Life Changing Moment

How a car accident can change a person's life... (Real-life event of author)

Part One

Pulling into one of the few available parking spots, Lizzie looked around in search of the car that her grandparents owned. After a moment, she realized they had not arrived yet, so with a shrug of her shoulders, she turned on the radio. A smile played on the sides of her lips when her newest favorite song came on and she cranked the volume with little cares about if she was disturbing anyone or not.

Just as the song was getting to the best part and she was practically shaking the car with her dancing, her grandparents pulled into the parking lot. Her smile quickly dropped to a frown, but she stayed in the car to the very last second, trying to listen to as much of the song as she could.

Looking through the side view mirror, she shook her head with a quiet laugh, watching as her younger sister, Kayla, hopped out of the back of their grandparent’s car. “Hey guys,” she muttered as she got out of her own car.

“Lizzie!” Kayla ran over to her and wrapped her small arms around her waist. Lizzie could just feel the excitement emanating from her sister.

“You ready to eat?” Lizzie pulled back and looked over her shoulder at the Mexican restaurant they had met at. Her sister’s excitement was still building and as she nodded, her whole body shook.

“Yes! I’m starving!” Kayla grabbed her hand and pulled her to the restaurant with their grandparents following close behind.

As they all were seated, Lizzie looked at Kayla and they both ordered a sweet tea at the same time. She opened her menu and tried to look for something new and different to eat, but in the end, she ordered the same thing she always got.

When she had come to her decision, she looked up to see Kayla peering at their Nannie with hope in her eyes and asking if she could order an adult plate. She had no doubts that her sister could eat the whole thing; she could have sworn her stomach was a bottomless pit, but she agreed with their grandmother when she said no.

Kayla quickly got angry, so Lizzie decided to take her back to her apartment after they finished eating so they could spend a little time together, just the two of them. “Kayla, after we eat, do you want to come with me to my apartment? I can show you my flute.” She had recently received a flute to practice for one of her music classes at the college.

The thought of seeing the flute made a wide smile spread on Kayla’s face.

Soon after, the waitress brought their meals to the table and all at once, the four of them sat back in their chairs, making room for their plates.

“What was that you were saying about a flute?” Lizzie’s grandmother, Judith, inquired as she started to eat.

“Oh, it’s in my class…Instrumental Concepts for Vocalists. We are going to learn the basics about certain instruments and the first one we got is the flute. I think I’m even going to learn about tubas.” The idea of Lizzie pushing around a tuba made her grandmother laugh.

Shaking her head, Lizzie picked up her fork and worked on her quesadilla, guarding her food from her grandpa, Donald, who constantly reached out and tried to take a bite for himself.

After a little while, they all finished the last bits of their food. Since Kayla needed to go back to their grandparent’s house, Lizzie told them that she would bring her back after she saw the flute.

“There are a couple chores we need to run, so we’ll meet you at the house,” Judith said before they went their separate ways.

With Kayla behind her in the backseat, Lizzie peered in the rear view mirror to make sure her little sister had her seat belt on. Satisfied that she did, she turned on the car and pulled out of the restaurant parking lot. Not wanting to deal with the bad traffic, she decided to take the back way to her apartment, not knowing that the decision would change her life forever.

Coming up to an intersection, she stopped just at the stop sign and looked left. She didn’t see anything coming. There was a fence that was too close to the road and making a terrible blind spot. She looked to the right and waited as two cars passed. Without thinking to check the left side again, she started to pull out into the road.

She didn’t see the truck coming. All she saw was a flash of white and it gave her the impression that she needed to speed up, so she pushed the accelerator down to the floor. She couldn’t hear anything or see anything else. She lost all conscious thought…she didn’t even get a chance to say a prayer.

Seconds, minutes, or even hours could have passed, she didn’t know. When she started to gain her consciousness again, it was like she was waking up from a dream. She honestly thought she was back at her apartment, waking up in her bed from one of her weird dreams. She could barely make out a house, but didn’t know whose house it was, let alone where it even was.

That was when she saw him. Some man was sitting in the front passenger seat, but as she was looking forward, he was staring straight at her. She tried to get her eyes to stay open so she could look at him and figure out where she was, but no matter what she did, she wasn’t strong enough to stay awake. She just couldn’t keep her eyes open long enough to comprehend anything. She took a deep breath and felt like she was being crushed…and the pain that came with the air filling her lungs became unbearable. She cried out in pain only to have the man beside her speak words of comfort. She couldn’t understand what he was saying, only that he was trying to keep her calm.

When she heard the sounds of Kayla’s crying and screaming, that was when she knew something was wrong. Something terrible had happened and she had no idea what. All she wanted to do was get to Kayla and comfort her but she couldn’t even move without feeling some kind of stabbing pain in her side. “It’s going to be okay, Kayla!” She kept crying out in frustration.

She kept fighting for her consciousness but the darkness ended up taking her back under, time and time again. The last thing she saw before losing the fight was her grandfather touching her side then leaving the ambulance she found herself laying in. Her eyes closed once more, cloaking her in blackness.

~

A bright light shone in her eyes, but she could make out a ceiling around it. There was something rubbing against the back of her head, making her extremely uncomfortable. Furrowing her brows, she tried to look around but found she couldn’t turn her head one way or the other. She swallowed once and waited for her eyes to gain their focus. After a moment, her mother, Anna, came into her view and she lifted a hand. She could hear her mom’s voice but couldn’t understand what she was saying, let alone the other voices that she was starting to hear. Recognizing her father, Matthew’s voice and her little brother, Jackson, she wanted to lift her head…she wanted to get up and ask them what was going on, but she couldn’t move. She still couldn’t even get a deep breath in her lungs. Memories of what had happened quickly filled her head, but it still took her a minute to comprehend everything.

"I can't breathe...my side hurts." She still couldn't move and she was starting to get a little frustrated. No matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn’t figure it out. Wasn't she supposed to be at her apartment right now? Where was Kayla? That last question passed her slightly parted lips on a shallow breath, one of the few that she was able to take into her lungs.

"She's in the next room over. They're going to take her for a scan in a few minutes." She could hear sadness mixed with crying in her dad's voice, and at first, the tears made her uncomfortable. But when she realized it was the first time she'd heard him cry, she felt differently, though she couldn't explain how.

Suddenly, she realized exactly what was going on. Panic set in and ran through her veins like ice cold water. Kayla... if she was going for some kind if scan, then she'd been hurt. She just knew it, and it was her fault. She was the one driving the car, after all.

Guilt hit her hard and she reached out for a hand, feeling her mom take hers and squeeze it hard. “I’m sorry…” What else could she say? Nothing.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.” Even though she could hear the sincerity in her mother’s voice and it was a relief to hear her say that, the guilt sunk in deep, festering under her skin. “Do you remember what happened?”

Even though she was still fighting for her consciousness, Lizzie tried to tell all that she remembered which, at the moment, wasn’t very much. “I remember seeing a flash of white and I was in the middle of the street. I tried to speed up. When I woke up, I thought I was back at my apartment, dreaming. But I saw a house. Then there was this fireman. I remember he had this strange mustache…it went all the way across his face.” Why she remembered the man’s mustache, she’d never know, but her mother looked around at everyone in the room and she had a strange expression on her face.

In that moment, she realized what she had described. The man had surely been an angel to comfort and protect her in a time of pain and confusion. She was so overcome with the thought that she wasn’t sure how to feel at first. It went away quickly though and she was overwhelmed with the feeling of unworthiness. She didn’t get the chance to ponder on her feelings and thoughts about the man in the car that was with her.

By the time she was done explaining, she felt even more exhausted than she had been before. Kayla had come back from her scan and her mom and dad went to her room to hear what news the doctor had. She had broken both bones in her left arm, but one was not completely broken through and she would have to have it completely broken so it could heal correctly. Not only was her arm broken, she also had a large cut on the same arm that went deep into her tissue.

It was time for Lizzie' scan and as they wheeled her bed out of the emergency room, she could feel a pain in her side with every bump. She fell in the darkness again as they took the scan and awoke later to find herself in the ER room again. By now, the brace on her head was driving her insane and she managed to slip her right hand in the back so that it wasn't hurting her so bad. She hadn't been able to lift her left arm. A few minutes later, the ER doctor came in and her family piled in after him. He gave them the good news first. She hadn’t injured her back or neck. The bad news...she had broken ten of her ribs on the left side, some in multiple places. There was also a nick in her spleen, her left lung, and even in an adrenal gland. To top it off, she had bruised her heart and there was blood in her stomach. All she could think about was her broken ribs...it was the first time any of her bones had been broken. 

Her mind shifted to her sister, though. She still didn’t know how she was. “How’s Kayla,” she mumbled out. Even after they explained her sister’s situation, she still felt like it was worse that it was. She had to see her…and just when she had the thought, her mom offered to ask if they could see each other. She managed a nod of her head and a few minutes later, she was being wheeled into the other room.

She couldn’t turn her head so she looked at Kayla through her peripheral vision as best as she could. It looked like Kayla was sleeping from what she could see. She reached across the empty space between their beds and felt for her sister. Her palm crossed her little forehead and tears immediately filled her eyes.

“Don’t cry,” her mother told her. “It’ll hurt.” It did. Even when she tried to hold back her sobs, the left side of her body ached terribly. She blinked away the burning tears in her eyes as they took her back to her own ER room.

After what seemed like an eternity, a nurse came and took the brace off of her head. She lay back completely against the table or bed she was on, whatever it was, and allowed herself a moment to relax. Finally, she felt a sense of comfort despite the fact that she could not move.

Another eternity passed before she sensed her mother's presence at her side again. "Lizzie...Kayla has to be taken to Children's in Little Rock." The guilt came back in waves. "We're going to go with her and Nannie and Pappow are going to stay with you." All Lizzie could do was nod. She had to admit that she was sad her parents wouldn't be able to stay but she understood why they had to go.

Soon after, a group of nurses, both male and female, took her to a room in the ICU. They moved her to the bed and changed her into a hospital robe. After hooking up an IV in her arm and oxygen for her to breath, among other things, the nurses told her to sleep and get rest before leaving her alone.

Once again, minutes, hours, even days could have passed. She couldn't tell the difference. Nurses came in and out but the medicine she was given kept her in a deep sleep. At times, she forgot where she was...who she was, what happened, and it would come to her all over again.

After spending a few hours resting, she opened her eyes to see the clock on the wall read the hour of twelve midnight. So much time had passed and yet it was so little. Another nurse walked in, followed by someone she hadn't seen yet. "How are you feeling," the nurse asked as she checked over the machines. Lizzie mumbled an answer and the second woman that came in explained who she was.

"I'm going to give you a breath treatment. Even though it hurts, you have to work on you taking big breaths to fill your lungs. Otherwise you could get sick with pneumonia." All of this was said as the woman put some kind of liquid in a tube. More fear went through Lizzie as she took the breathing treatment. Her hands balled into fists as she tried to breathe correctly. They came back to do the treatments three times, and by that time, she began to feel nauseous.

Her throat clutched and she told the nurse how she was feeling. The woman put a bowl in front of her just in time for her to get sick. She could have sworn it was the worst pain she'd felt.

After she got sick, they stopped giving her treatments but told her to continue to work on taking deep breaths. She spent some more time resting after that. Part of her wanted to think about what happened but the other part quickly shut the feeling down.

Just worry about getting better first, she told herself. Surely she'd be better soon and things would quickly get back to normal... She thought completely wrong.

Part Two

The next day in the hospital, the doctor walked into her room and right away, she wasn’t too sure if she would like him or not. He wanted her to take enough medicine so that she’d be able to get up and walking. She wanted to get better but the thought of even moving scared her terribly.

She watched the doctor leave and closed her eyes. She wanted to just keep sleeping until this either all went away or got better. Before the nurse that was with the doctor left the room too, she asked if she could send one of her grandparents into the room. They had spent the night and she was grateful for that.

She managed to fall back to sleep in the time it took her grandmother to come to the room, but she woke up just as her shadow fell on the doorway. Reaching out with her right hand, she looked up at her grandmother and was able to mumble a few things about what the doctor had said to her. She told her about the breathing treatments she had done and then she noticed a look on her face.

“We’re going to do our own breathing treatments. Take a deep breath…you can squeeze my hand as hard as you want.” Lizzie really didn’t want to do this, but she wasn’t in the shape to argue. So she closed her eyes and braced herself for the pain. Before she even took that first breath, she squeezed her grandmother’s hand as hard as she could. Breathing in, she squeezed even harder, but even then she didn’t stop. She took as deep of a breath as she could and then some. She couldn’t afford to get sick on top of the injuries she already had, her grandmother made sure to remind her of that.

Her grandmother’s breathing treatment quickly became her grandfather’s, too, and he pushed her harder to breathe deeper. She hated the pain but she kept reminding herself that it was helping.

They finally let her get some rest. In the quiet of her room, she allowed herself time to think, mainly about her reactions to the accident. Sure, she had felt guilt about Kayla’s injuries. She still felt it. But she wasn’t shocked about what happened, nor was she angry. She felt at peace, and that confused her. Especially when she thought about how this would affect her schooling.

Some of her teachers had visited her while she was in the ICU. One of them even brought her roses, her favorite flowers. She hated that she couldn’t keep them in the room with her. The other teacher was her favorite one, her voice teacher. Unfortunately she was half asleep when he came to visit, but she remembered later that he explained how he had to miss some school too. She didn’t want to have to drop from school for the semester, so her teacher promised that they would look at her options though.

Her nurse came later that night with a sympathetic smile on her face. “Do you want to try to stand up?”

She became fearful again but she refused to stay that way. “Yeah, I’m ready.” The nurse came to her bedside and lifted it up so that she was in a sitting position. Taking the woman’s hand, she slid her legs off the side of the bed, but as she moved to stand up, her heart rate jumped up and the nurse decided to have her wait a little longer. Thankful for her decision, she lay back on the bed and settled into her pillows, hoping for a long night of peaceful sleep. 

A day or so had passed and by then, she was able to walk around the ICU with someone holding her hand and another person walking behind her. As a result of her progress, both of her doctors agreed that she was improving enough to move out of the ICU and into a normal room. The move was difficult on her but by the time the end of the day came she knew she’d sleep well that night.

A nurse brought her a plate with her dinner and her stomach growled. It was the first solid food she’d been able to eat since the accident, three days ago. Hoping that she could eat it with no problems, she took her first bite. She watched T.V. as she ate and was able to finish about half of the plate.

Just as soon as she was done eating, she heard a knock on the door. “Come in,” she looked up and saw her mother coming in with her grandmother behind her…and her little sister following. As soon as the two sisters saw each other, tears welled in both their eyes.

Kayla walked over to her and she lifted her right arm as best she could to pull her in a hug. The tears didn’t last long; neither of them liked to cry.

“How are you feeling?” Lizzie looked at the sling that was around Kayla’s arm.

“They had to uh- break one of my bones.” There was such seriousness in her Kayla’s eyes. It scared Lizzie, especially when she thought about how her mother had told her that Kayla never really talked about the accident. “They put, like, a lot of medicine in my arm and it turned a whole bunch of colors.”

“Ewww…okay, yeah, I get it.” She couldn’t think about her sister’s arm getting broken even more, so she waved her hand in dismissal of the subject. The four of them talked about some things, but Anna didn’t want them to say too long. She had been there to see Lizzie walk around the ICU, so she knew she needed her rest. They said their goodbyes and a nurse came to help her into the bed. She was able to fall asleep fairly quickly, but not before the long, hard day made her lose the food she had in her stomach one last time.

~

Each day for the rest of the week passed the same. She’d wake up before dawn to a nurse pricking her finger to check her blood sugar. A few hours later, another nurse would come and give her medicine for pain and to keep her stomach from making her get sick. She’d watch T.V., take a nap, eat lunch, and watch more T.V., then eat dinner. When she’d need to go to the bathroom, she had to call for a nurse that would help her out of the bed. Showers were a pain. Not only did it hurt, but the nurse would have to wrap the place where the IV was in her arm so that it wouldn’t get wet. The oxygen they had her breathing was annoying, too. With each day that passed, her nose grew more and more irritated.

One morning, the doctor came in and quickly let her know that because of her extensive injuries, she would most likely be staying in the hospital through at least the beginning of the next week.

Yet, through all of the annoyances of being in the hospital, she didn’t mind. She received countless visitors, cards, and small gifts. It all showed her one thing…she had made a difference with her life, she had affected people, and she was loved and missed. She realized that was something she had been becoming desperate to know.

Towards the end of the week, her hopes begin to wilt. She had been in the same room for almost a week and it was starting to wear her down. She was ready to get back home. As she thought about it, tears stung her eyes but she held them back. She couldn’t cry, it would only make her hurt, along with any tiny hiccup or sudden movement.

She wanted her life back. She still refused to even think about the accident, but she was also beginning to realize…there was no going back. From this point on, things would never be the same.

Finally, the end of the week came to pass and that Monday morning, exactly nine days since the accident, her doctor donned her hospital room door once again.

“Well, are you ready to go home?”

Once again, those tears burned her eyes and all she could do was nod. She was able to quickly clear her throat. “Yes,” she croaked out.

The doctor nodded back at her and shifted her file from one hand to the other. “Okay, I don’t want you lifting anything for six to eight weeks, so no working.” He gave her some other instructions, and in the excitement of being able to go home, she forgot to ask him about being able to go to school. She still hadn’t come to a decision on what to do about it.

As soon as the doctor left her room, she picked up her phone and dialed her mom’s number. “Mom?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, they’re letting me out today.” Excitement bubbled in her voice and she thought it resembled the same excitement that had been in Kayla’s voice when they were at the restaurant last weekend. “Can you come get me?”

There was a moment of silence and she knew her mom was thinking about the things she’d need to do. “I’ll be there in a little bit. What did the doctor say?”

She tried her best to tell her mom exactly everything he said before they ended the phone call. With a nurse’s help, she took a shower and was taken off the oxygen. Her mom showed up with her sister about twenty minutes later and after that, a nurse took her IV out. She changed out of the hospital robe into some comfortable pajamas with her mother’s help and signed some paperwork.

Once all of her belongings were taken out of the room, she was brought a wheelchair and taken outside to her mom and sister who were waiting in the car for her. She realized as they drove away that she’d miss the nurses who took care of her, but she sure wouldn’t miss staying at the hospital.

The drive to her grandparent’s house didn’t affect her like she thought it would. They even passed where the accident had been. She was really too tired to think about it.

She was staying at her grandparents’ house since they had a recliner she could sleep in; she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep in a normal bed right now. She sat back in the chair and relaxed for a moment, closing her eyes as her mom got her things settled in for her.

“Are you hungry?”

Lizzie nodded her head.

“For anything specific?”

“A cheeseburger and sweet tea.” Just the thought made her stomach growl.

A bit of humor played on her mom’s face and she nodded. “I’m going to get your prescription filled. Then I’ll bring you a burger.” Her mom turned to leave with Kayla following behind.

She closed her eyes again until her grandfather brought her a pillow to help her get more comfortable. “I have to go to work. Call your grandmother if you need anything.”

Reclining the chair back, she snuggled into it and she stayed between being awake and almost falling asleep. Almost an hour passed before her mom came back with food and her medicine. She took a couple of her pain pills and then thoroughly enjoyed her cheeseburger.

Her mom gave her a kiss on the forehead and made sure she’d be alright before leaving.

Lizzie was almost asleep again before she realized her nose was bleeding. It came out of nowhere and she didn’t know why it was happening. She called both her grandmother and then her mother after that and they reassured her she’d be okay, that it was because of the oxygen she had been on all week.

As soon as that small fiasco had passed, she got a phone call from her voice teacher. They spent some time discussing how things would go with school for her. He told her that he would still figure out a way for her to be able to finish some of her classes for the semester, but she knew that there was just no way.

The doctor had told her she couldn’t work, so there was no point in going to school either. But she told him to go ahead and see if he could work things out.

Later that night after her grandparents had returned from work and they had eaten dinner, they began to talk about the accident. It was the first time since the actual night of it that she had tried to talk about it in depth.

She sat back in her recliner and looked over at her grandfather. “You guys were going to run errands. How did you find out?”

“After we finished our errands, we passed an ambulance on the way home. We didn’t know that Kayla was in it. We saw the other ambulance and emergency vehicles when we turned down the street and I started to turn into the driveway, but I just had a feeling. I told your grandmother that we needed to go look at that wreck. We parked in the parking lot of the church nearby and when I saw the car, I tried to look at the license plate. I just felt like I needed to get over there and get you two out. I got in the car and when I saw your keys, I knew for sure that it was you. One of the policemen told me to get out but I explained who I was and how I was related to you. He told me that Kayla had already been transported and that you were in the ambulance that was nearby. I got in and you asked me what happened but I didn’t answer. I went back out to Judith and we drove to the hospital.”

"What happened to the other driver?”

“He was fine. There were probably a few scratches on his truck, but other than that…nothing else. He told the police that he stepped on his brakes. You had a court date while you were in the hospital but your mom was able to reschedule a new one.”

Lizzie furrowed her brows. She remembered very vaguely having to sign a ticket while she was laying in the ER. Apparently the wreck had been her fault; the ticket was for failing to yield with an injury. At first, she was angry…it wasn’t like the other person was injured; it was her and her sister. They were the ones that could have died. But after that, she didn’t really care. She was to the point that any step of this that she could put behind her would make things that much better.

So she would go to her court date, pay her ticket, and be done with it.

She gave a stout nod and yawned. She was ready for some more sleep. She took a couple more pain pills and lay back in the recliner. Saying good night to her grandparents, she closed her eyes…only to stay awake and think about the accident some more.

This wreck had a purpose, and she was determined to find out what it was.

Part Three

The wreck played out in her head, as much as Lizzie could remember herself, detail for detail. The only thing she could think about was that there had to be a reason for all of this. As a result of the things that had happened in her life, she had come to believe that everything happened for a reason. So then what was the reason for this?

She thought about her family. They had all been very close before this happened, but now…it seemed like they were all even closer. She had never heard her father cry before so as she remembered hearing him cry over her as she lay in the emergency room, she realized it did something for her. Really, what it did was confirm something she already knew. He loved her as his own daughter, not his step-daughter. Every time her mom left her, she would give her a kiss on the cheek or the forehead and tell her she loved her. That was really something she needed. As for her grandfather, she had never really been as close to him as she was her grandmother, but she could already tell that their relationship was growing stronger with every minute they spent together. She thought about her sister after that. The two of them hadn’t been the closest either. They didn’t have similar tastes in things. But she just knew that this would definitely bring them closer than ever.

That was one purpose of the wreck, bringing her family closer together, making them all realize that it could be so easy to lose one another. But there was another reason for the accident, one of the bigger ones, and she knew it was for her.

Lizzie had never really been a patient person. She always wanted things to happen right away. When she wouldn’t understand things immediately or get things right, she would easily get frustrated.

Thinking about all this made her realize something. Before the accident, the thought of not graduating college on time would have driven her insane, but as she thought about it now…she felt at peace.

It was undeniable that she and her sister had been saved that day because of God, that there had been an angel inside the car with her to comfort her through the difficult time. The car had even been turned one hundred eighty degrees instead of rolling like it should have. There had been the hands of angels on it.

The peace she had inside her turned into understanding. If God had saved them that day, then they had a reason, a purpose for being here. She might not know what it was right away, but she could trust that God would take care of her from that point on and that he always had been protecting her.

So if God could save her from dying in a car crash, she knew that he would take care of all her problems that she’d encounter with school, her living arrangements, and financial needs that had arisen from this whole ordeal.

She made sure to write down everything she was thinking, everything she was feeling. At times, she wasn’t sure she could heal from this. This was something she didn’t want to forget. During the night, she could still hear the sounds of her sister screaming in her head.

She knew that she was far from getting past this. She would have to spend about two months just sitting around to let her ribs heal, but there was no telling how many months she’d have to wait to heal emotionally. Though she still had many doubts, there was still one thing she was sure about. God would be by her side, holding her hand, through it all, and that was good considering the life change she would soon go through.