My teenage son was in a terrible car accident Thanksgiving Day. As a result, he suffered serious injuries that will keep him immobile and in a lot of pain for the next few months as he recovers.
When he left the house on that snowy day, I felt an uneasy feeling in my gut but trusted God would be with him and he would arrive at his father’s safely after having Thanksgiving brunch at my house. I’ve always been an overprotective mother; my son Nathan is my only biological child, one whom I had after four years of infertility treatments and a couple of complications during pregnancy and his birth.
As my husband and I ran out of the house to the hospital that day, I didn’t know exactly what had happened and how serious his injuries were. Although the hospital was only 20 minutes away, it felt like I was never going to get there. Walking through the halls fragranced with a distinct aroma of alcohol, I could hear his screams of pain. I don’t think I’ll ever forget those screams.
I was told to wait right outside the door while listening to my son’s heart wrenching pain without knowing what had happened or how badly he was injured. I felt afraid, lost and hopeless. And the screams, the screams coming out of that room were like daggers piercing my heard aimlessly with no sign of relief.
Finally, the paramedic who had come to his aid at the accident site was able to provide me with some much needed answers. My son had hit black ice while pulling into the entrance to a major highway. His car rolled over and he was ejected from it, falling who knows how many feet onto the hard surface covered with snow. The paramedic didn’t know the extent of Nathan’s injuries, but he knew they were serious. I broke down.
After a series of x-rays, imaging and a lot of narcotics, the emergency room doctor delivered the painful news. Nathan suffered a broken neck, many fractures on his spine and fractured both pelvic bones. He also had a collapsed lung and a possible wrist fracture. I felt faint and devastated beyond belief. I could, however, for a moment rest in the fact that he would walk again, in addition to surviving a car ejection.
Nathan spent four days in an ICU unit, and one day in a pediatric ward. At the end of the fifth day at the hospital, we were able to bring him home, but not without one more bump on the road, one that tore my heart into pieces again. Getting him in the car to take him home was beyond dreadful. The pain of getting him settled for the 20-minute ride home proved to be another painful event in the nightmare we’d been living. His screams, as we tried to get him in the car was almost impossible to bear. We didn’t even think about calling an ambulance to transport him home. Nevertheless, we got him home and into bed only to start the rest of this painful journey.
The following days and nights were beyond exhausting, both physically and emotionally. When Nathan wasn’t sleeping from being overly sedated from the pain, he was awake and in pain. Each time I got him out of bed to move caused me to feel the weight of his sorrow more deeply. In addition to pain, Nathan started feeling the effects of anger, isolation, and despair. I could alleviate his physical wounds, but there wasn’t much I could do for his non-physical pain. Words can seem comforting when spoken, but to a wounded ear they can sound like a favorite song played on a broken record.
His 17th birthday came, a week and a half after the accident. We all tried (his father, brother, my husband and I) to make the best of it for him and thank God, we did. His favorite cake, presents, calls and messages from friends and family seemed to be the medicine he needed most on this day along with the promise that his girlfriend and friends would come over the next weekend to celebrate with him. And they did. With his limited movement, he managed to move his head and upper body to the rhythm of his favorite music played on one of his birthday gifts, a portable speaker which he wasted no time hooking up to his walker.
It wasn’t until about two weeks later that we started to see real and consistent progress. He moved better, was waking to the bathroom on his own and was taking showers in a shower chair. It was also during that time that I started to get more hours of sleep. Nathan’s affect fluctuates from flat to happy, but I’m starting to see more happy days. For me, I can’t say that I have fully accepted that this happened, nor do I ever think I will; however, it has, and I’m taking it one day at a time. If Nathan has a good day, I have a good day.
My anger toward God has dissipated and after six weeks I’ve finally started to come around to accepting that it could have been worse, and for that I am grateful. According to research I’ve done on the Internet,
very few people who are ejected from a vehicle survive, and if they do, they rarely walk again. I have to be grateful that he’s alive and that he will walk again. Given the nature of his accident, I know now God did protect him from the worst, although I still don’t understand why He allowed this to happen to my child.
Perhaps I’ll never know, and whatever lesson is to be learned either by Nathan or me, I hope it’s one that will help us grow and come to understand that although we may not initially understand why certain things happen, we can be comforted in the fact that they may happen for a reason. Nathan’s road to recovery will be a long one, but I’m up for the challenge and feel blessed that I will help him through this phase in his life that I know will prepare him for the next. He has the determination and attitude not to only survive this, but thrive from it. I’m still unsure, nevertheless, how my emotional recovery will be. I’m still left full of regrets about not canceling brunch after I realized the weather was bad, and about not following my instinct when I felt a Jeep was not the right car for him. I may continue to feel I did not do a good job of keeping him safe for a long time. I guess eventually I will have to work through this. One thing I know for sure is that we’ll both survive. We’ll get though this and in time it will be nothing more than a painful memory.
