I managed to get an appointment with a different doctor yesterday, at a different hospital. The treatment I’m getting at the moment from the current doctor, who’s been treating me since the night of the accident, is not going well in my opinion. I had the option of either changing the doctor or the hospital; I decided to change the hospital, as a different doctor at the same hospital will have access to the diagnosis results from the previous doctor, and will not want to offer any contradictory opinion without hesitation. A different doctor as a different doctor won’t care and will hopefully treat me without getting influenced by the previous doctors method of treatment.

I got on the freeway to go to the hospital which is in another city; I needed a specialist that could treat me for the injuries I’ve enjoyed, and could only get an appointment this soon in a hospital in a nearby city. Otherwise, I had to wait over a month to be seen by someone. So here I was, driving on the freeway, hoping that I don’t feel any pain along the way and that this appointment ends up being fruitful. The first few minutes of the drive was a breeze, and everything was going smooth. All of a sudden, the traffic started to get heavy and eventually slowed down to a crawl. I got near another freeway that connects with the one I was on. There is a big on-ramp and an off-ramp for that freeway, and it’s always crowded. You can see these once you’re within 1/4_th of a mile from them. The traffic was really slow, so I thought the entrance or the exit to the other freeway might be clogged.

All of a sudden, there was a big banging sound, like an explosion and then something collapsing; the whole freeway started shaking for a second or two, and dust started coming in from the right hand side. No one could see the other side, nor could anyone see the other freeway. People got scared, and some got out of their cars and stood next to their main doors, probably thinking as to whether they should run or stand there and observe. A police car came driving in the opposite direction, in the small divider right next to the carpool lane that touches the barrier separating the two sides of the freeway. Once it got close, it started announcing something like the following on its heavy duty loud speaker: “This is the Police. Please remain calm; please get back into your car. This is just a construction. I repeat, please get back in your cars. This is just a construction. Do not stop and get out of the car.“

The people who had gotten out of their cars as if Godzilla was coming to get them got back into their cars rather reluctantly. I could see that they were not comfortable, and I could feel why; no one could see anything on the right hand side from where the dust was coming from, and a small or even a normal everyday construction does not create a big bang with dust coming in as if it was a sand storm. The cars started moving again, and once we were almost out of the dusty area, I looked back and saw huge bulldozers and construction crew bringing down the different sections of the on-ramps of the other freeway. There had been no announcement about it before hand, and no signs either. The freeway in question is really old and small for the amount of traffic it receives daily, and thus it is being renovated and reconstructed from scratch to increase the number of lanes it carries on both sides. The only problem with this was that majority of the people in the county had no idea this was supposed to be happening, and the big bang probably made everyone wish that they hadn’t left their homes that day. On top of that, the construction and the collapsing frenzy was happening right next to us, without any barriers or barricades places between the construction and the busy freeway.

I got to the hospital about 2 hours late than when I was supposed to, and the doctor had already left. The front desk attendant asked me if I was aware of the time I was supposed to come in. I told her why I was late, and I could see in her face that she didn’t believe me. I rescheduled my appointment and will try to go again tomorrow. This time I’ll try to take a different freeway.