August 9, 2014, 11:00 pm. – I was headed home from my mother’s with my two young sons when not far from my house I noticed two vehicles coming toward me from opposite sides of our two lane road. I saw a light on in one of the vehicles, a truck, the driver was looking down and not at the road. I noticed the truck begin to drift over the yellow line and I immediately began to pull over to the side of the road. My son asked why I was doing this, I turned and said, ”Because those two cars are going to have an accident and I don’t want to be part of it!” Before I could turn back around, I felt the impact. It happened so fast, it was literally instantaneous. We had been hit!
My feet were trapped between the brake and the accelerator, I was trying to get out but I was stuck. My son climbed out the back window and saw a lady standing out there. The woman loaned him her phone to call for my husband.
When the firetrucks and the paramedics came I was unconscious. I remember fading in and out of consciousness. Everything was so confusing, I remember my older son screaming in pain from a dislocated shoulder. I faded out again, I remember hearing a large choir singing, “There are no secrets of what God can do, what He’s done for others He will do for you.”
Next thing I remember was an officer waking me up. She had squeezed into the back seat of the car and was telling me to keep my eyes closed and to prepare myself for a lot of very loud noise. It took them an hour and two “Jaws of Life” to cut me out of my car. I remember a firefighter wrapping something around my waist to hoist me gently out of the car. I was in terrible pain, I could feel my body separating. I remember screaming at the top of my lungs, begging for my family, begging for relief. They gave me something for the pain.
I never even knew my head had been bleeding, I found out at the hospital. The staff had to staple both my head and my ankle back together. I was in agony, I screamed with every staple. I begged for relief. I was told I had been given the maximum pain medication they could safely give me and I would have to wait. That wait was unbearable.
The hospital did a CT scan and found my femur broken in three places, both of my knees broken, my left arm broken, hip broken plus multiple fractures and breaks in my feet and ankles.
After several surgeries and an extended hospital stay, I ended up in a skilled nursing facility under 24 hour care. I had non-weight-bearing injuries, meaning I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t even push myself off with my toe. I had always been independent, ever since I was a young girl and now I had to use a portable toilet, I had to have someone bathe me, change my clothes, empty my waste, it was humiliating and degrading. I felt trapped, helpless and broken.
When I came home I had to have a whole hospital-type set up to function. I had nurses come out to check on me and therapists out daily to rehab/exercise me. I literally had to learn how to walk all over again.
I remember having to get out the bed into wheelchair without using my feet. I had to use a sliding board to move from one place to the next, like from the bed to the wheelchair. I had to use it from the wheelchair to the shower and so on. But worse, I had to do all this with a cast on my left arm, making sure not to get it wet and without putting any weight on my arm while moving my body weight from one place to another. This has been the most physically and emotionally challenging event of my life! Nevertheless, through prayer and sheer determination I made it through.
It took me months of therapy and being confined to a wheelchair to recover. I still deal with the aftermath of my injuries. But in order to manage the chronic discomfort I suffer and remain drug free, I went on a quest to find the best alternatives I could to avoid habit forming medication that has tremendous potential to ruin lives, families and futures. I would like to share those alternatives with you!
