My Healing Story, Part I
I was well into my Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) studies and in my second year of graduate school for my MSW (Master of Social Work), when I was in a horrific automobile accident. My fiancé, Bill, was killed instantly, and I nearly died, breaking many bones in my body. I had never known anyone who had died, and I had never broken a bone.
The only phone number found in my vehicle was for one of my fellow students I was scheduled to meet with to study for an upcoming exam. He was called in the middle of the night and set up a call chain to inform the others in my class. All 35 of my friends and colleagues rushed over to the hospital and were there when I was brought out of surgery around 4AM.
Even though the hospital had a rule allowing only two people in the ICU for 15 minutes at a time, all my friends and colleagues were permitted to enter the ICU to be with me. I am grateful for a caring and conscientious nurse who noticed that when they came into my room, my vital signs improved. She broke the rule, letting as many as would fit into my room be with me. I believe this is what kept me alive.
My parents were called, and they immediately started the five-hour drive from Appleton, Wisconsin to Chicago. They heard from the attending physicians that I might not live, and if I did, I would be severely brain damaged for life. Fortunately, that was not the case, but it was just the first of the many discouragements I received from the medical establishment in my fight to return to health.
My injuries were severe: My femur was driven eight inches through my hip; my right ankle was smashed to pieces; my right shoulder was broken, my left lung collapsed. In addition, I had serious internal bleeding and I required a trachea tube in my throat in order to breathe. I drifted in and out of consciousness for two weeks. Even though I was in a coma, I was somehow aware Bill had died. I was in deep grief.
My orthopedic surgeon instructed the nurses not to give me a sponge bath if I cried. Apparently, a sponge bath was one of my favorite things as I was tied to the bed in traction with 45 pounds hanging off my leg. The nurses gave me Valium which, when I was conscious, I hid under my tongue and kept in the drawer next to my bed. I fortunately received help from a professor my parents hired to be my therapist, a brilliant decision on their part.
My therapist encouraged me to experience my sadness: by letting it come up and releasing it out. I did not feel I had a choice, since I had no way to control my tearfulness. It felt as though it would last forever, but it never did. Each time I had a bout of sadness, I realized it felt like a “cleansing,” the tears washing away the sadness. This was the only way I think I could have gotten to the point (after many years) of resolution of my grief and loss.