camping trip from hell
I just joined TSN hopefully looking for inspiration and a sense of community. My story: I had just finished applying to medical schools as I started my senior year of college. To celebrate, my boyfriend, four other friends, and I set off on a camping trip Labor Day weekend 2019. This trip was super last minute (and truthfully I had a lot of homework already and almost couldnt go), but I love camping and senior year is meant to have a little extra fun right? The trip was going great! the state park we chose missed the slew of rainstorms and we spent our last night playing cards in the tent. Suddenly we heard a giant crack followed by an ever increasing snapping of twigs and branches. It was clear that we were trapped in the tent—unable to see which way the tree was coming. In a last ditch effort to escape I dove in the corner of the tent, no more than a second after, I felt the weight of the tree hit my body. I couldn’t believe it! I had just gotten hit by a tree?? We were lucky, a church group was camping in the same park and organized ~30 members to lift the tree off of our tent and cut us out. Over the next hour I was transferred to an ambulance and then a helicopter and finally to the hospital. I went into surgery with a blood pressure of 50 over nothing broken an obscene amount of ribs, punctured a lung, ruptured my spleen, liver, and kidney, needed 5ft of m6 intestines resected, broke my back in 2 places, paralysis in my left leg, and shattered my pelvis. Because of complications with my blood pressure I was aware during my first emergency surgery. I felt everything. The anesthesiologist was really nice and explained the rare nature of my circumstances to calm me down before my next two surgeries. I spent a month in Kentucky hospitals then a month in a Cleveland rehab center before finally coming home to continue to work on my PT and relearn how to walk. (My friends and boyfriend are all okay! One had a pelvic fracture but is back to normal walking function more.) Throughout this experience I have had a lot of support from my family, friends, and boyfriend and have been very positive throughout most of the experience, but today I definitely struggled. The pain eats away at me and I find myself getting upset when it seems like I haven’t been comfortable in months. Does anyone have any good coping strategies or mindsets to overcome pain and discomfort? And does the pain ever get better? I also am having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I almost died. So much that day was out of my control and even though I did everything right, I almost lost it all. I get freaked out by the fact that I was saying my goodbyes at 21 years old. It’s interesting because I didnt register that I was dying until I saw the facial expressions of those helping me. Is there any comfort or wisdom in having a brush with death? I also have two more surgeries to go and after my experience with my first surgery I am definitely nervous to say the least. I know the chances of it happening again are slim to none but I am still afraid. Are there ways to work through this? So far, this experience has been the hardest most wonderful time. I am determined to get something positive out of this, especially with respect to a future career in medicine. Until now I never would have guessed that surviving the initial trauma was the easy part, because the recovery has been brutal. And an update on my recovery for anyone out there (or maybe just to put it out into the universe) is that I can take steps with a walker, some muscle function has started returning in my left leg (!!!), I hopped back in the pool and swam some laps, and I registered for classes to hopefully make it back to school in the spring. After my accident I was sure it would’ve been easier and less painful to have died in that tent, but I am hopeful for the future and glad that I fought.
