Month: April 2012

  • A busy week for Hillary

    It’s been a busy week for Hillary….as is every week.  She begins her days getting ready for a day full of therapies.  While each of us have our own morning routine and set of schedules, Hillary’s routine before heading out the door often takes her 2 1/2 hours or more.  It’s not that her morning routine is much different than for rest of us – a quick bite to eat, shower and dress for the day.  But for Hillary, the motor side of her brain just won’t let her engage and progress as quickly as others.  Every step is slow and deliberate, but even if there was no physical challenge to her gate and pace, it’s her brain that just can’t cognitively help her engage quickly. There is no sense in rushing her because it just makes no difference and only frustrates her.  And while therapists continue to work with her to narrow the timeline of readiness, there remains little progress to date on that goal. But she’s not giving up.

    Each day she has a full schedule of therapies from OT, PT, Speech, Counseling, and more.  As she says, “her time does not feel like her own”.  But here is something that IS Hillary’s own:  The chance to save lives from distracted driving.  Please watch this 8 minute documentary provided by Kentucky’s Office of Highway Safety and our joint mission to save lives.  Saving lives is Hillary’s heart’s desire.

    Please spread the word for Hillary.  Her 8 minute documentary link below

    http://youtu.be/x6EqkIron3s

     

  • Don’t be an April Fool–One Text or Call Could Wreck it All

     

    April is Distracted Driving Month. Instead of an April Fool’s Day target, I’m going to refuse distractions and focus on driving. KY launches its Public Service Announcement tomorrow (April 2nd) featuring Hillary and the dangers surrounding texting and driving.
    “PARK THE PHONE before you drive. Copy and paste this in your status if you or someone you know has been affected by texting and driving. www.distraction.gov
    Distracted driving is unsafe, irresponsible and in a split second, its consequences can be devastating. Click here to learn the facts about distracted driving

    www.transportation.ky.gov/highway-safety

    One would think our family would never allow ourselves to be distracted drivers—especially by our cellphones.  As a caregiver family surrounded every single day with the aftermath of the horrific results of texting and driving, we should be steadfast in turning off cell phones before turning the key in the ignition.  We know all too well that it takes only a second to change lives and destroy dreams from a distracted driving car crash.  This week after just sending some requested pictures to the KY Office of Highway Safety for their Distracted Driving Campaign, I hit the road for Jackson, MS. Within hours after one of my usual popups, (known as Shawn thoughts that MUST be delivered immediately before Shawn forgets), I broke my own pledge to never text and drive.  After all, it wasn’t really texting and driving since I was armed with a phone which allows voice texting.

    I pushed the button to state my text and requested a voice review of its content before sending it.  When I heard the computer read back my message, I realized something needed editing for clarification.  I peeked at the text to see where to edit and within seconds something went terribly wrong.  I heard the sound of the warning treads on the side of the road so quickly that my brain was unable to discern what I had heard.  In one second’s time I had literally sliced through the pavement’s safety ruts at such a tight angle (and at a high 70+ mph) that the long and slow recognizable “thump—thump—thump” sound wasn’t in play.  Once discovering what was happening, I quickly turned my wheel to the left, hearing the same quick sound again– though also realizing I had overcorrected and my car was now tipping heavily to the left becoming off balance. Thankfully within the next seconds all four wheels were on the road and my car was driving normally down the highway; though its driver was not.  I was overcome with what had just happened.  I not only knew how lucky I had been, but I was despising myself for the irony of my hypocrisy.  Beyond all of that, I began grieving for my daughter and what she has been through and the frightening realities she must have felt in the moment of her crash as her car began to roll; ultimately throwing her out on the opposite side of the interstate.  I grieved as I replayed in my mind watching therapists try to teach her how to hold her head up the first time they positioned her upright on the side of the bed; therapists flanking her on either side and one in the front as each try failed and her head swiftly dropped back down to her chest.  I cried over these last 4+ years in the aftermath of a texting and driving car crash and reliving the milestones that required her to have the strength of an Olympian as she took those first assisted steps and the steps that even now are difficult for her. 

    Once back on the road with blubbering behind me, I realized that sadly, like everyone else guilty of this habit, I thought I was a little better at a quick glance at my phone than others.  With certainty, I now realize eventually if you text and drive, you will crash. 

    And what if you do crash after a distracted driving collision?  Chances are you will die.  In the past, most texting and driving stories highlighted to the public only showcase the loss of life.  But what if you don’t die?  Is it OK to say there are some things worse than death?  In this house we are Christian believers and face every day with the certainty of God and Heaven.  Hillary’s only memory from the day of her crash is three angels who mentally spoke to her and instructed her to lift her arms and rise with them—telling her she would live.  No doubt for us her crash underscores our belief in God and His miracles and also allows us not to fear death.  Perhaps only the families living in the aftermath of distracted driving and traumatic brain injuries will understand what I’m about to say, but the answer from this side of Hillary’s car crash is “Yes” and “No”.

    So it is with that controversial question that we will do our best to fulfill the KY Office of Highway Safety’s request and honor by openly sharing the impact and reality of distracted driving car crashes as candidly as possible.

    On September 1st, 2007, the night of Hillary’s car crash, while sitting in the Trauma Unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, I don’t know what we would have said to answer that question as we watched our daughter struggle for life except to ask our God to keep her from pain….from harm….and deliver her…back to us or to His arms.  A call for prayers for Hillary was launched and miracles happened and for that we will forever be thankful to so many literally around the globe.  In the following days and weeks, we probably told ourselves “she’s going to be OK….different, but OK” and a life like “this”, (whatever “this” was), would be enough for her.  It certainly would be enough for us.

    Months later and over the course of that first year as Hillary had to struggle to relearn absolutely every human body function from swallowing to toileting to eating long before walking, I know we would have still said, “…with life we still have hope.”, (though everyone of us knew Hillary would rather have died than to live in this way in those months).

    The one year anniversary of her crash had us facing less physical concerns (though they were still enormous) and more emotional/cognitive disabilities.  This is when our family had to face the reality that we were no longer able to help her reach higher levels of her recovery and turned to a residential neurological restorative rehabilitation center.  At that point, Hillary was more often than not in a wheel chair and had progressed to maybe half way on the Rancho Cognitive Scale  http://rancho.org/research/bi_cognition.pdf  She was devastated to be “pushed out of her own home by her own family” as she stated multiple times per day.  And as a family, we were exhausted and broken hearted.  I’m not sure of our answer to “the” question in those days because it was so hard to watch our severely injured daughter go through the emotionally charged state she was in, while still struggling with horrific physical challenges.  

    One year later, Hillary was facing another surgery but on her way back home and hope was up and down—often multiple times per day at the Coltharps.  Hillary’s days were fully loaded with therapies from speech, occupational and physical therapies as well as counseling and behavior therapies due to the significant injuries in many, if not all, areas of her brain.  This was also a time where Hillary began to “wake up” more but with new awareness that the event area of her brain was destroyed.  In essence, right along with the rest of us Hillary discovered she was struggling from likely permanent amnesia.  While she could give you details about every house we lived in over the years—every school—maybe even the floor plan of many restaurants, she has no memories and stories within those buildings.  The same is true for family and friends.  While she has our faces probably from her childhood age to about 5 years prior to her crash, there are no stories to coincide with the profound love she has for many of us.  Bless her sweet and broken heart.  I can’t imagine what life would be like without these memories.  It’s one of the reasons she so desperately wants to always go places and find friends outside of her brain injury world of therapy.  She wants to code new memories into the event side of her brain so she, too, can treasure what is the most precious and priceless of all for the human spirit….cherished memories with our loved ones.

    So what about today?  How would we answer that controversial question?  We would answer it with hope restored!  We see a young woman who is closer every day to a life that will not be the life “pre-crash Hillary” would have chosen, but one for the record book of miracles. Given the severity of her injuries, Hillary should not be alive—much less—a functioning viable human being.  She loves her son…loves her family…and loves and misses her life and friends from before her crash.  There are no profoundly clear and distinct individual memories there—only the knowledge of those days and the essence of who she was, the love she had for each of us, and the lifestyle she lived energetically.  And she grieves for it….for the innocence of our family’s ignorance back then having no knowledge of what trauma can do to families.  I think we all miss the deniability of how hard life can be given the one wrong second in life that can change everything.  But it is Hillary’s willful strength and her steadfast belief in her own ability to find a way “out” of brain injury that has taken her this far.

    Hillary is our hero and a testament to determined survivorship through faith in God in the darkest of circumstances.  And all signs point to a pretty good road ahead for this young woman.  She has an abundantly grateful spirit for your steadfast prayers for her recovery and is ready to give back so others will avoid the horrible journey of survivorship with traumatic brain injury and other distracted driving outcomes.

    Tomorrow—Hillary will tell you that in her own words. 

    Thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts.

    XOXO

    Shawn