Fear

     At some point in our lives, we all become afraid of something. Whether it's a small fear or a big fear, it can leave us feeling scared and/ or helpless. I want to talk about what my fear was, how it made me feel and how I was able to overcome it.
     After the accident, once I started driving again, I wouldn't drive on the interstate. I avoided the interstate like someone with a peanut butter allergy avoids peanuts (I was gonna put the infamous saying, "like someone avoids the plague,”  but I wanted to try and spice things up a little). I didn't mind if someone else drove, I was just deathly afraid of being the one behind the wheel. I was horrified of potentially being at fault for causing an accident and hurting my passenger/s or hurting passenger/s in another car/s.
     The reason I thought like this was because for months, I let the opinion of a strong influence in my life, convince me that I "wasn't ready" to drive. I let this person's fear become my fear, which became my reality. This "reality" of mine, became debilitating. Any time the thought of driving on the interstate even crossed my mind, my shoulders would tense up, my breathing got heavier, and I would stare off in space (my mind was trying to run away from my intense anxiety).
          Well, you may be wondering "why were you only afraid of the interstate, the accident happened at a stop light?" That's a great question, which I have asked myself on many occasions. Here's what I came up with, when I first got back into driving, my reaction time was slower.
        I stuck with in town driving because I was able to stop and pull over if need be. If I was on the interstate, I didn't really have the option to pull over; it was almost if I were "stuck" on the road until I had reached my exit. Plus, interstate driving was a lot faster, and I wasn't sure if I could keep up with the flow of traffic. After driving in town for about a year (I became a more confident driver and my reaction time got a lot faster), I knew I needed to take the next step and let go of this fear of interstate driving, and finally close the "accident chapter" in my "life book."
      While I was in Therapy dealing with my marriage issues, I brought up my fear of driving, with my Therapist. She told me we could do "EMDR." "EMDR" which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR is a newer psychotherapy technique. "EMDR" is on average an 8 to 12ish session process. At the beginning of the initial process, my Therapist had me set an end goal for myself. The goal I had set was to drive on the interstate towards the end of the 12 sessions.
     The first 3 to 4 sessions my Therapist just focused on talking  about how my fear  made me feel both emotionally and physically. About the 4th or 5th session we began the "eye movement portion of the EMDR process. Instead of doing "eye movement," my Therapist did taping. I laid my hands out, palms facing up, and she would go back and forth taping on each palm.
      As she was taping my palms, my eyes were closed and I was focusing on an image that reminded me of the accident. After about a minute of taping, my Therapist told me to open my eyes, take a few deep breaths, and she asked me what I had imagined.
        After telling her what came to my mind, she then told me to re-close my eyes and re-focus on the last image that I had envisioned. She then began taping on my hands again for about another minute. She repeated this process about 7 or 8 times (this was all done in one session).
      After that session was over, my Therapist said, it was not uncommon if I went home and felt exhausted. I just kinda laughed that off, I thought, "oh I feel fine," haha, yeah right. I started driving back home and I automatically zoned out. Thankfully I only lived about 15 minutes from where her office was. Once I was home, I laid down and fell asleep for about an hour (for the next few days, I felt pretty drained).
     Once I woke up, I started looking back at pictures I had saved from the accident. I continued to look at these pictures every day (sometimes twice a day) for about a week straight. By doing this, I hoped that I would become numb to the severity of the accident. Sure enough, by the end of the week, the anxiety of the accident had greatly decreased.
     I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off me. I felt so confident that when the weekend came I decided to take a short road trip on the interstate to go visit a friend for lunch (I’ve only been back on the interstate since April of this year, so for about 2 to 3 months).
     About two weeks later, I had another Therapy session. When I went back to see my Therapist, I had told her my accomplishment. Since I had achieved my goal after 5 sessions, I only had one more step in the EMDR process to complete.
     The last step was to reset my mind and focus on a happier image when thinking about the accident. My Therapist followed the same taping technique. This time I was able to create and store images in my mind that were more joyful instead of tragic (I created the image of my family and I going out for pizza, then we all safely drove back home). Now when I think about driving on the interstate, I don’t have these awful images of almost dying.  Instead, these horrible images, are now stored in the back of my memory bank.
     We are now coming to the end of this portion of my blog. My main goal for sharing my story was to be able to give at least one person hope. There have been many days that I’ve just wanted to give up, but with Christ’s strength he doesn’t let me. God, through Christ, and I, have invested way too much in my recovery to give up now. I believe Christ, will help me continue with my recovery, so when it’s all said and done, the glory will go to God.
     The “accident” chapter in my life is finally closed. I am now continuing to focus on God, further recovery, and my daughters.  So now I want to move onto another topic that weighs heavy for most all people, if not for everyone. That topic is “insecurity.” Next post, I will get into my insecurities, and how I “try” to overcome them.

Forgiveness

     To Forgive. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of "FORGIVE" is to, "cease to feel resentment against, to forgive one's enemies." Well, the main questions for this definition are, how do you forgive "one's enemies?" How do you forgive someone who has wronged you in so many ways and taken so much from you? How do you put the resentment, and bitter feelings behind you? The only answer I have for you, is you can't, that is you can't do it alone. I believe you can only give true forgiveness, if you have first been forgiven. The only way to do that, is go straight to the source, Jesus Christ.
    We already talked about how Jesus had forgiven me of my sins, back in the spring  of 2012. Well in the Summer of that same year, it was my turn to grant someone (human flesh, not spiritual) forgiveness. I was faced with one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make (it would def. make my top ten list of hardest decisions made in my life time). I had to decide if I wanted to sue the drunk driver who almost took my life, or if I wanted to take the settlement money and just walk away and forgive him.
    Well, I wont let the suspense kill you any longer. I chose to forgive (I bet you didn't see that one coming, haha). Let me now break down each choice I could have decided. Then I will explain why I chose forgiveness.
     If I was to sue him (which rightfully so, I could have and the bitter, resentful "old me" would have, and I'm about 99.9% sure I would have won the case) I most likely would have been in and out of court (he was/is Military) for years trying to collect the money that I would have "won" in the court case. I felt that if I would have chosen that path, I would have never felt true peace. I would have spent years "chasing him," which to me would have been a waste of time.  What kind of life would that have been for my family and I? I'll tell you this, it wouldn't have been a very good one.
     Lets move on to the second choice of taking the settlement money. I'm not going to get into the exact $1 amount of it all, but hopefully this gives you a general idea of what was all lost (materialistically speaking). The inpatient, 2.5 month hospital stay and 2 to 3 month outpatient physical, occupational, and speech Therapy bills, alone were thousands of dollars (that was with awesome health insurance. Without health insurance, it would have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars). Anything my health insurance didn't cover, my husband and I were responsible for paying. Then there was the loss of income from the job I had just excepted, the eye appointments to the eye specialist, eye surgery, an orthopedic surgeon appointment (just so he could check my tibia fracture), and several neurology appointments(which I'm now down to seeing him only once a year, thank you Jesus!). These were most of the "bigger loses." The settlement money that I got back, was no where close to the amount of money that was lost. With that being said, we pretty much payed for him to almost kill me.
     It's been about 2 years since I took the settlement check. If someone was to ask if I regret taking the check, and wished I could go back and sue him, my response would be "no." I say this, because I think about my past and how I could have been that drunk driver. For as many bad decisions that I've made, I could have been the one potentially taking someone else s life (by NO MEANS am I trying to excuse his actions, I'm just trying to put things into perspective). Thankfully, that was not the case. God truly gave me a second chance. He gave me a second chance to straighten up my life.
     I truly believe the accident was a blessing in disguise (I know that sounds kinda twisted). God had to use such an awful situation for me to come to know him (for me to actually "wake up and smell the coffee"). Through this experience, at times I have truly been pushed to my limits (physically, mentally, and emotionally), but because of God's promise, "he will never leave you nor forsake you ( Deuteronomy 31:6)," I have hope. I have hope that he will help me get through any obstacle that is thrown my way.
     Next post, I want to talk about getting past fear. I don't mean, like a fear of spiders or snakes (or in my case worms, yes, I know worms lol, your probably thinking," really Chelsie?"). No, I'm talking about a fear that scares you so bad it leaves you feeling debilitated. That when you think about it you can barely breath. 

The savior of my flesh and Soul

 

 


     I started going to church with my neighbor back in January of 2011. Also, around that time, my marriage was on the rocks and I had just found out I was pregnant with our third child. Later on I found out it was another girl. That makes three girls! Talk about drama.
      At that point, I was kind of an emotional mess (to say the least). Oh yeah, plus I was still adjusting to my "physical limitations" (from the accident), and being a stay at home mom.
     In the last post, I talked about feeling like I was suffocating, I felt trapped staying at home (basically 24/7).  I was angry at my husband and took a lot out on him. He was working and going to school. He was trying to be a good provider and he had a lot on his plate.  I'm not going to take all the blame for our marriage issues.  I just want you to know I wasn't blameless.
     One night I became so infuriated with him,  I decided to pack his bags. The next morning, I told him to leave. Well, he left alright and decided not to come back for another year and a half. Even when he came back, things between us were still pretty rocky. Within that year and a half I grew tremendously in my faith and security as a woman. 
    Let’s now get back to the "church" portion of this post. I continued going to church week after week. I felt like there was something missing in my life. I felt like a huge part of my very being was being filled with anger and bitterness. I hated who I was becoming. I was rarely, genuinely happy (I may have seemed like I was happy, but I put on a good front). At that point, I hid behind my smile.
     Each time I went to service, I felt more and more of a conviction, a conviction to surrender my life over to Jesus Christ. I felt the need to“throw in the towel” and admit that I couldn't do things on my own anymore.
      I remember having this image of standing on the outside of a wooden door.  My hand balled into a fist and my wrist slightly pulled back as if I were getting ready to knock. This image started popping into my head every Sunday for over a month.  I don't know what was holding me back from actually knocking. I think it was because of fear, the fear of the unknown.
     The Sunday after Easter Sunday (back in 2012), was when I actually "threw in the towel." I was sitting in service listening to my Pastor speak (his name is Thurman). He told a story about him and his son swimming in a pool. He mentioned how his son stood on the deck and wanted to jump into the pool .
      His son was just a boy, the young boy needed to trust in his father, and believe that he would catch him so he wouldn't go under. At that moment, I had this instant thought of “I’m so sick of drowning." While I was sitting in the pews, I remember closing my eyes, and picturing myself finally knocking at this door that stood in my path for weeks. Then I remember the door slowly opening, and a man dressed in white, waving me in. At that time I finally felt a huge burden lifted from my shoulders.
     As I put in my initial post, my dad is a Christian man and I'm a "daddy's girl." After I accepted Christ into my life, my dad was the first person I called. This is kind of how the conversation went. Me: "Hey dad, so I went up to the front of church today and I became a member." my Dad: "O…K, so Chelsie, what are you trying to tell me?" (that sneaky man new what I was trying to tell say, he just wanted me to come out and say that I had accepted Christ into my life as my Lord and Savior). So I said the words, “dad I accepted Christ into my life today.”
      I was kind of nervous telling him. For months, no probably years, he’s been telling me to get into a church and find myself a good church family. Well my dad was right, Christ Jesus and the support of other Christians was exactly what I needed     
      The anger and bitterness started to fade and true healing started to begin. Having been in the accident and having Christ in my life, has helped me to realize how valuable time really is. The peace he has given me, has helped me to see the good in people, and has helped me to forgive the bad.  We are only given a short amount of time on this earth.  I would rather spend that time being happy then holding grudges.
     The next time you stop by to read my blog, I will go into more detail on forgiveness. 

Coming home

     After coming home from the hospital, I continued with Occupational, Speech an Physical Therapy. As I explained in the last post, I went from a quad cane to a regular cane. After a few months of using a regular cane, I finally was able to use just my legs and feet!! To this day I still have a slight limp.  
    Having a weak leg also throws my balance off. It is not uncommon for me to lose my balance and walk or fall into a wall. Its usually not as bad as it sounds, I promise. Over the years I have learned to land softly so I don't injure myself.  I try to fall with grace.
    I have a really hard time walking in the winter. My muscles stiffen when its cold (even if I get slightly cold, my whole left side will shut down, and its very difficult to move).
     The range of motion in my left arm has improved a great deal. I can lift my arm straight up and hold it there for a good while (my shoulder muscles are still tight). I can at least hold my arm up, long enough to put my hair in a pony tail (for the record, trying to put your hair up, using only one hand does not work out very well).
      My fingers on my left hand are still tight but not nearly as tight as they once were. I am able to use them for tasks such as tying my shoes and typing on my computer. The only difference now, vs. before the accident, it just takes me longer to complete these tasks. 
       Another serious issue I was facing, was double vision. I had double vision for about 8 months before I underwent "Strabismus" eye surgery (yeah, googling surgeries before you undergo them is not a good idea). I remember telling myself, if this surgery doesn't  work, I am going to stab out one of my eyes (the scary part, I was dead serious). I was so tired of living my life in double. On top of that, the head aches were pretty horrendous. I remember the first thing I did when I first woke up, even before opening my eyes, I would say "God, please let my eyes be healed." At that time, I didn't really understand that our plans aren't always God's plan and his timing isn't always our timing.    
       When I did open my eyes, and realized that I still saw the world in double, I would automatically get mad at God. If he really was the creator of the universe, then why didn't  he take away my pain?  What did I do to make him so angry? These were the questions that continuously went through my head.
      Due to the double vision, the question of whether or not I should start driving a rose. I thought I should drive but my husband (at the time) thought other wise. The difference of opinions led to resentment. The resentment I had towards my husband was a big part of our divorce. When it was all said and done, I started driving about a year and a half post accident. 
     Not being able to drive, increased my anxiety and depression. Due to my double vision, my independence was taken away.  I felt like a little kid being driven around by friends or family (consisting of my sister in law and husband.
       I thought my situation would never change. I felt like I would never be able to "live" again. Cabin fever set in real fast and in a hurry. I felt like the walls were caving in on me, like I was suffocating... very slowly.  Due to these feelings, I had suicidal thoughts on many occasions. I felt that death had to be better than living in a nightmare, day after day (Well, I never went through with any of these thoughts. Instead, I did the exact opposite, I started going to church).
     My neighbor and I were talking about church one night. Before I knew it, I grabbed a ride with her  and started attending her church.
      I always believed in God, but my faith (at that point) was not strong. Ironically, my friends church, was the same church, my dad had visited while he was staying with my husband (to help him out with our girls) while I was in the Coma (my dad stayed with my husband a little over a  month).   

       My dad asked the church (which is my current church today) to pray for healing and bring me out of the Coma. Their prayers worked! Once I started to meet the church members, they felt like they already knew me.

  Coma picture, after my lung collapsed

                                                                               

                                                                             

                                                                 






About a week after waking up from Coma
                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                         About 4 years after  the Accident

                               



                                                                                                                                                                        

One, two, and finally number three

    I went to my third and final inpatient hospital back in August of 2010. I stayed there until September of that same year.  I needed the last hospital ("National Rehab Hospital" in Washington DC) to re-learn (but not limited to), walking, eating, using the bathroom, and social skills. No kidding, I pretty much re-learned all the stages of life. Starting as a newborn and ending with being a grown-up. At times it was pretty frustrating... who am I kidding, it was a huge struggle. After  2-3 years I made it through the re-learning phase of "being an adult."
     During the new born stage of life all babies start of wearing diapers. I also wore diapers for about a month and a half after the accident. I did not have control over my bladder.
      I remember this one time after using the bed pan (which was pretty full of urine). I reached for, and pressed the button that paged the nurse on shift. Well lets just say it felt like eternity and she (I'm pretty sure they only had female nurses working on my floor) was not moving fast enough for my impatient self (I'll tell you more about the patients part later on in this post), so of course I decided to take things into my own hands. Yup, you guessed it,  I decided to move the bed pan (which was directly underneath me) myself. Urine spilled all over my sheets. When the nurse came into my room, lets just say she was not to impressed. She had to roll me on to my side to change my sheets. She was cleaning the mess I made while she was in the middle of rounds.
     Lets now move on to the eating stage. According to this web site http://www.babycenter.com/0_age-by-age-guide-to-feeding-your-baby_1400680.bc, babies can start a "thick diet." The diet which includes oatmeal, around the age of 6 months. As they get older, they move from oatmeal to more solid foods like hot dogs or chicken nuggets.
        When I finally passed my "Barium Swallow test," I was put on a "thick diet."  A powder was added to my drinks in order to thicken the liquid. For solid food I was given foods that were soft and easy to chew.
       My doctors felt like I wasn't ready to be on a regular diet that consisted of thin liquids such as water, juice, or milk. They were so afraid I would aspirate, or choke on my own vomit.
        When I could finally eat again, I ate and drank so fast that it was not uncommon for me to choke (the doctors theory on me choking was right. The only difference was I never aspirated. After I was done choking, I would have cough attacks (oddly enough, I would have sneeze attacks too. I could sneeze for a good minute straight). After about 8ish months my brain finally figured out how to safely eat and my choking finally subsided.
     My toddler phase would be best represented by re-learning how to walk. The second picture that I added to this post, is a picture of me with a belt around my waste (I was also eating a "Zebra cake" by Little Debbie. FYI, "Zebra Cakes are one of my all time favorite junk foods). Well the belt was used by the Physical Therapist. She would stand behind me, while holding on to the belt around my waist to help prevent me from falling.
         When I first started walking, I used a quad cane.  I left the hospital still using a quad cane and continued to use that type of cane for 4-5 months. When my outpatient Physical Therapist felt like it was safe for me to use a regular cane, I chose a pink metallic one. I got the pink cane, firstly to support the Susan G Koman breast cancer awareness fund and secondly, because it was a girly. If I had to use a cane, might as well get a super girly one and rock it!
     Now moving on. The dreaded teenage years. As I would call it, my impatient phase. From what I've experienced (when I was a teenager) and seen, most teenagers want what they want, and they want it now (or they wanted it like yesterday). I've always struggled with patients (the brain injury amplified my inpatients). I can think of two main instances that resemble my impatience.
     The first one deals with my sleeping (or lack of sleeping). I was on two different sleeping medications (one, so I would fall a-sleep and the other was so I would stay a sleep). Even with the sleeping meds, I was only able to get around 3 hours of sleep each night. My day would start at 1 in the morning and end around 10ish at night. Once I was up, I rarely fell back to sleep. At one in the morning, I was ready for breakfast and Therapy. The only problem was, breakfast was at 8ish and therapy started at 9. So I did a lot of laying around in my hospital bed (boring).
    I had a hard time keeping still. I couldn't hold my body still for more than 30 seconds without moving a body part, or scratching an itch I thought I had on my face. I remember timing myself, to see how long I could go without having to fidget. I tried to stay completely still for a minute (that was torture). I wanted to move but I would force myself to stay still.
    Eventually the constant "need" to move, went away, and I was able to get back to "normal" (I'm not sure what the word "normal" even means. Honestly, I don't know if anyone can correctly define that word). I re-learned how to calm my body and keep my motions under control.
     The "adult phase." I think the hardest part of being an adult was excepting the fact that (at that time) I had two little girls. I remember seeing these two beautiful little girls coming to see me. I remembered who they were and I remembered having them (I have the scars to prove it). The scary part was, I didn't feel anything for them (which doesn't surprise me because I didn't know emotions at that point). As a mother, that's heart breaking to even think about. Heck its heart breaking to even say. So, for about 6-8 months I had to re-learn how to love my kids.
     I'm going to get slightly off track for just a minute. I just wanted to add the poem I had written back in February of 2010 (just five months before the accident). I had written this for one of my college classes. Along with the poem, I wrote on a piece of paper my bank account and bill information (I put it in an envelope and put it in a box with all my important documents dealing with the kids and house).
       The reason I had done this was in case anything had ever happened to me. My husband would then have access to all the bills and my accounts. It's almost as if I knew something bad was about to happen. It gives me chills even thinking about it.
                                                    


In case you can't read the poem:   Without Her



                His foot hits the ground as he steps out from the car

      He looks behind him to see the other cars lined up along the curb
            He forces his feet in a forward motion towards the porch
                He stands outside the door unable to grab the handle
                     The fear of emptiness enters into his heart
          This will be the first time being in the house without her
              The first time having family and friends gathered without her
                            The first time living life without her
    As he loves her from a distance while the earth consumes her body