Glimpses of a Trajectory

My host family in Sedro Woolley brought some of my personal belongings over to the island at the beginning of the week. Not my household stuff. All of that is still corralled in a mini storage facility in Bellingham. What I'm referring to is the partial collection of library-office-personal items, which keep me on task with my doctoral studies. Well, that, and the ongoing communications on legal matters, medical records, and correspondences regarding the transfer of my consulting work from to WA. Lots of sighing!

With some personal effects around me again, I am surprised to feel bit closer to achieving a permanent home. This is still an interim move, however. Much is yet to be decided and stabilized. But intuitively, I can focus my energies on the present evolution of circumstances. 

I wish now that on Monday I had taken a snapshot of Kim and Don's small, greying poodle, Mandy. To keep her out of harms way, with all the weed whacking and rider mower maneuvers permeating the airwaves that day, she got tucked into a wheelbarrow, nestled on top of a well-worn brown jacket. Now THAT is animal protection!

As per my son's request, here is a selfie I snapped this week. After two days of much needed rain, it was a pleasure be out of doors. 

As you can see, I'm not particularly good at self-photos yet. Not sure I'm planning to be, either. But in this case, I think it might be useful to share a few photos,  in reverse progression, to compare appearances from pre-crash to present. 

Before I line those photos up, I wanted to say that my son, Liam, who is putting the last minute pre-launch details on a fundraising effort for my hoped-for residency at the True North Health Center, had taken a full month off from his job in 2019 to help me after the crash. 

Liam flew to the Green Bay airport and friends of mine picked him up to bring him to Door County. He literally did my cooking, grocery shopping, dressed my head wound (once, when the visiting nurse couldn't come), and drove me to daily medical appointments. Then he slept in a bunk next to my bed for twenty-nine days. I never found a comfortable position to sleep in while I was in those braces. There were only two positions: on my back with a pillow under the knees, or on my right side. Any movement was difficult and full of surprising sensations on my part. I doubt my son got much rest himself. But he never complained.

This photo was taken the third week after discharge from the hospital. I was weaning off the pain meds, so I'm afraid there's a bit of a wince to my face along with a high level of inflammation present. But I am actually quite happy to be upright, walking, and navigating stairs --- albeit at the pace of a sloth! I had required help getting up and down from a chair (and many thanks to ADA for wall mounted bars near toilets!). Every time I needed to get in and out of a car I had to have assistance. I couldn't even fasten my own seat belt! 

My broken left arm was still in its cast, but it is behind my Liam's back. My attire features a tight-fitting C-collar, and a rigid thoracic brace (which came down to my sternum area). The crisscrossing black belt thingy is a maximum security lumbar brace. That C-collar didn't come off until late October.  The thoracic and lumbar braces were set carefully aside in mid-September. It would be November before I could begin twice-weekly physical therapy for the neck, shoulders, back, and abdominal muscles.

During the first weeks after my discharge we were graciously housed by acquaintances (now friends), from my Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Door County community. Karon and Jerry Winzenz had a vacant mother-in-law apartment in the upper level of their home. My sanctuary there was for six weeks, before my next interim housing unfolded in Ellison Bay, near the tip of the peninsula, also adjacent to another state park. The Winzenz's custom-built Maya-themed and art-museum quality home, is perched along the western shore of Lake Michigan. While living there, we watched two rather magnificent lightning storms roll in, churning up the waters to a mild roar. On becalmed nights, we could hear the caress of waves on the rocky shore, barely a hundred yards from the ground-level back door. 

Less than a half-mile away was the Whitefish Dunes State Park. It made a perfect destination for me to walk through each day. I tired easily, so a quick rest against a tree became part of my routine.

The cliffs at Whitefish Dunes (below) don't look too bad, considering I had to become a one-handed wonder with my smart phone.

To have friends who have permitted me essential time, space, and access to nature has been a source of abundant gratitude. My healing trajectory has been made better because of those gifts. When I was especially tired, my mind would start to roll over itself in continuous thoughts of what's next, how do I get from broken to whole in "x" amount of time, or, I don't have time for this!  To slow down that cacaphony, I would take a walk among the trees and near the lake's shores, and feel renewed enough to trust in life as a continuous process of divine regeneration.

Before Liam's arrival, another Door County friend and work colleague, Cassie Le Coque, stayed with me the first week at Karon and Jerry's. She had lovingly provided fresh veggie juices and some vitamin supplements during my hospitalization. Less that two years previous to this, Cassie had helped me and my kids pack up my Orcas island home. Cassie and I then drove a 16-foot moving van from the Pacific coastline to Lake Michigan's shores, spending the 2017 Thanksgiving holiday at my sister's home in Bridgewater, IA.

My sister, Marci Raasch, is married to an organic farm that also came with a husband, chickens, and a grandson. All of this was twenty-one years after becoming a single mom of four. Marcie's wedding was in December of 2016 but I didn't get to see her farm until I made my initial trek to Door County several months later. After my crash, Marcie made the 9-hour drive from Bridgewater to Door County, spending several days keeping me company. She located a couple of chic clothing haunts to find apparel for me that would fit over or under those body braces. 

Here is Marcie on organic egg washing duty! 

During that 2017 visit to Marcie's farm, we took a half-day excursion to see the Bridges of Madison County, after the farmer's markets closed for the weekend. Above, we are pictured with our cousin Cyndi. I'm the eldest (with the braids), short stuff is Cyndi, and Marcie is wearing shades. After a lighthearted debate over the should-we-or-shouldn't-we of signing our names on the inside of the bridge --- we did. I added my kids names, in case they ever want to trace my journey there. Probably too corny for them, but it was my first and last experience at small scale graffiti. For posterity, of course!

While Liam was helping me with the daily basics, my friend Sarah Rivkin was gifted a plane ticket to fly in from Seattle and spend a week, too. Then my daughter, Maggie arrived, overlapping her three week stay from the last week of Liam's journey to the middle of August. Sarah's photo is next.

Sara's and my friendship extends back to my young family's arrival on Orcas island in the fall of 2003. She and her daughter were part of a homeschooling group I joined at that time. Sarah is a visionary-artist with an eclectic history of travel and spiritual studies. Her daughter has grown up to become an actress and singer. Sarah is currently in a housing transition, too. One of too-many-to-count life challenges, determined in part by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

We usually have the deepest and most expansive conversations about life, the universe, and creation consciousness. Two strong women who know where they have been. We remain curious about how to navigate the years of maturity ahead. 

Back to recovery pics. The day I was released from the rehabilitation hospital, my beloved friends Celine Goessl and Kathy Lange provided the essential transportation. Stepping out into the sunlight, still much too bright for my concussion-sensitive eyes, I felt and heard the normal traffic as a harshness of life in downtown Green Bay --- at high volume. Bending awkwardly, to settle into the front seat of Celine's car, became aware of my nervousness about that first post-crash ride. I wasn't expecting to get in another crash but I hadn't moved at high speeds beside other cars for over two weeks! Once the car was in motion, I could see that my depth perception was wonky and couldn't keep up. To eliminate the sensation of spinning, I closed my eyes. And that was pretty much what I did for the next hour-and-a-half it took to get to the Winzenz's home. Unforgettable.

The body braces I wore accentuated the vibrations of the car. I therefore had to lean forward a few inches in the front passenger seat. The next photo shows my first sit-down after climbing the stairs at the Winzenz home. I had tears in my eyes, both from feeling celebratory and because it took a lot of work to get there! Celine is comforting me and Kathy caught the moment on her phone. (The vibration situation was greatly reduced by the use of a horseshoe shaped neck pillow, worn while traveling, around the cervical collar. Mine was gifted to me by the home visiting nurse that same week.)

The next photo shows Kathy and Celine, the first time they were able to visit me, after the new body braces were put on and I was transferred out of ICU. I honestly can't recall anything about the removal of the original white, tortoise shell like brace I was put in the second day after the crash. I am pretty sure I was given something to knock me out. Come to think of it, I don't recall being put into that first brace, either. Only being measured for it. It was so uncomfortable and made me claustrophobic. I might have only I lasted 48 hours in it, even on morphine.

 

Celine and Kathy (Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, a Franciscan Order) have recently retired to their Provincial House in Merrill, WI. But at the time of my crash, they were living in De Pere, the last independently living nuns of their order to do so in the country. They came to see me 15 days out of the 16 that I was hospitalized. Though I am not a Catholic, we had been associates in community education presentations, focused on human trafficking issues, for over a year. 

We had traveled together to several parts of WI, and did so a few more times ---  in late 2019. I needed to be well enough to stand at a podium and bear up under travel conditions. My difficulties with sustained equilibrium, to the point of constant nausea and dizziness, were due to some inner ear issues caused by the effects of the car rolling over so many times. I recall some discussion between my doctors over the multiple head impacts and over-extended neck positions that must have occurred --- and their incredulous remarks about how lucky I was to have lived and to not be paralyzed. I didn't talk to them about my near-death experience but I did express my gratitude at what seemed to me a paradoxical miracle. 

It would be 18 months later, after lots of hours of with my physical therapists, that  my inner ear issues gradually reached around 85-90% resolution. At this point, I still experience nausea at tracking a car passing and when I do certain yoga poses. I have to move up from a downward position in triple slow motion. Dancing is out of the question. Turning my head with any rapidity makes me lose my balance. 

Sitting and laying down remain the most uncomfortable things that I do to date. Of course, I haven't attempted hanging upside down yet! Standing and moving, and now bicycling and gardening, make my physical healing more psychologically sustainable. I try not to call all this discomfort pain, because that brings fear and contraction. I have been retraining myself to refer to discomfort as sensation and I indicate intensity through a number system. In this way I can observe limitations I need to respect and adjust accordingly. 

As an example, I generally awake with a combination headache/neck ache in first place, with the thoracic and lumbar areas coming in at a close second in intensity. Pillows make it worse, so I use a rolled towel or a low-fill buckwheat neck pillow. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most intense), my range is 3-6 most days. Within an hour of movement and activity, that range can drop to between 2-4. When intensity creeps up during any activity, I stop what I am doing and give myself a reset with some modified yoga, PT movements, or by using an 85 cm gym ball to get my thoracic, lumbar, and cervical vertebra to move closer to their natural alignment. This has to be done several times a day.

Building up all the tiny fibered muscles and unfreezing tendons, particularly along the facets of the spine, will eventually (I hope) help my body be able to hold a reasonable alignment. It's noticeably better month-by-month. So far, my work-life-balance involves a daily range of repetitions and relaxation breakthroughs. Anywhere from six to over a dozen times each day. Physical therapy with a PT is 5-10% of the solution, because PTs can help me address nuances of potential movement I would be unlikely to figure out on my own. However, the remaining 90-95% of the therapeutic process will always be in my court. 

I recall the day that my team of doctors approached my bedside, announcing I would now be prepared for release in one week's time. I was in the rehab facility. But I had not had any rehab yet. Up to that moment, I had not been allowed out of bed. I was still connected to the Foley urine catchment system. The wakefulness of that night had me wondering where I was going to wind up! My position at my employer's had already been filled. It was obvious I wouldn't be able to work for who knew how long. Because I suddenly had no means of support or capacity for living alone, my studio apartment had been rented out to the two young men who were replacing me at the job. 

Well-meaning friends had haphazardly packed up my belongings and delivered them to my nearly empty storage unit a few miles from the apartment. Therefore, that first night of the news that I would be prepared for release, my mind was challenged by an unending litany of what ifs with no clear answers. The next morning, I managed to get myself to a seated position in the bed, so I could start the necessary occupational and physical therapy. I felt like I was basically one monstrous toothache with an all-over body abscess. 

When a male nurse brought in a wheelchair to take me to the PT room, I abruptly said, "No wheelchair!" Then I apologized for my abruptness. In a calmer voice, I simply requested a walker to start with. The nurse gave me a rather dubious look. I took that in for a moment and then said, "Look, I can go to a wheelchair if I can't stand. But I want to try standing and walking first. Will you help me?" I asked.

He nodded rather slowly, circled the wheelchair back out of the room, and came back a few minutes later, with another nurse. A female. And the walker I wanted. By then, I had worked my way to the edge of the bed, but my feet were not able to reach the floor. I couldn't even see my feet because the C-collar didn't permit any head or neck rotation.  Despite my determination, nausea was creeping up from the pit of my stomach and it was quivering in a way it never had before. Sweat had started to bead up on my face and across my back. Part of this was because of my exertion, no doubt. Another factor, in the sweat dilemma, might also have been due to the fact that I had delayed that day's first dose of pain medication. I was on a personal campaign to be medication-free by discharge.

The female nurse, a young Muslim woman of only 22, with dark brown eyes that revealed a quick intellect, was serving in her first nursing internship. She wore a dark blue hijab with her pale blue scrubs. She moved to stand near my right side and offered to help lift my arm to enable me to stand. I failed to be able to shake my head so I asked her to wait. I was a bit intimidated at the prospect of my first "touch-down" after 9 days of being in a bed. Just the day before, this nurse had her first lesson in fitting me to the lumbar brace. Her movements had been quick and a bit rough without intending to be. We figured out a better routine after that. 

Despite my anxieties, a plan for getting out of that bed, with minimal help, took shape in my mind.  "Let's lower the bed down" I said. "I want to see if I can touch the floor first. I need to get my bearings." And that is what we did. 

My first grunt up was stable enough. But I was listing forward at quite a tilt, like a wounded ship about to nose herself under the next wave. My tummy and back muscles, bruised and inflamed, protecting fractured vertebra and ribs, had not been used for over a week. Those traumatized areas hurt in a massive way when I started to change my position to gravity. Let's just say that I no longer believed that gravity was my friend that day. 

Another complication was that my left arm was in a cast from fingertip to beyond the elbow. That arm was nonfunctional and heavy and had to go wherever I did. I finally figured out how to balance it on the walker while I navigated with the other hand. It didn't take but those few minutes to make me almost breathless. Once I was satisfied that the walker could support my awkward stance,  I was glad for the security that a nurse on either side provided. 

Next on the agenda was to literally find my footing. I could not see anything below my chin, and had to look ahead and remember the path forward. Sliding one foot after the other, in short bits, I eventually navigated 80 to100 yards.  I noticed that my right foot was a bit slower than the left. About half-way to my destination I already had very wobbly legs. Once I saw the door to the PT room I felt a bit bolstered to close the distance. 

My occupational therapist, Annie, was standing by a set of parallel bars, awaiting my arrival. When she saw me standing at the door, crookedly upright, the look on her face was one of surprise. It made me feel a little sheepish but victorious. Believe me, such things matter when your starting place is rather akin to when you were 10 months old and hanging onto walls and chairs to stay upright. Annie had expected me to arrive in a wheel chair. She teased me about defying her expectations and then we set to work. Eventually, there would be 110 checklist items I would need to achieve before I was suitable for release.

Now that I had walked a goodly distance, Annie scaled her plans for me the finer elements of sitting down slowly and getting back up slowly. I had to hang onto something stable in order to do so. Feeling as though I were in a Twilight Zone moment, I wanted to believe this couldn't be real. This was just a nightmare, right? Simply an illusory episode of fear and helplessness that would disappear any second now. Only it didn't. Moving like a sloth was my new reality. Twigs and leaves for snacks, anyone?

 My legs were uninjured but the nerves seemed affected in a generalized way. I noticed a stroke survivor at a nearby PT station. Not to be competitive but I was a little faster. Not by much, though. Which was momentarily depressing, I have to admit. By the time I got back to my room, I was thoroughly drenched in sweat and wanted to get my tilting self, frame and all, back into the hospital bed. I coldn't do it without help. Every muscle hurt, even in my legs. Every movement was in triple slow motion. I took the next pain dose and fell asleep deeply, without eating. That was the first time I can recall actually sleeping fitfully since the crash. 

                                    

From barely sitting up on day 8...

To standing and walking unaided on day 15 (Below).

It would be the second day of PT before the urinary Foley was removed. I was so relieved that I could start going to the toilet under my own steam. I still had to be accompanied, of course. It would be three more days before I could park that walker and ambulate without aids. I was anxious to get on with the business of showering, and was terribly disappointed, to the point of a few tears, that it would be months before I could do so.  It was a whore's bath for me then. At the sink. 

My head and hair had not been washed, except for the areas that had been surgically repaired. My remaining long hair was encrusted with dried blood and road dirt. I learned later that in addition to 24 cm of stitching, there were over 30 staples lodged in my scalp. My persistence at wanting to wash my head and hair finally paid off on day 12, when a team of nurses came in to perform a bed bound shampoo. It was pretty messy and painful. But by day 16, I could sit at a sink, with my back to it, and push my self up enough for a nurse to do a more thorough shampoo and rinse. Without the mess. 

Because sleep was mostly elusive I had to take frequent naps through out the day. I took to wandering the halls of the hospital unit at night. With three hours of PT and occupational therapy each morning, I began to make solid progress towards the scheduled release date. I welcomed the offer to stay at the Winzenz home because it was given in love with a generous faith in my progress, as they had explained it to me. I would have loved to be in my own bed, but that was not to be for another 7 months!

While I was building up my skills at self-care, another new friend, Ilona Lea, took on the task of creating a fundraiser in my behalf (pictured left). Between jars placed strategically at local businesses, and through an online Facebook event, about $4000 was raised. This covered some of the noninsured costs associated with all sorts of post-crash needs. Including renting a vehicle so my son could drive me to appointments. 

Ultimately, I would still need help with unpaid medical bills. This came through a community-based ministry program, which my psychotherapist helped me apply for. I found it frightening to discover that essential medical services were not always paid in full by my medical insurance. Even with my automobile policy's med-pay account, the costs seemed alarming to an unemployable woman, essentially disabled without the benefits of a disability income, in the first 7 months of recovery. 

By September of 2019, I was invited to spend a week with Ilona and her parents, Dave and Renny Lea, as part of a 3rd interim move. They live in Fish Creek, across from the Peninsula State Park. The park is a well known international destination with a poignant pre-colonial Indian and settler history. My daily walks gave me access to small triumphs: increasing stamina, and the mental reset that nature always provided.

With the cervical collar on, I could not turn my head left or right at all! Nor could I look down or up. I had to acquire the habit of scanning walk ways and stairs in advance, well before my feet arrived. Whenever there was a step, curb, or change in elevation - especially on uneven ground - I had to stop and assess whether I could navigate it.  

Here (right), Ilona and I take a break after a walk and a meal at the restaurant behind us. This is the 3rd month post crash. By the recurring pressure in my abdomen, however, I am beginning to realize that my digestion is altered and I felt unsure how to address it. 

That tourist attraction, with the oversized purple lawn chair in front of the restaurant, had a seat that slanted sharply toward the chair back. This made it easy to get into but especially difficult to get out of!  Ilona had to help me up but I kept sliding backwards. Which set us to laughing. My fractured ribs were quite sore for several months yet. Therefore, sudden moves, laughter, or any kind of twisting --- even a misstep that caused me to have a jolt, was shockingly painful and took my breath away. Nonetheless, small moments of levity linger in my memory. There were several seemingly impossible moments that humor had a way of softening for me. 

At that point in my recovery, spasms along the sides of my spine, particularly from the thoracic region rippling up into the shoulders, were particularly demanding. They were occurring nearly 24-7. The sensations were somewhat dulled, I think, by the systemic inflammation and tightness in my tissues surrounding the injured areas. Surprisingly, as long as I didn't overdo things, the walking and using small weights for moving my arms kept the spasms manageable. I was having weekly PT on the left arm and wrist, now that the cast was off.  With sustained walking, I could feel a downward shift in my pain level without medications. So I kept at it. I had thrown away the meds back in July because I did not want to depend on them. My own mother had lived a life of secluded addiction following a major surgery when she was only twenty-three. She never knew freedom thereafter. She passed on September 21, 2013, of COPD, seizures, and alcohol induced dementia. My sense of the spiritual and continuity of life convinces me that she is now experiencing freedom.

Dealing with continuous spasms set me to wondering about the causes. Beyond the initial injury, I mean. I have come to believe that those spasms were part of my tissues and muscles trying to find their new normal, and probably not as random or hurtful as a person in fear might feel them to be. My new normal kept changing every day. Another explanation might also be that electrical misfires along the nerves were simply part of how my nervous system dealt with its task of cellular and tissue repair after so much physical trauma. Perhaps both explanations, and something as yet unknown to me, are all true.

After my week at the Lea's, I spent the next three weeks of September at a guest cabin on the Green Bay side of Lake Michigan, in Ephraim. While there, I was able to walk to the tiny local library, as well as to the Sunday services held at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship where I had been attending. That cabin retreat was the second time that I had a brief respite in which I could be in solitude. I began to be able to cry in depth about what made me feel anxious and how much of my life energy was now focused on my body, and not the work and studies that had so engaged me before the crash. 

While residing at the cabin, my doctors allowed me to remove the c-collar just for showering. It was extremely disconcerting to find that I had zero ability to turn my head in any direction. Like a piece of wood, my neck was unyielding. The use of very warm water each day made a start at softening the muscles that had become rigid and contracted. My first illness, since 2014, also occurred while in my cabin retreat: A relatively mild cold. Sneezing and coughing rattled ribs, head, neck, and chest. No matter where I was, I had to keep facing life because it kept coming at me head on. The last weekend of September (2019), I was helped by the lea's to relocate to Algoma, in the neighboring county.  In December, some housing assistance came through and I was able to secure a year's lease for an upper story duplex. It was through word of mouth that I was referred my new landlords. My situation disqualified me from traditionally managed apartments. I had already failed two application processes. By January of 2020, I was developing the smallest tendrils of income producing work. I'll write about that transition in another post. 

As I gradually unpacked my formerly stored household into my Algoma apartment, tears of relief and grief flowed. I kept remembering how deep and far my life had taken me: from a youth in which I had been trafficked, married as a teen, and eventually into a more coordinated healing and educational journey. With my four kids now adults, I had leapt into a life of community service in my field of expertise. What did my life mean now? How much ground would I lose I  on the progress I had made as a mature woman?  I was finally finding a voice in providing legislative testimony and giving presentations to communities across the state. All that activity had made me hopeful that I was finally landing full circle on the spectrum from former victim to a thriving survivor.  

Less than 3 months before the crash, this photo (below) was taken during my third or fourth legislative appearance in Madison that year. In a 30-year span of time, I had transformed from a silent victim, to a mature college student, evolving even more through motherhood, and finally pursuing my education --- all as part of a way forward to a loving life as a legitimate educator. The newly plowed field of my professional endeavors was metaphorically ready to be planted. 

How do I reconcile that crash as a life crisis, a seeming reversal of fortune? Is that even the truest question I can ask? 

Perhaps there is some wisdom to be found in attending to the near death experience (NDE) that came with surviving the crash itself. 

Reset Possibilities

Amidst all the collective transitions taking place in the world, I find some new comfort landing once again in familiar territory. My hosts, in the four months I had lived with them upon my shaky return to Washington State, invited me to garden on a property they were selling in San Juan County. In the time period of this post, I have been living in a cottage on their property about 3 weeks. Despite the daily discomforts I am working around physically, I find myself relaxing into the gardens, the dirt, the sky, and the welcoming solitude. 

I raised my kids in the San Juan Islands and enjoyed Orcas Island and its community for 14 years. Friday Harbor is the county seat and the only incorporated municipality in the entire county. It also supports a new hospital, which may become important to me and my kids, if I ripen and fall off the tree of earthly life.

Meet Buttercup. She is an affectionate older kitty that has the run of the full property I am tending. Buttercup likes to jump on my back when I am on my knees or even when I am standing but bent over. The other kitty on the land is more introverted. His name is Wesley. You get one guess as to which movie characters these feline fancies are named after!

When my post-crash health status influenced my decision to be closer to where my kids have migrated (Seattle), I attempted to move to Bellingham first - in December of 2020. My ducks had lined up well enough to transport my household belongings in late November.  Nancy Mullins, a long-time friend of over 31 years, had herself completed a recent transplant from Kansas to Seattle. She offered me a place to quarantine over Thanksgiving. Then, in the midst of all the digital paperwork shuffling from Kewaunee County, WI, to Whatcom County, WA, all the while still submitting coursework to my doctoral program with Northcentral University, I obtained a motel room in Bellingham. This was just a few days prior to my anticipated move-in to a studio apartment, which was owned and managed by Catholic Housing Services. 

Each night my prayers were including honest gratitude for how seamless those recent transition were evolving. Until the seam ripped open, that is. Lord knows I needed some ease but that was not the message that came from the Catholic Housing Services regarding my reserved apartment. Over a discrepancy related to my student status and a tax credit regulation, the compliance department vetoed my move-in. And that was THAT. Two days before the well-timed transport truck was to arrive with 144 square feet of my well-packed household goods, I had to scramble. How does one make a carefully budgeted resource cover a mini storage unit and unanticipated motel costs instead of move-in costs? I couldn't do it. I had to accept a loan from a friend.

Perhaps I'm not the only one to notice, but $500 in reserve simply doesn't get you very far in a housing crisis combined with a pandemic. After that was spent, I had to ask for help. Though I appealed the initial denial of my apartment, through the local channel of the Opportunity Council, the lot was cast, as they say. One must not take a stand against a well-established but should-be-obsolete tax credit issue with a corporation that looks to exclude the needy on the slightest peek of a nose hair. I never met with one person face-to-face in that whole scenario. Communications were 99% email and snail mail, and 1% phone. WEIRD. VERY WEIRD,

After a brief fade of energy when I received the disappointing news, I was rallied by a nap and prayer. I reached out to qualify for all kinds of local programs. But I was 60, with PTSD and physical limitations allowing only part-time employment. Although I had arrived with a bona fide federal housing assistance voucher, and verifications up the wazoo and back down again, I failed to secure a studio or 1 bedroom apartment. Ironically, even though I could prove who I was and what my intentions were, it turns out that the programs I engaged with could not stand by their missions to locate housing for the suddenly homeless: me. 

As grace would have it, my friend Kim Bryan, a former executive director of a domestic violence and sexual assault agency (DVSAS) in the islands, where we both had concurrently worked and lived, invited me to stay at her new home and horse ranch in Skagit County. She is in the midst of realizing her dream of providing equestrian therapy for youth who have been trafficked. See Crossroads Youth Ranch Relieved but nervous how the details of getting my roots set down would all sort out on my end, I accepted Kim's invitation. 

In the loving and faith-based embrace of Kim's family, I slid through my 61st birthday and Christmas. And then on through Easter, playing the digital and phone tag communications game for housing searches, job searches, transferring medical history, attaining medical insurance, finding new providers, and practicing a bit of driving with restricted range of motion. Through all of this, I was becoming quite convinced that someone, much like the Wizard of Oz, was making up new rules behind the curtain. When did I lose my blackened broom and misfit but faithful companions? And where are they now?

If the curtain represents what I need to look behind, no matter what I find there, I still need a process that is kind. That's for sure. Now that I feel a little more grounded, I have embarked on a wellness protocol to revitalize me from the inside out! A weekly physical therapy session is still to be established once again, but I am doing everything I learned from my PTs in the previous twenty-something months. The gardening tasks, and working at my own pace, are helping me develop those critical but more subtle back and shoulder muscles. They had seriously atrophied from months in braces and limited use afterwards.

This past Friday, I located the therapeutic counseling group that can help me build on the progress I had made before my move. PTSD isn't just psychological. Having control over my physical progress gives me evidence of tangible improvement. I ended the month of March treating myself to a consult with Csilla Veress, ND, from the True North Health Center to help me get on a pathway of proactive digestive support and healing the polyvagal system. Not only am I juicing every day, alternating a juice only phase for 7 days and then a week of raw, and lightly cooked plant-based fare, I am also preparing mentally for a 30-day supervised water fast and the requisite two week re-feeding protocol. 

One of my son's is setting up an online fundraiser so I can enroll in the residential program with True North. Medicaid insurance doesn't cover adjunct medicine, no matter how well proven it is. I'm hoping that by documenting parts of this journey into wellbeing, I can chart a better course for myself and that others will find it useful.

Here is what my first two weeks on the juicing protocol looked like:

Filling the fridge with fresh veggies and fruits. At the local island food co-op, there are two amazing benefits: 

One is that produce is 50% off for the first $40 purchased, if you have an EBT food card. I have one. Phew!

The other is that much of that organic produce is locally grown. 

I get to support local farmers and they get to support me. I like that kind of balance.

Once the goods are in the fridge, then it's a daily process of prepping some for different juice blends. After washing comes cutting, to fit into the juicer feeder. Pretty minimal time and tasking, which can be done with music or an audio book playing in the background. I tend to be an early riser. Therefore, after my meditation, I use the juicing process as a gentle segue into my day. I usually complete the prep and juicing before 8 am.

It all starts to add up very quickly and deliciously. I particularly like the carrot, cucumber, kiwi, pear, and ginger root combination for mornings. 

I take my greens with lime, celery, cucumbers and apple later in the day, thank you very much! 

On some mornings, I add raw turmeric root and an orange to my carrot blend. My green juices are made with a variety of leafy greens, but not all mixed up. One day I will feature chard leaves, another day kale, and another day spinach. I have also found a cabbage-based juice rather spicy, so I add celery, apple, and ginger.

The first time I ever did cabbage juice, by itself (Read carefully: BIG MISTAKE!), it was like drinking an explosive with a delayed detonator. Really POTENT. So go easy when you try it.

There's nothing like the satisfaction of bottling up my meals for the day. The above photo represents one and a half days of juice. I added the waters to remind myself that water continues to be essential, even if I am not feeling particularly thirsty. Most American's tend to be dehydrated from over consumption of caffeine and refined sugar products. I do, in fact, drink at lease 1.5 quarts of water in addition to the juices each day. It's a lot to pee out in the first three or four days, but the body adjusts and becomes more efficient at using all that liquid nourishment.

Lest anyone should worry about energy levels, I can assure you that I enjoy a 3 to 5 hour day in the gardens, with breaks to let my easily taxed muscles reset.  Plus 2 to 4 hours of writing each day. Until I started gardening again, I usually had to take two naps a day, especially after a physical therapy session. And there was no end to muscle spasms. Spasms are becoming less bothersome as my muscle tone improves. And the resets are happening within minutes rather than taking hours, as they did a year ago.

I am normally a patient person with strong internal resources. But the loss of my usual pace of life has been a tremendous blow to my confidence and sense of accomplishment.  For those who have suffered through a near-fatal accident or crime event, please be gentle with yourselves and those around you. Stay focused on what you can do and learn to do breath work. Get a coach for this to make it stick. On some days, breathwork will be the best that you can do when other aspects of the body's healing must go deeper or you experience a seeming setback.

Here is glimpse of what I tackled during my first week on San Juan Island: an overgrown and weedy greenhouse.

Balancing the ongoing weeding of the outside gardens with the warmth of the greenhouse, after just three mornings, it looked like this (below): Ready for some new seedlings!

Since this isn't my property, but a labor of love for friends who have helped me, I won't get to plant my own garden this year. Nonetheless, I do find the tangible work very satisfying.

I believe that working with the soil and plants is one of the greatest ways to become grounded, literally. As a metaphor, I find myself talking through issues, planting thoughts, and grieving so much gun violence this year. My gratitude that I can walk and kneel ( with care to not get up too fast, because of inner ear issues) and manipulate hand tools is off the charts! The reason for this is that head injuries often cause loss of memory and compromised nerve function. 

While I'm still addressing the nerve function parts of my body, I did not suffer loss of memories of my children's early lives or even of my own early life. There are certainly aspects of memory I sometimes wish had disappeared, such as the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) I've absorbed, but I know I am me.  I cannot help but wonder about identity and how much of our collective or unique pain might overly dictate how we perceive ourselves. If struggles make us stronger then maybe to hope for too much ease is a recipe for weakness or vulnerability that could actually endanger our resilience.

I'm not saying that my crash was a blessing. I am experienced at jumping hurdles with leaps of faith in God's grace. However, I am sensing that such show-stoppers can engage something mystical about divine providence. We can become more purposeful in how we spend our time and choose our friends. For me, I cherish the living connections between people and circumstances that reveal synchronicities and love, where I might only have been noticing random violence and chaos. 

Irreversible Impact

It has been twenty-three months (as of this writing) since I was trapped in my 1993 Honda Accord. After Binga (the car's name) bounced off the back of a dump truck's wheels and went airborne, at 65 mph, I went out-of-body. She spun clockwise, before landing soundly on her roof, rolling over the ground again and again and again. Binga eventually landed upright but drooping, partly on the freeway's shoulder and partly on the grass. With the transmission still in drive, her engine was revved up. A fellow traveler, who happened to be a stock car racer in his recreational life, pulled over immediately. Risking personal injury but likely preventing a fire, or worse, an explosion, and reaching precariously through the passenger side window, he turned the engine off. The roar of sounds stopped. Binga had burned her last drop of gasoline.

After Binga was removed from the crash site, she looked like this:

I owned Binga for only 18 months. When I relocated to Door County, WI, in June of 2017, I soon discovered I could not get around on my bike as easily as I could in the Washington islands I had left behind. Through acquaintances of my new employer, I learned this Honda Accord was available, and that she came with the name given by her original owner. Until the day of our shared trauma, Binga had led a pampered life, I can assure you! She cruised scenic byways in the summer months but remained snuggled in her private garage through the winter months. She had only 81,000 miles on her when we became road companions. In the end, and according to the state trooper who investigated my crash site, Binga had protected me with her older, more heavily built 1993 frame.

The trooper, who redirected traffic while the paramedics worked to free me from the wreckage, told me the next day that twenty 911 calls about the crash had been received in the first five minutes! Rescue vehicles began arriving about fifteen minutes after that.  I have no memory of of that part of the rescue. I was in an alternate reality that made me feel safe and loved. I felt no pain. I experiences zero anxiety. I was, however, surrounded by and immersed in a vibrational, music-like hum that was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. But it was eerily familiar in a way I cannot really connect the dots on.

Gratefully, I met the young stock car racer / earth angel, two days later, while I was still in ICU. I had been transferred to my second hospital and the young nurse happened to be a close friend of the stock car racer. They had been in high school together. I was in good hands but this is what I looked like: 

According to initial emergency medical records, it took the paramedics over an hour to extract me. When I came back into my body, a female medic was shouting at me not to move. She was holding towels to my head and said, "You have been scalped! Do you know what scalped is? You know, like in the Westerns...." I faded out. And when I faded back in, she started to ask me a staccato of questions: "What's you name? Do you know what happened? Do you know where you are? What day is it?" Everything was painfully LOUD. I had a hard time opening my eyes because everything was also painfully BRIGHT.

I had bitten though my tongue. It was swelling. It was impossible to talk when I did regain my in-body consciousness. I answered the medic's questions but I feel pretty sure I was slurring the few words I did manage to say. 

My body was still securely restrained by my seatbelt. The lead medic, who had gotten inside the car from the passenger side, was pulling the airbag away from my face. He started asking me to do things:  "Can you wiggle your toes for me? Great! Can you bend your legs at the knee? Wonderful! I'm going to need to turn you so we can get you out, but you need to help a little. Can you push up when I unlatch the seatbelt? On the count of three!" 

I pushed. They pulled. The door and me went together. I blacked out. 

When I came to, I had been placed on a gurney, surrounded on all sides by medics. Trying to keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds was hopeless. I barely glimpsed the hands using the scissors that was cutting off my favorite blue dress. I remember thinking, do they really have to do that? Really? My favorite dress was saturated with the blood from my head wound but I couldn't see it. Very soon, the feeling of being vulnerable and exposed was replaced with the miracle of soft, warm blankets being placed over and around me. The gurney straps were then pulled over and tightened. How safe that made me feel! But I kept trying to open my eyes. I even managed to ask one of the medics: "Why is everything so bright? Why is everyone being so loud?"

He told me: "You probably have the mother of all concussions and whiplash." Then, a brief exchange between the medical team members hovering around me took precedence.  The question posed to the lead medic was "are we loading her in the Heli or the ambulance"? I wanted to yell "not the heli! Not the heli!" because they can be rather rough under the circumstances. As if reading my mind, the lead medic answered, "the ambulance...the Heli's gonna be too rough!" And the slow, cautious push toward the ambulance began.

The highway trooper came near to my gurney, introduced himself, and without preamble, asked me to give him a statement about what happened. Well, I might be able to say my name and the date but to say what happened was going to be too much. Much to my relief, the lead medic tersely yelled "f--- off officer! You can see her tomorrow at St. Vincent's!" This is going to seem odd, I think, but I started to laugh a little - which hurt. that was the best timed and most relevant F--- you I ever witnessed. But the ridiculous expectation that I could possibly speak intelligently through a swelled tongue and bloody mouth was just too funny. I wasn't in denial about how badly I was hurt.  I'm very sure I couldn't have said a clear word at that point, even if my life depended on it. Even more weird is that I laughed as if the trooper had told a joke. And laughing even a tiny laugh - in that moment - was the enormously painful prequal to the avalanche of hardcore pain that was about to overtake my central nervous system.  

And just then I remembered that I needed to get a message to the prison in De Pere -- that I had been in a crash. That couldn't make my six o'clock visit with an inmate. My frustration only increased as I realized no one could understand what I was trying to say. In my head, I was saying "Dar-ren! Dar-ren! Tell him I'm sorry I can't come in today..." but it came out of my mouth as groans and bloody spit. I recall trying to give the phone number of the prison but the numbers were too difficult to form with my wounded mouth. I must have sounded garbled to those who, in trying to make sense of what I was saying, wore expressions of confusion, shaking their heads with incomprehension. Stacked against me as the moment was, I had no breath to yell, nor the  capacity to articulate anything clearly. Any effort to explain my involvement in a prison ministry would be futile. 

For the forty-four year old black man, who had been in prison since he was seventeen, the visit of a fellow artist was something to look forward to. But on the day of my crash, all Dar-ren got to meet was an empty chair and a silent table in the common visiting room. As far as he was concerned, I had stood him up. It would take a full week before another member of the visiting team would get a message to Dar-ren that I had nearly died on my way to see him. It would take three months of recovery and physical therapy before I managed, while wearing all three spinal braces, to limp into the prison facility, go through the screening process, fail the metal scanning procedure, and, by the skin of my teeth, obtain a one hour pass to meet up with Dar-ren. When he saw me that day he instantly understood that I had really, really, really been hurt and had struggled to get as far as I did. In fact, the prison officials had informed me that they would deny me a future entry until I was no longer wearing the support braces, which had enabled me to be able walk and stand.

But I have gotten ahead of myself. Going back to the wreck, and getting loaded into the ambulance, it was the moment in which I was lifted up and jostled into the vehicle that the pain hit me for the first time. A searing jolt, like a bolt of lightening or a surge of electrical charge came from the middle of my body, and split me upwards and downwards simultaneously. It forced me to cry out involuntarily and that was frightening. That would have been a good time to die. 

But I had already decided to live.