My Story

From the time I was born on August 29, 1988 until 7th grade I went to bible school every summer. I went to church on holidays, like Christmas, and Easter, and that was it. I didn’t have to go to church, our family stayed home on Sundays. So getting older I really didn't believe in god, but I thought something was out there. But what I had experienced as a teenager made me believe in God completely.

The summer before I had turned sixteen, I had met younger teenagers, who introduced me to their older friends. I was finally introduced to drinking, smoking marijuana, and sneaking out of my house at midnight and not coming back until five a.m. when my mother would start getting ready for work. After I turned 16, I had a Major Life-Changing Experience. Three others and myself were involved in a serious supposedly fatal accident. We wanted to have a little pre-Halloween fun on Oct. 9th 2004. But things didn't go as planned. My boyfriend at the time also the driver, was intoxicated. Everyone trusted him driving that way, because he always drove drunk and he never had an accident. We thought we were invincible. Until that night.

I snuck out of my house as usual, like I did every weekend. This night was different than the others, one of my friends that was with my boyfriend at the time, called me up and told me my boyfriend was really drunk, she hadn't seen him like this before. I really didn't think anything of it, but I insisted that I would drive. I never got to drive, I realize now that if I would have, I wouldn't be like how I am today. Well my boyfriend drove to a town that that was over an hour away, there was suppose to be this haunted cemetery there. We were near the cemetery but there was no sign for a T intersection and we went straight through the intersection in the country, down a ditch and hit a tree. Everyone involved was hurt. I was in the worst condition. Everyone else’s injuries included...a broken wrist, broken jaw, dislocated hip, fractured vertebrae, fractured ankle, punctured lung and so on.

My injuries were...a severed artery leading from my heart to my brain, both lungs collapsed, my trachea ripped, a couple of fractured vertebrae. I flat lined twice, once at the scene another in an ambulance. I was rushed to the hospital, and was prepped for an abdominal procedure to see if anything was wrong with my organs. Since I was not breathing and had an air leakage, my body was swollen, and red from the oxygen getting under my skin. The next day was my parents anniversary and I had a stroke, that basically saved my life and ruined it as well. No one knew what was wrong with me, because I was bleeding internally and I was on my deathbed. I was given a 3% chance to live. A brain surgeon looked at my CT scan, because since I had a stroke doctors were going to prepare for brain surgery. As my doctor looked at my results, he found that I had a severed artery. I had open heart surgery that was suppose to take 6 hours and the doctors did it in 2. From the stroke I was paralyzed on my left side of my body. Doctors thought that I would never be able to walk or I would be wheel-chair bound for the rest of my life. After 14 days or so in ICU, I moved some of my left side. (Keep in mind I don't remember anything in ICU, I was always sedated, and I'm telling what others have said to me)That night that I moved, things were abnormal in the unit. All of the machines shut down at one point, and a man that was in a coma woke up and said he was hungry, I told my nurse I could move my arm and my leg. The next day I told my father(I don’t remember any of this)that, "I saw Jesus, he said everyone is praying for me, and that I'll be alright." I didn’t believe in god at the time, so why would I make this up. I was told people from across the world were praying for me, soldiers, I was on a lot of prayer lists, truckers heard of me, and communicated back and forth, a minister came up to Illinois from Mississippi because God told her there was a little girl that was dying and needs to be saved.

From then on, everything got better. I was moved to pediatrics and started therapy to retrain my mind and body. Even though I could only drink liquids, and walk in a walker I had so much determination to get out of the hospital. I remember telling my dad, that "I'm going to run out of this hospital when I leave, and I'm going to get through this." After things were rolling and improving little by little I was able to chew solids, I moved to rehab where the REAL therapy happened. I had speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy several times a day everyday. and was able to walk on my own. After being in the hospital for 33 days, I walked out on Nov. 12th. I have been missing school, sick of the hospital so I wanted to go back to school. I came back to school 4 days after I left the hospital.

It will be four years this October and I am still struggling to be 'normal' again. I have had TIA's (mini-stroke), and I have been hospitalized due to those TIA's. Currently I am on Coumadin, and my doctor says I will most likely be on it for the rest of my life. I just had surgery on my left foot because I have had problems that resulted from the stroke. But I still try and continue to live my life as normal as possible. I know miracles can happen, from being on my deathbed and suffering from a stroke to walking out in only 33 days. From now on, I say anything is possible and I can prove it. From my injury, I never give up on anything, and I am a very determined person now