�There but for fortune may go you or I�

I just read wilberteet�s entry, and it got me to thinking about how quickly your life can change. An English professor was walking to work during that really cold weather a month or so ago as she did every day, and a jeep with a snow plow attached to it hit her. It slid into her on the icy road, pinning her underneath the plow and breaking one of her legs so that the bone was showing through. She is still in the hospital and has had four or five operations. The only contact we have with her is through her husband, as she refuses to see anyone except him and their son, and has made no attempt at communication with the university or anyone connected with it.

She is understandably very depressed. The news is that one leg will be forever shorter than the other, since they weren�t able to reconstruct all of the broken bits. She must be under very heavy pain medication, which would not help her mood. Her husband told the prof who is teaching her courses that she was looking out the window from her bed and said, �That�s Tokyo out there.� He said, �What do you mean�, and she said, �It may as well be for all I can see it.� There is some doubt if she will even be able to return to teaching, and here she was only two years away from retirement.

So, my friends, whether it�s winning the lottery or plunging into an icy lake, your future can change in the blink of an eye.

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