Alone In The Dark

Today's Thoughts By Jeff Head 03/19/14 Alone In The Dark

Five o'clock in the morning and I am up peeking through the curtains over the distance that separate the sleeper berth portion of my truck from the driver's seat and the steering wheel.  Looking over the same two step commute to work that I have been walking for a long time now.  Sammy, my Bearded Dragon to my surprise is up before the sun today.  I flip on his light and toss him a slice of orange and then a few super worms for breakfast.  I should have been gone an hour ago so I just pop my daily meds and vitamins for my breakfast and wash them down with some soda pop flat from the night before.  I draw a line in my logbook as Sammy climbs up into his normal position on the dash.  I flip off his light as I pull out onto the highway and for the next hour and a half, we ride along watching the oncoming headlights come and go in the dark. 

The first leg of the trips ends where we meet the interstate.  From here, it will be a good three hours before there is a decent place to stop so I pull into the truck stop to grab a quick biscuit and something to drink.  As I back into a parking spot, I can tell something is just not right.  You see when you have been driving for as long as I have, driving becomes so natural that until you stop, you really do not understand just how tired you are or in today's case, just how sick you are.  The second I set the brake, I knew something was wrong.

I started to move back onto the bunk but I was so dizzy that I had to hold unto everything to make the trip.  It started slow but within ten minutes, my whole world was on one heck of a merry go round ride.  My mind became cloudy and the ability to think straight became very difficult.  I could think enough though to understand that here I laid in some far off truck stop and no one knew where I was.  I had left my phone up front and my head was not going to let me get back up to get it.  Alone and scared I started thinking.

I thought about my wife and family and prayed that I would be seeing them again soon.  Sammy of course as I worried about him getting to cold and dying being left without someone to watch over him in the cold winter air.  My load of course, how would it be delivered if I was too sick to even get up to make a phone call.  My head just kept spinning faster and faster becoming more confused as time went on.  It is a scary thing laying here in the dark, all alone with no hope of being found until it is too late while the thoughts clouded by the dizziness just keep flowing through your head.

Trucker I am though and as a trucker, I have been through this before.  Three herniated disc in my lower back in so much pain I could hardly breathe let alone move.  I have to get to that phone and I have to put Sammy up so he will stay warm.  When a trucker gets sick or injured and they find themselves alone, secluded from the rest of the world in that tiny world inside of their truck, there is only one person that can save them short of prayer and that is themselves.  I pulled myself up and through doubled vision and a spinning world I managed to put Sammy into his pen and grab my phone and head set before I collapse back unto my bunk.

Now I can just lie here for a moment with my eyes closed.  Gather up the courage to slide the head set on and use voice command to call my wife.  She answers and first thing I say is grab a pen a paper and write this down.  I give her my location and she knows without being told what is going on.  We have been a trucking couple for thirty years now so as she is writing I fill her in.  I make her promise that no matter what, she makes sure Sammy is taken care of.  She protest but I tell her if you want me to take care of me, then make sure Sammy is ok so I do not have to worry about him.  She concedes and then her experience as a truckers wife kicks in.

"Ok Jeff, what do you have in that truck that will help you, think now, you know what you have." However, I cannot think straight.  We talk it out and figure out that the most probable cause of my situation is taking diabetes medication without eating.  I check, but my numbers are fine but we still figure eating something is the thing to do.  My wife, scared as she was starts going over everything we packed in the truck to eat before I left. It is all gone I say, I have been out for a while and it is time to resupply.  She refuses to give up.  "What about the oranges you feed Sammy, does Sammy have any oranges left," she asked.  I reached over, picked up Sammy's orange that I had cut a wedge out of earlier, ripped it in half, and then ate my breakfast.

I have been taken this same mix of meds and vitamins for years but always with something to eat.  I skipped food this morning and that was a big mistake.  In just a matter of seconds, I found myself alone in the dark dazed and confused.  Thanks to Sammy's left over breakfast, modern day technology and the good Lord looking over me I survived once again getting sick out on the road.  However, most of all I want to thank my loving wife for staying cool and calm in the middle of being scared to death about my situation.  I guess her experience over the years dealing with a long haul trucker miles from home comes in handy every now and then.  Thanks Baby for loving and caring for me so much.

Looking back and thinking about how things turned out today, I am glad of one very important thing.  I am extremely glad that Janet thought about Sammy's orange before she thought about Sammy's super worms.  That my dear, was a close one.

Jeff Head

God Bless America

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Books by Jeff Head

Running Legal Blues

Drive Safe

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