'Bout time for a blog, i'n't it?

I wish you could have been there in the car with me a year ago. Well, that's of course not true. I wouldn't wish that experience on anybody. But I wish you could learn from what happened to me. There are experiences in a person's life that just can't be communicated to another, and that was one of them. The birth of my son is, too. Yeah, everyone hears about how incredible it is to see your child being born, and you hear people telling you to appreciate what you have while you still have it, but that's not just us saying it. Watching Xander draw his first breath was the greatest moment of my life. Nothing even comes close. From the very first instant I saw that beautiful boy I loved him unconditionally. If you're a parent, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and if you aren't you can't possibly. Sorry. I wish I could explain it somehow, but it's one of those special moments that you're either a part of or you aren't.

So my car accident was a little bit like that. Time slowed down, almost stopped, as I realized lightning-quick that I wasn't going to be able to stop the car or regain control of it. I remember swearing and letting go of the wheel and saying a silent prayer that more or less said, "Yo, you got this, Lord." It's weird that in what I thought might be the last seconds of my life I would phrase a prayer like that, but I promise that's the closest translation to what I was thinking. And the car spun around so that I couldn't see the car in front of us any more and then I could see the car behind us and then we went off the road and time went back to regular speed. The flip was a pretty cool ride, especially in retrospect, knowing that I survived it essentially unharmed. I had a moment when my elbow was pressing into my shattered driver's side window that I thought, "Hey, let's do that again."

There were a lot of other thoughts going through my head at the moment, including a massive sigh of relief. After I caught my breath, I wanted to know that both of my passengers were OK, and I'm eternally grateful that they were. I assume the only thing worse than killing yourself in a car wreck is killing someone else and living. I'm struck by the kind-heartedness of people in this world. Before we could really compose ourselves, some Romanian guy that I've never seen since (it turns out I use to work with his sister) was opening the passenger side door and helping us climb out of the wreckage. Another good Samaritan went on ahead and called in the accident to the State Patrol. All three of us got rides home from tired casino employees who surely would rather have been in bed. If anyone who reads this stopped for us that cold, snowy night, thank you. I didn't get a chance to say that to most of you, but you should know that it meant a lot.

My only regret about the accident is that my perspective was only temporarily changed by it. When I finally got home that morning, I was so relieved to see my wife and to know that I had survived to spend another day with my family. I kept a little chunk of windshield glass as a reminder of the day that God decided Xander needed his daddy. Once in a while I remember that, and try to honor that gift by being the best dad that I can, but too often I just get dragged down by the day-to-day. Life is so fragile, and so precious, and I spend so much of my limited resources on attending to my own petty needs, and on dragging other people down in an effort to feel better about myself. That's a tragedy. We should all focus on the positive, and put our energy into pleasing each other, not ourselves. It's the least we can do with this amazing gift we've been given.

So I'll reiterate the advice I gave last Christmas: Hug your loved ones, and tell them how you feel. Merry Christmas, everyone.

A one-eighth pharmacist

So, yesterday was my final final. At about 9:30 am on December 17, I completed the final piece of assigned coursework in my first semester of pharmacy school. And that felt really good. I made it through the semester, passing everything. In fact, I got no grade worse than a B. Given that I worked more than all but one of my peers, I'm pretty satisifed with that outcome. I'm still married, and my son still knows who I am. And now I have a month to just chillax.

So far, pharmacy school both is and is not like I'd expected it would be. For one, there's a lot less structured work. Between tests, most classes don't have anything due. I've written something like five papers, summing not more than twenty pages, and haven't had a single comment made about my ability to communicate. In part that's because I'm a better writer than most of my colleagues, but it's largely because there's no need to count off for little errors or poor word choices. Remember, I'm used to writing for English classes.

It's harder than anything I've ever done academically, but the material is no harder to understand than any of the math or science I've taken before. It's very clear and almost always concrete learning. What makes pharmacy school so hard is quantity. I'm learning more things faster than I ever have before. And it's sticking. A friend of mine is taking Vicodin to help him deal with some hernia pain. I know what that is, I know how often he's supposed to take it, and I know that he can't take Tylenol at the same time. Granted, a lot of people know that who haven't ever taken a pharmacy school class, but I didn't know that coming in and because we studied prescription narcotic analgesics this semseter I do now. I also know how to look up any drugs I didn't know about before, and how to gain useful information from the drug information sources I have available. It's cool to see how quickly I'm learning this stuff.

Over the holidays I'm sure I'll keep blogging. It probably won't be about school again until the next semester starts. I wanted to do my next on-site experiential module over the break, but this is not permitted. So much for getting a head start. I have some other ideas of ways to stay on top of the material, but I might just want to take the month off and be glad for it. I'll try to work some more and save some money so I don't end up in a big financial crisis like I did in October. I also wanted to share some of my feelings about my car accident a year after the fact, but I'll save those for my regular weekly post. That should still be out by Monday morning, if you're looking for it.

Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon.

It's a repost, but it's a good one.

Sorry I didn't post last week. This week is finals, and I haven't found time for it. In fact, this week I'm posting something I wrote a year ago. A year ago today I was in a pretty serious car accident, and miraculously nobody was hurt. Shortly after the accident, I posted this to my facebook:

For those of you who don't know me as well, I work at one of Colorado's "historic" mountain casinos, The Lodge (built in 1998). It's not THAT far into the mountains (20 miles from Golden, Denver's Westernmost suburb) but it is three thousand feet higher and most of the roads that take you there are windy canyon roads.

On Saturday it snowed all night. I carpool with two other people and we work until close (2 am). The first major snow of the year always freaks people out and inevitably the main canyon road, highways 6 and 119, closes due to accidents. Often it closes during every snow. Sure enough, on Saturday night there was a fatality that closed the canyon for several hours. This being a Saturday night, the "back-up" way home was backed up all the way into Black Hawk. There's a third way, Golden Gate Canyon Road, that most customers don't know about. It's used primarily by employees and primarily in weather like we had on Saturday. So I put the Montero in 4WD and had at it.

Golden Gate Canyon Road is safe. It's windier than 6/119 and sees a lot fewer plows, but I've gone that way at least a dozen times in weather far worse. It's never been a problem in the past. It wasn't a problem most of the way down on Saturday. There were four or five cars (including mine) in a little line of traffic. I was second behind an enormous pickup truck. We were three miles from the mouth of the canyon (i.e., almost home) and at that point my car hadn't even slipped or slid the entire time. But on a little patch of ice as we came around what was just a slight bend, my car started to spin out.

I never was very good at getting out of a spin. I tried, but quickly realized I wasn't going to be able to do anything but make it worse. I took my feet off the pedals and threw up a quick Carrie Underwood-style "Jesus, take the wheel." (Okay, what I actually said was more like, "Oh, shit," but same idea.) We drifted right as our back end spun around until we went off the road and down a moderate embankment into a ditch. If I had to guess, I'd say we went down 10 to 15 feet. We also rolled over all the way and then another quarter turn and came to rest on the driver's side in a wide, flat ditch. There was a lot of glass everywhere.

My first thought, with my elbow in the snow, was, 'I think I'm actually OK.' From the back seat, Brett asked if everyone was. Aside from the fact that she was hanging from her seatbelt, Melissa was, too. "Hey Dorn," Brett suggested, "Can you turn off the engine?" Even after all that, the car was still running. Melissa managed to open the door with her feet, and Brett had all the room in the world to stand up, so they quickly climbed out of the car. At that point a lot of cars had stopped and people - some I knew, some I didn't - were helping us out and down safely to the ground. Someone threw down a rope and we climbed out of the ditch. Two cars of coworkers who had stopped gave us rides home. In the end, I had a scratch on my wrist and two on my nose. Melissa had a bruise and a scratch across her abdomen. We were all a little sore in the neck and shoulders. But we all walked out of there, and if you've seen the pictures you know how big a miracle that is.

I don't know, and probably never will know, what caused us to lose control like that. I don't know how I had the serenity to let go and enjoy the ride, as it were. There wasn't really any panic in my thought process, and the rolling was actually a little fun. What I've had the most trouble with, though, is the hand of God on the car that night. Just about any other spot on that road leads to a solid wall of trees or a much deeper drop-off or both. If Melissa hadn't been wearing her seat belt, we'd had carried her up the embankment. We even had cars directly behind and in front of us, and most of the people who stopped were coworkers. I kept a small piece of glass (there were plenty) from my window. It's a reminder of the night that God decided Xander still needed a daddy.

Don't take your lives for granted. Buckle your seat belts. Keep your eyes on the road. Thank God every day you wake up for another chance to be with the ones you love. This Christmas, give big hugs to your family. You never know when you might lose them.