Real Life Humpty Dumpty
Well, if you are wondering about my title, I feel like an egg that was shattered and then put back to together again. My eye sockets were shattered, chin shattered, jaws broken in 3 places, palet was split, and everything else broken multiple times. My sinus’s looked like dynamite had exploded inside them. They were shattered into 100’s of fragments. Also, the muscle in my right eye was hit so hard and crushed that it caused my eye to be crossed. The impact also caused a nerve to be torn off at the spine that controls feeling in my left hand. For the most part, they were able to put me back in working condition! :)
On August 2006, my family and I were riding 4-wheelers. We were on about 300 acres and were approx a mile or 2 into the woods. I was not wearing a helmet, although my children were. (yeah, do as I say, not as I do) Real smart, huh? ha Anyway, I wasn’t doing anything I thought I was going to get hurt doing. Boy, was I WRONG!!! I was climbing a hill and just did not make it all the way to the top, and my 750 pound ATV starting flipping over. It seemed like we were in slow motion. It fell to the ground with me under it, then was going to roll over me, but instead it stood on its end and came back to land on me again. Needless to say, what happened next was all very fast and scary. My husband left me to get help, my kids were screaming that I was going to die because of the blood that I was losing. I didn’t know how bad I was hurt, I just knew that I could not stand up. My eyes were already swollen shut, and I had no idea what was in store for me. The paramedics were there in less than 5 minutes from the call. They could not get the ambulance in the woods, so they ran on foot. When they arrived, they immediatly called in life flight. I remember hearing the helicopter as it went over us in the sky. It landed about a mile from where I was. They put me in the back of our 4-wheel drive truck with about 6 paramedics and drove me carefully out of the woods to the ambulance. From there, they drove me and put me on the helicopter. I rememeber most of that until I got to the hospital. But from the 2nd day on…I remember EVERYTHING!!! I was in ICU for about a week and then on the step-down ward for about 3 weeks. And I was at Stalworth Rehab for 7 days. I had my first surgery 4 days after arriving at Vanderbilt which took 18 hours with 2 teams of 4 surgerions. Then not even a week later, they went in for another surgery. It was approx 7hours long. I have now had 9 surgerys all on my face! It has been a long road, but I am so thankful and grateful for who I am and where I am today. I am very thankful for such a great hospital and team of surgerions and nurses and doctors. :) And I am even more thankful for my wonderful and supportive family and friends!!
