"Mom! Mom, stop!" I screamed as I realized she was not slowing down, but rather going straight toward a pole. Crash! It was too late; we hit and for some reason, I could still hear the cars engine roaring up as if she was still pressing on the gas. So I yelled one more time, "Mom, we hit a pole, Mom!”, and like magic she woke up out of her strange daze, going into a panic not knowing what happened. I was so confused because she was acting extremely weird, "What happened Ashlyn? What did we hit? ", she asked. I slowly explained the situation, when she finally understood that she ran into a pole. This was the start of the butterfly effect that made me appreciate life a little more.
After several minutes a police officer came to take an accident report. Since we were at Walmart, my mother made me take my little brother into the store to wait. At the time I had not realized at the point of impact my head had hit the windshield and busted it. It wasn't until my brother and I went to the restroom that I noticed my forehead was slightly bloody and had a cut. I didn't think much about it. Sure I was in pain and had the biggest headache I have ever had, but I was more worried about my mom so I didn't think much more about it. After I cleaned up we went back out to check on our mother. The police officer was still there, he did a once over of everyone that was in the accident, and asked if everyone was okay. He asked why the windshield was shattered on the passenger side and not the driver side, which was the point of impact. I just shrugged said I was fine, and the police officer went on with his day.
A friend of my mother came to pick us up since my step dad was at work. While in the car headed to the car rental place, my mother looked at me and asked why my head looked like it was cut. I just shrugged it off once more not putting two and two together. At home though I began to run a fever as my head started to hurt more and more. I told my mom that I wasn’t feeling well. She asked what was wrong, so I told her I hit my head on the windshield, and that was the reason it was shattered. She was pissed, saying something along the lines of, "That's dangerous Ashlyn,” "How could you be so irresponsible Ashlyn,” "What if you have a concussion Ashlyn"? Push came to shove and I ended up in the emergency room waiting for the doctor, as I was still getting yelled at about how I shouldn't keep stuff like that to myself. Basically, the doctor ran some test and determined that I had a slight concussion which was nothing to freak out over, and I need a couple of stitches in my forehead. Little did I know this was just the beginning.
The next day I had theater practice. We were making old fashioned hats go with our costumes, I was Charlotte from Pride and Prejudice. We used a hot glue gun that was plugged up underneath a table, so once it was my turn I didn't pay attention to the table. Bang! I smacked the back of my head against the solid table. I was forced to call my mom to come and get me since everyone knew about the car accident that had happened the day before. I went home took some Ibuprofen for my headache, and fell asleep. Not thinking of the continuous strain occurring to the back of my neck, or the effects it could be doing to the ligaments in my neck.
The next morning I awoke to my alarm thinking it was going to be a normal day and accident-free. Boy was I wrong! I went to lift myself out of bed when I heard a loud pop, that sounded as though it came from my ears. I soon realized it was the neck because I was instantly paralyzed. My entire body, I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, all I felt was excruciating pain radiating out of my neck, going into my head. All I could do was lie there and shed silent tears. After about an hour of lying there, my mother finally realized I wasn't up, which was abnormal for me. She came rushing into my room to tell me I was going to be late.
After realizing I could not talk, but instead only cry, she ran to get my dad up. They lifted me out of bed helped me put my pants on and forced me down the stairs to go to the hospital. As more time passed the less the pain stung, and I could move more. The doctor came and massaged my neck for a good thirty minutes, told me I had pulled the main ligament in my neck. He told me that the car accident and the table at school had caused an extreme amount of stress on my neck. The popping noise I heard when I woke up was the ligament snapping. He gave me a neck brace and told me I would be fine as long as I was careful. Other than that there was nothing he could do for me, so he left to give me more time to get up and leave.
As I laid in the hospital bed, I held my neck in a position so that it would not hurt. I thought about how awful it would be to live my life this way. Never being able to move, to only feel pain, day in and day out. I imagined a different outcome than the one given to me. I thought I had broken my neck, I honestly felt as though that was it because it was the scariest feeling in the entire world. Imagine waking up as yourself to only realize you're not you, but rather a shell of what you used to be. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, but only lie and think.
“The day you will loose your tongue;the day you will value the essence of words. The day you will loose your sight; the day you shall value the things we all overlook and appreciate the power of looking. The day you shall loose your ears;the day you shall cherish the power of hearing. The day your mind will be at sixes and sevens;the day you shall yearn for a sound mind. The day you shall have an amputated body part; the day you shall understand the pity of staying idle with an able body. The day you shall loose your good shelter; the day you shall value the power of good sleep.
The day you shall go to bed without food; the day you shall learn the great lessons of hunger well. The day accident shall befall you; the day you shall cherish the value of peace and understand 'had I known' well. The day you shall look back in regret of your choices; the day you shall realize how you have wasted your time and realize the best choices in life. The day you shall get a better understanding of things; the day you shall know what ignorance did and could have done to you. No one can know it all in life unless the day we shall get to know it all in life”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
This quote describes everything I felt and learned. This is honestly what was running through my mind.
I had a million thoughts, but the only one that mattered to me was how was I going to get help? How was I going to inform my mother that I felt paralyzed from the neck down? It was terrifying because that one hour of waiting for someone to come check on me felt like days. I know the outcome wasn't as bad as I had thought, but the whole experience from the car crash to banging my head on the desk, really opened my eyes up and take a step in someone else's shoes. It made me appreciate life how it was for me, and it made me welcome and fear the idea of change.
