Cliff jumping accident
In August of 2019 I was in a horrific accident. I went to Hawaii for a final girls trip before moving away to start college. My friend and I decided to go cliff jumping at black rock in Maui. I’m terrified of heights, but I thought it would be a time to face my irrational fear. I was standing up on the cliff for awhile contemplating if I was actually going to jump or not. A kid I did not know kept trying to convince me to jump with him. I kept telling him no that I was just going to walk back down. He grabbed my arm and jumped off the edge. I landed 30 ft down onto the volcanic rocks and then into the ocean. I knew immediately my legs were broken. I then made the football field length swim back to shore. I arrived at the hospital where I found out I had shattered my left ankle and broke my left leg. I had also shattered and broke my right heel off my foot. Doctors in Maui said the injuries were so severe that they were going to amputate my feet. I decided to fly back home without pain medication on a commercial flight to seek a top surgeon. After multiple surgeries my left foot had healed seventy-five degrees towards my right foot. The angle was so severe that my pinky toe and the side of my foot had now become the bottom. The only way to attempt to rectify this was to reposition my foot through casting. This was without question the most painful experience of my life. The trauma from this was so detrimental that I developed an auto-immune disease called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. I was frequently in and out of the hospital trying to manage the pain but nothing was helping, not even Ketamine. As all of this began to sink in I found myself coming to terms with the fact that I’d never be able to walk again and would live my life in a sedated state. The reality of this caused me to break down crying, but I quickly realized that I was letting people dictate what I was and wasn’t capable of achieving. I told myself no matter what it took I would push myself as hard as possible just to stand again on my own. I started trying to desensitize my skin in hopes it could help my CRPS. After a couple months of desensitizing, and being on gabapentin I started to notice a difference. I was finally cleared after months of being in a wheelchair to start physical therapy. On my second day of pt I wanted to try and stand even though my foot was completely crooked and rolled under still. After many unsteady attempts, I was finally able to stand on my own two feet. As I did I could hear my mom softly crying behind me and it strengthened my resolve to walk again. After many more attempts I was able to take the first step I had taken in months. This one step wasn’t enough, I took twelve steps that day and its completely changed my life. After 5 months grueling physical therapy every single day, about 30 hours a week, I was able to proudly walk into doctors’ offices to their disbelief. I am now able to live my life near to the capacity I was before. I walk without assistance, and have recently returned to doing outdoor activities I once thought were going to be impossible. I finally moved and got to start my school journey I had set out to achieve beforehand.
