I wanted to create this blog to chronicle the incredible and heartfelt journey that my wife, Deb, and I are about to take. Deb has not walked since January 1990 when she was involved in a car accident that left her with a spinal chord injury. Her life to this point has been a trek through all kinds of trials with personal development and spiritual and emotional growth and wondrous discoveries that I will be sharing with you in this blog. The impetus for starting this blog now is the renewed hope that she is once again going to regain control of the muscles below her solar plexus and begin to walk again. I wanted to have a place to record and share the highs and joys and the obstacles to be overcome as we embark on this endeavor together.
Let me give a little background. I met Deb in January 1993 while we were both in college. At the time, she told me about her accident in 1990, that she had been in the army in Virginia when she, her boyfriend and 2 sisters were accosted at a club and subsequently chased by a car as her boyfriend sped away. The driver lost control going around 80 m.p.h. and ran into a huge tree. I've seen pictures and its amazing anyone walked away. Surprisingly, other than Deb, the only serious injury was a broken leg that one of her sisters suffered. Deb, however, was another story.
Deb:
"I remember waking up in the Metro General Hospital not
knowing where I was or why I was there. I tried getting out of the bed and
realized that I couldn't move. I tried talking and nothing came out.
It felt like I was screaming at the nurse to explain what was going on, but they paid no attention."
I am not going to go into the details, but the gist of it was that her spinal chord was crushed, C7-C8. Sixth months of rehabilitation was needed for her to learn to eat, drink, talk and use her left hand. But she needed a wheelchair to get around. She was told by her doctors that the injury was "complete" and that she would never walk again.
Deb would never let that be the end of her story. At the time that I met her, she was going to school full time, raising her 7 year-old son, Edward, living in her wheelchair-accessible apartment. She believed that there was no reason in the world not to pursue all the goals she had in life before her accident and especially wanted to her son every opportunity in the world. She celebrates every January 5 (the date of the accident) as her "2nd Birthday" because she had been given the chance to start life anew. Next time, I'll tell about our meeting and more amazing things she has done with her life.
No comments:
Post a Comment