Faithless to Faithful; The Start

I was encouraged to write my story, and felt very strongly this encouragement needed to be followed. My other blog is more blog style. This one will remain the story.

We will call this part “pre-kids.” This is very condensed because by the time I graduated high school I knew the choices I had made were mine. I knew why I had chosen them, poor or not, and no longer felt a need to place blame for the responsibility of my actions on others.

My family, like all families, is not perfect. Once I hit middle school age, I found reasons to not care what people thought, have regard for rules or authority, or really maintain any real aspect of my “Christian faith” outside of still being involved in church and having a great church face. In high school I went back and forth on how I should act, and where I stood in my own beliefs. I wouldn’t call this Christian either, but simply teenage confusion with foolishly justifying and excusing what I thought, felt, believed, did, etc in a manner that logically left no real blame on me.  I still went on missions trips, and was very active in church. That statement still makes me cringe at just how fake I was in that aspect of life. I had seen miracles with my own eyes, had no real reason to doubt God or my faith, and yet didn’t really believe most of what I had been raised in or taught.

After high school, my faith life quickly became non-existent. I knew I had beliefs, but going against so much of what I had been taught, I chose to no longer even attempt to fake my way through it all. I know there is a lot of speculation on this part of my life to what I was doing or how I was living, but the simple truth is that most of the speculation or accusations simply were never true. I am not saying I didn’t make my mistakes, just that instead of people asking me things or getting to know me, I usually ended up finding out what my life was “really” about from random people I didn’t truly know at any point in my life. At this point, my main justification for not returning to church was an explanation of most of what was being said about me coming from people in my church. My friends who had never had any real church experience treated me better, and with no real trust in who else had possibly been fake at church or real, I simply didn’t go back.

By the time I learned I was pregnant with Lexi, I simply knew that I didn’t want to be her Mom if I couldn’t set a good example for her. I had a decent understanding of what I believed, but despite not still being 100% convinced church was right, I went back. I made the decision to give up many aspects of my life to ensure that even if I wasn’t in agreement with all that I had been taught, that what I wouldn’t want her possibly seeing from me as a Mom was changed for what I considered to be positive.

I continued in this religion style of church going for quite a while longer before it became a true relationship like we have been called to according to the Bible. I was continually making improvements in not blatantly sinning, but without the relationship, these changes were still very limited. Some I had claimed to change, but hadn’t really as it was based more on my own control rather than for the love of God.

God has a sense of humor though, because despite all of this I really did know he existed. I had evidence of how amazingly real he was many times in my life.  I do still find it so crazy when I look back, knowing the reality and yet not caring enough to really invest more than my hour of church to him. I had knowledge of scriptures, biblical promises that had always been true, more reasons than most would need to be convinced of why to have a relationship, but I was still running life my own way with it looking like God’s way in my actions, speech, and more.

The start of changing this came with my marriage falling completely apart.

Jesus Take The Wheel

As much as our marriage was at a snail’s pace becoming repaired, it was only about a month from when we started to do the repairing before the crash that has forever changed our lives.

I wasn’t ready to forgive, I wasn’t ready to trust, I wasn’t ready to believe in a forever in my marriage. I was not even remotely close to these points, but God was. We had just changed churches before our marriage hitting bottom. We didn’t really know people, but at the time that was a good thing for me because it meant my past either rumored or truth could not follow me anymore. I had the chance to just be me; honest about my past and honest about my present with no one there to try and say I wasn’t honest. I was ready to be done with the drama that could have been avoided if people would listen rather than just judge on speculation for a long time. Having this be the time for the end of the drama was one of the best points for me despite my home life being in the midst of chaos. I could be honest with the chaos, how we were handling it, and more without added drama. This really was my own place of starting to heal, and eliminate “scar tissue” from all I had thought I had forgiven, but had not gotten the chance to also forget.

For about a week I kept having horrifying dreams of being in a roll over crash. With each dream the details became clearer, and it was to a point where it involved my kids & I. I have always had a form of a sixth sense, which more accurately has been God’s voice guiding me or showing me things either to give peace or allow for some things to change when they actually happened. This was one of those times.

The day we crashed, I woke up with an unshakable feeling of “you’re going to roll and it will be ok.” The road conditions were not favorable to drive in, and we would be driving both of our vehicles to our destination in these conditions. Was it crazy to still plan to not only drive to the north metro from the south, despite that feeling? My own answer was simply no. I wanted to be at the first family Christmas for the year, despite all that was in my head and showing to be unfavorable to be there. The closer we got to leaving the louder the voice was in my head. When the crash occurred we were not all that far from home, but had made it onto the main highway we would need to get to our destination.

The day (Dec 21, 2008) had started out so normal, and nice. We were getting ready to go to Christmas at my aunt's. We were a little late, but by no means rushed. We chose to Drive slower than most to ensure not having issues with the black ice. This would all soon not matter much. A van in front of me had cleaned off no part of their vehicle except their windows. You could hardly see that it was red from how snow covered the driver had left it. Apparently this snow was also ice. We had been behind them the majority of our route in progress, when suddenly a chunk of ice looking quite daggerish and larger than a softball flattened, came flying off their vehicle toward my head. I was just praying it didn't break through my window knowing the results if it had.

I had the 3 kids in my Jeep as Colin was following in his Jeep, so he could make it to work that night and leave Christmas early. The ice shattered my window while we were on the highway not going too slow, but still nowhere near the speeds posted. I couldn't see anything as it literally came at my head, which is where it shattered and bounced up, not proceeding into my face. This I was thankful for, but now had to try to explain to Colin I needed him to guide me toward an exit. As I was trying to tell Colin I couldn't see to drive further, I hit black ice. He heard me scream and that was it. I slid sideways across the lanes of traffic hit the curb, went nose (front bumper) down, flipped onto the driver’s side near the roof, slid in this position, then felt like we were completely on the roof basically stopped. From that point we flipped onto the tires, which I knew was God answering prayer. We should not have had enough momentum in the basically stopped vehicle to flip back onto the tires.

When all was said and done I had my window and mirror busted all over me, the kids were fine but shaken up, there was snow and all the lose debris from the Jeep piling me in, and I was quite frozen. We landed on the wheels, which I was praying for following the prayer of the ice not taking out my head. I somehow missed my airbag sensor from being engaged by a about an inch. I walked to Colin’s Jeep sore in a few places, bruised a bit, with minor cuts and glass all over me that I could feel. The kids had no cuts or bruises, no injuries at all despite Lexi (4 at the time) not being in a booster seat. JT (5mo old born preemie at the time) had a 20pound Chevy starter land on him, and was still completely perfect upon paramedic inspection. Mick was on my side of the vehicle, with no glass ending up on him from either of the 2 windows or the mirrors.

I refused to be taken to the hospital or checked out. I had a first aid kit (actually both vehicles did since we are first responder trained) that I made the stranger who stopped to help us find. I cleaned my wounds, and waited to finish the police report and tow information. From there I told Colin we were going to Christmas as I was not letting something that “would be minor in the grand scheme of things ruin Christmas for my kids.” We showed up with no gifts, and had a wonderful first Christmas. I vacuumed my jacket off to remove the glass I could feel when we arrived; I borrowed clothes from my aunt to finish getting the glass off of me, and was in shock, but overall fine for that day.  

Forcibly Changed

My marriage had been beyond rocky by most standards, and definitely compared to God’s standards of what a marriage should be. There was very little trust, with no real evidence of trust becoming established in the future. I am not going to place blame on my husband for this at all, because when I became completely honest with myself and God, I was just as guilty to all that we had endured. Yes endured. We both are stubborn in certain aspects of our lives, the balance in that statement comes from it usually being on very different things allowing for fairly clear understanding of which areas we listen verses plant our feet and try to be immobile in our positions. The main one we jointly were stubborn in was that marriage was forever as the vows stated, and that meant that no matter how rocky things were neither of us was willing to be the “weaker one” by just giving up. We did get close to giving up a couple times, but never did.

I understand that us not giving up was not from our own control, but more from God working in us. The point of us realizing that truth was when it had gotten bad enough that we lived in completely different rooms of the house, were only civil to each other around the kids (for us that meant only talking when we had no other choice), and had all the divorce papers filled out with no signatures or dates. We thankfully had amazing pre-marriage counselors and pastor who married us that we turned to for guidance in this. I remember doing it more for my kid’s sake than actually wanting to fix all the broken pieces.  God had a different plan.

We ended up having to face it all in a way that was like looking through the clearest glass. I had a friend who encouraged me to read a book while dealing with it all. We followed all our advice very closely, even when we didn’t agree with it or it felt too hard to follow. All of this was the basis for my religion becoming the relationship it had been long ago.

New Day; New Perspective

Spiritually I was so at peace. I knew God had told me it would be ok and he helped me remain as calm as possible in that crash. I knew God was the reason we landed on our tires, but I also had a very strong reminder that day of what exactly Christmas is all about. Lexi told me from the back seat of the now crashed Jeep that she saw God’s hand help us up (from being on the roof). Many thought I should cry, or grieve the experience. In my mind, I had no reason to grieve living through something most don’t live through.

Was I uninjured? No. Did I live through something many don’t? Yes. I will admit I broke some “medical professional standards” for advice given and things you just know being in the industry. I scheduled a massage appointment for the next day (typically not advised, especially since I was admittedly in shock when making the appointment and had no real way to assess if there was injury), I had a glass of wine at Christmas (no alcohol for at least 24hrs because of high concussion risk and the possibility to make shock worse). That being said both of those things did help in their own way. The wine calmed me down enough to have the shock wear off, and the massage helped me realize I had an injury. I know shock wears off with no need for anything further, but at the time my mindset was that it helped.

About 18 hours after the crash, I knew I had to go to the ER to be looked at for injuries. When we were finally in a room (many crash victims that evening), the nurse came in reading my chart, looked up at me, then back at his chart a few times and said, "WOW! Do you have some amazing angels with an awesome God watching over you! I believe in angels, and sorry if you don't ,but I have been through too much and seen too much to not believe in God and angels." This honestly just made my night that someone else saw it the same way. Also the fact that he just said this straight up on the job with no remorse or worry to if someone might possibly be offended. I was like woo hoo! Praise God! So we were essentially praising God every chance we got with him, and seriously it couldn't have been better! Granted I was in there for head and neck injuries, but spiritually, it was almost better than conferences I have attended.

The nurse’s name was Mick. Dominick was not saying his name yet if I remember correctly. Soon after this, he started to say “My name Mick, Dommmmick.” We smiled and knew then he would be our Mick. We had “pet names” for him before this, but no real nickname. I have been to that same ER quite a few times since that day, and have never even seen Mick there since. I know that night was another divine God moment.

I feel the proper way to show the relevance and realness of God in all of this, is to quick write a blurb of facts to end this section. When I walked away from the crash, the emergency responders were all in awe and making comments along the lines of “unbelievable.” These types of responses continued at Christmas when there was no real sign of cuts or busing on my head or face. Even the ones I had on my hands were so small you couldn’t see them unless you knew they were there. Walking into the ER, they were just as astonished when I told them why I was there. A simple truth I was told by Mick the nurse while waiting for the scan, was that I had been the first person he had seen to walk in on my own, be able to talk, have no visual damage, and so much more after the type of crash I was in.

 The ER only did a CT scan, which did not show any form of concussion, but also did not show the neck and spinal cord damage that was there. From my own medical training and experience, I knew there was something wrong in my neck a day or two after being scanned. I woke up, looked at my husband and said “I hope I am wrong on this, but I know this pain from many people I work on regularly, and I think I will end up having a spinal fusion.” I awoke one morning with no feeling to my right side, similar to what I would guess a stroke patient feels. Strokes are from blood clots, which if that had been the case would have shown on the scan. Also, I had no other symptoms of stroke such as slurred speech, confusion, etc.

We went to all 7 (if I remember right) Christmases that year, despite the crash and the injury when I could finally feel there was more wrong. I was on pain medicine, so I don’t remember much of the gatherings other than spending time with family so our kids could think about Christmas instead of the crash. After the Christmas celebrations were over, (Dec. 26th to be exact) I did go back to urgent care to be re-examined. That examination lead to my MRI and finding the disc that was compressing more than half of my spinal cord. They gave me a steroid medicine and some other things they had, to try to get it back to normal before scheduling the fusion. There was still a high chance the medicine would not help at all, but they had to try it first. The fusion was scheduled roughly a week after the medicine prescription ran out to make sure the medicine in my system had worn off, since the medicine does last longer than simply just taking the dosage given.

More Miracles Taking Place

When I was given the information on what to expect, and how recovery would go following the fusion, God was still proving he was bigger than medical knowledge. I was only expected to have about 80% movement in my neck, 6 months total in a collar with a soft brace to follow with the chance of many complications. I came out of surgery with none of the complications. I was collar free in 2 months, with no need for a soft brace. And my movement was as high as 95% instead of the 80 I had been told.

The joy, peace, and more all felt so strongly abundant in all of this. Every chance I got, I would tell my story. I knew God was real and nothing was more important than doing my part in helping others come to that truth as well.

Our lives were continually changed through all of this as we welcomed the new year with a new perspective. We made it a point to get to know our neighbors, do our part to help people we saw in need or would find out about in need as often as we could, and simply be the love Christ would have been. By no means was God intending us to stay even in this place spiritually though, and continued to reveal to us His plans and ideas to keep us on our toes.

The first year was spent just being awake spiritually for the first time in our lives. It went by in a blur but left us changed beyond descriptions. The one year mark of the crash hit me harder than I expected it would. For some reason, emotions I had not felt in the crash like fear, were constantly on my mind. My children’s faces with looks of horror, were also in my mind. I felt like despite all the changing we had gone through, and all the growth we had experienced spiritually, we were still nowhere near the level God was calling us to.

After a feeling of shock and reflecting on the crash, I was trying to maintain the knowledge I had of the crash, not the new emotions I was feeling. We went from the one year mark to March of the new year very quickly. March brought us many trials and challenges, but from how busy it was, one main thing had gone unnoticed; the second disc that had herniated (moved, could go bad) in the crash, had actually gone bad and was now pressing on my spinal cord. This was quickly discovered in the week we had where our lives calmed down quite a bit. There was a new trial to face, a second fusion. I knew I had to stop school for the time being, which to me was the hardest part about all of this. I felt like I was quitting, and I hated quitting.

The second surgery did put my range of motion at 80% like I had been told it would be after the first one. I had to be in the collar longer this time, but also trained for a marathon speed walking since running was not allowed. I was given so many restrictions from the doctor, I felt helpless in trying to assess the “now what” part of my life. The simple fact was that I would not be able to follow all the restrictions I had been given. I had a new determination to simply do as much as I could as fast as I could, even if it meant then needing a day or two for my body to start feeling remotely normal again.

I live with constant pain. So far there is no explanation as to why I feel this pain, nor is there a solution to reduce it. I have the knowledge that at any time the healthy disc between my 2 fusions will go bad. Simple things like picking up my youngest child, any accident no matter how minor it would seem to someone without fusions, or just doing normal activities that are beyond the restrictions set will eventually lead to fusion number 3. A third fusion would mean no more turning my neck, no more driving, and so many other complications. Despite knowing that though, God is still God and still so unbelievably good!

It is now March again, two years after the crash. The two year mark also left for much reflection and further direction to grow spiritually. In January, my youngest tackled my neck. God miraculously healed my neck then too. I literally could not move my right side at all after my neck was tackled, but by the time I was able to be seen in the ER and get the MRI done, I was moving and feeling almost normal again. This was 8 hours or so after being tackled. My favorite part was my sister telling me she had a dream of hands working in my neck and fixing many parts of it. Many things remain unresolved, but I know God has a plan and that He will never fail me. God clearly isn’t done with me yet or I would not be able to tell my story or I would be in much worse condition than being able to live fairly normally with hardly any obvious complications from something as major as a roll over crash. I continue to meet people who have had fusions, which I get to pray for and exchange stories with.

Everything happens for a reason. Tragedies can be blessings in disguise. At the end of the day, it is important to know who you are, where you stand, and if you truly are ok with dying at any moment. We don’t have a guarantee of how long we get to live, or how long we get to continue life in the same way we had been living before today. If we aren’t expanding beyond our comfort zone, how can we truly make a difference? I choose to live to the best of my ability outside of what I feel is secure, because no matter how safe we choose to live life, it will still end and we still do not have the control over when it does or how it does. Take risks, make mistakes, and get messy because you might not have a tomorrow. This statement doesn’t mean live outside the laws or against what you know to be right, just that we need to stop feeling so secure in all the things that won’t be there when we are dead.