Friday May 8, 2009

First off, I would like to say Happy Mother's Day! I will post about my mom next week. :)

Friday May 8, 2009, is a special day to me. It is a day I will never forget. Here is an account of what happened.

I came home from work that Thursday night. I talked to my then-boyfriend HT (more about him another day) on the phone. We made early plans for Friday. Since I did not need to come into work till around noon, I was going to drop T-Bone at HT's car shop around 9AM. HT would then take me to Waffle House to eat breakfast and drop me off at work afterwards.

I got ready for bed. I set my puppy T-Bone's pillow on the ground for him to sleep on. Normally I would let him sleep on the bed with me, but I just started training him to sleep by himself. He whimpered and tried to climb up my bed, but my bed was too high for him. I fell asleep around 1AM I think.

Suddenly I woke up in the middle of my sleep. My body quickly sat up, and I gasped for air. It was like a scene from movies with characters suddenly waking up from their nightmares, except my real nightmare started immediately right after. I became really dizzy from sitting up too quickly. The room was spinning, and before I could react or even realize what was going on, my face was just centimeters from the ground. I landed head first.

Instantly, my body felt different. My breathing became shallow. I tried to move my legs, but nothing happened. I tried to push up with my arms. My left arm felt like it was pinned under my heavy body, and I could only feel up to my wrist on my right arm. No matter how hard I pushed up I just could not get up. I would get a sharp pain in my neck whenever I moved my head, but my body felt numb. I knew right away that I was paralyzed.

I tried to yell for help, but only a whisper came out of my mouth. I swung my right arm against my bed and nightstand continuously until my arm got tired. No one could hear me because my brother's room was on the other side of the house. My sister, whose room was connected to mine by a bathroom, was away for college. My parents' room was downstairs. Whenever I took a break from trying to get help, I would pray to God.

I asked Him to save me. I told Him I was not ready to die. I still wanted to see and spend more time with my family and friends. I wanted to get married to HT and start a family with him. I wanted to travel the world and do so many other things. My past, present, and future kept constantly running through my mind. I told God that I would accept my fate of being paralyzed if He would just keep me alive. After praying, I would ask Him to give me strength, and I would try to get up again.

T-Bone woke up from his sleep and came towards me. He knew something was wrong. He laid down right next to my face and whimpered for a while before falling back asleep. I had hoped he would have barked, but he didn't. T-Bone woke up and started wandering around the room. I could hear walking over things. After some time, he got quiet again, so I assumed he fell asleep again. He woke up once more and came to me again. He found a bag of Starburst sour jellybeans that I had just bought to share with my brother. He laid down next to me again and tore open the bag; I could hear him munching away.

I had no idea what time it was when I fell or how long I was there on the ground. It felt like eternity though. I know it was really dark when I fell. My hair was in my face, which made it harder to breathe. I kept trying to tuck it behind my ear with my right wrist, but that got me nowhere. Around 6:45AM (according to my family), T-Bone started scratching the door that lead out to the rest of the house. My high school mum that was hung on the door was being scratched as well.

At around that time, my mom, who took my brother to school every morning, happened to come up the stairs to see if my brother was ready for school yet. My brother walked out of his room and met my mom near the front of my room. They both heard T-Bone causing a ruckus in my room. They thought that he needed to pee and that I was too lazy to get up and take him outside. They opened the door, and T-Bone frantically darted out of my room.

My mom was about to chase after him, but she heard mumblings from my room. Both my mom and brother looked into my room and saw me on the ground. They were confused as to why I was like that. My mom knelt beside me to hear what I was trying to say. I asked her to turn me because I couldn't breathe. (I thought I was laying on my tummy and that that is why I had a hard time breathing, but my family later told me that I was actually laying on my left side) She ran downstairs to wake up my dad. They both appeared shortly. My dad turned me on my back and held me in his arms so that I could breathe. I told them to call 911.

My brother called 911, and the EMTs were there in about 10-15 minutes. There were about 6 of them. They put a C-collar around my neck to stabilize it. The only female there asked me questions, such as what happened, did I know what time I fell, can I feel my legs, etc. I was so tired and had so much trouble breathing; I kept trying to shake and nod my head to answer. Every time I did that she would fuss at me to not move my head, but I kept forgetting. The guys picked me up and placed me on a longboard. Then they strapped me down with belts. It took 4 guys to transport me from my room upstairs to the stretcher downstairs. They wheeled me out of the front door of my house and into the ambulance.

The female EMT drove with my mother in the passenger seat next to her. I was in the back with a male EMT named Josh. He asked me for personal information and jotted down my answers on his clipboard. Josh asked me if I knew how severe my situation was, and I told him that I know I am paralyzed. He solemnly nodded in agreement. It took us about 30-45 minutes to get to the Texas Medical Center. When we were about 10 minutes away from Memorial Hermann hospital, Josh radioed in to the personnels there and gave them some of my information.

When we got to the hospital, I was rushed immediately to the ER. Josh followed and continued to give the doctors and nurses my information. I became nauseous from lookng at the ceiling lights that were zooming by as I was being wheeled. They unbuckled me from the longboard and lifted me from the stretcher to the hospital bed. The ER doctor and nurses quickly took cut open all my clothing. The doctor touched my chest and legs and asked if I could feel anything. I told him no. He asked me to try to move my toes and fingers, but I could not. Then the nurses wheeled me to go get CT scans.

They removed all my jewelry and told me how the CT scans would be performed. The tech told me to stay still and let her know how I am feeling. I had a horrible headache, and the back of my head and neck really hurt from the position I was laying. She reassured me that she would be as quick as possible. As I was getting scanned, I kept praying for it to be over soon. After she was done, they wheeled me back to the room I was in before.

I told the nurse that I was still nauseous. She left to go get a doctor's order for some medicine to treat my nausea. She came back and injected the medicine into my IV line. The orthopedic doctor came in later to introduce herself and to reassure me that I am in good hands. She told me that she was going to go look at my scans and that she had ordered a halo.

While we waited for the halo to arrive, my mother came in the room to sit by my side. I could tell she was on the verge of breaking down. She just held my hand and told me that my dad was on his way. She received a call from my dad shortly. She stepped out of the room to give him directions to where we were. She came back and stayed with me for a while. When my dad came, my mom left the room so that my dad and brother could visit me. They came in and gave me encouraging words. My dad then asked me if I wanted to see HT. I told him yes.

HT came in, and I could see right away that he had been crying. We made eye contact, and both of us bursted into tears. I did not cry once until that moment. When we finally calmed down, I asked how did he find out. Before he came, I was going to tell my mom to contact him. HT told me that my brother had called him to let him know that I went to the ER. He quickly got out of bed, got dressed, and drove towards my house. My dad and brother were waiting for him so that the could go to the hospital together. He had to stop for gas on the way to my house. At the pump, he called his mom and broke down.

The orthopedic doctor came back and told me that she had to shave two patches of hair on each side of my head for the halo. Honestly, I did not know what a halo was nor have I ever heard of or seen one before that day. The doctor was very apologetic about having to shave my head. I told her I really did not care. She could have shaved my entire head if she wanted. My hair was the least of my worry.

I told the doctor that my head and neck were really hurting. HT asked if she could order some pain medications for me. She told him that she could only administer a low dosage because she needed me to be alert to let her know my pain level as she made adjustments to my halo. The doctor added weights to the back of my halo and had another person pull my arms to sit me up. They did it about 3 times. Every time they did this, I yelped in pain. The pain medication made me extremely drowsy, so I was in and out of consciousness. In between each adjustment, they would lay me back down and took x-rays of my neck. The doctor showed my family how she was slowly realigning my neck. HT told me that she was very meticulous at getting the angle of my neck perfect.

The doctors talked to my family about my condition. They told them that I am paralyzed from my chest down. My parents broke down. At first, when my parents held me in my room and when I told them that I could not move my body, they thought my body just feel asleep from laying on the ground in the same position for too long. My mom thought that the EMTs would just check me over, and then I would be fine. She was confused when they told her that I needed to go to the ER. She had no idea that my situation was that serious. When the EMT told my mom in the ambulance that they needed to take me to Memorial Hermann. Once again, she became confused. She thought they were going to take me to the hospital right by my house. With the new information from the doctor, everything finally sunk in.

My mom did not want to call anyone, but she had to call one of the ladies at church to let her know that my mom would not be able to help with the grocery shopping for that weekend. From that one phone call, news of my accident spread like wildfire. My dad called a family priest to ask him to pray for me, and that phone call spread to many of our family friends. My mom called my uncle (her brother) to break the news, but she just started to cry when he picked up. She gave the phone to my dad. He started but had to keep from choking up. HT called my best friends and coworkers to let them know what happened.

When I became fully conscious again, I found myself in a Shock Trauma ICU. A nurse named Jessica greeted me. My family came into my room and visited with me for a little bit. Then Jessica and the hospital transporters took me to go get my MRI. She asked if I was clausterphobic because she could give some anti-anxiety medication. I told her I would be fine. Looking at the ceiling of lights as they moved me made me nauseous again. When were outside of the MRI room, I told Jessica that I was really nauseous. She went to go look for a container in case I did vomit as other nurses around kept watch of me. When she came back, I indeed vomitted.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my ICU room. Jessica must have given me some kind of medication that made fall asleep. Slowly my family, my friends, HT's friends, my coworkers, my parents' friends, and our family friends came into my room to visit me. Only 2 people were allowed to come in the room at one time. I was drowsy from the pain medications, so I was not all there when people came in. A few people cried. After visiting hours, I was left all alone in the room. The night nurse brought in ice chips for me to chew on since I was not allowed to eat or drink. A respitory therapist came in the middle of the night to give me my breathing treatment.

This is how things went down exactly 2 years ago. Thank you to all those who have prayed and supported my family and me! I feel truly blessed to have such an incredible family!

My best friends and I celebrated my 1 year anniversary
last year. :)