash and a concussion too.

"It's strange though…we couldn't detect any brain activity while you were out. We were worried you'd become a vegetable but here you are talking and everything. Oh, and you bruised several ribs as well. 

"It's going to take you quite a while to recover but I can give you a note excusing you from work for the first couple of weeks at least while we wean you off the pain medication. You'll need to stay here overnight for observation. Do you have someone that can take you home and take care of you?"

Take care of her? Ha! Daisy had been taking care of herself for as long as she could remember. Nobody cared about her. She was going to have to do her best to follow the doctor's instructions on her own. 

She was concerned about being able to do that but more concerned about how much all of this was going to cost. Although if a semi-truck hit her while running a red light she should get a pretty penny from their insurance company. That was the silver lining here. 

Would that be enough to cover a motorized wheelchair? Because she would need it with her leg and shoulder like this. Crutches or manually operated ones would be impossible. 

"I can call someone to come get me," Daisy said. 

If her emergency contact—who she had never thought she would actually need to use—had bothered to cover for her at work she should be willing to drive her home from the hospital too. She felt bad disturbing her though.

Her desk mate Bree Harrelson was an overworked mother of three. They didn't talk much but when they did it primarily consisted of Bree complaining about things her kids did or gushing about how cute they were. Honestly, it depended on the day. 

Daisy hadn't had a real emergency contact before her. She used her landlord on her work application and her boss on her rental application. She hadn't thought to ask Bree until they had gotten into the habit of chatting about her children on a regular basis. The older woman had been surprised she didn't have anyone better but agreed. 

Thank goodness she had! If not, Daisy didn't know what she would have done here. Losing her job was not an option. She couldn't afford to waste her hard-earned savings while looking for something else. 

She ended up answering a lot more questions from both the nurse and the doctor about how she was feeling and what symptoms she was experiencing before getting wheeled off to do an MRI. They told her she would have to talk to the police and provide her insurance information for the car accident case as well. Just what she needed while recovering. 

She really wasn't up to car shopping right now but it wasn't like she could drive anyway. She was going to have to take the bus for the foreseeable future since she didn't have anyone she could ask for rides. Which meant she would have to wake up earlier. Joy. 

At least Daisy lived in a building that had an elevator. Otherwise there was no way she would be able to get to her apartment on her own at all. 

Why did this have to happen to her? She had the worst possible luck! 

The discharge instructions she had been given were meant to be used with a helper. She didn't have anyone who could fill that role. She was going to have to find a way to take care of everything she needed to do herself, including caring for her plants. She really hoped that four days without being watered hadn't hurt them too much. 

Ugh, she was not looking forward to the recovery process. She had so much physical therapy ahead of her and she was going to have to take it easy for months. Taking it easy didn't exactly work when you lived alone. 

Maybe if she got a good enough payout from the insurance company she could hire an in-home nurse for the time being. It would be humiliating but at least her plants and the household chores she physically could not do would be taken care of. 

Should she sue the trucking company? She had never sued anyone in her life or even known anyone who had but she needed a new car and it would take months for her to recover. Her quality of life would be seriously affected, she wouldn't be able to work for a while, and she wouldn't be able to take care of herself for the foreseeable future but didn't have anyone to do it for her. 

Daisy needed to look into injury lawyers. Yet another fun thing she had to do. Yay. 

This sucked. Everything about this sucked! Oh, why had she broken up with her boyfriend six months ago? Even if he was a loser he would have been able to help out with a situation like this for a little while. 

Having someone able to give her rides to work would help an awful lot right about now. Or get things for her when she was stuck immobilized. Or push her wheelchair around. 

Ugh. She had gotten this far relying almost entirely on herself but with these injuries she had finally met her match. Was she really going to be able to pull this off for however many months she was stuck in a wheelchair? She was such an active person that being unable to move was the worst sort of torture. 

Daisy was going to have to temporarily find some new hobbies. Maybe she should check out some new shows on Netflix even though she wasn't much of a binge watcher. Or read a whole lot of ebooks since physically going to the library would be too much of a hassle right now. 

Now would be a great time to have friends. The way things were now she wasn't likely to receive so much as a get well card. Forget having anyone visit her to help pass the time. 

She supposed she could always try picking up some new skills too. There were millions of DIY videos on YouTube. She might not be physically capable of doing them any time soon but at least she could study the technique in advance. 

Learning to knit or crochet didn't sound too bad. Neither did perfecting her cookie or cupcake decorating skills. Small car repairs could be helpful too though she already knew how to do a lot of them to help keep her now totaled clunker running. There was endless content to consume on the internet. Hopefully that would keep her from getting too bored. 

Terrible as this situation was, Daisy would be fine on her own one way or another.. She always had been and she always would be.