They had fixed my broken leg, fix my broken wrist, fixed my broken face, and even stitched up my earlobe that got cut.. like they said, chances are, I will become paralyzed because of an oxygen deficiency to my spinal cord...boom, I was unable to move my legs, BUT I'M ALIVE!!!
It had been about 3 weeks since the car wreck. I got moved from ICU, then to another room and that is finally when I started remembering things. I enjoyed starting to remember because the first thing I can remember is opening my eyes and seeing two girls leaning over my bed giving me a kiss on my cheek and forehead. I looked over, saw my father and uncle smiling while they were taking all the get well cards off the walls because they were moving me to another room. There I was, getting pushed down a hallway sitting in a wheelchair with my mom on one side, a nurse on the other and my aunt pushing me in a wheelchair. We get into the elevator, go up to the 10th floor and I got wheeled up to a table in the rehab unit. They were having a barbecue for all the rehab patients. My mom, aunt, and nurse left me there as it was time for me to figure out how I was going to make it. I looked around and saw people that were way worse than me and there are also people that were better than me. They then set a barbecued steak shake, in front of me and said here you go kid (remember I had two broken jaw's and couldn't eat, only could drink). It was at that moment that I knew I was going to drink that steak and make it in life.
The biggest challenge for me was being an incomplete paraplegic. I was able to wiggle my toe, flex my calf muscle and move my legs a little. I just was not able to stand. I asked the doctors to give me steroids so I could make my legs super strong… I couldn't figure out why I had these muscles but not the others. They explained to me that they could make the muscles that I do have super strong but all your muscles work in a sequence to be able to stand/walk… that was pretty hard grasp. I kept hoping my other muscles would start to work. Well they didn't so I knew I had to get my upper body strong. The challenge of lifting weights was difficult because I had to do this with a cast on my broken wrist and broken rib. I was also faced with another big challenge that was to graduate with my high school class. My high school sent a teacher up twice a week to give me my assignments in different classes and pick up the homework that I had to do. There I was doing all this homework while trying to figure out how to put my socks on, transfer in and out of a wheelchair, take a shower, etc... all the things that I already learned. Now, how to learn them over again, just a little differently.
Life definitely changed in the fact that I'm going to get around in a wheelchair rather than walking. I just knew I was going to be OK. Pushing around to get me where I needed to be was all right. I was young and knew I wanted to go places and nothing was going to stop me.
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