The Accident and How I Recovered

I wrote out a post describing my senior year, but I decided it was much too long for one post, so I've divided it up into two. I'm not sure when I'll post the other one, because it involves the discussion of the actions of other people, and I'm not sure if I feel comfortable discussing that in such a public manner quite yet. So here's the big one.

For Thanksgiving of 2012, my family traveled up to Springville, Utah to celebrate the holiday with extended family. The day after Thanksgiving, on November 23, 2012, my cousins, little siblings, and I went to an air sports gym-- a place where you can jump around on trampolines, rock climb freely, etc., and if you fall, you fall into a pit of cushy foam blocks. Very fun, but the fact that you have to sign a waiver before you enter should give you some sort of warning as to how dangerous it can be. I decided to go off a trapeze/swing contraption and aimed to land on my back as I had seen others do. I overshot it and ended up doing a partial backflip, landing head first into the foam pit. While the impact of my head was softly cushioned, the weight and velocity of my body was too much and my body ended up falling at a roughly 90 degree angle from my head. As you can imagine, my neck cracked quite violently sending a shock down the rest of my spine.

As I lay there in the foam pit, my first thought was "Oh s***, what did I just do?" followed by ".....Can I move my hands? Yes? Yes, they are moving. Good. My feet? Yeah, okay, they're moving too." I gingerly crawled out of the pit and sat off to the side with my mom, deciding that then was a very good time to quit for the day. About 5 minutes after sitting down, I noticed a weird tingling sensation in my feet as if they were falling asleep. I told my mom and we went home.

Over the course of 3 days, the tingling turned to loss of feeling and motion and made it's way up my legs, stopping just below my hips.

A visit to the ER ended with me being sent home with a steroid pack in hopes that whatever inflammation was in my back would be fought off with drugs and I would return to normal. Determined to get a better answer, we scheduled appointments with neurologists and other doctors. I was admitted into the UMC hospital on November 28th. MRIs, CT scans, Spinal taps, etc., revealed nothing. The steroids had killed off any inflammation and there was no longer any evidence of an injury.

The best explanation we got, and the one we agreed sounded most likely, was that my spinal cord had been jarred so severely that it had essentially short-circuited the nervous system which then began to shut itself down; something that has happened to a few people, referred to as "Spinal Shock." Once the nervous system recovers from the shock (anywhere between a few hours to several months), one must re-learn how to use the muscles that had been shut down. So we found a physical therapy clinic with a specialist in back injuries, set up a schedule with them, and rearranged the house so I could move around more freely. Our house was built in such a way that I was limited to my bedroom, bathroom, and living room. We had to take off the door to the bathroom and replace it with a curtain so I could fit through it. we moved my bed into the living room so I could get to it more easily.

And a few days later, I went back to school looking something like this:

This is where my post collides with the drafted one mentioned in the beginning of the story. There was some boy drama going on at school, and this did not help my case. Rumors were spread about my injury, the main one being that I had faked the injury to gain the attention and affection of said boy. I can't emphasize enough how much this was not the case and how much it bothered me. I had lost the function of my legs. My hopes of joining my new school's swim team and serving an LDS mission once I turned 19 were all up in the air as we had no idea how long it would take me to recover. At this point, my friends were dropping out of my life and I was desperate to cling to the few people I was close to. The bullying I received from my peers and used-to-be-friends combined with the rumors that most of my teachers believed was so bad that I ended up switching schools at the semester. 

And now for the happy part.

I have since made a full recovery.While the first 3 weeks showed no improvement, once the intensive physical therapy I was receiving started working, I improved at a rapid pace. By Christmas Eve, I had enough control to drag my feet across the floor by using my hips and supporting myself with a walker. I was using forearm crutches by mid-January, and by Valentine's Day, I was able to go completely unassisted for a few hours at a time. Swim season at my new high school started in March and while I was not fit enough to qualify for state in my usual distance events, I did qualify in the 50 and 100 yard freestyle, placing 5th and 4th respectively. I recently picked up running, and just today I did 2.5 miles in 30 minutes, alternating between walking and jogging. 

State! (Ignore the poor quality phone picture)

I am 100% sure that my attitude throughout this whole ordeal played a major role in my recovery. For some miraculous reason, I was able to remain relatively calm and and optimistic. I made an effort to never complain in front of people outside of my family. I pushed myself past my limits, and while I did have a few instances of emotional breakdowns, I powered through. I had amazing physical therapists who helped me every step of the way-- literally every step. I will always remember and cherish their genuine concern and support. I couldn't have done it without them. 

My family was also so helpful in my recovery. My dad works at a medical school, and his coworkers were able to get me appointments with the best doctors in town. My family's love and support is something I will be eternally thankful fore.

And finally, I am thankful for the Atonement. For my non-Mormon or non-religious readers, the Atonement refers to Christ's suffering for us. Not just for our sins, but all our pains and trials as well. I fully believe that Christ knows all the pain I went through-- the physical, the mental, and the emotional. He felt it all as he knelt in Gethsemane, and having that faith and knowledge that there really was someone who knew exactly what I was going through helped me keep my positive attitude and strong will to keep moving forward.  I couldn't have done it without my faith.

And that's the end of this post. This experience is something I will never forget or overlook. While I will forever stay away from trampolines and air sports gyms, I will live a normal, functioning life. And, believe it or not, I am thankful for the experience this injury has given me. It gave me a new outlook on life and the ability to connect and help others through their trials.

Thanks for reading :)

New Beginnings

Each January, the young women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints host an evening of welcoming for the incoming girls in their ward of that year. It is entitled "New Beginnings." Filled with scripture references, encouraging speeches, and warm wishes, it a great way to introduce these young women into the next chapter of their lives.

Now, it is not January, and I am not an incoming young woman. It is currently 11:26PM on a Tuesday night on June 24th, 2014. I am 19 years old, living in Springville, Utah, and I have been out of the young women's program for over a year now. I am, however, starting a new beginning and have been for a few months.

Over the past 2 years, I have dealt with a massive amount of stress. I've had 4 clean starts, 3 of which turned out pretty well. I've moved 4 times, dealt with a severe and life-changing injury, made friends, lost friends, fell in love, strove to serve a mission, broke my own heart, got on the road to recovery and happiness, and a few other things I'm sure I'm forgetting; all in the past two years, and all of which I will go into further detail in future posts. It's been a ride.

Now, I'm terrible at journaling, but I'm good at getting on my computer and writing out rants to my friends. I've gotten enough positive feedback from it, and after some personal thought and spending an evening discussing the importance of family history and recording our lives, I've decided that a blog is a good way to do it. In other words, I am jumping on the Mormon Blog Bandwagon. But hey, I've got an interesting story to tell, and this is a good way to do it while simultaneously reaching out to others and helping them realize that they are not alone in their struggles and heartaches. I'm also ready to start discussing things in my life that I have been holding in for awhile, because they were painful to talk about; however, I feel that I have reached a point in my life where I am comfortable with who I am. My mistakes and my successes, my falls and my recoveries, my heartbreaking stories and my heartwarming stories-- They're all part of me, and I would not be the person I am without them.

I've made mistakes. And that's okay. I can't go back and undo them. And that's okay. I can, however, move on and live a successful and happy life, regardless of what I've done/been through/recovered from/whatever. This blog will not only be a recollection of my trials, but a description of how I got through them as well. I will also incorporate events happening in present time, as I am learning so much about life on a daily basis.

This post was a little scatterbrained and off, so if you can only take one bit from this post take this: Keep your head up. Everything is okay, and there are always New Beginnings.