The Recovery Process

Wow, when I joked that I could now say I know what it feels like to be run over by a truck I didn’t fully appreciate the process involved in getting over being a poor substitute for tarmac. It’s been a long five weeks and I’m very happy to report that my mobility is much better than I expected. I get the official “ok” to get off my crutches on Monday, but I’m already shuffling around the house in short spurts in happy anticipation of that day. Unfortunately, I’ve developed some other post-trauma symptoms that have knocked the wind out of me and have left me feeling at times exhausted, discouraged, and frustrated. My brain is reluctantly putting all the pieces together and I’m trying to make this experience an opportunity to face my fears, develop my faith, and focus on where my life will take me after this hiccough.

I haven’t really felt up to rewriting my experiences of that day, but I think a journal entry of the experience might do. I appreciate all the emails, calls, and well-wishes from across the globe. I am responding as quickly as I can but was not able to sit upright in a chair for longer than a few minutes until just recently.

Journal Entry from 10/22/07

I have been in bed for nearly 48 hours and I’m ready to get out of bed! The pain meds seriously knock me out and I slept all morning. The nurses here are very kind but it’s frustrating that I have no contact with the people I love. It’s 6:00 p.m. right now and the highlight of the day was seeing Dr. Cedric the Peace Corps Medivac Dr. He brought another volunteer with him who of course had no idea why I was in the hospital as confidentiality is a huge part of PC medical protocol. While I completely support this perspective, I feel like I fell of the face of the earth.

So I will recount what happened while fresh in my memory, but don’t really want to fall into the trap of reliving the whole thing in its frightening possibilities of what could have happened.

Saturday I traveled down with a group from Peace Corps to Ndola where we dropped off a Peace Corps program director who was flying down to Lusaka after visiting the Northwestern Province. Three of us were dropped off a few minutes later at the roadside to find transportation on to our destinations: Tams and Jess going to Lusaka and I on my way to Mkushi to spend an evening with a friend and then on to Mpika for our RED Boma Volunteer workshop. Not two minutes after being dropped roadside a white truck pulled over to pick us up but pulled too far down the road and came back for us. In changing lanes he didn’t see another car coming in the other lane and collided with it—veering off course and into us. Tams and Jess were able to jump the fence, but I wasn’t so quick. The truck hit me in the back knocking me on to my side and then proceeded to run over my hips and calves.

I lay in the grass for more than an hour and did my portion of silent prayer and not-so-silent prayer! I was terrified of internal injuries, but Jess and Tams were there to comfort me and keep me calm. The Peace Corps vehicle had turned around and was back with me in five minutes so I was surrounded by lots of love and support. Jess held my hand the whole time and I remember that the touch of my friends made me feel more alive and less panicked. I was able to call my family and ask for their prayers while I waited for the ambulance. I felt a strong peace that day in a way that I have never felt before in my life.

Once the ambulance arrived the EMTs initially thought I only had bruising, but when I couldn’t stand up had me taken to Lusaka where they discovered at the hospital that I had multiple pelvic fractures. 24 hours later I was on another plane to South Africa to the #1 trauma hospital in sub-Saharan Africa. I’m still not sure I can wrap my mind around the surreal nature of this accident, but I am so thankful that I am alive and will recover soon.

Those thoughts straight from the hospital bed! There have been good days and bad days but I have faith that the bad days will soon be a distant memory. Thanks to everyone for their constant love and support and all the prayer that has gone up for me in the last several weeks. I will write again as soon as I have more to say!