“I was starting to get worried,” a client wrote in response to my email. Normally, I’m pretty quick with replies. I don’t like slow projects; I like to keep things moving. However, the past year has been a challenge.
First, I was bedbound for six months due to a serious accident. Rehab took longer than expected. Just as I was getting back on my feet, my father passed away suddenly. These were major events, not only emotionally devastating but also demanding in practical terms.
After I had handled everything that needed to be done, peace and routine gradually returned to my life.
Spring arrived, and it felt like time to focus on the fun things again: new challenges, promoting my work and books, and attending networking events. I was excited and open for business, as they say.
But just when I started to promote my business again, I received another devastating phone call. It was 2 a.m. when I learned that my partner had been seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. No one knew if he would survive. I booked the next flight to Phoenix, posted on social media that I’d be offline for a while, and found myself at his ICU bedside not long after.
With a broken arm, leg, pelvis, facial fractures, and bleeding in his brain, doctors gave him a 20% chance of survival. But 20% is still more than nothing, I told myself, so I stayed by his side, day and night. Until he finally woke up, disoriented and confused. He didn’t know where he was. His short-term memory kept resetting. Every few minutes he would ask what had happened, where he was, why there were so many wires, and what the bandage was for.
The moments he would doze off, I tried to keep up with my ongoing projects.
After a week, he began to have occasional moments of clarity. The doctors and I breathed a cautious sigh of relief. It was a miracle he survived and came out of it relatively well. After five weeks, he was released from the hospital, and I was allowed to take him home.
“Sorry it took me a while to respond,” I wrote back to my client. I explained what had happened. Naturally, he understood. We hadn’t agreed on a tight deadline, so it was no big issue that I didn’t email him back sooner. He was just worried something had happened to me.
But I couldn’t help thinking: do I start to sound like a scammer? I was in a terrible car accident myself. I needed surgery twice. My father passed away and my partner was in a crash. Aren’t those the classic scammer excuses?
But no, I’m not a scammer. Just very unfortunate, because this was just my reality.
Now that he’s back home, I’m able to refocus on my work again. He still needs a lot of care, but thankfully, that can be managed while working from home.