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.
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