tennis-guru-girl
Thanksgiving = easy; 21 year broken neck anniversary = not
Nov 26, 2010
Thanksgiving of 2010...no biggie. That sentence just made me sound so childish. Ha! Really, it wasn't a difficult as I had anticipated. I had just a little bit of some things and I didn't have any seconds. I can't remember a holiday meal where and when I have not had seconds. The fact that I ate slowly, appreciated the flavors, and then chewed like crazy made all the difference. So I was able to eat like a normal (skinny) person and still enjoy the company of my family. I didn't have to worry about throwing up since I was paying attention to my body. I left food on my plate and I didn't indulge in snacks and sweats. I felt really empowered and maybe that is what I am most thankful for right now. I'm not at the mercy of food. I'm able to manage food as nutrition alone.In a little over a week it will have been twenty-one years since I broke my neck. I was a sophomore in high school and performing some holiday music with my brass quintet. We were at a church in Batavia (not mine) and were supposed to return to the basement of the church via a shady staircase located behind the main alter area. When I had gone up the stairs in my black high heels, I thought to myself that I should be careful coming down the stairs because the stairs were so little and narrow. I have a size 10 foot and these stairs lacked the depth to fit the ball of my foot and my heel if I stepped straight upon the step. Despite this thought passing through my mind, I still kept those pumps on my tootsies and took my first step down the staircase.
In a matter of seconds, but what felt like slow motion, the disaster unfolded. The ball of my foot slipped off the step and I reached for a handrailing only to find there wasn't one. I had my trumpet clutched in one arm while my left arm flailed hopelessly to cling to something. I spun around and was looking back up at the rest of my quintet on the stairs behind me. Then I tumbled backwards. I went down the stairs head-first, on my back. These stairs were from the late 1800's and the wood was all scratched and chipped at the edges. As I went down, splinters embedded into my back, my dress snagged and I fell out of it, and the skin on my back was all torn up. I did yell a, "Shit" that echoed throughout the church that morning. This was part of the banging and thumping sound of my body tumbling down too. What made the fall truly terrible was that at the bottom step there was a door that was shut. The top of my head rolled up and then the back of my neck crashed and stopped there with full force. The momentum of the fall had my butt and legs flipped up over my torso that was wedged between the door and the bottom steps. I felt pain, but more from my back being cut and from the hair accessory I had on my head now being slammed into my head. I never considered my neck. I was so embarrassed to be in just a bra and a slip, since most of my dress was snagged on a stair far away that I panicked and wanted to escape this compromised position before too many people saw me that way. I was able to reach my hand up to the door handle and I jiggled it free.
When the door popped open I flopped into a church school room full of little kids having a religious ed class there. I was something out of a horror movie. I landed chest side down, bleeding back side up. It is at this point I passed out. The next thing that I remember was sitting with my head resting on my band director's shoulder. He was holding me up as we waiting with half of my home town crowded into the preacher's office. Obviously, I was moved. The paramedics showed up and cleared off the preacher's desk in order to get me on the hard plastic body board. With it being December, that body board was ice cold. I went into shock and started to shake. They were latching me to the board with those black belts and the cold metal buckles. While they were doing this I was chattering and crying. People watched - gawked - at me. It was terrible. Then the paramedics lifted me off the desk and up a staircase to the ambulance outside. It was sooooooo cold! I was still in my bra and slip...people watching, my teenage insecurities rioting.
The drive to the hospital was pretty quick. I remember being asked those basic questions that check for consciousness. When I was asked who the president is, I answered, "Harold Washington." Yep, the former and now deceased mayor of Chicago. I was way ahead of my time to believe that an African-American from Chicago could be president. Nonetheless, I was in bad shape. I was having a strange feeling that my legs were floating up off the board, despite being strapped down. I wasn't really aware of pain as much as I was feeling completely frightened to be all by myself. People from the church were trying to find my parents in an age before cell phones.
When I arrived at the hospital, the collar and zipper from my dress were cut away and I was whisked away for a variety of CAT scans. They examine my bloody back. They checked my hips and my head. Then they saw that bad news with the images from my neck. I had a dangerous angulation from the compression fracture at the front side of C4 and C5. There was also a fracture along the spinus processes of C4 and the associated shoe-lace like ligaments that would normally stabilize my neck through those attachment points were blown apart. I didn't understand any of that then. Here is what I did walk away knowing from that terrible moment:
The ER doc came into my room and popped some xrays up on the light board. He pointed to that part of my next and explained that I had broken it. Ahhhhh. So far I'm with him. Then, he cam over and took my hand and very sincerely said this...I swear on all that is holy he really did this. "You know, Meredith, you are very, very lucky. A fall and an injury like this would have probably killed or paralyzed most people, but thank goodness for you, you are a big boned girl and that saved your life." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You just told a 15 year old girl, with an athletic build wishing she was a size 4 but wearing a size 12, that she should be grateful for being big-boned?!?! This is what I remember most from that day. Isn't that crazy? This moment was tinged by the reality slap of my body size - and I wasn't even that big. I was 5' 7" and probably 165 - not huge at all, just thicker than most 15 year old girls.
Anyway, I had to wear a Somi-cast and then proceed with all of the various medical professionals that would suggest a cervical fusion using scraping of bone from my pelvis. The cast was no treat, but at least THANK GOD it wasn't an Ace Halo brace. One doctor wanted to do that, and when I found out that I would have rods screwed into my skull I FREAKED! It wasn't the screw and bone thing that had me freaking out as much as it was the threat of having to shave my hair at the points of contact. As an athletic kid, I usually had shorter hair styles. But by my sophomore year I had finally grown my hair out in long golden locks. The body-image issues associated with the accident superceded the more serious medical concerns. I was much too much a teenager to consider the medical side.
I returned to school following the winter break wearing the big, snare-drum harness type of brace. That sucked. I was seen by a neurosurgeon associated with CDH, an orthopedic surgeon from Delnor; both men said cervical fusion. I asked who I could see for a third opinion. We were told, Dr. Paul Meyer at Northwestern Memorial. We were also told that he is THE BEST spinal trauma surgeon in country. Important people from all over the world came to Chicago to be seen by Dr. Meyer. He had even treated a former president. Wow! So my Dad tried to get me in with him. That didn't work. It looked like we would be doing the surgery with the doctor at CDH. Well, in a what is worthy of a whole other post, my Dad had the good blessing to bump into Dr. Meyer in an elevator. My Dad was at the hospital working on the HVAC. When he saw the name plate on the doctor's lab coat, he asked if he could ask a question about his sixteen year old (yeah, I had my birthday roll by at that point, and no I couldn't drive because I was wearing a huge neck brace). The doctor listened and told my Dad to bring me in. Doctor Meyer took excellent care of me, and we did not do the surgery.
So twenty-one years ago I was blessed with health where I might have been sentenced to a life in a wheel chair at best and a coffin in the worst case scenario. The reason that I consider this is that despite that monumental, life-changing event, I still allowed myself to be lazy, to whimp out when presented with certain life choices, to not preserve that gift and blessing of good health. Here I am twenty-one years later, an obese adult attempting to reign in my life so that I might be healthy again. I would love, love, LOVE to be 165. I would love to be able to hop in a time machine and go back to that 16 year old girl who was so impressed with the sheer magnitude of NWM hospital and thought, "I want to be an Orthopedic surgeon and work here someday." What happened to that girl? A boyfriend...good grief!
So I'm off to be productive today. I will track down another receipt from Walgreens to try and get my Lovenox from August covered by insurance. That was $400 in medicine that damn near killed me - mostly because I was so stubborn to even realize that I was having a problem. Again, that is completely nothing to do with the surgery - which has been THE BEST THING I'VE DONE FOR MYSELF IN MY WHOLE LIFE! Thank goodness I powered through all of that garbage with the insurance company (and God bless those other medical professionals who got on the phone with BCBS-IL too in order to get me approved!!!). I'm so grateful that I have my health behind me enough so that I can fight the good fight toward an ideal body image.
There is so much that I want to do! Thank goodness I'm able to do it! Have a happy rest of the Thanksgiving weekend. I can't wait for Christmas!
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About Me
Aurora, IL
Location
33.5
BMI
Surgery
07/29/2010
Surgery Date
Aug 08, 2010
Member Since
