It was a fucking wreck. Literally. Part of me wonders what I did with the pictures of that car what was left of that car.

It was a '96 Camaro, and it wasn't even mine. We had recently bought it for my then-husband's baby's momma. What the hell I was doing driving it that night, who knows? We were really screwed up like that.

I do know that it was one of the few times in my life I would have come up clean in any tox screen given to me. So that wasn't why it happened.

It happened because I wasn't as great a driver as I used to like to think I was.

We had the t-tops out.  I had no seat belt on, and it had just started to rain. It was rush hour in the metropolitan Atlanta area. I was, as usual, Mario-Andretti-ing it down the interstate. I did that a lot, weaving in and out of traffic. I drove it like I stole it, whatever it was, wherever I was driving it.

Problem was, I was only good at that shit as long as nothing went wrong. I had no clue how to react if anything went wrong at high speeds.

And it went horribly wrong that night.

We were in the hammer lane running at hammer lane speeds (95mph or so) when a pick-up truck cut us off and the driver slammed on his brakes. I jerked the wheel right to go around him, and that is the last thing I remember clearly for a couple of days.

I remember digging my stash of dope out of my pocket and burying it in the mud beneath me on the side of the interstate.

I remember lying on the board, on a stretcher, in the ER, waiting for imaging; bitching about how the damned board was so uncomfortable under my head. They wouldn't put anything under it because they didn't want to move my head or neck. They finally relented after enough bitching and promising I would lift my head straight up without turning to either side. They slid a folded pillowcase under the back of my head. It felt a little more comfortable.

I remember bitching about how I was thirsty (morphine will do that to you). They wouldn't give me any water because they said I had to go to surgery and had to have an empty stomach. Some poor orderly or nurse finally relented and gave me a small amount of orange juice. It tasted like nectar from heaven.

I remember my then-husband holding my hand, explaining that I was about to go up to surgery. I remember telling him, "I don't wanna have a operation" and him telling me that I had to have the operation to have my fingers sewn back on. He says I told him, "I'll go to the operation."

Next thing I remember is this good-looking guy sitting next to my hospital bed, I think the next day, telling me his name and that he had reattached three of my fingers to my left hand. There were pins sticking out of the bandages.

I remember telling my then-husband to go home and sleep.

I remember cursing my mother, brother, and, I think, even my sister the next day. I could NOT tell you why.

They didn't want me to take a shower because they were afraid I'd fall. I wanted that shower more than anything in the world, because the dried blood on the side of my head and face was itchy as hell. My then-husband finally injected himself into the argument, unfolding all 6'4" and 220 pounds of himself from his chair and asking the nurses, "Do I look like I am going to let her fall?" They let me have the shower. It felt like heaven.

They sent me home five days early because that shower showed them I would be ok, that I was getting better faster than they expected.

I remember going back to have the pins removed several weeks later. I remember how bad that shit hurt. I made them stop just after they started, so I could go to the bathroom. In the bathroom, I chewed a couple of valiums. They didn't help. I was told that people could hear my screams in the next wing.

I also remember my shock when I read the discharge summary. "Non-displaced fracture of the left transverse process of T1." I remember asking my chiropractor if that meant what I thought it meant. It did. I had broken my neck. Luckily, when the vertebra cracked, the pieces didn't move.

Some time later, we finally pieced together what must have happened. The car flipped end-over-end at least one and  a half times (it landed upside down) and rolled side-over-side at least a couple of rolls. We are guessing that I reached up and grabbed the support over the windshield and held on. When the car landed upside down the first time, my fingers were severed.

I was found at the base of a tree about 40 feet from the car. I must have broken my neck when I hit the tree and then slid down. Apparently, I went flying through some tree branches, too, because there are still small scars on the left side of my face, my left ear, and my neck. That tree also broke my shoulder, which never healed correctly.

In spite of the fact that it was one of the few times in my life I would have had a clean tox screen, I walked away from the incident with a DUI conviction. They say I refused a tox screen. I don't even remember being asked to take one. I could have beat that DUI at trial. I plead guilty to that DUI to get them to drop all of the other shit that they had charged me with.

All the shit I was guilty of: reckless driving, too fast for conditions, no seat belt, a host of other assorted driving offenses, and endangering a juvenile (the 17 year old who was belted into the passenger seat, who, thankfully, walked away with only a couple of bruises on her hand). Had I taken the DUI to trial and won, I would have probably lost on all the other shit, and they would have fucking nailed me to a cross at sentencing. The DUI was the lesser of the two evils.

I also remember those pictures of what was left of that car, even if I can't remember where they are. I was probably better off without the seat belt on (the exception, not the rule) because the driver's side of that car was demolished.

I remember that everybody thought the injury to my left hand would stop me from playing pool. It improved my game, because I had to think harder about what I was doing since my left hand no longer functioned exactly like a left hand should. I had lost some range of motion in one of the fingers that had been severed. People also thought it would fuck up my typing. It did until I developed a new rhythm and figured out the easiest way to reach the "e", "d", and "c" keys without the use of that middle finger.

It didn't slow me down too much, and I never thought of it as a disability.

The pain from the neck injury was nothing new. I had already been dealing with neck and back pain from a previous automobile accident. I was used to that, so it wasn't a "disability" either.

More than a decade later, the neck pain bothers me. Horribly. I hope they don't take my medication off the market like they did that other one. The medication helps enough that I can function rather well. The alternatives to killing myself slowly with high-powered NSAIDs are narcotics, and as a recovering addict, I'm not willing to go there. Yet.

Even with the pain, and how the shoulder injury limits my strength in my left arm, I didn't think of myself as disabled.

I was talking about the accident-related injuries with Aunt Becky one day, and she says "You should write about it!" Well, I didn't say no, because I can't say no to Aunt Becky. But I didn't think about it much after that conversation.

Until the Band put out a call for items for an auction to raise funds to pay the filing fees to obtain federal not-for-profit status. I was working on a bracelet to donate. It was going to be a multi-stranded, beaded bracelet in a 70s color palette (read: autumnal colors, oranges, browns, earthy light greens, golds) done in those tiny little seed beads.

It was hard, y'all. My hand wouldn't grasp the beads well, I was having trouble because of the lack of dexterity in my left hand, and I just didn't see how I could get it done in a timely manner. I was ready to cry.

Well, there's a solution when I feel like that. I turn to the Band. So here's me, admitting that I have a tiny bit of a disability. And here is me, admitting that it does limit what I physically can do sometimes. There can be no denial after that attempted bracelet.

This is also me refusing to let it get me down. Because I might be limited in what I can do sometimes, but I am not "less than." And when it does make me want to feel sorry for myself, or feel "less-than," I think of the Band. I think of the power we have found in kicking stigmas in the taco. I think of the power we have found in each other.

As much as I wish I could say I am working towards finishing the tiny little seed bead bracelet, I cannot. I had to pack away all of the beading supplies because we thought we might have to evacuate the magic bus to escape out of control forest fires a mere 8 miles up the road. I put away the tiny little seed beads and broke out the big beads and made a chunky beaded choker necklace that I would totally wear. I hope somebody else thinks she would totally wear it, too.

I didn't let my physical disability stop me from contributing. Now, if I could just overcome that crippling emotional disability that tells me "Nobody is going to bid on your item; it's stupid."

But that's an issue for another post.