Unfortunately for mom, the answer to this question is nothing. For the past few months, mom’s health has been the primary cause for concern from those closest to her, myself included. Each day she continues to fight the illness though it doesn’t get any easier and even though she says she will be ok, I’m not convinced, at least to a degree where I feel she can move on. This is why I can never tell her or even Ben what happened to me today as it would likely devastate the both of them. However, in mom’s case, she may not be able to handle it as she is dealing with her cancer. Having said that, I’m just going to say this right here and right now…..I came within two inches of losing my life today thanks to my own stupidity. Now I know that most people would expect a sarcastic follow up to this, (i.e. something I had to deal with, being charged too much for something I thought was cheap,) ETC. However, this is indeed not a joke and if people didn’t act as fast as they did, mom would have one less child to call her own, Ben would have one less brother, Joseph would have one less brother, and Jacob would have one less uncle. My life was in danger because of my own stupidity today and I know if mom ever did find out what happened, she would not be happy and Ben would be taking a fit. What’s the first thing he would say needs to go? My wheelchair. For as long as I’ve had it, he has never really warmed up to the idea of me having one as he thinks I don’t drive safely with it and that one day, I will have an accident which could cause bodily harm to me or even death. Well today looked like it might be the day for that.

One of my biggest problem that I will admit to is that I will not accept not getting my way unless what I want can no longer be obtained due to it being too far out of reach or not affordable, (if the issue involves money.) As long as there appears be a way to get me what I want that is within reach, I will not give up my pursuit of it. It doesn’t matter how far I have to walk, what or who I have to go through to get what I want, ETC. I don’t give up on getting my way unless I know I can no longer get it. In this case though, it may have been just a little further out of reach for me but of course it took a near collision for me to figure out that I may have been in a little over my head.

After finding out that Metro made take out pizza, (which I bought last week,) I opted to go to Metro and pick up some more as ca snack as I did not have anything else snack wise other than a bag of chips and I tend to get hungry at night. Since it was supposed to rain, I opted to use Para Transpo to get there and back. When I got to Metro, I found that they weren’t serving the pizza today and that they only had chicken. After cashing out the rest of my items that I bought, (which included chicken wings and fries,) I opted to go across the street to the Pizza Pizza to get my pizza and bring it home. Though it wasn’t raining fully yet, I froze half to death just exiting the parking lot and getting to the sidewalk. Once I arrived at the sidewalk, I was given the walk sign unaware that this particular corner, I needed to push the button in order to cross. I got a little less than halfway across the street before the hand signal started with cars able to pass. With nowhere to safely wait as I was already on the road, I kept walking with cars attempting to pass me, honking their horns, ETC and it wasn’t long before cars almost hit me. If this wasn’t bad enough, It started to rain on me as this was going on and I stupidly decided to run into the oncoming traffic to avoid getting soaked. Without warning, one car slammed on the brakes and motioned for me to come to the passenger side window where I was confronted (although with good reason so I did not dispute this but rather I apologized,) for not being aware of the situation. It got worse for me however as a truck with a large cylinder attached to it, possibly from the gas station, drove literally right up to me and was forced by other cars to stop just as his front bumper nearly collided with my chair as the driver did not see me! As I made it to the sidewalk safely, I was stopped by an officer in his patrol car who pretty much told me I wasn’t being safe and who am I to argue with him? He told me how close I came to death and demanded I be more careful. As I was aware of the situation, I simply said ok and walked away. With all the commotion, I decided to just cancel my para return from Metro and eat inside Pizza Pizza and decided to walk home afterwards

So you’re probably wondering what this has to do with mom’s cancer. Well as the name of this entry implies, there is one thing that could possibly be worse than mom having cancer and this is if she was to get a call from a police officer of all people saying her number one son, who she has shown to love so much and who she knows loves her and supports her has died due to an auto collision while trying to cross the street. I’m not going to lie. If dealing with cancer was hard enough to deal with, she may not be able to handle hearing someone as close to her as I am has died. She may be too heart broken to care what happens to her in regards to her cancer even to get treatment. Also, even if things do get better for mom, she likely could never heal from the sorrow of losing me.

As far as Ben is concerned, he would find this chair and impound the fuckin device. Even if I was to survive the ordeal, maybe only having broken appendages or bruising/fractures ETC and ending up in the hospital for a few days, once I get out he would make sure I never see it again. He already doesn’t appreciate the fact that I have one. He thinks I drive recklessly and don’t watch for people, ETC. Well can anyone imagine how quick he would be to smash it if it caused me bodily harm?

With all of this negativity, it’s hard to imagine anything good coming from this experience. Well, I have found one thing. It’s that you learn something new every day. Life is a learning experience. Today I learned the hard way that I need to be careful and that maybe pizza wasn’t the best reason for me to risk my life. All I can say is I will know better next time.

It’s a great day to be alive and I should know because I still am alive!