November 4th

November 4, 1998. I was 15 and I woke up super excited, it was a half day of school for my friend Ashley and we were going to the mall. I couldn't wait to go to Old Navy, my mom was even considering letting me drive there. I got dressed and had two bowls of my favorite cereal, oops all berries. My mom decided that she didn't want me driving over the bridge so I could drive to the school to pick up my friend....I was mad, I was 15 I could handle a bridge, after expressing this I was still told no. We went up to the school and picked up my friend, spent a few minutes talking to some other friends outside and then my Mom, Grandmother, Ashley and I were on our way. Life was good, my Grandmother had just over came cancer, she had received her last chemo treatment and was in remission.  Ashley and I were in the back seat talking about boys and the next thing I truly remember was Nanny yelling "JESUS!" in a tone I'd never heard before....pure fear and BAM. The sound was so loud...it was deafening, the car went dark with a powder and my body went flying up and to the right and then black. I remember feeling like I was waking up from a dream...a bad dream. I had maybe 5 seconds before it hit me....I couldn't breathe and the pain in my back was nothing I had ever felt in my life. I felt like my body was pinned to the seat, I couldn't move my head but I started looking in every direction around me, I saw Ashley slumped over in the seat next to me, I tried to move my arm to touch her but I literally couldn't move. I kept trying to figure out what was going on....I heard a rasping sound coming from the front seat and my eyes moved to the front of the car...and I saw the blood. It was all over the ceiling, the windshield was intact but in a million pieces.....I determined the rasping sound was my mom trying to breathe....I felt relived, that meant she was alive. I forced a sound to come out of my mouth...Nanny....Nanny. She started moaning....in that moment Ashely screamed from next to me, "I've got to get out of here" she literally jumped out of the car and ran off....people started coming to the doors and reaching in through the broken windows in the front seat. A lady with blonde curly hair opened my door.....I just stared at her, she was pretty, she kept asking me my name and asked if I could move. All I could get out was is my mom and nanny ok. She said help is coming....I could talk now for the most part and I started begging her to lay me down, the pain became more intense by the second and all I wanted was to lay down and curl into a ball surely that would make it feel a little better....it had to. She told me she couldn't move me, she kept rubbing my hair, a man with red suspenders was talking to my Nanny, she was barely making any noise but he kept telling her to hang on help was coming. My mom still wasn't talking that I could hear. I looked up at the lipstick mark in the ceiling of the backseat...a few months prior my friend was putting lipstick on when we went over a speed bump and her lipstick hit the ceiling. We were so scared my parents would freak out, they had just gotten this car earlier that year. It didn't matter now.   It felt like it was hours before the ambulance showed up...they came to me first and I kept saying get my mom, get my grandmother....they said someone is getting them. Oh relief was in sight, they were going to lay me down.....and then they moved me. I have no idea how I didn't blackout from the pain....I was laying down now and all I wanted now was to sit back up. Get me up oh God please sit me back up! Laying down hurt worse than sitting, they got me in the ambulance....I was so embarrassed, the EMT helping me said, "I have to cut your clothes off so I can make sure you are ok." My new jeans....he cut my new jeans. Not only that he was a boy and he was going to see my body....thinking about  I laugh at where my thoughts went but I remember them like they were yesterday.  Then they wheeled Nanny in....Nanny I said, she looked in my direction but she didn't focus on me, then a head popped in and said "not that one she is critical, she is being life flighted to Shands." Now I didn't fully understand all that but I knew life flight and I knew that was bad....I kept moaning her name and the EMT helping me looked at me and said, "it's going to be ok" and started asking me all kinds of questions, what day is it, who is president, how old are you. I found myself in the ER....doctor by doctor kept coming in, they made me drink this chalk like liquid to do an xray....I threw it up all over the floor. I was so so embarrassed. I don't remember much of the day...it's a blur. I remember asking for my mom and nanny and I remember doctors coming in and saying how they couldn't believe I was alive. A youth leader from my church came and stayed with me, my Dad needed to be with my mom at Shands and she didn't want me alone....Rachel will always be my angel, she did things that only a family member would be willing to do. She watched me take small bites of jello knowing I was going to throw it up, she cleaned me up, helped me go to the bathroom and never left my side. The news came that I had broken a bone in my back....I'll never forget that doctor talking to me about it, I had no idea what he was really talking about but one thing he said I understood, "if this had been a 1/4 inch higher, you'd be paralyzed from the waste down, you are a very lucky girl. I know you are only 15 but you need to make sure that you have all the children you want to have in your twenties because as you get older your back with bother you more and more." Every day that I run I can't believe how incredibly blessed I am to be able to do it, not only can I run but my back has not bothered me once.
My mom had some leg damage due to the break pedal going into her leg, she had a compound fracture on her right arm....Nanny...that amazing women....had to have her spleen removed, her right knee and ankle were destroyed but they made her new ones....Ashely was the furthest away from the impact and walked away with a broken collarbone. I broke a bone in my back,  some internal bleeding, bruised lungs and kidneys but we all lived. What will always stick with me is, I could have been driving....my keys were in the ignition still....no one thinks about a car crossing the middle of a highway and hitting you head on....but it happened to us. A doctor that talked to me explained it to me like us driving 120mph into a brick wall....he said our organs should have liquified. God spared my life that day....he spared all of our lives. Everyday is a gift....today marks 15 years since my life should have ended on that highway. I look at my beautiful babies and think they could have never been here, my friend Ashley's adorable little boy who could have never existed. Not only did God spare us....he spared them. I got 8 more years with Nanny, she danced with me at my wedding. She held my babies in heaven and each day without her is hard but knowing that I got 8 more years....blesses me.
 Today I am so thankful for the stresses in my life....that I am here to experience them. Life can be hard but each day that we wake up we are blessed. So remember to smile and face the day....it  could always be worse.