"You're Getting Better Every Day"

Perseverance- Excerpt from Dad’s newsletter: July 1998 The most important part of your body is your brain. Your heart is a close second but still plays second fiddle to what your brain does. The brain controls everything about you: your fingers playing the piano, your ear listening to the notes, your foot pushing the right piano pedals, your inner feeling of the song you're playing so you can give it your own unique style. Every sensation, every movement, every thought, everything depends upon your brain, the master controller of your body. There are a gazillion cells in your brain doing ten gazillion things at the same time whether you’re awake or asleep. In fact, your brain is so important that that is why there is a bone around it instead of next to it. So what happens when you fracture your skull and injure your brain? Many people enter a state of being comatose. The brain shuts down your body while it figures out what happened and begins to heal itself. And nothing g else will work correctly until the brain is fully in control. In Sarah's case she received a little injury to a lot of places in her brain. Her head slammed against a very hard object. This pounding caused many of her brain cells to die and many to be injured. But many cells also were not affected in the least. However, when a brain cell dies it is not replaced, unlike most of the body's cells. When a brain cell is injured it swells up just like your skin and muscle cells when the ankle is sprained. For the first couple of days it really hurts to walk on that ankle. After about three weeks most of the swelling has gone down, the purple colors have gone away and you can't feel any pain at all. It's different with the brain. Hope- Excerpt from Mom’s Journal: Monday, June 15, 1998 12:35 PM Sarah Suzie Quzie, My heart is breaking seeing you this way. I never knew I could hurt this much. I miss you and want you back so badly. I know you’re a fighter, and young and strong, so I have to believe that you are doing your very best to come out of this coma. (Okay, I need to keep this journal as positive as possible because this is written for you. I must try to keep my anger and profound sadness to a minimum!) One of the nurses just came in and said that you would be going for a CAT scan in about an hour. This will be your third one. The first two didn’t show anything, which is a great sign, but that didn’t mean all good news since CAST scans don’t pick up everything. Dr. Wald (the neurosurgeon) said there was no hemorrhaging so that’s an excellent sign. After your tests today, they’re moving you to pediatric intensive care and will start physical therapy. 4:10 PM They took you for another CAT scan and put the “pick” in your arm (for nutrition, I think). When they brought you back they had also taken off your neck brace. All of this seemed to bring your cranial pressure up so the nurse asked me and Nick not to stimulate you at all – meaning to keep talking to you at a minimum. It was okay for me to hold your hand and Nick to hold your foot. 5:30 PM Dr. Morin came in to tell me the CAT scan didn’t show anything, again good news. He decided to try to get you to respond so he asked you to move your right foot. You didn’t. He then asked you to move your right thumb as held your right hand. You didn’t. He then put your right hand in front of your face, opened your eyelid and said, “Sarah, move your thumb”. YOU DID! Sarah, I cried and cried! I was so happy. Nick was yelling, “She moved her thumb, she moved her thumb!” Everyone was so happy and encouraged. All of this elevated your cranial pressure so the nurse asked us to leave. We called Dad and Kristen to give them the good news. This was so timely because it was the night of Kristen's “Wizard of Oz” performance. She had told me last night that she didn’t think she could perform because she was so sad and couldn’t stop thinking about you. I told her that you would have wanted her to perform and besides, dad was going to tape it so you could see it when you got home. At this point, I was so mentally exhausted I decided I would go home (it was about 5:30 PM). The play was at 7:30 and Abi Sessions dedicated the show to our family. 10:30 PM After the show so many people came up to us to ask how you were doing. Sarah, you are so loved. Kelly Gosselin's grandfather, Tony Turner, called us twice from Wales! Kelly is currently in Montreal but when she gets home Rachel is going to bring her to the hospital to sign your book. She (Kelly) is so concerned that you won’t remember her. Not likely! Sarah honey, I feel like your thumb moving was a sign from God that you are going to be fine, albeit a long haul to recovery. That’s enough for me! It was such a dismal day until that happened. I feel I can go to sleep tonight and not worry that there will be bad news in the morning. Good night sweetie pie, I love you so very much. Sweet dreams baby cakes! Compassion- It Happened for a Reason Lindsay Phelps I often thought that if I had gone, maybe I could have found a better ride for Sarah. A ride that would have gotten her home safely. After all Sarah.was supposed to be with me that night. It was my fault that she got in that accident. How could I be so stupid to let my best friend go out by herself? if I was a true friend, I would have decided to go out with her. Even if I didn't want to be with all those people I could have at least gone to be with Sarah.~ Right after the accident, and even for the months following, I blamed myself for Sarah's condition. If I hadn't been in such a rush to get out of school that day and I had waited for Sarah like we had planned, then that night that marked the first day of my summer would not have marked the beginning of the worst year in my life. I now believe that everything is meant to happen for a reason. Whether things occur as a lesson or just to make you realize how important life is, someone was looking over me that night. God knew that we would all make it through this, but there was a reason why I didn't go. Still, to this day I do not know why I turned my best friend's offer down, but whatever the reason was, it saved my life. Determination: Excerpt from Sarah’s journal: May 31st, 1999: Now I can't even hold my breathe under the water, or swim, or dive. I'm going to continue swimming to get better but it's just so frustrating. The second I go into the water, I obviously want to go underneath the surface, so I do that even though I know I can't. July, 20th, 1999 Today I will talk about soccer. I desperately want to make just a soccer team. But varsity would be nice. I know that playing on a team would be a stretch for me (with this injury I have), but I know that if only I put my mind to it and stay strong; mentally and physically, I know that I could push myself hard enough to accomplish it. I'm not sure what the coach is going to think though. I really don't want my head injury to be any part of the decision that the coaches make. Uggghhhh this is so hard; it's like I have to be treated differently with this injury because anything could do serious damage to me, but I absolutely hate being treated differently because I'm really not just like everyone else. Well, try-outs are in three weeks and no-doubt I'm going to try out. I am going to push myself so hard to not only see how far I can go, but to see how much determination I have to go beyond what my limits are with this injury . July 21st, 1999 I'm getting stronger, I can even feel it!!! My physical therapist has increased my weights by twenty-pounds! This is great! Well, I've got a new occupational therapist. I met with her for the third time today and she's really nice. She's helping my with my speed, coordination, fine motor skills, etc. My coordination is way off, and I can tell, I still have a long way to go for soccer try-outs in four weeks. God, I hope I make a team at least!