Still Lolo

by Lauren Scruggs

  People talk about a special “twin connection,” and over the years we’ve found that to be true with our daughters. Right after the surgery to remove Lauren’s eye, Brittany’s left eye started to twitch. Every thirty seconds or so her muscles contracted. This went on around the clock for about two weeks. Then the twitch was gone. Brittany’s right eye never twitched, only her left.

  On December 16, they moved Lauren to Zale, a different wing of the hospital that had a strong neurosurgery/neurotherapy department. Hospital administrators were concerned about the press, as we were. Mike’s friend Clint owns a security company, and he had his team come in to facilitate the move. It was quite a sight to see. The security team had all these huge ex-Special Forces guys on staff, and they mapped out the travel route and lined the hallways. One burly guy put a hat with a floppy brim on Lauren’s head, which covered most of her face. The entourage wheeled her to the elevator bank and down to the basement, then rolled her over to Zale, and up and over to her new room. All the time they were communicating through their walkie-talkies and checking around every corner. It was absolutely awesome. You’d have thought the president was on the move.

  At Zale they changed Lauren’s code name again. Instead of “Lauren Sky,” her name was now “Lauren Andronski.” I had no idea if it meant something, but Lauren thought it sounded cool, like a name for a secret agent in a movie. The room at Zale was nicer and newer, with a view out the window of downtown Dallas and even a small, adjoining waiting room with a couch and another bathroom.

  When that weekend rolled around, I couldn’t believe it had already been two weeks since Lauren’s accident. That Saturday night, Jeff and I sat silently watching Lauren sleep. We were peaceful, resting in the quiet of the new room at Zale. Jeff reached out and took my hand, and I held it warmly.

  “I love our kids so much,” I said. “She’s going to make it, you know. She’s really going to be fine.”

  Jeff smiled. “I feel the same way. God has big plans for Lauren, and I can’t wait to see what they are. We just need to keep taking twelve hours at a time.”

  “Yeah, but we need to pray for something more. This request’s personal to me, Jeff, but I really want it to happen.”

  “What?”

  “I want Lauren home for Christmas.”

  “That’s less than a week away, Cheryl. You mean ‘home to visit’ on Christmas Day?”

  “No. I want Lauren home for good.”

  “You know the enormity of what it would take for that to happen?”

  “I know, Jeff.”

  “Okay,” Jeff said with a smile. “Let’s pray.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Christmas

  Brittany

  We all started to pray that Lauren would come home for Christmas—and come home for good. We told Lauren about it too. She’s always responded well to a challenge, and we wanted to give her a big goal to shoot for.

  Lauren’s appetite returned, and she started eating on her own more consistently. Each day that week she went through intense physical, occupational, and cognitive therapy sessions. She began to get up, walk around, shower on her own, and dress herself in sweats and comfortable, loose-fitting clothes. It was good to see her wear something other than hospital gowns, and I think she felt more like herself in her own clothes. She was even able to ride a stationary bike, which amazed us all.

  She wasn’t out of the woods by any means. The pain kept coming and going. Her memory flickered on and off. Her missing hand kept bothering her. Time and time again she’d forget it was gone and ask one of us to uncurl her fingers.

  But she kept her sense of humor too. One afternoon the maxillofacial surgeon came in to examine her scar up close and see how well her facial nerve was healing. He was a young doctor whom I didn’t recognize. He asked Lauren to smile and lift her eyebrows. As the doctor was leaving, I asked him, “Can we have your personal number just in case we need to reach you?” He smiled and gave it to me.

  When he left, Lauren said in a hushed tone of mockery, “Brittany—did you just ask that cute doctor for his phone number?” She knew she was being funny.

  As Christmas drew nearer, Shaun and I wanted to throw Lauren a little party, just to help us all get in the holiday mood. We decided on a slumber party, just the three of us. We rented the old, corny movie The Santa Clause with Tim Allen, rearranged the couch in the adjoining room, and cuddled up on it to watch the movie. It was about as much fun as we could have in a hospital room.

  That night while Lauren was in bed, she began to moan in pain. There was always a five- to ten-minute window between the time her pain medications wore off and her new dose was administered. All we could do during that stretch was distract her and pray that the minutes would pass quickly.

  Shaun sent me somewhere across the room to get something, then clicked on his iPad and asked Lauren for advice on what Christmas gift he should get me. Some earrings maybe. A necklace. It was such a normal-sounding request, something he would easily have asked his sister-in-law about before the accident. Lauren followed his lead and began to offer her perspective on various gift choices. It bought us time until the nurse came in with the next dose, and Lauren’s pain subsided.

  I was definitely concerned about all the pain medication pouring into my sister’s system. We all were. Lauren’s body mass is so slight to begin with, and she was acting so upbeat and positive. In many ways she’s like that normally, but now in the hospital she was almost a little too positive at times. Her personality was her own, but it wasn’t quite hers, either. Lauren hadn’t cried yet at all. She hadn’t expressed any grief over the loss of her hand or eye. She hadn’t been angry or sad or worried or concerned. I wondered how much of what was truly going on inside her was being masked by the meds.

  Mom and Dad kept talking and praying about Lauren coming home for Christmas. I talked and prayed about it too, but maybe I was trying not to let hope rise, just in case Lo wasn’t able to leave the hospital. From what the doctors were saying, it sounded like she’d need to be in rehab forever.

  On Tuesday, December 20, my mom called my cell phone. I work in accounting for a commercial insurance company and had gone back to work by then, adopting a schedule that allowed me to be with Lauren as much as possible. Each evening after work I’d stay with Lauren until late, then early in the morning I’d go in for a while before heading to work. When I answered my cell phone at my desk that day, I could hear Mom was crying. But it wasn’t sad crying.

  “They said she could come home,” Mom said. “And it’s going to be this Friday!”

  I couldn’t believe it.

  On Friday, December 23, we packed up Lauren’s hospital room. It felt almost like moving out of an apartment. There were flower arrangements everywhere and cards by the boxful. We packed up two carloads full of flowers and gifts. The doctors discharged Lauren. We bundled her up and, for security’s sake, scurried her out the back door to a waiting car.

  It had been only three weeks since the accident. Three weeks since the paramedics thought Lauren wasn’t going to survive. In that time we’d witnessed a resurrection of sorts. Lauren had been given back to us. How many people had prayed during that time? How many people had hoped? How many people had donated food, written e-mails wishing her well, or sent heartfelt gifts and letters expressing sympathy? How many people had been touched by the miracle of Lauren’s recovery? There was still a long way to go, but this was one huge mile marker in the journey. Lauren was coming home for good.

  As we thought ahead to Christmas, we were grateful that we had done most of our Christmas shopping early, before December 3. Dana Crawford said not to worry about a thing—she’d finish our shopping for us. We figured she’d just pick up a few extra little items.

  Having Lauren home for Christmas was amazing. Someone had given us both these crazy, colorful pajamas with matching socks—bright red with large, white polka dots. Lauren and I put them on and posed for a picture in front of the Christmas tree in Mom and Dad
’s living room. Shaun texted the picture to family members with the tagline, “Merry Christmas from the twins.”

  On Christmas Eve, Dad gathered us in the living room and read the Christmas story to us. Just for fun, he also read us a couple of books from our childhood—The Night before Christmas and The Polar Express. Then we all went to bed. Shaun and I spent the night there, and the whole house felt cozy and peaceful and magical and happy.

  On Christmas morning we got up and ate breakfast. At about 10:30, Dana texted my mom, “Santa’s ready to come over.”

  Two cars showed up. Dana and her family had shopped for all of us. They provided a bigger Christmas than we had ever experienced. There must have been forty presents. While Dana and her mom carried in armfuls of gifts, Chris brought in Christmas dinner. We were speechless and humbled. It was one of the greatest examples of what true community should look like, the hands and feet of Jesus caring for other people, even to provide more than they could ever want or need.

  The rest of that day was filled with joy, peace, and rest. Lots of friends stopped by throughout the day. We just hung out, watching the Cowboys play on TV, talking, napping, and laughing. That night Lauren slept for thirteen hours straight. She woke up only to take her meds before peacefully going back to sleep.

  Lauren was alive. She was functioning almost normally again. She was home from the hospital in record time. It was a Christmas we’d remember forever.

  CHAPTER 25

  Heavy Weather

  Lauren

  Everyone in my family would remember that Christmas forever—everyone except me.

  I don’t remember much of it.

  While it may have appeared to other people that I was functioning well, the progression back to full consciousness was much more gradual in my mind. During those weeks in the hospital, I was just so woozy. So in and out of it.

  I don’t remember walking thirty steps. I don’t remember being transferred to Zale. I don’t remember going into or coming out of any of the surgeries. I don’t remember my dad singing “Edelweiss,” although I wish I did.

  I can remember a nurse calling me Sky and not knowing why she did it.

  I remember getting my hair washed and thinking it was funny because everyone was getting so wet. I remember the moment, but none of the details.

  I remember Carol, the nurse we knew from church. She stayed with me one of the first nights after the accident because my parents needed to rest. I remember feeling such peace having someone I knew there. I woke up a couple of times. Carol said she was sleeping, but she jumped up from her bed each time I awoke.

  I remember my grandma coming to the hospital, but hardly anyone else.

  They say that following an accident, the medication is actually good for you emotionally because it helps lessen the blow after a major trauma. If you hear you’ve been in a serious accident and you’re not on medication, you freak out. I remember very clearly waking up in the hospital and asking my parents why I was there. They told me about the accident, and I remember saying nonchalantly, “Oh, okay.” I didn’t feel startled by the news at all.

  I can remember being home for Christmas, but not leaving the hospital. I remember Christmas morning and that we got those cute pajamas. Brittany and I wore them, and we took a picture. Or maybe the picture was taken on Christmas Eve.

  For years I’ve been writing in a journal nearly every day. The entries stop on November 30, 2011. They begin again on December 29, 2011. In the latter entry, I wrote in nearly the same handwriting as I did before. The entry said matter-of-factly:

  It has been about a month since I have written because I got majorly hurt. Such a disaster—I lost my left eye and left hand. It is truly devastating, but I want to look above that. God, you have a huge plan in this. I believe that with all of my heart, and I have already seen parts of it. The story has been all over the Today Show, Good Morning America, etc., and people’s lives and faith are being greatly affected. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. I pray that I can heal effectively and quickly. I certainly believe I can and will. I can’t believe I was already home three weeks later.

  There’s a sense in which all of that is true. Yet there’s a sense in which that’s the sanitized version of things. There’s no detail included in that entry. No emotion or grief of any depth expressed on the page. The tone is nothing like how I usually write, and much of the entry is the medication talking.

  When I came home from the hospital, I was still on seven different types of medication. They started to wean me off them gradually, almost as soon as I got home, but it would be another several weeks before I was completely off them all. As my medications decreased, I began to get a better sense of my situation.

  I remember waking up one morning, maybe just before the New Year. I remember sitting on a chair at the kitchen table and feeling so tired. So extremely exhausted. I was almost too tired to sit on a chair. I went back to bed.

  I remember my arm hurting almost constantly. The pain could be spiky and thudding, both dull and sharp at the same time. It would curl down from my left forearm, and I’d feel all my fingers still there, cramping and aching. By then I knew in my mind that my fingers weren’t actually there. But my body hadn’t come to accept it yet. There was no way to lessen this pain. You can’t medicate a phantom limb.

  It was perhaps the second or third day of the new year, 2012. My pain medications were still being cut down gradually, and I remember I felt more clear-minded this day. The gravity of the situation had been slowly sinking in, and I decided it was time for me to do a little research.

  I went into the bathroom by myself, turned on the water of the shower so there’d be cover noise, and locked the door. In that particular bathroom, there’s a nearly full-length mirror. I also got a hand mirror, so I could see behind me.

  As anybody might do, I stood in front of the mirror without my clothes on, completely vulnerable against my own scrutiny. For the first time since the accident, with my mind more lucid than it had been in weeks, I examined the results of the accident on my body.

  On the top of my head, the shaved side, were two different, long scars. The propeller blades must have popped me twice before I jerked away. One scar was horseshoe shaped. It extended from the front of my head to almost behind my ear.

  On the left side of my upper forehead, my skull was dented, and the skin over that section dipped down. Titanium plates had been placed underneath the skin to stabilize my skull, since part of my skull had been removed when they did the brain surgery. Despite the plates propping things up, I now had this ridge in the top of my head that extended down to just below my hairline.

  One scar ran down the left half of my face—from the top of my forehead through my eyebrow, the edge of my eye socket, and part of my cheek. The scar ended just above my lip. My lip sagged slightly on one side.

  My left eye was entirely missing. The upper and lower lids were cut through, and the whole eye socket drooped.

  The scar began again behind my left shoulder. It ran up and over my shoulder through my collarbone area, down below my armpit, and through the pectoral muscles of my chest.

  My left hand was missing. The wrist bones were gone, and my arm ended just below where the wrist would have been.

  Oh, and four teeth were cracked.

  I stood looking at myself for at least ten minutes. And then I looked away.

  From deep within me a storm of mourning brewed and broke forth. A dark, dangerous funnel cloud seemed to hit the ground. As I climbed into the shower, the storm hit, and the rain fell all around me. I grabbed a shampoo bottle, just trying to move past the grief I was feeling right then, I guess. But I couldn’t open it with only one hand. The shampoo bottle fell from my grasp, and I stood for a moment, utterly ruined. Then I crumpled to the floor of the shower and sobbed.

  CHAPTER 26

  Hope Disguised

  Lauren

  For some time, the days were dark.

  Weeks, even.

  The
re were a few good, unclouded moments—and one or two that were even ablaze with sunshine. Near the end of the first week in January, James visited. He brought me a bunch of stuff for a garden he knew I wanted to plant in the spring. Seeds for tomatoes and cucumbers, spinach, arugula, strawberries, and herbs. Even though we had broken up, I was still glad to see him.

  “I’m going to be here as long as you need me,” James said. And I knew he meant it in the best possible way. I smiled, and we hugged.

  I got a huge lift a few weeks later when I saw a tweet from Giuliana Rancic, whom I’d met briefly during Fashion Week the previous September. “Inspired by you, Lauren Scruggs,” she’d written. “You will come out of this stronger w/more meaning to ur life. Your spirit is inspiring. Praying for u :)”

  Since Giuliana had recently been treated for breast cancer, her words carried a lot of weight. Not only that, but I’d long admired her passion for her own work, both as an E! News anchor and as founder of FabFitFun, a women’s health, beauty, and fashion website. Her message left me with one of the first glimmers of hope that I wouldn’t need to let go of my goals and dreams, despite my life-altering injuries.

  “Thanks so much,” I tweeted back to Giuliana. “I really appreciate it. I believe your sweet words. Hope you are doing well too :D.”