Getting my prosthetic hand, however, has proven to be a much bigger challenge. The problem stems mostly from the difficulty I have had accepting the idea of a prosthetic limb. To me, losing my eye didn’t feel as overt as losing my hand. Even though I hated the loss of sight in one eye, the eye itself could be covered. But a missing hand is much harder to pass off as normal looking.
It initially took four meetings to pick out the new limbs. I was fitted for several prostheses since each would look and function much differently. Also, I didn’t know it just then, but after the first four visits I would need to return to the arm center countless times in the weeks and months to come. Some weeks I’d be there three days in a row and spend up to four hours at each appointment. When you lose a limb, trips to the prosthetics center become a regular part of the rest of your life. You’re constantly getting things checked, breaking a part of the artificial limb and having it fixed, or having something refitted or adjusted.
The people at the center were wonderful to work with, yet the visits themselves could be so frustrating and draining. Sometimes it was easy to start feeling suffocated with exhaustion and internal tension. The night after an appointment often proved very difficult, and I’d be either angry or utterly sad afterward. Each time I went to an appointment, I progressed a little further, but the trips were still hard.
At one of our earliest meetings, they showed my mom, my dad, and me various hands and arms. The majority of people who lose limbs are guys, they explained, so all the model arms were male, with hair on them. Honestly, seeing all those arms lying on the table freaked me out. The experience brought back the reality of my situation. I was going to have a fake hand for the rest of my life. At first I wasn’t crying. I just felt sort of numb and asked questions quietly. Then I cried. We all did. On the ride home, everybody was emotionally drained and silent. “What did you guys think about today?” I finally asked.
Still crying in the backseat, my mom spoke up. She described having many conflicting emotions, which articulated well how I was feeling too. We were thankful that I could get a prosthetic hand. But the whole experience felt surreal. We couldn’t believe this was my new reality.
A meeting soon after went a little better, but not much. The administrators of the hand clinic had asked a woman with only one arm to come in and speak with me. She was sweet, cute, and energetic. The clinic meant the gesture in the best possible way, but I wasn’t ready for it yet. It was too much information for me to process that early. The woman took off her prosthetic arm, and I fell apart, crying really hard. She was kind, but I just couldn’t handle the thought of me doing that action anytime soon. I kept picturing myself in different situations—trying to wear a sleeveless dress again, what it would be like to go to the beach, what people would say if I went jogging wearing a tank top. I couldn’t go there in my mind yet. Not at all. I needed to leave.
Sheri, my physical therapist from Athletes’ Performance, came with me the next time. I trust her a lot, and she asked all the right questions. It helped having her there, and this time they made a casting of my arm. I stuck my arm down into a forming mold that looked like a big can filled with gooey material. Once the goo had hardened, I pulled my arm out, and they used the mold to create a plaster cast—similar to the wax mold used to create my prosthetic eye.
Because Sheri helped me get just the right information and asked questions with a positive, matter-of-fact attitude, I was finally able to face some decisions. I opted to get four different types of arms. One is called the “passive.” It looks the most realistic, with fingernails and natural skin color. The hand doesn’t move at all, but I figured I could use it for professional settings, like going to Fashion Week or attending formal events.
The next arm moves electronically and allows me to hold on to things. It’s considered a good, everyday hand. It looks slightly realistic, and it can be used to open a jar or even open a door. The muscles in my forearm make the hand move. By pushing up or down on the muscles, I can make the hand open or close. I got to the point where I could use the sample arm pretty easily.
The last two arms I chose are for recreation. The first is a workout hand/arm that is versatile and can adapt to lots of activities. Different pieces can attach to it, depending on the activity. For instance, it has a clasp at the end that could be used to hold a ski rope. Second, I selected a pink swim sleeve that wraps around my arm like a sock. I felt okay about that.
In addition, we looked at things called “heat gloves” that cover the end of certain prostheses. The gloves protect the hand itself so you don’t burn it if you inadvertently pick up a hot pan or accidentally slice it with a steak knife. They warned me that I’d undoubtedly go through three or four of these gloves over the first couple of years. Everybody does.
My new hands were put on order. They would be custom-made, and we were told they would be ready in about six to eight weeks.
In the midst of those difficult and draining appointments, we were invited to a special evening called the LoLo Event, a benefit organized by friends to help cover my medical bills. The event planners told us very little about what to expect—they simply gave us the basics on when and where to go for the fashion show and dinner they were planning.
On March 7, we arrived at Agora Studios, just as we’d been instructed. When we walked into the room and saw 250 people there to support us, we were blown away. The highlight of the evening for me was the fashion show produced by Rhonda Sargent Chambers, whose firm, RSC Show Productions, specializes in fashion show production and event planning. Models from the Campbell Agency walked down a runway made of pink sand. They wore spring fashions from Intermix, Stanley Korshak, VOD, Blinc, and Five Forty Ten. Seven area restaurants provided the dinner while Downtown Fever, an area band, performed. A silent auction was also held.
My parents spoke for our entire family when they thanked everyone and gave some examples of how we’d seen God’s power at work. So many people had spent hours volunteering their time to plan this special night, thoughtfully incorporating some of my favorite styles, foods, and music into the event. We were also grateful that the organizers had not allowed press coverage, which made it much easier to relax and mingle with guests all evening long.
Actually, we were still perplexed at the continuing interest in my story, as well as the way the press went about getting photos. In early spring, the paparazzi snapped another picture of me heading over to the store to get some new running shorts. It was a last-minute decision for me, and the picture was taken near the store. The photographer must have been sitting in our neighborhood and followed us there. Probably trying to get a picture of me with my new arm. Too bad for them the arms were all still on order.
I didn’t lose any sleep over it.
CHAPTER 30
A Big Misunderstanding
Lauren
Something else, though, was beginning to keep me up late at night. It was a question I needed to settle.
Plain and simple, this question had to do with my responsibilities. Specifically, how much money did I owe?
Dad had been highly protective of me regarding any information about the financial repercussions of the accident, and he’d been taking care of all my finances for me since then. Still, I was an adult, and I knew this was my burden as much as his.
I’ve talked with people who live in other countries about health care systems, and it can be really confusing to explain America’s health care arrangement if you don’t live here. (Actually, it can be really confusing if you live here too.) The long and short of it is that if you live in America and you’re in an accident, your insurance company will pay some of the bill, but not all of it.
Right after college I’d transferred from my parents’ medical insurance plan and purchased a policy of my own. The policy I’d purchased was what any normal, healthy, young person would buy—a policy that has higher deductibles, percentages, and co-pays, since I seldom got sick and rarely went to the doctor. With the particular p
olicy I got, however, it meant that the portion of money I owed for any medical bills was going to be fairly high.
“Dad, level with me here,” I said one morning at the kitchen table. “I need to know.”
Dad let out a huge sigh, nodded silently, then disappeared into the back room, his shoulders slumped. After a bit he came out carrying this huge file, just stacks and stacks of paper.
There were three things to know, Dad explained, and the news wasn’t good.
When it came to the medical bills themselves, all the bills hadn’t come in yet, and all the calculations of percentages hadn’t been divided and added up. So he didn’t have a total figure for me yet. But he assured me it was going to be a lot.
Second, Dad had been told that whenever a person has a disability, the cost of living goes up for that person for the rest of his or her life. The extra costs are for things such as increased insurance premiums, new parts for prosthetic limbs, expenses associated with ongoing therapies and for additional surgeries, and innovations and medical procedures as they’re invented. The list goes on and on.
The third bit of tough news was subrogation, a word I’d never heard before. (Dad said until recently he hadn’t either.) Subrogation meant that even if I did receive an insurance settlement, my medical insurance company still had a legal right to take a large part of any potential settlement to cover its own costs. Subrogation wasn’t an “if” thing, either. Subrogation proceedings had already begun.
I couldn’t quite get my head around how much I owed and would owe—both now and for the rest of my life. The financial picture was such a big blow.
But it got worse.
A week or two later, Dad picked me up after training at Athletes’ Performance. I slid into the car seat next to him. He backed out of the parking space, then shifted forward and headed out onto the street toward home. “I don’t want you to look online today,” Dad said abruptly, as if his mind had been on other things.
It was too late. I’d already logged in to my Twitter account and begun to read the postings there. My jaw dropped.
I couldn’t believe what people were saying. Horrible, angry things. There was strong profanity laced through many of the comments—and all aimed at me. I’d never seen anything like it.
“Dad?” My voice faltered. “What’s going on? What have I done wrong?”
“It has nothing to do with you, honey. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
I quickly typed my name into a search engine and learned where the comments sprang from. Various headlines reported that I had snubbed a $200,000 settlement offer.
I gulped. This was the first I’d heard of any of this. I hadn’t snubbed any settlement that I’d heard of. “Dad,” I asked, “what does this all mean?”
“It’s a big misunderstanding, Lauren. Unfortunately, people who know only part of the story are taking it out on you.”
What had happened was that one of the insurance companies involved had taken an initial position that it was only obligated to pay $200,000—that’s where the figure in the news stories came from.
I could understand how at first glance this would seem like a lot of money to people, and why they would think I was wrong to turn the money down, if that had indeed been the case. It seemed like a lot of money to me, too. (Though in reality, compared to what we owed, that amount wasn’t going to put much of a dent in the bills coming our way.)
The insurance company had arrived at the $200,000 figure through a technical definition in the policy—that’s what was under dispute. Our attorney had filed a legal motion (called a Declaratory Judgment Action), asking a judge to interpret the language of the policy. The attorney needed to file this motion in court, and when that happened, news sources had picked up on the story.
Fortunately, the PR company sent out a correction later that day explaining the situation. I hadn’t snubbed any settlement at all. It had all been part of the normal negotiation process that occurs when an accident takes place. We ended up resolving the insurance dispute quickly and out of court.
The morning after the correction was sent out, most news sources set the record straight.16 But one article appeared along with a picture of me taken completely out of context. The headline read, “Nothing Makes Me Smile Like a Settlement Check.”17
Sheesh.
The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. It was an indication that we were still going through some deep waters, even as we were sorting out the process of continuing on with our lives.
About two weeks later, I went to church on Saturday night along with my mom and dad. When the sermon ends, we usually sing three worship songs before the night is over. That night as we sang the first song, I was deep in thought about everything that had been happening lately. During the second song the room began to get blurry. My real eye grew hot, and I began to cry. We were all standing as we sang, and I reached over and put my arm around my mom’s waist and leaned into her shoulder. During the third song we stood like that and both cried.
The third song was “Restoration,” the one Michael Bleecker had sung over me in the hospital.
When the song ended, the service was dismissed, and people began to file out of the auditorium.
“Let’s just sit here for a while and pray,” Mom said.
I nodded, and we sat for maybe half an hour. Mom prayed so boldly, and Dad prayed too, the two of them asking for God’s help with every aspect of what we were still going through.
In the middle of the prayers, I opened my eyes for a minute. Down the row from us was a young couple with a blonde-haired toddler. The child was so cute, and she bobbled around patting the seat backs and grinning at everyone. I grinned at her in return. She was so innocent, so unaware yet of the hostilities of life—things far worse even than what had happened to me. A passionate desire for protection rose up within me and focused on her. I hoped she could stay sweet and untouched by life’s harshness for a long, long time.
Michael Bleecker finished onstage and walked over to us. He prayed with us, then reminded us of how far we’d come. Back when he’d sung “Restoration” to me in the hospital, my only movement had been to slightly raise one foot. We’d covered many miles on this journey since then.
It helped put things into perspective, even though we still had a long way to go.
There was another specific challenge I wanted to overcome. I thought about it on the drive home from church that night. It seemed like such a small thing, but I hadn’t been able to do it since the accident. What I needed to do formed a barrier in my mind, and I struggled to put it into words, even to myself.
People had asked me if the scars on my face and shoulder bothered me, particularly since I work in the fashion industry. The scars did bother me—but mostly because I didn’t feel like my normal self. But it wasn’t like I woke up every morning by then thinking about my scars. More troubling than my scars was my missing eye, due to loss of sight and the challenges that presented. But the worst aspect of my injuries was the loss of my hand. Part of it was simply the frustration of trying to relearn how to do everyday activities one-handed, plus my ongoing fear that I might never be able to do certain things again. But the other part of my concern was aesthetic. The loss of my hand looked so obvious to everyone who saw me.
I concluded that perhaps the thing I needed to do was mostly symbolic, because this one thing meant more to me than the simple act of wearing a certain article of clothing. The weather was getting warmer. Spring was here—and when spring comes, a young woman’s thoughts turn to fashion.
For me that meant it was time to wear short sleeves in public.
That was the challenge.
Such a small challenge, compared with all the greater problems in the world. Such a little thing. Wearing short sleeves in a place where I’d be seen. And yet I simply could not do it. I just couldn’t go there. I hated the thought of being defeated. I needed to move forward.
But I didn’t know how I could.
C
HAPTER 31
Restoration
Lauren
“The challenge is greater than wearing short sleeves in public,” Sheri explained to me one morning during training. “The challenge is about overcoming your newfound insecurities that have been caused by the accident. And, actually, that’s pretty huge.”
“I don’t know why this is so hard,” I said. “Soldiers are dying in Afghanistan right now, and I’m too chicken to do this one little thing. It feels stupid to me.”
“It’s not stupid. It might not be a life-threatening problem for you. But it’s important to you because it’s causing you concern. That means it’s something you need to overcome.”
“What am I so afraid of anyway?”
“You’re afraid that people will look at you and think bad things about you. You’re afraid they’ll laugh and point. And maybe a few people will have negative responses. But that’s their own business, not yours.”
I thought for a few minutes. Sheri was right. In the last several weeks she’d become much more to me than my physical therapist. She’d become a close friend. And she helped me see that this was my new reality. I didn’t have a left hand. I couldn’t hide that fact for the rest of my life.
So I chose to fight my fear head-on. I chose to run the Katy Trail.
The Katy Trail is a running and biking path that leads into downtown Dallas. It represents Dallas at its best and meanders along creeks and parkways. It’s also public—lots of people are always on the trail. The plan was simply for me to run the trail and afterward go to a nearby café for lunch while wearing my same sleeveless workout clothes.
Still Lolo Page 21