Forever Changed
Hanane Hmada
My world was forever changed on February 13,2012 due to a MVA accident. I do not remember being told that I would never walk again because I was heavily medicated due to the devastating injury that left me paralyzed from chest down, but the pain in my family’s faces made me realize it was very serious, especially for my mom who to this day, seven years later, still has a hard time accepting the fact that I can not walk.
If I was given the choice to go back to that date, erase the accident and its outcome from my life, I will wholeheartedly chose not to besides my mother’s pain, because what I lost (the ability to walk) could never be compared to what I have gained from it. I am grateful I got the chance to realize how blinded and preoccupied I was with life, i.e., work, bills, relationships etc..., I realized that in all my 36 years of life, I never realized the true value of some things we all can never live without; e.g., knowingly breathing fresh air or to slowly take a breath when outside and feeling it going into my lungs, until I was stuck inside a hospital room and most days, that was all I wanted but couldn’t do for months. It is realizing things like a single breath of fresh air that proves the example of “we don’t appreciate things until we lose them” to make so much sense.