Still Lolo

by Lauren Scruggs

  Right then I decided I would never cry except in one place. I would cry only while sitting in our car outside the hospital next to my husband. He was my new safe place, and we were in this together.

  I buried my head on Shaun’s shoulder and fell apart.

  CHAPTER 21

  Flickers of Recognition

  Cheryl

  That second night after the accident, after Lauren had come out of her extended eye surgery, Jeff and I left the hospital at about 8 p.m. and drove a mile over to the hotel room that our friends had reserved for us. We couldn’t even talk to each other. Normal communication was impossible. All we could do was breathe. I don’t remember what we ate, or even if we did eat dinner. I remember taking a shower, getting into pajamas, and lying on the bed. Jeff had his Bible open to Psalm 46. Over his shoulder, I read,

  God is our refuge and strength,

  a very present help in trouble.

  Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way.

  Our earth had just given way, and I knew God was our refuge and strength. But I was so weary. So completely wrung out. Deep down I knew that God had known this accident was going to happen—that he could have stopped it, but didn’t. So God must have a purpose for this. The answers weren’t going to be worked out immediately, but that bedrock thought in the back of my mind—that God was sovereign and had a good plan for Lauren—kept me going.

  Jeff and I turned off the lights and lay in the dark. I wanted to sleep, to forget everything, but slumber was far off. I wanted to pray, to say something to God, to hear something from God, but I couldn’t get my mind around any specific words. Maybe there was a praise song I could sing in my mind, part of a devotional I could recall, a verse to linger on that I’d memorized once. But I couldn’t even remember what I’d just read over Jeff’s shoulder. Exhausted, I watched the clock blink 12 midnight, then 12:30, then 12:45. I so longed for sleep.

  Just before 1 a.m., one word came to me. I said it in my mind as a prayer.

  Jesus.

  He became the reservoir of all my hopes, the receiver of all my angst, the foundation of all my securities. Everything I couldn’t process or articulate was caught and encapsulated in him. I knew Jesus could sort out all the prayers I couldn’t even begin to verbalize. I began to pray that one word over and over again. Jesus . . . Jesus . . . Jesus.

  When I looked at the clock again, it was 5 a.m. I’d slept. I was sure of it. Jeff had too. Four hours of sleep was better than nothing. They’d told us we could see Lauren again at 6 a.m., so we were at the hospital again precisely at 6:00. “Has she moved?” I asked the on-call nurse. “Has she opened her eyes? Has she said anything?”

  The nurse smiled politely. She shook her head no.

  Out-of-town relatives began to arrive. My two sisters flew in, as did Jeff’s sister. Again that morning the waiting room became packed with friends. Either Jeff, Brittany, or I stayed in the room with Lauren all through the morning while others went out to talk with people.

  As I sat in my daughter’s hospital room, I watched how her eyes remained closed. She lay motionless in bed. I kept thinking of what the surgeons had all told us, how this was going to be a long haul and not to expect any signs of progress for days, weeks, perhaps even months to come. I kept praying, praying, praying—we just needed some sign of life. A tiny movement. A word even. Something. Anything.

  Midmorning on Monday Lauren went in for another surgery so doctors could complete more work on her hand area. This time the surgeons wanted to close up the wound, which was a good thing because the wound had been left open since the first hand surgery. A closed wound meant less risk of infection. Meanwhile, I struggled. I knew God was there, but my human flesh was devastated, wishing I could take Lauren’s place. Already I felt emotionally exhausted and helpless. How I longed to be able to snap my fingers and end what felt like a terrible dream.

  Sometime later that morning Lauren came out of surgery. Back in the SICU room, Jeff was holding Lauren’s hand. He was looking intently into her face and stroking her forearm. “Lauren,” he said softly. “Lauren,” a bit more loudly. “Lauren—if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.” I don’t know why Jeff said this. Maybe it was impulse. Maybe he was putting into words what we’d all been praying.

  Instantly Jeff started crying.

  I had seen it too. Unmistakable. A flicker. A tiny spark of movement. Our girl was fighting. Lauren had moved her hand.

  Jeff asked Lauren to do it again, but one squeeze was all there was in that moment. One tiny squeeze. It didn’t matter. A voice from the outside world had pushed its way through the mass of clouds that surrounded Lauren’s mind. She’d processed the signal and responded. Amen, I prayed silently. Jesus, thank you.

  Later that afternoon, after the tube from Lauren’s throat had been removed, the speech pathologist came in and asked us if Lauren had spoken yet. We shook our heads no. “Go ahead and ask her to say something directly,” the pathologist said. “See if she’ll respond.”

  Jeff took the lead, pulling Lauren’s hand into his. “Lauren, it’s Dad. We’re all here with you. If you can hear me, say hi.”

  Jesus, I prayed. You can do all things.

  This time it was quicker. Some brief moment of recognition passed across Lauren’s face. Her good eye opened halfway, then closed. The corner of her lip moved. Another flicker. Another spark. We held our breath.

  “Lauren, if you can hear me,” Jeff repeated, “say hi.”

  “Hi,” Lauren said, in the merest whisper.

  There was nothing more after that. No recognition. No hand squeezes or words. About an hour later, my sister sat beside Lauren. “It’s Aunt Sue,” I said. “Lauren, say hi to Aunt Sue.”

  The room was silent, then . . .

  “I love you,” Lauren murmured.

  Her first full sentence. We were on top of the world!

  That’s my Lauren! I thought. She’ll fight hard and fast to get better.

  Almost simultaneously, though, I had to fight a flicker of disappointment when Lauren said nothing more. That was just one of countless times I experienced conflicting feelings. On the one hand, I was grateful to God for his mercies and proud of my daughter’s determination and strength; on the other, I still found it hard to believe that Lauren was in SICU, and I worried about her reaction when she became aware of just how much she’d lost.

  Medical staff explained that Lauren might be hearing and understanding things, even though she wasn’t able to speak much. In times like these, patients can get confused because they know they’ve been in an accident but can’t verbalize the question to ask what happened. That afternoon Brittany sat on Lauren’s bed and spoke softly to her. She explained to Lauren that she had been in an accident and had sustained multiple injuries. As Brittany spoke, Lauren squeezed her hand. We all saw it. A little later on, Brittany asked Lauren if she knew her own name.

  “Lauren,” she said.

  Such small victories. We cherished every one.

  Hospital staff said people outside the immediate family could come into the SICU room, and a few people came in to talk and pray with us. College friends of Lauren’s. People Lauren had worked with. Neighborhood friends. Lauren stayed mostly unresponsive. James came in at one point. Jeff said James’s name loudly and asked if Lauren remembered him, but there was nothing. James didn’t take it personally.

  Sometime later that day, Sharon Kendall motioned me out in the hall, a calm yet concerned look on her face.

  “I needed to take my phone number off the CaringBridge site,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “I’d put my name on there in case people from the church wanted to help,” Sharon added, “but the calls haven’t stopped. ABC, NBC, newspapers, tabloids, television shows. They’re even calling from Europe.”

  I let out a sharp breath. “I’m not sure what to do either,” I said. “They’ve been calling my cell phone all day too, and I’ve been letting them all go to voice mail.” My cell phon
e number had been on the website for our ministry. I’d assumed the media had found the number there. Same as Sharon’s, my calls were from regional, national, and international news sources.

  A friend of a friend, Janee Harrell, was media savvy and volunteered to field the calls. A short while later, Janee told us that both Good Morning America and the Today Show had contacted her. They wanted us to make statements on national TV. The interviews wouldn’t be taped—we’d be live. I talked to Jeff about it. The accident seemed like a private, family issue. We both felt numb. What was there to say? At first we concluded that we wouldn’t do the interviews. But in the spirit of seeking wisdom from trusted friends, Jeff called our pastor, as well as another friend who’s a national speaker, to understand other viewpoints. “It’s actually in your best interest to make a comment,” the friend explained, “because the media will tell this story regardless of your participation. If you agree to talk with the media, then it usually goes better for you, because you’ll get a chance to tell your story the way you want to.” Our pastor concurred.

  So we changed our minds and agreed to the interviews.

  A press conference was set up for 5 a.m. Tuesday morning. We did the interviews one right after another. We had no notes with us and no extended length of time to collect our thoughts. That’s probably how they wanted us to appear—exactly like we were—raw. Jeff and I prayed before we went on, then answered the questions the best we knew how.

  Ann Curry, from the Today Show, was very gracious with us. She asked if we thought it was a miracle Lauren was still alive.

  “We’re so grateful to the Lord for saving her,” Jeff said. “Lauren has a strong faith in Jesus Christ, as we do as a family. We’ve been surrounded by friends who’ve been praying. It’s been a horrendous few days, but we do see some bright signs ahead. She’s a strong girl, she’s physically fit, she exercises and eats healthy. Lauren’s going to fight.”

  Ann asked about Lauren’s character, about how she’d need personal toughness to survive. This time I answered.

  “Lauren’s always been a go-getter,” I said. “She will use it for good, and she knows that Jesus uses everything for her good. She’s going to have a tough time when she finds everything that’s happened. Losing her left hand is really a tough thing, but she’ll fight. She’s a fighter.”13

  Right after that, George Stephanopoulos interviewed us for Good Morning America. He was equally gracious and asked us about the prognosis so far. We told him about Lauren speaking for the first time.

  George asked if we were able to piece together any better what had happened on the tarmac. We didn’t have any news other than what had already been reported.

  George asked me what I had personally seen at the accident site, which is when I broke down and said, “I was just able to hold her. That’s the toughest part of it all, just seeing her [lie] there and waiting for help.”14

  When the interviews were over, Jeff and I went back to Lauren’s room. After the great strides she’d made the day before, we hoped for more strong progress today. We prayed specifically that Lauren would say some more words. More than that, we longed to see some genuine movement in Lo’s body, even before the close of that day. We pressed God for more healing for Lauren.

  Matt Chandler’s wife, who is also named Lauren, is a beautiful and godly woman, and she visited us later that day. She’s a gifted musician and asked if she could sing over Lo. Music has been known to trigger mental activity, doctors said, as well as to calm and reassure a patient, not to mention the family. She sang Lo’s favorite worship song, “You Are Faithful.” A flicker of recognition crossed Lo’s face.

  Michael Bleecker, our church’s worship pastor, came into the room later and also asked if he could sing. Michael had been a tremendous minister to all of us in the waiting room the first night of the accident, and he had played songs then, too. He began to sing the song “Restoration,” another favorite of Lauren’s that we sometimes sing at church. The song draws inspiration from Psalm 30:11, “You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing” (NLT).

  Jesus, I prayed silently, please let Lauren’s body move. Something. Anything.

  Michael kept singing.

  Jesus, you can restore all things, I prayed silently.

  And, slowly, as Michael sang the last chorus of “Restoration” . . . very slightly, Lauren lifted up her foot.

  CHAPTER 22

  The End of Week One

  Jeff

  The news hit with a fury. By Tuesday, December 6, we had dozens of requests from media sources. Huge names. Anderson Cooper 360°. 20/20. Entertainment Tonight. TV shows and newspapers around the world. People wanted updates on Lauren’s condition, but they were also asking us to do longer interviews and special features.

  We drove back to our house on Tuesday to get some clothes, and a regional camera crew was on our front lawn. Two reporters from other stations hovered at our front door. We were caught unaware and told them, politely, that we weren’t giving interviews just then. Inside the house, our answering machine was filled with more messages. About half were from well-wishers, the other half from news sources. A friend of ours passed along the name of a public relations company he’d worked with, A. Larry Ross Communications. Founder Larry Ross had experience handling high-profile cases, like ours was now becoming. He brought his senior team over to our home the next morning, and we felt relieved to turn the whole media side of things over to them.

  I couldn’t understand why the story was drawing so much interest nationally, not to mention from around the world. Sure, Lauren had started her own magazine and interviewed celebrities. But her magazine was just getting underway, and she wasn’t exactly well-known herself. It was true that she was a remarkable girl—I’d known that since the day she was born—but lots of fathers think that about their daughters.

  Someone said that the sheer contrast of the story had captured people’s attention. Here was a girl, beautiful enough to be pictured alongside the fashion models she wrote about, who’d been in this horrific accident. And now she was fighting to come back—and fighting hard. People rooted for a girl like that. She had spunk and drive, and people could put themselves in similar positions and imagine how it would feel if something cherished were taken from them. If that were our family, what would we do? people wondered. How would we find the strength to go on? People found the story inspiring. On the CaringBridge website, people wrote that they were not only praying for Lauren, but they were drawing strength from her determination.

  We quickly learned, though, that while widespread exposure can sometimes be your friend, sometimes it’s not. Because of the media coverage, more people were praying for us and cheering on Lauren in her recovery, and we felt good about that. But the administrators at Parkland Hospital needed to install extra security guards for Lauren’s sake. People were calling the hospital, eager for any bit of news that hadn’t been reported. Strangers came by. Some offered condolences and brought presents. But others—well, we weren’t sure exactly why they were there. For safety reasons, hospital staff changed Lauren’s name on all charts, directories, and listings to a code name: Sky. That was the only name some nurses ever used for Lauren. “Hi, Sky,” they’d say when they came into the room. “How’re you feeling today?”

  By late Tuesday morning, Lauren was moving around more in bed and had said one or two more words and sentences. She’d been accurately responding to voice commands from therapists most of the morning, wiggling her toes, and even raising her arm and her legs. She had taken a nap, and we all thought she was still asleep. Brittany came in the room, and Lauren opened her eye and said jauntily, “Hey, Britt.” Later she told a nurse very clearly, “Thank you,” and then she said to all of us, “Sorry I’ve been sleeping so much,” which made us laugh.

  Tony and Candice visited Lauren that day. Candice is Chris and Dana Crawford’s daughter and was about five months pregnant at the time. Lauren had known about the pregnancy before the accident. When Ca
ndice came into the room, Lauren was asleep. Lauren opened her eye, looked directly at Candice, and held out her hand. “Can I see your baby bump?” Lauren’s voice was as clear as day. Candice smiled, and we all laughed. She moved closer to Lauren and let Lauren run her hand along her stomach. It was a beautiful moment for a lot of reasons. It was also a sign that Lauren was remembering.

  But despite all the positive steps, I confessed that I wasn’t doing well deep down. Any adrenaline I’d felt at the start had long since worn off. My cold seemed to be better, but I hadn’t slept much in days. I felt exhausted and frightened. A man wants to charge ahead, to slay a dragon, to be active in the process of caring for the people he loves deeply. But I felt as if I couldn’t do anything to help. Fear twisted around my gut like a python around its prey. There were so many moments of each day when all I could do was sit and wait.

  Undoubtedly, my biggest worry was the trauma to Lauren’s brain. Although she was talking a bit already, the bigger question of whether she’d return to being the same person we’d always known her to be loomed heavy in my mind. The doctors couldn’t predict what the outcome would be, though at one point Lauren’s neurosurgeon told us something that helped us put her progress in perspective. He said that if one hundred neurosurgeons had been gathered in a room and asked to review Lauren’s initial charts and images, at least fifty of them would have predicted that she would never again form a complete sentence and would experience a personality change. At that moment, I realized how miraculous her progress had been, although undoubtedly the road ahead was long and uncertain.

  In addition, all the practical questions a father asks himself had begun to jab at me. Of course I’d wondered, What if Lauren never fully recovers? But now I was doing some mental math of the most pragmatic kind. My question was simply: Healing or no healing, how are we ever going to pay for all this?