(05-26-2015 02:29 PM)Usajags Wrote: I was unaware of any of this, not sure how I may have missed it.
+++Prayers and vibes to you and your family's!!!+++
Thank you.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here is a recap:
On April 26th of last year my wife and son were driving north to Kentucky to meet up with her former college roommate and God son. A few miles after she passed the turnoff for Huntsville on I-65, the two were involved in a horrific single car accident that saw our Chevy Impala lose control at 80mph and proceed to flip between 10 and 12 times, finally resting on its crushed-in roof on the outside southbound lane.
My wife's neck was broke, her skull fractured in two places, her nose broke, her lungs punctured, and her left forearm was stripped of ALL tissue down to the bone. My son escaped without a scratch.
Sam was flown by helicopter to Huntsville Hospital as a Jane Doe. All of her and my son's belongings had been scattered across the interstate so she had no I.D. on her upon arrival, and my son being only 2 at the time was not very helpful. It took the folks at the hospital 4 hours before I was located. They found a FBC Prattville child care tag on the one bag a stranger had thrown in to the ambulance with my son when he was taken to Huntsville. They called our church, who in turn called the police, who rang my bell with the news.
Samantha was in a medically-induced coma for a week as they tried to get the brain swelling to come down. It did, and she was brought out of the sleep. She was very confused and had NO memory of her life and could not retain any new information. Think the movie "50 First Dates." After 2 weeks in NICU we were transferred to a private room where I was allowed to stay with her 24/7. My mother had driven me up there so she and I took shifts going from bedside to babysitting, there was no rest.
A month of worrying about her mind in that hospital room followed, a tiny bit of improvement each day but no assurances she would ever return to me mentally. During this time she had 3 surgeries, 1 on her arm and 2 on her brain. Each time they were adamant that she might not wake up. So basically I was preparing myself mentally for her death and the job of raising my son without his mother for pretty much his whole life. But she did wake up, and she fought, and she suffered, and she persevered. I feel guilty every time I give up on anything now after seeing her fight through pain and confusion to get out of there.
Finally they decided her body had healed enough to transfer her to Birmingham for live-in rehab where she would learn to walk and use fine motor skills again. Her mind had not fully returned still but they wanted her to get moving and retrain her muscles and body. It was here at UAB Hospital where she turned the corner. I guess it was all the physical and mental exercise that got her mind right, because on our 3rd day there she woke up that morning and we had a normal conversation, and I knew my wife had returned to me. The loneliness I had been living in was gone, my most difficult struggle had come to an end. Now we just had to worry about getting her out of there and back home. When we arrived at UAB her doctor advised us that she would most likely be there for 2 months, Samantha got out in 2 weeks!
Once home we were fully concentrated on getting things back to normal, but she still needed daily pic-line injections I performed, she could not walk unassisted, and she was unable to perform any of her motherly duties, I think that was the hardest thing for her during this stage.
Now we are "back to normal." Sam picked herself out a new car, a Subaru Outback because of its impressive safety score, and she is driving to work again. It's amazing ya'll, truly inspirational.