Hope

What bores you?

Everyday life bores me.

This has been true since I was a child. First, I used adrenaline to cope. This was fine when I was just climbing trees and swinging on a rope. But when I was 13, my family moved. 3 years later, I learned how to drive. I had my driver’s license for four months and a day.

One night, my friend and I left a football game early to take my parents car on the wide open backroads to speed. I drove us over twice the speed limit, and clipped a telephone pole. The car rolled over multiple times.

When the paramedics arrived, they took one look at me and alerted “flight for life” from the nearest Children’s Hospital. So, a helicopter came and flew me straight to Children’s Hospital.

After remaining comatose for 7 weeks, everyone was very worried. Then, the doctors pumped my veins with Ritalin, and I “woke up.” First, my right arm started moving. Then, the rest of my body followed.

I tried to walk right away, but I could not. I kept trying to get up out of bed and walk, so they confined me in a cage bed that I was unable to unzip on my own. I also had an untreated uti.

Some of the most horrific moments of my life occurred during the 120 days I spent in the hospital in total. I remember needing to pee so bad I almost wet myself every day.

Being retarded and trapped in a cage bed for 71 days was some of the most horrific moments of my life.

My mom immediately surrendered my driver’s license because I was a minor. She “just” didn’t “know” I would all but fully recover.

I did. This hope began the moment I became sentient. That hope is what kept me cooperative and hard working during therapy and when I was spoon fed my meals. I did not have the fine motor skills to grasp a utensil.

My best friend shared my same hope. She drove an hour and navigated a hospital every day for months to see to it that I made an excellent recovery. I shudder to imagine where I would be without her support.