People reported on our exchange, noting that the two of us had more in common than our careers and health battles: we had both been public about how our faith was helping us through some of the toughest times of our lives.15
Though not reported, Robin Roberts from Good Morning America also contacted my family not long after the accident. In fact, she e-mailed us several messages of encouragement, using her strong faith and portions of Scripture that she said had helped her during her fight against breast cancer years before. Here was another upbeat, stylish, faith-filled woman encouraging me to keep fighting, to keep moving toward my dreams. And because she had done it herself, her words were truly meaningful. Having an example like hers to follow during my recovery made a difference.
Robin mentioned that through all her challenges with health, she’d always wanted to be treated normally, which I could completely relate to. I was finding that I hated being treated differently because of the loss of a hand and an eye. Being babied or pitied just made me feel worse.
Some of my greatest challenges lay ahead, and I reread Giuliana’s and Robin’s words often in the weeks to come. They helped me believe a normal life was possible again, which enabled me to hold on to hope. That was so important—because right then, just about everything else in my world felt murky and overcast.
Beginning in early January I’d started going to Baylor’s outpatient rehab center five days a week. My parents and I would drag ourselves out of bed each morning. I never knew how I’d feel once I woke up. Often I was sad; sometimes I would begin crying for no reason. More often than not, I was in pain. On a typical day at Baylor’s rehab program, I would walk the hallways and toss tennis balls. I also worked with a speech pathologist, did memory tests, and talked with a counselor. On most days, I had two or three doctor’s appointments after rehab. When my parents and I got home around 7 p.m., we would find a meal in a cooler that friends had left for us. By that time of the evening, though, I was usually so physically and emotionally exhausted that I went straight to bed.
All the Baylor therapists were kind, but the rehabilitation program wasn’t working for me. Most of the other patients in the program were stroke victims. They were all pleasant people, and I found myself wanting to help them out any way I could. But when my dad realized that I was spending most of my time encouraging other patients rather than focusing on my own recovery, he was visibly agitated. “It’s fine that you’re helping other people,” he said. “But right now you’re there for you—not them.” He began researching other options for long-term rehabilitation.
As my medications were continually lessened, sleeping at night became next to impossible. I’d never had a problem sleeping before, but now I twitched throughout the night, tossing and turning. I just could not get comfortable. Mom often slept in my bed to make sure I stayed calm throughout the night. We developed a kind of routine: Dad and Mom would come into my bedroom in the late evening, and we’d all pray together. Then Dad would go back to their bedroom, and Mom would stay with me. She’d pray with me more and then read some Scripture or a devotional. When I fell asleep, she’d still be there, sleeping with one ear tuned in to me like she did when I was a newborn baby.
I was so truly grateful to my family for surrounding me with such love. Each day I seemed to need their care in a different way. Once I’d come home from the hospital, my core temperature seemed impossible to regulate. One minute I burned. The next minute I froze. My arm hurt so badly. It pained me to raise it above rib cage level. It felt awkward and heavy, like a broken tree limb about ready to fall.
My physical and emotional resources felt bankrupt. I was absolutely drained. Some days I’d get up and start making my bed, and then I’d climb back in and roll under the covers into the fetal position. One morning I woke up and went to the kitchen to eat breakfast. As I sat there, I felt like I was going to topple over. I wasn’t dizzy, but I couldn’t stay awake. That wasn’t like me at all.
By January 17, I had been weaned off all my pain medication. That’s when depression hit—hard. I felt like I’d been decked with a kickboxer’s roundhouse. Mostly I felt low, yet my emotions fluctuated all over the place. I was no longer the generally upbeat girl my family had seen in the hospital—the one who, when I first saw that half my head had been shaved, said, “Oh, that’s not so bad.” Of course, I’d been drugged out of my mind at the time.
As soon as I was able, I got hair extensions put in. The stylist brought out nine packages of hair but ended up using a total of thirteen. She attached the extensions with tiny metal beads. They were a blessing to have but made my hair feel heavy and unnatural.
Even though I felt more like myself once my hair had been fixed, every time I saw myself in the mirror, I cried. In fact, I avoided looking at myself as much as possible. Losing the eye was hard enough, but losing the hand was something I could barely begin to cope with emotionally. While I reasoned that the missing eye could be covered up, the loss of my hand was so obvious. When it was bandaged, I could hardly look at the end of my arm, much less when the bandages were off. The doctors said that when a limb is amputated, it can feel like losing a family member in the way you grieve and process through it. Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning and think, Wow, what a horrible nightmare. But then I’d remember. No, it wasn’t just a dream. My hand really is gone. It isn’t something I can ever change or fix.
Then, suddenly, in marched the anger.
One evening I was sitting on the couch with my parents in the living room. We were watching some mindless TV show—The Bachelor, I think, with all these beautiful girls vying for the attention of a single guy. I looked at the end of my bandaged arm and thought, I’m never going to be that pretty. I’m never going to be normal. I’m ugly. Just ugly.
From out of nowhere this rage rushed over me. It was absolutely primal, uncontrollable. I started yelling. “My life is ruined! No one will ever love me! I am so ugly!”
My parents jumped up and tried to help me work through my fury. My dad tried to hug me to help calm me down, and I pushed him in the chest—which is almost laughable because he’s so big and didn’t even budge. But the horrible part was that my mom came closer, and I shoved her, too.
That’s not how I am.
Ever.
I ran down the hallway, panicking, crying, still caught in the grip of rage. When I finally exhausted myself, I collapsed on my bed. They say that when someone is hurt, it’s common for that person to lash out at whoever is closest to him or her. That’s what happened that night. I was so sorry later.
As my parents stood nearby, unsure how to help, I said, almost in a whisper, “Get Brittany over here.” It was a demand, not a request. She was the only person I wanted to see. My parents called Brittany, and she and Shaun drove straight over.
As soon as I saw my sister, peace came over me. I can’t quite explain it. Being in my twin’s presence offered a sense of calm that no one else in my family could provide just then. It was fine that Shaun was there too. In normal times, Shaun is one person who doesn’t need to try hard to make me laugh, and when he walked in the door he said something that made me crack up—a long, wild, hysterical laugh. I don’t know if what he said was actually funny, or if it was just that my emotions were fluctuating so ferociously. “Shaun, stop it!” I remember saying. “I want to be angry now.”
“C’mon, Lo,” Brittany said in a firm, quiet voice. “Let’s get you into bed.”
In the weeks to come, the strange, sudden outbursts of anger happened more than once. This rage was new to me. Once I stormed out of the house after yelling at my mom, all because one little statement pushed me over the edge. I knew I was hurting my parents by this unusual behavior, and that tore up my heart. My dad brought us all together and reminded us that we are a team as a family. We needed to work together and not attack each other. Hearing that perspective helped.
One day I was so angry that I desperately wanted to hit something. Dad had heard me ask every one of my doctors, �
�Will I be able to box again?” As a result, he had talked to my rehab doctor and neurosurgeon about it. Both said it would be fine as long as I was careful not to allow anything to hit my head. Taking up boxing, they agreed, would be a constructive way for me to channel my anger and grief. Not only that, it would be a sign to me that life could return to normal and that I didn’t need to let go of all the activities I loved. So when I told my dad about my pent-up rage that day, he went out and got me a present: a punching bag. It felt so good to hit that bag.
My mom and dad were so wonderful through this. They’d absolutely put their lives on hold to care for me. They didn’t blame me for my erratic behavior.
Dad remained a rock of strength for me. He prayed for me every morning and every evening. He read psalms to me, or portions from Isaiah. I often woke up early in the morning—4 a.m. sometimes—and wandered out to the kitchen. There he was, already reading his Bible at the kitchen table while the coffeepot burbled on the counter.
Morning, evening, and throughout each day, Mom took care of me. She read to me, opened bottles of shampoo, helped me get dressed, snapped my jeans shut for me, tied my shoes, helped me do my hair, drove me to appointments, picked me up from appointments, prayed for me, and massaged lavender oil into the end of my arm. “You’re beautiful, Lo,” she whispered, over and over. “Absolutely beautiful.”
One evening Mom and I were lying in my bed. I was hurting badly and rolled over onto my chest to see if that would provide a better position. Mom began praying out loud that God’s peace would descend on us in a new and special way. She prayed for a conscious sense of rest in our hearts—even more than that, she prayed that we would feel the serenity of God in the room.
When she stopped praying, it grew utterly quiet. I could hear her breathing next to me. Outside I could hear crickets on the lawn in the Texas nighttime air.
“Lo,” Mom said softly. “Are you still awake?”
“Yes.”
“What do you feel right now?”
“It’s so comforting, Mom. So comforting.”
“Can you feel the peace?”
I looked over at my mom. “Yes, and I never want it to end.”
We both fell asleep, and when I woke up in the night, my arm was around my mother. The arm with my missing hand. She was asleep too. And I left my arm around her.
CHAPTER 27
Dana’s Picnic
Lauren
Although that one good night was a wonderful respite, I continued to have wild mood swings. I battled anger, depression, fear, rage. Some days I felt so utterly low. All I wanted to do was sleep.
One morning I stayed in bed crying. I couldn’t get up, and I didn’t even want to try. Mom asked repeatedly if she could do anything, but my answer was already no. Finally I asked if she could have Brittany come over again.
Brittany arrived with my best friend, Caroline. I first met Caroline in elementary school, but our friendship really solidified during high school. Ever since then, we’ve been a part of each other’s lives. Now, standing by my bed, Caroline was all business. “Here’s the deal, Lo,” she said. “We’ve got to get you out of the house. At least for a while. It’s tough enough for any twenty-three-year-old to go through what you went through. But it’s also tough for a grown-up to be dependent on her parents all the time like you are right now.”
“Caroline’s right,” Brittany said matter-of-factly. “We’re all going out.”
I saw the wisdom in what they were saying. Pretty much all I had done for weeks was stay at home and go to therapy. Both these girls knew me well. What I needed was to be pushed forward. To be challenged to climb out of the trap I was in.
It was a simple afternoon out. They drove me to Willow Bend, a mall close to our house. We just walked around and got a snack and coffee. I bought a brightly colored shirt at Forever 21. I wore a baseball cap along with my eye patch and kept my left arm covered by a long sleeve. Because of the hair extensions on the shaved side of my head, my hair looked normal from a distance. Still, I couldn’t help worrying that people were looking at me, wondering what was wrong.
It felt good to be out. But when we came home, I was exhausted. I curled up in my dad’s favorite chair in the living room and napped.
Day after day, Brittany and Shaun were absolutely wonderful. They recognized that a regular change of scenery was going to be good for me and began to invite me to stay over at their house on weekends. We’d pick up Chinese food and rent a movie, or just hang out and talk. Sometimes friends from my college days would come over, and it felt as normal as anybody could make it.
About the only video game Brittany and I had ever played as kids was Super Mario World. We tried to play it again, but of course I quickly realized you need two hands to work the buttons. Brittany sidled up next to me, and we both played with the same controller—she worked the left side buttons, and I worked the right. The first few times it was hard, but we soon got to be pros. The teamwork was fun too.
One night while I was staying over at Brittany and Shaun’s, I began to feel so depressed. Fears and insecurities rolled around in my head. I’ve never been a jealous person. I’ve always celebrated Brittany and Shaun’s close relationship. My negative thoughts weren’t even directly related to them. This was more about me feeling sorry for myself. Alone in the spare room, I started crying, then got myself together and called James. We talked for a bit like we’d always done. Then the waves of depression came over me again, and I started blubbering while we were still on the phone.
“I could have had what they have right now,” I said to James. Meaning marriage, a home, a normal life. The lament was directionless, and even I didn’t know if I was referring to James specifically or my desire for a normal life in general. Fortunately, he didn’t ask, and he helped talk me through my grief that night. I remember him saying, “I’m going to be here for you as long as you need me,” and it felt like I’d heard that somewhere before. James was such a good friend. I was so glad he was still in my life.
During those first few weeks back home, I didn’t know what goal I was working toward other than to keep pressing forward. As tired as I was, as depressed as I was, as up and down as I was, I just tried to keep moving on. I prayed and read my Bible and went to therapy every day and tried to heal the best I knew how. Back on January 9, I’d written my first blog post since the accident—just a simple message of thanks to everyone who’d poured out their love for our family.
It felt good to write again, even the tiny bit that I wrote that day. But no matter how hard I tried to regain a sense of normalcy, there were still huge questions I couldn’t answer and didn’t know what to do with. I worried about all the things I was sure I’d never be able to do again. How was I going to water-ski or go rock climbing or box with only one glove? How was I supposed to drive with only one eye? Or dress myself with one hand? Or style my hair, or open a jar of pickles? I was sure no guy would ever think I was attractive again—much less want to marry me.
I worried about my career. How was I supposed to type quickly with only one hand? How was I ever going to blend in at Fashion Week so I could interview models? I couldn’t picture myself next to all those beautiful fashion industry insiders. I felt nervous about spring and summer approaching. I didn’t want to go outside without long sleeves. I didn’t want to be seen in public. The bottom line was that I was never going to be normal again. That’s what I told myself. Normalcy, as I’d known it, was long gone. I wanted to lock myself in my bedroom and never come out again.
One morning I woke up and dragged myself to the kitchen. I felt exhausted. So I dragged myself back to bed. Mom had an appointment somewhere, and Dad was at their office, so she needed to leave me all alone.
“I can cancel my appointment, Lo,” she said. “Really, you’re not going to do anything dangerous are you?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said into my pillow.
Mom left. I dozed, I think, because the next thing I knew, the doorbell was ringing.
From somewhere my brain told me it had rung more than once. I wanted whoever was there to go away. But the bell rang again, so I shuffled to the front door and looked out.
Dana Crawford stood on the front porch. I opened the door and started crying. I cried and cried and couldn’t stop. Dana just hugged me and held me. I kept crying, and she did the only thing she could think to do, I guess. She started singing. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine . . .” The song made me laugh. Not a frantic, erratic, emotional laugh this time. But a relaxed, normal laugh.
She hugged me again. “Why don’t you come over to my house today?” she said. “A change of scenery would do you good.”
I snuffled and nodded, went back to my room, and threw on some clothes. Dana drove me two streets over to her house. She made us a picnic lunch—a salad with a lot of fresh, crisp vegetables and a tangy herb dressing. It was a sunny day with a refreshing breeze.
“Let’s eat outside,” she said. “We need to get some vitamin D into your system.”
While we ate, Dana asked me what I was thinking. I poured out all my concerns, worries, and fears to her.
“There will always be lies in your head,” Dana said. “But let’s compare the lies with truth.” One by one she listed the facts. I was still alive. I could still think and talk. The accident could have left me brain-dead, but it didn’t. People loved me dearly. I was being well provided for. I was going to be able to relearn how to do many of the activities I’d always enjoyed. Guys were still going to find me attractive. I’d still be able to do my job. Ultimately, God was a good God, and he had a plan and a purpose for everything I was going through.
Talking with Dana brought such clarity to my heart and mind. As I sat there, soaking up the wisdom she was giving me, I thought to myself, You know, I just feel like sitting in the sun right now and not saying a thing more.
Still Lolo Page 19