The date was October 1, 2000
I was over my mother and father's house, decided to spend the night, to help
my dad with my mother, see, my mother has been suffering from lung cancer for
almost 2 1/2 years. my father was showing me how to change my mother's IV
bag. the phone rang, it was my husband on the answering machine telling me to
pick up the phone, I answered the phone & my husband (Terry) told me that
our daughter, Tiffany had been in a car accident. My first reactions were--
where,when and how. Terry did not know, my cousin's wife came flying up our
driveway,knocked on the door about Tiffany and told Terry about Tiffany.
I was getting my stuff ready to head this way, I forgot my keys in the House
had to go back and get them, he told me to call when I found out anything, my
mother was hanging on to every word my father said to me. it is a half an hour
drive. I go through the town that my daughter now lives in. I was driving
straight up the mountain, as soon as I hit the bottom of the mountain I hit the
gas pedal. I was doing 80 mph straight up the mountain, I'm looking into the sky
driving up this mountain, I see a bright light, that I thought was a falling star, I
made a wish that our baby girl was going to be OK.When I got to the top of the
mountain I seen all these flashing lights. I knew then that what I seen in the sky
was not a falling star instead it was the medic helicopter that's called Life Star.I
pulled in the left-hand lane, my head shaking uncontrollably I crossed the other
lane of traffic to police officers jumped out in front of me to stop me, they told
me that cannot go over there, I told them that my husband just called and said
our daughter had been in a accident,he let me through. she must've been pretty
bad in the ambulance because they would not allow me to do up to it.I knew
that our daughter was in pretty bad shape.
We drove an hour and 15 minutes to get to the hospital once we got there we
waited and waited and waited, they finally called us back, when we arrived in
the room that she was in,Tiffany was unconscious. I put my hand under her left
shoulder, trying to talk to her to wake her up. Tiffany's hair looked as though
someone had teased her hair and spray-painted red. I pulled my hand from
underneath her shoulder, in my hand layed glass and blood.
Tiffany stained in ICU for two weeks, she was in a coma the put it
tracheotomy in her throat.
The Dr gave Tiffany a 6% chance to live and if she pulled out of it she would be
a vegetable, I felt my knees given away.
My mother got put back in the hospital on her birthday October 11 for
dehydration. has a few weeks passed my mother told my father that she had seen
the light, my father thought the cancer had gone to her head, she told him that
she met God and she asked God if he would make sure Tiffany would be all
right, and that my cousin would make it through her surgery okay. My mother
told my father that she stood at the window where my cousin was getting her
surgery done with her arms around my daughter. My mom stands about 5 foot
two and my daughter is almost 6 foot tall. When I told my daughter of this I told
her that it was similar to someone trade in their soul to the devil, but she gave
God her soul in return for two people she very dearly loved.
After Tiffany came out of the coma she had to be taught things all over again,
you know and like you would teach a baby growing up. How to brush their
teeth, comb their hair, teach to get to the bathroom, even teach walk.
After Tiffany got moved into her room and she started responding to things. My
mother-in-law paid for a motel room that was hooked on to the hospital, she told
me not to let go of the motel room until Tiffany was moved out of the hospital.
Terry would sleep in the motel room, I would sleep in Tiffany's hospital room.
In the mornings Terry would come up to the hospital room and stay with Tiffany
why went down to the cafeteria to get us breakfast in the cup of coffee. I bring it
up to the room and we would sit there and eat, then if I felt comfortable with
the nurse on duty we would go downstairs to the motel room and I would get a
shower and get some fresh clothes on and we would talk for a bit and we would
say our goodbyes and Terry would head back toward the house to take care of
her dogs to make sure everything at the house was okay do what needed to be
done and he would head back to the hospital. Same routine for a month and a
half.
When a friend would come to the hospital and sit with Tiffany, Terry would
then take me to see my mother in the hospital but she was in. My mom's cancer
doctor told dad and I does she was given mom two weeks to live. We'll my mom
lived approximately 3 weeks after the doctor gave her two weeks, normally we
would go see her on a Sunday, the week she died I told Terry I wanted to go see
her on Saturday instead of Sunday.
Friday morning I went down to the motel room Terry had already left to come
toward home, I called dad and he told me that when Aunt Alice and he cut back
to his house there was a message from the hospital asking him to come back to
the hospital. I told him that I would call the hospital to see what was going on, I
spooked to my mother's nurse and she told me that will mom passed away at
8:52am that morning I asked the nurse to keep an eye on my father that he is on
his way back she told me that she would. When I hung up the phone it must do
not fully hit me, I win to take a shower as I usually do, after I got in the shower I
think that's when it hit me the most, I cryed, screamed. And when I got out I
called Terry to let him know. When I went back up to Tiffany's hospital room I
had to and think nothing happened. My heart is break-in I need someone to talk
to and could not talked to my little girl. When the therapist were with Tiffany I
walk down the hall and called a coworker of mine, when she answered the
phone I broke down crying and I told her that will mom just died.
This was October 27, 2000 one of the hardest things I ever had to do was to
keep my daughters grandmother's death from her, did not want her to have a
relapse. Terry came back to the hospital picked me up and drove me to my
father's house so I could drive him and my Aunt and in myself down to Bristol
was about an hour and a half drive. While we were making casket arrangements
Terry called me and told me that Tiffany had walked down the hall with help
and had ate some pudding. Even though I was surrounded by bad news, he was
trying to give me some good news.
About two weeks later after my mother's death they were moving Tiffany to
another hospital that has a rehabilitation center in it. The Patricia Neal rehab
Center specializes in spinal cord injuries and head injuries. Tiffany had
traumatic brain injury, the parts are your brain that are just setting their and
they never get used until something like this or a stroke. For example and he
never cared for eggs now she does. Before she could tolerate crowds pretty
easily, after she got out of the hospital she could not stand be around crowds.
From October the first 2000 until the night of Thanksgiving Tiffany could not
talk.
I talked to Tiffany's rehab doctor and asked him about telling Tiffany about
her grandmother's death, the doctor asked me if I would tell her when some
nurses and him was in the room, I told him no, that I would tell her while she
was in hospital, I stated that I didn't want Tiffany to feel like she was under a
microscope, I want it to be one on one her and I. He was okay with what I
wanted.
That afternoon I told Tiffany about her grandmother, of course she started
crying.
We met Patricia Neal several times for you all that do not know who Patricia
Neal is, she is either the mother or the grandmother that played on the hit TV
show the Waltons.
Tiffany could not walk when she arrived at the rehab center, after a while in
the rehab center one of the therapist, Tiffany asked her if she was going to be
able to walk again, the therapist replied yes honey you walk out of here. The
therapist was right! Tiffany did walk out of the hospital. What was so funny was
that when you get release from a hospital they put you in a wheelchair at the
wheel you out to the door, Tiffany was refusing to get back in a wheelchair, I
told her that she was going be leaving the wheelchair up hospital.
Tiffany went through home bound teaching and then went back to school
full-time. Graduated on a Friday got married Saturday. ( Yes she was dating a
boy from her HS durning the back to school thing) went to college the following
August and took a break, January 3, 2003 we were grandparents to a beautiful
baby boy.
Tiffany will always have traumatic brain injury, the head nurse explained to us
that it was like "shaken baby syndrome"
Tiffany doing very well on her own her, husband and baby that is. There is more
that happened but I didn't want to make this too long. Plus the subject of my
mother's death is a very touchy subject for me.
This is a true story was not made up.
Written by: Brenda
a.k.a. ninemmruger
