Driving into the storm and returning home in the sunshine.

I am not a fan of storms. I survived two tornadoes on the road, once while a college student while traveling through Cheyenne, Wyoming and another visiting my sister in Memphis, Tennessee. I will never forget the color of the sky or the heaviness of the air in both of those situations. I have also had our girls in the car during a severe thunderstorm while traveling to see my parents in Western South Dakota. All of those experiences have shaped how I travel into storms - I typically don’t!!!

On my second trip to Columbia since opening this business, I had the dearest passenger who needed to make an appointment in Columbia despite the storm we were about to drive into. As I was driving south from Macon to Columbia, the sky had a familiar dark blue/gray look and the radar did not lie, there was severe weather over the top of Columbia. Healthcare doesn’t care about bad weather. We had to proceed. However, looking at the situation, I made the decision to retreat back to Macon and wait it out. In that retreat, I did find a shelter location in Jacksonville for future reference, if ever needed. Anyone who knows me, I am a planner and I allowed time for this. After the weather cleared, I pointed the black car south and just outside of Columbia, the heavy rain began. While the radar showed the storm had passed, we ran into another pop up cell. This time, there was no time to wait it out. We had to keep going to be on time. The appointment was critical to my passenger’s care. With an unwavering sense about me, I was able to drop my passenger off on time at the front door, park the car, and find out that within an hour of our arrival, the facility had tornado protocol in place. I waited with my passenger, and when it was time to head home, the sky was clear blue and the storm had passed. Not once did my passenger and I worry through the storm. We kept visiting all the way through the dark clouds and made the best decisions we could with the information at hand. So many times in our lives, we have to drive through the storm, retreat, start again, face it a 2nd time, all without worry but with steady fortitude to make it to the sunshine. Find the sunshine! Take Care!