Chris learned to scuba dive while we were there. That was something I used to do and always wanted him to learn. They allowed me to go on the boat with him even though it was rough. I just sat there and held on tight. The workers were so nice, all native Fijians from the local village. They carried me on and off the boat. We took two trips over to the local village, which was our favorite part of the trip. It wasn’t exactly wheelchair accessible, so Chris had to lean my chair back and wheelie me over a lot of the terrain. It seemed like none of the kids on the island had ever seen a wheelchair. I let them touch it and spin the spinners. The inside piece actually spins, kind of like a pimped-out car you might see, except I spin these manually. They loved it.
Some other kids approached me on the trip and wanted to know what had happened to me, so our guide, Vili, told them in their native language. He knew my story, as we had become good friends while we were on the island.
Chris did a lot to help on that trip, even going so far as to put waves in my hair with a wave-making iron I had brought along. It turned out he was very particular about wanting to make my hair look good. He’d talk me through it, saying, “Hold still. Wait a minute. Almost done.” It was pretty darn funny. One day, we plugged the iron in and it totally fried. We just stared at it in disbelief. We had a good laugh about that.
While we were away, absorbed in luxury and sunshine, the media had apparently gone absolutely crazy because the wedding stirred up the story again. We did get some time on the Internet there, so we read all these crazy stories and the comments. I was amazed the world had taken such interest. We were scheduled to fly to New York when we returned from Fiji for appearances on Today, HLN, MSNBC, and Inside Edition. It was exciting and exhausting all at once.
Of course, when we first arrived in Fiji, we were very tired. That kind of travel was something I’d certainly never experienced. Plus I was jet-lagged. But after we caught up on our sleep and overcame the exhaustion of our wedding and the trip, we finally consummated our marriage. It was really wonderful. I wrapped my arms around him and he kissed my neck, and it was passionate and loving. A moment I’ll never forget.
CHAPTER 28
My New Reality
When we returned from Fiji, with the wedding behind us, it was time to start moving forward and figuring out what I would do with my time. The wedding and my healing had taken up a lot of my efforts, and the media appearances surrounding it all had been a whirlwind.
I started to find that my days weren’t very interesting. I wanted to work, of course, but the nerve pain made me an unreliable employee, sometimes taking over my body for hours in the morning and often into the afternoon. Still, in the months that followed our wedding, I began to grow increasingly aware that the fast-paced, media-infused life I’d been leading wasn’t real, and with the wedding planned and done, well, suddenly, everything stopped. That’s when I was confronted with really understanding my injury and learning to handle it. I knew I had to do something to fill my days and figure out what my next steps in life would be.
That meant my friends became that much more important to me. Those girls by the pool were suddenly everything. I had Chris to look forward to at the end of each day, and I loved seeing him and eating dinner with him, but I found myself relying more and more on them. In fact, there had been a dramatic shift: I had been their strength, especially for one of them, but now I needed them badly to help me figure it all out.
I found that all of them helped. Samantha suddenly had such a calming way with words and situations; that was her gift to me. Britney was always there to talk and kept me company, as some days stretched on and felt endless. Lauren was always that friend who responded to texts in the middle of the night, no matter how much time had passed, and Carly was the one who provided me with the most random laugh over the most absurd thing, always right when I needed it.
That support helped me make some big decisions. I decided to return to doing what I loved before I was hurt: coaching the Wake Shakers, the seniors cheerleading team. They participate in local and state senior games that lead to the Senior Olympics, with all different events, including sports but also acting, singing, and cheerleading. Right after college, I was working with kids in an afterschool program, and these seniors were using the back room of the same facility. I had to set it up for them before I left, and I overheard them talking about needing a coach.
I jumped into their conversation and said, “I’m here anyway, so if you want help, I’m available.”
They took me on. I felt bad because I’d taught them all of their cheers, but then I got hurt. I was supposed to add dance lessons, but I wasn’t able to. They had to scramble to find someone to help right after the accident. Still, I was able to return, and they were excited to have me. It was really nice to know they missed me, and they said that they’d never let me go again.
Since we had a specialized van, I needed to learn to use it. So that became another project for after the wedding. At first it was really helpful for my mother to get me around in it. A small car was challenging. The first time my mom drove me in my van, I was strapped in, but somehow I shifted and tilted and eventually fell back flat. We laughed our heads off. I called moments like that “quad moments.”
Eventually, I had to take steps to learn to drive myself, so in July 2012 I decided to get started. I needed to get used to just getting into the van. The way the van was set up made it possible for me to drive alone, but it was a physical undertaking at the same time. I had to use all of my strength to push my wheelchair up the ramp and into the van, and then getting into the driver’s seat meant using every available muscle in my arms, as well as a slide board. I didn’t have the strength to lift myself, so I learned to slide myself. I had to get used to steering once I was inside, too—and it also required more arm than hand strength. To turn the wheel I kept my right hand wedged between triangulated pins surrounding my wrist, and to apply brakes or gas I kept my left hand on the hand controls. It was completely different than anything I’d ever done. Just sitting there the first time I got in was really scary, and I knew I’d be afraid on the open road. It was nerve-wracking. Add to all of this that I had never driven anything larger than a Honda Accord before the accident, so driving a van felt like driving a spaceship. I knew it was going to be a challenge.
Like everyone else, before I really even got going, I had to struggle my way through the DMV. It was a huge ordeal, and I had to argue with them to obtain my permit. I needed a permit so I could learn to drive with an occupational therapist first, but they repeatedly told me a road test was in order. I made arrangements to meet with the therapist, but I never took that road test. I couldn’t. My car would not be fully adapted until after I trained with the occupational therapist. The therapist evaluated me to see what I needed. I finally made the DMV workers understand.
There was another hurdle, though. I trained with the occupational therapist in her car and it took some getting used to. I had two hours of fiddling around, and then this woman made me drive on the busiest interstate in my region. It was trial by fire, but I pulled it off. After just four hours of one-on-one training, I took and passed a driving test.
I realized quickly that I liked the independence. I would take an occasional trip to T.J.Maxx just to go look at clothes and be girly, but it always took a lot out of me energy-wise. One afternoon, I took a trip to the mall, and while there I rolled by a kid who was clearly intrigued by my chair. I heard him say something to his mom about it.
I stopped and went back and said, “Wanna see something cool?”
He said yes.
I spun my spinners for him, and his eyes lit up.
He asked, “Can I try?”
I said yes, of course, and he loved it. He didn’t want to stop. He finally did and I started to roll away.
He yelled, “Wait.”
I did and he came up and gave me a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek. I
t was a great moment, and I hope it changed that kid’s view of people in wheelchairs or of anyone who might be different. I loved that his mom hadn’t pulled him away. I had started to notice that some parents yanked their kids away from me so quickly. I tried that afternoon to teach at least one kid that we are all the same. I hope, in some small way, I helped to eliminate the ignorance so often instilled.
So I took small trips on occasion, but driving to one place took four transfers, which I learned was exhausting. It meant I had better really want to go somewhere badly to make the trip. Nevertheless, because being so dependent on others was frustrating, getting my driver’s license helped somewhat. It allowed me to more easily visit my girls and some days to just take a ride to get out of the house.
When I first started learning, there was a huge debate between my driving trainer and me. She insisted I should get rid of my manual chair and get into a power chair. I had been adamant about staying in a manual, so it was sort of frustrating and took away from the excitement of the situation. Yes, it’s easier to get up the ramp and to roll yourself in and drive from your chair. But there are basic freedoms taken away when you choose a power chair. I’d never be able to ride in my friends’ cars, because they couldn’t transport the chair, and Chris wouldn’t be able to pop me up and down stairs. I wouldn’t be able to simply be wheeled out onto the beach. So even though transferring to the driver’s seat is more difficult and time consuming in a manual chair, I was never afraid of hard work. I could push, so I wanted to push.
Driving made me feel normal. Cleaning my house did, too, and so after we were married I made an effort to be a typical wife and to provide my husband with a nice home to return to at the end of each workday. Unlike some people, I hated cooking, and that never changed. But I found that after the wedding, and as the media attention died down, I liked the peacefulness of cleaning, so I tried more and more to do things like laundry by myself.
CHAPTER 29
Let It Be
Three words summed up my life before the accident: Let It Be. My dad used to sing to me when I was little. He didn’t sing lullabies; he sang songs by the Beatles. I knew “Hey Jude” and “Imagine” by the time I was five years old. One of the songs I loved most as a kid was “Let It Be.” The song had an early impact on my life, and the lyrics were words to live by for all of us—my family, friends, and me. When my friend Carly and I sang in the hospital, we sang that song often. Of course, when I was out of rehab, “Let It Be” lingered in my mind, well beyond the whiteboard it was written on that had made it our group mantra. It grew to be my mantra and our way of coping. It was a term that defined how we came to realize our bond without actually saying much about what had happened, and it was critically important to me and to the group. It gave us all strength.
I was being interviewed on the news about the accident, and I mentioned that I wanted to get a tattoo on my neck. Shortly after, I received a phone call from this really cool guy at the Blue Flame Tattoo shop. He’d seen the story and he said he wanted to give me a tattoo for free. I was excited but also a little bit afraid. But with such a nice offer, I couldn’t say no. I had to go through with it. I made the appointment.
I called my brother to share the news. He already had so many tattoos and he’d done so much to help me out that I wanted him there to share the experience with me. The day of, we grabbed my mother and headed out to the shop. I decided to have it done on the back of my neck. I’d thought about that area for a tattoo before the accident, but not for any reason as meaningful as this one.
Breaking your neck at the C6 level affects movement and feeling from the chest down, as well as triceps and finger function. The neck doesn’t actually experience paralysis until you reach the C1 or C2 level, which are the very first bones at the top of your spine. Many people think, “Oh, you broke your neck, so you are paralyzed from the neck down,” but that’s not the case. Quadriplegic just means impairment in four limbs, not necessarily full paralysis. So I felt pain in my neck, which I guess made the tattoo more significant and ironic at the same time.
Just saying pain doesn’t really describe it. It hurt. The tattoo was applied right where the bone was on the neck, so I think that was why it hurt as badly as it did. Still, hair pulled back, leaning forward with my neck exposed, we got down to business. It was excruciating. I don’t know how many words in, I yelled, “Stop! I can’t take the pain anymore.”
My brother said, “You’re barely halfway finished; you can’t stop now.”
I thought about it for a while, then took a deep breath and said, “Okay, let’s keep going.” In case I might forget just how horrifically painful it was, my brother snapped a ton of pictures of my miserable face wincing from the needling.
Another problem also slowed things down. Whenever my body experienced pain or infection, it often responded with muscle contractions or spasms. This was the case during the tattooing. We had to take a lot of little breaks to deal with my body’s reaction.
But at the end of it all, I was set to remember, for life, those three special words that have been my guiding light. I had Let It Be and a peace sign inked onto the back of my neck in the exact spot of my injury. Chris and I have talked a lot about getting a couple’s tattoo to ink our bond, but I wanted this one first. I wanted a permanent reminder that I had made peace with my situation, that it was what it was, and that, simply, the only way to get through life is to just let it all be. Having it in ink on my neck gave me secret strength. Knowing it was there powered me, and those words both literally and figuratively became a part of me.
CHAPTER 30
Buckets of Love
Chris and I had agreed we would spend the rest of our lives celebrating our love and never letting an opportunity to make a memory together pass us by. We had gone to visit his family in Ohio over Christmas break, and while we were lying in bed, we starting talking about how we enjoyed celebrating love and doing things for one another. We of course already made a big deal of Hanukkah, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and our anniversary, but between it all, we had a five-month gap with nothing to celebrate. We decided as we were lying there to make our own day, for only us to enjoy. Later that day, we hopped on the computer and started searching holidays for that time period in the gap, looking for something random and funny that we could celebrate. There’s a day for everything, but when we saw My Bucket Got a Hole in It Day, we knew it was ours, and it was timed perfectly in May. It was random and goofy, but we marked our calendars, both excited to celebrate.
When the first one came around that next year, I bought Chris a subscription to Bassmaster Magazine. His dream was always to have a bass-fishing boat. So I opened a savings account and put $100 into it because, hey, you can dream and you have to start somewhere. He had waited until the last minute to buy me something and got a little panicked by his decision. He had to call my mother on his way home for suggestions about the perfect gift. He settled on a pretty engraved key chain that said “Chris & Rachelle Driven by Love” on the front and “My Bucket Got a Hole in It Day” on the back. He wanted me to have a special key chain as I perfected my driving skills. Ironically, Chris’s dad had a bucket with an actual hole in it. We created a tradition in which we’d put our gifts in it for the exchange. We take a picture with that bucket every year.
Maybe I did take for granted the simple, obvious things before the accident. I hated going for runs, for example. I hated going to the gym and preferred to relax after work. I know those are normal feelings for many people, but if I had my old life back right now and the ability to walk, there are so many things that I would do. . . . I’d go for runs, rock climb, travel more, hike, and see some of the big mountains. I’d do all these things and make sure that I didn’t let a week go by where I didn’t do something new or awesome with my legs, something that required physical ability.
Our Bucket Day grew to become really important to me. I needed to cherish all the little
things in life, because some of them were fleeting. Looking back, maybe I would have simply done more when I could walk. I worked at the senior center and as a lifeguard, and that was my life. I am not saying it wasn’t a good life. I had a fun job—I loved working with seniors and I loved lifeguarding. I just didn’t do enough. I didn’t appreciate the ability to dance then, for example. It’s unlikely we would have come up with another celebratory day for our love if I hadn’t learned how important the appreciation of these things was. People need to appreciate every day. I even looked back and appreciated the ability I once had to go to the bathroom on my own. I started speaking to groups, and that was always my message: Take advantage of running or dancing or even the simplest things while you can.
CHAPTER 31
What If
For a long time, the accident and the what-ifs were always part of the conversation with the girls. Not overtly, but they were the elephant in the room. One night, as we approached the two-year anniversary of the accident, we were all hanging out at Samantha’s house in the living room and something shifted. It was a mini-reunion almost, not planned as such, but we just happened to be together. We were gossiping and catching up, which was our favorite thing to do.
This particular night, with all of us hanging out, the accident didn’t loom. The sadness wasn’t masked with laughter. It felt gone. I don’t know how else to explain that. It’s as though it didn’t matter to us, as a group. Individually, sure, I am certain we were all dealing with it, but as a group we’d been liberated from it somehow, and this casual, uneventful night was only about fun and laughs and friendship.
The Promise Page 13