After I smashed up my Xtrail on February 10th I felt nothing out of the ordinary. Everybody said, wait until tomorrow, you’re gonna be sore!
But the next day came and the one after that and there were no ill effects from the collision with the guardrail. I remembered bracing myself for the impact and having only enough time to say “oh shit” under my breath before impact. But there was nothing wrong with me.
Then.
It took almost a week before the pain started in my neck and traveled down into my right shoulder blade. That couldn’t be whiplash showing up so long after the fact, could it? Turns out it’s very common for there to be a delayed reaction with whiplash which, my neck Dr. tells me, is not taken as seriously as it should be in many cases. Tomorrow I’m going for a scan to make sure nothing is fractured (no one thinks it is, but you need to be sure) and I’ll have treatments for several weeks. In the great scheme of life, when you’ve had sepsis and lived to tell the tale, whiplash is no big thing. It hurts, you can’t swivel your neck and it gives you a bitch of a headache – but there are worse things to have to endure! Like, for example, NOT being stopped by a guardrail and going over a steep embankment. I’m still counting my blessings. But just know that if you ever have a similar incident it could be a while before the damage makes itself known. Fortunately my insurance company understands that and so does my Dr. And now, so do I.