Monday, September 12, 2005

New blog design was therapy

If you’ve been here before you may have noticed I changed the design. In a moment of clarity I opened up the template, looked in and by some twisted stroke of luck it all seemed to make sense to me. I had experimented before with blogger templates but it wasn’t pretty. This is the first time I was actually able to change the whole thing to my liking.

Here’s the thing it’s been a really stressful weekend in the House of Mia. My younger brother Matthew is developmentally disabled and even though we're really protective of him as a family, my mother has always insisted that Matthew lead a "normal" life with us watching from the sidelines just in case. The end result is that Matthew is an extremely independent and smart kid. Matthew is actually my uncle, my mother’s youngest brother. He’s a month shy of his 20th birthday. My grandmother died several hours after giving birth to him and my parents have raised him ever since. It confuses a lot of people in that he calls me his sister and his real brothers his brothers even though I call his brothers my uncles and him my little brother. Confused? Don’t be, it works for us.

Matthew was riding his bike home around 9 pm or so when he felt kind of light headed. Next thing you know he was getting up from the pavement looking like he had been beaten with a bat. He managed to walk into a store and ask for ice he couldn’t understand why people were looking at him like he had a third head. Someone gave him some ice and told him they didn’t want any trouble. Matthew then walked to the corner pay phone and called his older brother for help. My uncle went and picked him up and took him to the nearest hospital. When his 10 pm curfew hit my mom got worried. She was asking me to key him up with my nextel when my uncle walked in and told her that Matt had been in an accident.


We weren’t ready for what we saw or what we found out afterwards. Matt’s face has multiple fractures, all of front teeth save for one on top and one on the bottom are gone. What remains are little nubs, they are all shattered. He has 2 separated shoulders and a broken collar bone. Now they are telling us the fractures to his face and skull have caused air to leak into his brain. The neurosurgeons are going to operate on him the day after tomorrow. In the meantime he gets 3 cat scans per day to monitor his his progress. He's been kind of cranky because they keep waking him up to make sure he's okay but other than that he's handling it well.

When my parents saw him they flipped. We all thought that he had been beaten but he insisted all he remembered was being on his bike and feeling light headed. We have no idea as to how long he was laid out in the street. He doesn't remember a thing.
The area he was in is a quiet area with very little foot traffic it’s mostly cars driving through to get on or off the highway. After examining his bike we and the doctors felt that Matt had been hit by a car and thrown from his bike due to the nature and force of his injuries. His leather Timberland boots were mega scuffed in the front, all the color was gone from the leather. Indicating he had been dragged for a few feet, face first. He was hit from the side judging from the way his chain casing is bent, his bike has traces of yellow car paint all over the side.

Yesterday we found out that a girl riding her bike along the same stretch of road had been killed by a hit and run driver in a yellow car; further down the road from where Matt was found that same night shortly after Matt was hit. Doctors, nurses, friends, and family all agree that Matthew is lucky to be alive. My mom’s friend told her today, “You know Matthew had a guardian angel watching over him, it was lucky he wasn’t killed. He could have been easily run over by another car laying there in the road. Your mother and his father must have been watching over him. The fact that given his injuries he was able to get up and walk and get help for himself is in itself a miracle." I think we all feel the same. It is a mircale because he hasn't been able to walk since that day due to his injuries. He couldnt even stand when they were doing a chest xray on him they had to hold him up.

So there ya have it the reason behind my blog's new design. I needed an outlet for my nervousness. The new blog design was therapy for me.



Posted by @ 7:47 PM
4 comment from:  Just Jane,  Mia,  J,  ritzy,