Missing Without A Trace

by Rider, Tanya

  Daylight, see the dew on the sunflower

  And a rose that is fading

  Roses wither away

  Like the sunflower I yearn to turn my face to the dawn

  I am waiting for the day.

  While she was waiting, Tanya desperately longed for her deceased dog, Lady, who had comforted her countless times in the past.

  Through guided-imagery sessions, where Tanya was soothed into deep relaxation and an altered state of consciousness, she was able to see flashes of visual images from these lost eight days. “I didn’t know where I was…. I couldn’t see cars. I could only hear them…. I knocked on the window a lot, hoping someone would hear me…. I tugged at my seat belt. It wouldn’t come off…. The music was on. I turned it up real loud…. Why hadn’t I bought seat belt covers? I wish I had…. I can’t get my seat belt off. It’s irritating me!”

  Tanya pulled her phone from the dashboard, through the steering wheel, to call 911. At least, this is what she imagined she was doing. In actuality, Tanya couldn’t reach her phone. After she was rescued, Tanya adamantly insisted that she’d called 911 and had told the police that she had gone off the road and needed help. But, in her mind, they had only laughed at her and called her “stupid.” She also believed she had called Tom and was furious with him for taking so long to get to her. It may have been wish-fulfillment dreams, hallucinations or delusions. But, there were no records of these calls. On the other hand, many people did try calling her, to no avail. In her guided image she saw, “My phone is somewhere over there. I can’t reach it. I hear it ringing.”

  While trapped, as Tanya became hungry and thirsty, she thought of having stopped at Whole Foods earlier that morning, after having gotten off work. When she was brought back to these moments, through her guided images, she recalled, “I felt gross stopping at Whole Foods because I’d just gotten off my dirty job, where I’m on my knees a lot. Around this time, somebody spilled Scope on the floor and I got some on the bottom of my foot…. I used to like to get pancakes at Whole Foods, but I go with what my body’s craving…. I bought bottled water. Water is my first priority…. When I would come back home, I would crash. So, I would get something to eat that I’d eat later, when I woke up. We didn’t have a fridge here…. There was something I was getting that I liked. I used to make salads in their deli bar. I don’t know if I did that that day. I liked the scrambled eggs and I sprinkled cheese on top…. I don’t have a recollection of eating or drinking anything that day.”

  Tanya’s pleasant imagery of her favorite foods was suddenly interrupted by her recall of a “foul smell.” “I’m thinking I’m never gonna buy that again.” But, what Tanya had thought was bad food, was actually her bodily wastes. She recalls that, again and again, “I had to go to the bathroom in my seat and I was crying.” Since she was not able to eat or drink, her body began essentially ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ itself—producing urine and feces that piled up around her. This was agonizing for Tanya, who had long striven for order and cleanliness.

  Memory, all alone in the moonlight

  I can smile at the old days

  I was beautiful then

  I remember the time I knew what happiness was

  Let the memory live again.

  As each day passed, Tanya’s life became more surreal. She floated in and out of consciousness. Except for the searing pain, it was akin to being in a sensory-deprivation tank. And while her body was shutting down, she was fighting thoughts that she was going to die. “There was no way I could have survived eight days without God. God’s taken away my memories…. But my body remembers…. The evidence is written in my scars.”

  Indeed, the universe brought many forces together to save Tanya. During all the years she’d tried to ward off depression, by focusing on her health, she’d obsessively worked out at the gym, done other exercises, eaten health food, and taken herbs and natural dietary supplements. So, her body was in good shape. The dogged discipline she’d honed in order to persevere with her health regimen helped her persevere in her fight for survival.

  Though Tanya’s body was trapped, her mind wasn’t. Because of her abusive childhood, she had learned to disconnect herself from her body and her surroundings. This time, once again, the protective psychological mechanism of dissociation would save her from entrapment. She was able to rise above her physical self and float off to a happier, prettier place, instead of the desperate situation in which she was trapped. Tanya has said that, while she was pinned behind the wheel, it felt as though her beloved dog, Lady, was taking her on a sightseeing tour, guiding her away from misery to more serene settings, like ethereal Thomas Kincaid paintings of idyllic landscapes bathed in light.

  Tanya’s determination also saved her. Her mantra, in defiance of her abusive childhood, had long been “I will not be anybody’s victim.” When asked what she thought about in order to not give up, Tanya said, “Tom and I—our love is not breakable.” And, “If you have a deep relationship with God, it’s not breakable.”

  Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise

  I must think of a new life

  And I mustn’t give in

  When the dawn comes tonight will be a memory too

  And a new day will begin.

  When Tanya was found, on the same day that she and Tom were supposed to put their final signatures on their mortgage papers, she was hanging from her seatbelt. “When the police officer crashed his way through my car window on the passenger side, it startled me. I was very scared of him…. And he was stunned because I was able to talk to him and drink water.”

  Miracle of Maple Valley

  Though Tanya is not the first, nor only, one to survive without food or water for more than a week, it is still unusual. Some might even say it is a miracle.

  Before Tanya could be extricated from her crushed and mangled SUV, she anxiously told the medics who arrived on the scene, “I can’t feel my legs.” Tanya was bewildered and covered in diffuse glass fragments from her windshield. It took over two hours to disentangle her from the wreckage, during which time her breathing slowed and almost stopped, prompting the medics to intubate her. According to the medical records, they were “unable to get a pulse, so a trauma code was called.”

  When Airlift Northwest transported her from the scene to Harborview Medical Center, they noted that Tanya had a “laceration above left eye…. Bruising from left shoulder to right pelvis—appears to follow seat belt line.” Her lungs had “breath sounds” that were “diminished.” They observed skin “breakdown” into “decubitus” ulcers from prolonged pressure over her pelvis and knees. They also diagnosed her as having a head injury, abdominal injury, multiple trauma, and hypovolemia (a decrease in the volume of circulating blood).

  When Tanya got to Harborview Medical Center, emergency room doctors rushed to stabilize her. They intensively infused fluid close to her heart and performed the most urgent diagnostic tests. Before she left the ER, her list of diagnoses had lengthened: threatened limbs—both legs were without a pulse; pressure ulcers on her pelvis, both legs, and abdomen where the seat belt was; fractures of her ribs, left clavicle, and a spinal vertebra; acute kidney failure; pneumomediastinum (air in the middle of the chest due to leaks from the lungs or airways); pneumoretroperitoneum (air behind the lining of the abdominal cavity); and pockets of air in her right armpit.

  Tanya was taken for x-rays and CAT scans and then transferred straight to the Intensive Care Unit. “Initially, she was awake and following commands.” But this didn’t last long. Since her body temperature was only 87.6 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the normal 98.6, doctors initiated “aggressive rewarming.” Blood test results indicated that she had hypernatremia (too much sodium in the blood); acidosis (too much acid in the blood); and rhabdomyolysis (the breakdown of muscles, releasing muscle fiber contents into the blood and causing kidney damage). Her left shoulder was dislocated. Her left forehead laceration cut through her left eyebrow, and the connective tissue sheath covering her bo
ne was exposed. Deep patches of dead skin dotted her chest, abdomen, left elbow and both hips and legs.

  It soon became apparent that her left leg had developed ‘compartment syndrome,’ because the muscles, nerves and blood vessels had been compressed for too long. In an effort to save her leg, Tanya was rushed to the operating room for an emergency left leg fasciotomy, the cutting away of the connective tissue covering her muscles, to relieve the pressure.

  During the first week, Tanya was in a medically induced coma and on a respirator. Meanwhile, caring citizens went to the site of her accident and searched for things that may have inadvertently been left in the ravine. They retrieved her social security card, the book that contained plans for the house she and Tom were building, and more items, which they returned to her.

  Tanya’s first memory in the hospital was becoming “aware of lots of people around me, fiddling around my legs. I asked the nurse for something to drink. She said, ‘We have juice’.” Somewhat disoriented, unable to comprehend the seriousness of her situation and locked into her dietary prohibitions, Tanya asked her if there was sugar in it. “We have water,” the nurse replied. When Tanya innocently inquired, “Bottled?” the nurse looked at her in disbelief. “I was hungry, too,” Tanya added. “I also remember a nurse trying to get out of me what happened. ‘Did you fall asleep?’ she asked. I don’t know.”

  When she questioned Tom about what happened, at first, he told her not to worry and said that she was a “miracle.” Tanya didn’t understand. He told her more, a little bit at a time, stopping when he thought it was too much for her. “You were lost for awhile and then we found you,” he added later. Tom brought her the cell phone she had had in the car. “I kept it under my pillow so I could call him.”

  When Tanya saw her mother walking towards her bed, her first thoughts were, “She’s my abuser. I can’t move. I was shocked she was there. She pushed her way in even though she knew I didn’t want her there. She wasn’t being mean, so I let her come back and try to be helpful…. I was on a lot of drugs, so I let things happen I didn’t want.”

  After the first week, Tanya was transferred out of ICU and into a regular room. Tanya recollects “a police officer at my bedside, a man with black hair. He said, ‘I’m the one who rescued you.’ I felt gratitude towards him, but he didn’t seem to accept my gratitude. He was staring at me with no emotion. He said that there were a lot of people involved. I said, ‘God.’ He asked me what I remembered. He said, ‘We tore the roof off your car. You don’t remember that?’ I said, ‘It was so nice of you to stop by and see me.’ He said, ‘I was just here doing something else.’ It was weird.”

  A rehabilitation psychologist noted that Tanya “had a vivid and apparently accurate recall for the accident.” But two days later, curiously, things changed. “Today, the patient denies recollection of the accident and the period of time she was trapped in the car…. Patient’s husband is now happy that patient does not recall the event. He is concerned about his wife’s well being should those memories return.”

  Two days after this, the rehab psychologist noted, “Patient reports two nightmares…. She states that she wakes in fear but then falls back to sleep and does not remember their content…. Patient continues to deny memories of event and she states she is happy about the lack of memories.” A couple of weeks later, he wrote, “Patient continues to deny recollection of event…. She is able to recount the story again based on what she has been told without… apparent distress.” Yet, subsequently, Tanya has locked these memories away.

  When Tanya first saw one of her wounds, as the nurse started to change the dressing, she became frantic. “I asked the nurse for a washcloth to put over my eyes. After that, I didn’t let them let me see it. I had them cover my eyes so I couldn’t see my wounds.” Indeed, this was a concrete symbol of what Tanya has been doing all of her life. Just as she has done with her emotional wounds from childhood and her accident, she blocks out memories so that she won’t have to “see” what really happened.

  Tanya dreaded the painful, twice-daily wound changes. She “howled,” like her dog Lady, hoping it would be as soothing to her as it had seemed to be for Lady. But Tanya dreaded looking at her emotional wounds even more, terrified that they would cause more pain than howling or painkillers could muffle.

  After she was at Harborview for almost a month, the surgery team asked the Psychiatry Consultation and Liaison Service to evaluate Tanya for anxiety and depression. By this point, she had had three more surgeries on her leg, another surgery to repair her clavicle fracture, and another to close her facial laceration. The psychiatrist wrote that Tanya “does not have any memory about events leading to the car accident…. She apparently did not know about the extensive media coverage regarding her case until recently…. Her husband… has appeared on many media outlets. Several days ago he brought a DVD recapping some of the media coverage… and they watched this video together. She describes this as being incredibly sad, but at the same time quite incredible (which reinforced her belief of the amazing power of God). She feels incredibly blessed to be alive and believes that God has been playing a large part in her survival and recovery.”

  After almost a month, Tanya “stood for the first time.” The rehab psychologist noted that she had “less of a vacant gaze.” She had been having problems with her appetite, since the beginning of her hospitalization. Hospital records described her as “emaciated.” Tanya recalls fondly that, “the nutritionist came into play. She helped me with my need to eat healthy foods. She got them to bring organic salads and for the cook to make me brown rice and eggs. My husband brought me food. And I drank a lot of Ensure.”

  About six weeks into her stay, the rehab psychologist observed Tanya to be “crying uncontrollably” and “frustrated with (the) need for additional surgeries.” An anesthesiologist had told her, “You’re the star here in Seattle,” but it hadn’t seemed to help. Instead, Tanya said, “I’m feeling really sad right now. I want to be done with this and go home.”

  Tanya had been trying to sit up. “I don’t remember how I got up. My heart got used to lying down. I thought I’d throw up when I sat up. I couldn’t sit up very long, so they put me down again.” When she was able to sit up she realized, “I had a beautiful view. There was life happening in Seattle. I felt so far away from being a productive citizen.”

  After about seven weeks, though Tanya had worked with other physical therapists, she refused to work with one of them, with whom she felt unsafe. Tanya became anxious that she would fall. She tried harder, though she still had bad days.

  A teaching hospital, Harborview is staffed by doctors and residents from the University of Washington. Groups of them visited Tanya on daily rounds. One day, “I asked a woman resident, ‘Am I going to walk again?’ She looked at me with so much hope, and said, ‘You will walk again’.” But one of the supervising doctors pulled the resident away, dashing Tanya’s hopes with, “There’s no guarantee of that.”

  Two months into her hospital stay, despite ongoing surgical procedures, Tanya was able to stand and transfer into a wheelchair with minimal assistance.

  She’d gone from lying down to sitting up, to getting out of bed and into a wheelchair, and later to a walker. “It was like the two-hour workout I used to do at the gym—just getting to the bed or to the potty. Many times, I almost fell backwards. It was really traumatic to realize I didn’t have control of my body.”

  Soon it would be decided whether Tanya would transfer to inpatient rehabilitation, where she could progress at a more accelerated pace, or to a skilled nursing facility, where there would be little expectation of progress. In order to be eligible for inpatient rehab, she would have to reach certain milestones of mobility. This was proving difficult for her because of her “anxiety and difficulty trusting.” Tanya had refused to take an antidepressant when it was recommended weeks before, but “bouts of tearfulness” had persisted. And, now, she needed to overcome the fears that were holding her back—bef
ore her fate was decided for her. Since the doctors would not agree to let her take her natural supplements, Tanya finally agreed to take an antidepressant (all the while, promising herself that she would resume her nutritional approach as soon as she returned home).

  “The physical therapist said, ‘You either walk or you go to a nursing home.’ In order to go to rehab, I had to show that I could do many tasks. I had to do a lot of exercises with my hands and feet in bed. I had to be able to sit up for a long amount of time. It was making me dizzy and I had no cushion on my bottom, because I had no more fat or muscle there, so it was painful. I got that rubbing thing on my bottom bone—bedsores—so I had to move around.”

  Tanya’s chances were not looking good. But, when the rehabilitation medicine doctor rejected her for the inpatient unit, Tanya dug down deeper. “I was gonna get out of that victim state! But I only had a short time to go from the wheelchair to the walker.” Determined to show them that she could do it, Tanya made enough progress to be admitted to rehab less than a week later. It was the beginning of December, and she told them her goal was to be discharged home by Christmas.

  “I was so happy I got into rehab! I liked the painted butterflies on the ceiling. I could see the light. Soon, I’d be going home.” Tanya’s mother visited her there, and chirped, “Your doctor said you’re a go-getter. You’ll be leaving soon.” But, when she saw Tanya was sullen, Nancy asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

  “I said, ‘Yes.’ I made sure my mother, grandmother, and uncle couldn’t get in to see me. My grandmother never has nice things to say. She said, ‘Tanya looks really thin.’ They were looking at me like I’m a freak.” Although Tanya was desperate to see love in their eyes, especially at this vulnerable time, all she saw was judgment.

  Once Tanya was on the rehab unit, she was seen by more rehab psychologists. They noted that Tanya’s physical therapists “report that while patient is participating in therapies, she is highly anxious and micro-manages therapeutic sessions. These behaviors are pre-morbid in nature,” (meaning that her behaviors were personality traits that pre-existed her current medical problems). She was still “very fearful of falling.” A week later, Tanya listed her accomplishments: “increased appetite, increased endurance, a successful trip to the health food store… walking up and down four stairs.” The staff commented, “Patient did note difficulty being in a crowd at the store, but believes she was able to handle it adequately.”