Gabby Petito, remember her? I read in an article recently that her parents settled an emotional distress lawsuit against the parents of Brian Laundrie, Gabby’s presumed, but never tried killer. It left me wondering: to what end. What do Gabby’s parents hope to gain from this lawsuit? Cash? Punishment for the Laundries, who had already heard from their son that Gabby was dead even as they made public comments hoping for her safe return? Their case, their award won’t bring back their daughter, and it’s dragged out the acuteness of their pain for two and a half more years. I guess if I were really interested, I could probably find articles explaining their motivation, but instead, reading that article has prompted me to think about my own lawsuit.
So what, exactly, was *I* looking for from a settlement? I guess cash. I needed to replace my bike and riding gear that were destroyed in the crash. I think I was also looking to somehow be compensated for enduring the most distressing and painful year of my life. Maybe that’s what Gabby’s parents need too. My $90,000 award was split three ways: $30,000 for the attorney, $40,000 to my insurance company to cover my medical bills, and I got $20,000 for my pain and suffering, or maybe to cover any lingering medical issues in the future.
$20,000 seemed like a lot of money at the time, and it helped Susan and me put a down payment on our first house. But looking at this amount through the lens of my life, I now know that $20,000 is woefully inadequate.
I’ve never tallied up my personal medical expenses from the injuries I incurred, but from reading this list, you’ll get a feel for the extensiveness of it all. I had medical insurance to cover these appointments and procedures, but man, copays and deductibles are a bitch.
- My initial hospital stay included emergency abdominal surgery, CAT scans and ICU care.
- Surgery to repair the separated AC joint in my shoulder.
- Six months of orthopedic rehab.
- Therapy for PTSD.
- Two separate eye surgeries for progressively worsening double vision.
- Countless ophthalmology appointments and replacement glasses as my double vision continually increased between surgeries.
- New hearing aids every three to four years.
- Some sort of invasive neck/spine procedure trying to determine why I couldn’t turn my head.
- Brain MRI and EEG trying to determine the cause of my weird brain behavior.
- Return of my childhood Tourette symptoms and countless associated doctor appointments.
- Repeated intercostal (between the ribs) muscle strains where chest tubes were inserted due to a collapsed lung (recovering from one now). No medical attention associated with these strains, but god, they hurt like hell.
Seven months after my last eye surgery, my vision is already doubling up again. I can’t really express my frustration. Sometimes I find it weirdly humorous in a resigned, ironic sort of way. Other times I seethe. When I’m in seething-mode, I want to sue someone… again. I want someone to be responsible and pay for this bad thing that keeps happening to me. Yes, my vision will still be double, but I’ll have bank, and I guess validation that it’s someone’s fault and not my own. Lawsuit! It seems so American. Is this our national response to bad news? Or is it only mine?
There’s no one to sue. When I first met with the eye surgeon, he cautioned me that this could happen. My double vision problem, he said, might be a brain deficiency, not an eye alignment problem. Yes, misalignment is the symptom, but it’s possible the root cause is my crash-addled brain. Susan frequently reminds me that ongoing medical issues is a small price to pay for living through the crash.
Back to Gabby’s parents: I hope their successful lawsuit snaps a door shut on this terrible section of their life. The thought of losing a child in such a senseless fashion is hard for me to fathom, and it strikes me as the sort of scenario someone might what-if until their deathbed. I’ve frequently second-guessed several aspects of my own life: alcohol abuse, my lackadaisical performance in college, and of course that bike crash. I wonder how things might have played out with some better, or at least different, decisions?
Those what-ifs and second-guesses might be like those lawsuits I wrote about: what am I ultimately looking for? Does dwelling on the bad do anything productive for me, or is it just a perverse self-gratification technique to keep me trapped in a past I’d be wise to let go?
Read Different Lives for a fictionalized account of my bicycle accident and the medical intervention afterwards.
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Previously Published on jefftcann.com and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
