Survivor

She's Back!

I sat down at the computer to write a quick e-mail before scurrying off to soak my wounds.

October 25, 2003

Dear Family and Friends;
Let me start by saying that I am okay and there is no need to worry now.
But, earlier this evening I was in a head-on collision. A teenage girl, hurrying on her way to a study group meeting, went out of control on a narrow part of the road and swerved in to my lane. I was only going about 35 mph (thank goodness), but her estimated speed was somewhere around 70 mph. She was driving a little pickup and passing cars where she should not have been. Needless to say, my little Kia car is completely totaled, but at least I am okay.
It was strange, at the accident I was perfectly calm and I felt fine. I helped the girl get out of her badly damaged pickup and helped direct traffic around the collision. I was doing so well that when the ambulance crew arrived they weren’t sure whether or not to believe that I was actually the person who had been driving the mangled white car half submerged in the road side ditch. My blood pressure was 120/70 (perfectly normal) when the ambulance crew took it. I think I was so calm because I was so worried about that girl. She’s the same age as my two oldest sons. I was more concerned about helping her than anything.
I am very thankful that none of my kids were in the car with me. I was on my way to pick up Jamey, Kassie and Catrina at the time. They were all spending the day at a Joyce’s house. Kendra who hadn’t gone up to Joyce’s with the others, had asked if she could, ‘Please, for once in her life’, stay home alone when I went to pick the other kids up. I allowed her to, figuring I wouldn’t be all that long. Now, I wonder if that weren’t angelic intervention because that’s a pretty deep ditch the back of the car ended up submerged in and she is still too short to have been sitting in the front.
Thankfully Grandma lives only a couple blocks away and she was able to walk to Grandma’s after I called her to let her know I would be later than expected.
When Gordon arrived on the scene he kind of panicked. He is so protective of me; his automatic reaction was to find whoever did this to me and set them straight. Then, like me, when he saw the kid who had been driving that pickup, he melted. She looked terrible. Her air bag had failed to deploy and her seat belt didn’t work correctly so her head and chest were quite bruised and she was sobbing and apologizing profusely. We really felt for her.
I wasn’t going to go to the hospital after the wreck, because I felt fine. Then, about the time the ambulance crew left and only the guys cleaning the glass off the road were still around, I started seeing these flashing white lights in my head. Gordon insisted on taking me to the emergency room. There they told me that my brain had taken a shaking and the white lights were just my brain’s way of letting me know. The Dr. said it was no big deal and I should just go home, rest, take Tylenol, soak in the tub, relax and call them if anything worse happened.
I am okay now, just a little sore, very tired and have the worst head ache starting to form.
Take care and God bless.
Love,
Julie

After I hit the “send” button, I laid down on the couch. The next three days the miserable pain of the headache and muscle aches kept me chained to the house doing little more than keeping the couch warm until the phone rang.

It was Jamey. In a panicked voice he spewed, “Mom, Catrina’s fallen in a ditch! She needs you to bring a blanket fast.”

I fought through the fog of pain in my head and body to ask him where he was.
“At the school mom, come quick.”
I gathered a blanket and made my way, stiffly, out to our second car. Every time I moved, even slightly, it felt like my head would split in two, so I didn’t rush too quickly, and I figured that, since they were at the school, some adult would be there helping them, but it wasn't so.
Before I reached the school, Jamey, came speeding up to my car on his bike, “Mom, Mom, you have got to hurry! Catrina’s lips are turning blue!”
I put it in high speed, as fast as I dared go, I rushed into the school parking lot.
There, lying on the ground surrounded by other children was my soaked six year old. She was cold and shivering, wet head to toe, freezing out in the icey winter air.
I couldn’t carry her, but, I did manage to get her up on her own feet and in to my car. We wrapped the blanket around her and got her home quickly.
Remembering what we used to do for calves born in the deep-freeze of winter back on my dads farm, I peeled her out of the wet clothes, rubbed her with a dry towel to speed up cirrulation, then put her in a tub of luke warm water, after which, I called the hospital.
The hospital assured me that I had done the right thing and that I had probably gotten there in time. They didn’t think there was any need for me to take her to the emergency room, she was awake, alert and showed no signs of frostbite. She warmed up quickly and soon felt just fine.

When I asked Jamey why no adult had helped him, my twelve year old son burst into tears. “Mom, I went to the school office and asked them to help me. They said that I was too muddy and that I should go wash my hands. They weren't going to let me use the phone. I washed my hands, then they let me use the phone to call you.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Holding my temper I called the school. The secretary answered. When I asked her why she hadn’t helped Jamey and Catrina she said, “The ditch was not on school property, therefore, the school held no responsibility in the matter.”

“Okay, but, my six year old was on school property when I picked her up off the ground.” I replied.
“Well, your son was rude to us when he demanded to use the phone.” She told me.
“But, he had an emergency; he was trying to get your attention.” I told her.
In exasperation I hung up the phone. I could tell that this conversation wouldn’t get us anywhere. The pain in my head pounded ferociously.
Though I wanted to deal with it, that day I couldn’t. It would have to be put off until later. For that evening, the kids and I made soup and sandwiches then cuddled on the couch comforting one another.

The next day my eleven year old daughter stayed home from school with me because of a scheduled Dr. appointment for her. On the way to the Dr’s office we stopped at a convenience store to get a treat.
As we stood there in line I began to feel dizzy and sick. I looked at the baby held by the woman in front of me and saw half the baby’s face kind of melt with all the colors in the air kind of swimming together. I looked at the woman behind the counter and noticed her face doing the same thing. I looked at a third person, same thing. That’s when I realized that I was definitely in trouble.
With my daughter’s help and encouragement, I drove myself to the emergency room of the local hospital.
There the Dr. asked me to follow his finger as he moved his hand around. I could see his finger but I couldn’t figure out how to get my eyes to follow it. “Julie, follow my finger.”
“I am trying to think of how to do that.” I told him.
“Uh-oh” he said. “We need to schedule you for an immediate MRI.”
“Okay, how long will it take, I need to get the kids from school at 3:00” I told him.
“I am sorry, ma’am, you won’t be picking your kids up today. In fact, if I am right about what I think this is, you will be admitted to ICU today.”
“Okay, well, just let me go get the kids and I will be right back.” I told him.
“Ma’am, you aren’t leaving the hospital. You need to call someone else to care for your kids.”
I stood there stunned looking at my eleven year old daughter as though I were a helpless child.
She confidently took my cell phone outside and called her step-father, Gordon and our other family support people. Within minutes everything in my usual world had been taken care of while I entered the MRI tube and the realm of ICU.
I found out that, due to the car accident, I suffered a rare (and usually fatal) kind of stroke called “ventricular arterial dissection”. From my research I found out the reason it is usually fatal is because it is so difficult to diagnose. Normally it doesn’t involve the eyes. In fact, the most common symptom is the severe head ache that I had, which is often minimized. That this ER Dr. suspected that I had a stroke was a definite miracle.
I don’t know how long I was in the ICU before I could finally communicate again. The pain medication they gave me really knocked me for a loop. I think I talked to my mother on the phone a couple of times and maybe my sister once. They lived to far away to ask them to come, so I didn’t.
Throughout my first days in the hospital, my mother, who is a nurse, called the hospital non-stop trying to find out how I was doing. The privacy laws kept her from getting any information, and I really couldn’t tell her much because of the grog the pain medication kept me in.
Finally, after a few days, a night nurse brought me a Pepsi and a form to sign giving him permission to talk to my mother about me. I don’t know if it was the Pepsi or the relief of knowing my mom could get information, or just what, but, finally, the headache broke.
Gordon brought my laptop computer into the hospital for me to use. I hooked it up to the phone line in my room and again, I e-mailed my family and friends.

October 30, 2003

Dear Family and Friends:
Well, it’s been a rough go of it, but, I am finally feeling better. The head ache is gone!
I guess the car accident was worse than I thought, as, apparently it gave me a stroke. Can you believe that!
I am so thankful and blessed that I have such good friends and family who have been taking care of the kids and covering me with prayers. What would I do without all of you?
I have to stay here in the hospital a little longer because the stroke has messed up my sense of balance. The Dr’s say that if I work at it, the brain will re-wire itself, though. I should be up and walking again in no time.
With Love,
Julie


I received many replies from so many family and friends but the one I will always remember the best. It came from my mom. “SHE’S BACK! Praise and Thanks be, She’s back!”

That’s when it occurred me that I hadn’t been off-line for more than a day or two in probably five years or more. With family living all over this great nation, the internet has become our main communication tool. My mom, my brothers, my sisters, everyone in my circle either has a computer or otherwise has access to e-mail, and we use it. I laughed. Yes, though still in the hospital bed and still in the ICU, I was back in the internet loop that kept us all connected.

A few days later I returned home, using a walker and with the help of my children and Gordon, I recovered slowly and surely. The kids hated the walker, so, they would take turns, each wrapping an arm around me to help steady me, we would walk. Before to long, I was walking on my own, and within a few months, I even roller skated and ice skated.

The long term effects of the stroke are not too notable now. I still have a tiny bit of facial numbness from time to time, and I still get fatigued easier than I used to, but, it isn’t that bad. Maybe the biggest and best long-term effect is the realization of how close I came to losing my life, and how good it is to still be alive and to be surrounded by such wonderful, loving and caring people, both in my home and out in the rest of the world.

I was finally able to settle the incident that happened at the school. The office staff apologized to Jamey and the Principal is working with the people who own the land that the ditch is on to make it safer by putting a culvert over it.

My kids have come a long way since all of that happened, all of them seem to have grown miles in self-confidence as well as other ways and nine months after the car accident, my first grandson was born. If that isn’t life affirming, I don’t know what is.