What Happened to Me

Hey everyone,

I’m new here, as of 12/4/11. I told my story to Graham, and he said I shoud post it. I will say, I am regestered as a quad. But, I do have movement.I like chatting with members of this site. If you want to chat, you can send me a message, or post on here and I will respond ASAP. You can ask me anything, I don’t get upset about the questions. So, if you are wondering, just ask.

May 21, 2010

I was 16 years old. Got my licences 5 months earlier. Well it was a Friday morning, 5 days left of school untill summer break. I woke up at 7:20 like I usually do. Washed my hair, put some clothes on, and grabed a pack of oreos for breakfast.

Then it was about 7:30, and i was on my way to school, driving my 1997 GMC Sonoma. I had to cross the two north bound highway lanes to get to the south bound lanes. I checked the highway traffic and thought I was good to go. when I was crossing, I was hit in the drivers side by an oncomming semi truck. No trailer attached thankfully. Emergency vehicles rushed to the scene, and decided that I should be air evaced to the hospital. So, the police closed the highway trafic going both north and south to have space for the helicopter to land. By the time the helicopter got there, the firefighters used JAWS to cut the roof of my truck off. Then the medics got me loaded into the helicopter.

Once I was loaded, they flew me to a childrens hospital that was 75 miles away. When I was there, the docs did a scan to see what was the problem. They only saw that I had a shattered C4 and some cuts/scrapes. After the scans they took me into surgery that lasted 8 hours. In the surgery, they removed the shards of my C4 and fused my C3 to my C5 with a titanium cage.

Then after the surgery, 2 days later, they come to realise that I also had seviere brain dammage. This is all I remember being told. 6 days after the accident I went from the ICU to regular care. Then 6 days of that, I was transfered to a therapy hospital that I stayed at for 3 1/2 months. While I was at the rehab, the nurses had me in diapers 24/7 for about 2 months (hey, don’t be sorry, i didnt have to get up to go to the bathroom :)) ). Then I only wore during the night for about a month. After that, I didnt wear at all. I was in therapy every day of the week, except sunday, for 3-6 hours a day.

My neurosergon doc said I’d be paralised from shoulders down. I couldnt move when I was in the hospital. My parents kept what the doc said from me about being paralised. And when I was to leave the therapy hospital, I walked out with a walker.

When I went home, I was homebound for school, so a teacher came to my house every once in a while. But when I recovered enough I went back to school, and tried to resume where I left off.

Today, I attend school full time, I walk with a cane, and I help out with sports that I was part of before the wreck, Soccer, Wrestling and Tennis. I do have spasams all over whenever I move from a rested spot. I stumble easy, don’t have good balance, I need meds to go #2, and I can’t compleatly empty my bladder so I need to cath when I go.

But hey, I’m alive to enjoy my life. I was kept here for some reason, so I need to fufill that reason when the time comes.