Awaken Ashley

October 30th, 2015.

A day that forever changed my family’s lives.

I selfishly cry for what we lost that day. My dad cannot ride a dirt bike anymore. We can’t go rock climbing as a family. He can’t go go-karting with my little brother. He has to work 100 times harder at walking; something that we all take for granted is something that he’s thankful he can still do. Golf swings, frisbee throws, chasing kiddos in the yard, swimming, running, jumping, wrestling, skating, bike riding, jet-skiing, the list goes on; things he used to do with ease come as a struggle, and that’s IF his body can still do it nowadays. My dad has more athleticism to his name than I do in my little fingernail. He is the most competitive person I know and the strongest person I know. My dad has taught me countless life lessons by just living.

I remember October 30th, 2015 like it was yesterday. The night of the accident hasn’t blurred at the edges. The details are always there, ready to be called into focus. Finishing a friends hair, walking her to her car, watching my dad walk up the driveway to the barn, following him half way up the drive and asking him where he was going. Hearing him say, “Riding on the track w some friends,” hearing myself respond, “Have fun and be safe. I love you.” At this point in the memories my nose is stinging and my eyes are threatening to brim over. My dad smiles at me and says, “Always.” I remember going inside, anticipating seeing all the cute costumes the next night, absentmindedly watching “Twitches” on the Disney channel, all the while coloring my hair, which ended up being disastrous. And then I get my mom’s phone call ...

“What’s up?”

“Your dad’s been in an accident.”

My confusion. How? He’s home?

“Please look out back and see what you can tell me.”

Sirens. Ambulances. Cop cars. How in the hell didn’t I see this just 5 minutes ago?

“Mom? Mom what happened? What’s going on? I have bleach in my hair, what do I do?”

Freezing. Truly not even comprehending what my next move should be.

“Wash the bleach out so your hair doesn’t fall off your scalp and go check.”

A crap rinse job and I jam my car in park behind a sheriffs car.

“What’s happening?”

“Someone got into a wreck. Think he just broke a hip.”

“A hip? That’s my dad.”

I leave my keys in the car and run to the dirt bike track, barely breathing, crying out to God. And a quarter mile in I hear screams that stop me dead in my tracks. Screams that I pray I never hear again in person, because they haunt my mind enough already. Screams from a man that holds my heart.

“Help me. I hurt so bad, please help me. Why are you doing this to me?”

I fall to my knees. Nothing is right. I couldn’t take another damn step, and for this, I still beat myself up. I wish I had walked those extra steps to hold my dad’s hands. I wish I would have moved.

I hear blips around me ...

“He can’t be moved, he can’t feel anything. Broken back or neck, we don’t know …”

“We can’t get lifeline in here, the power-lines are too much …”

“We can’t move him via ambulance, he won’t make it …”

Oh GOD. GOD WHY. Why is this happening? I am screaming like a mad woman now. Calling my mom, my sister, my gram, my mom again. Screaming. Begging Jesus.

Don’t take my daddy Jesus.

Please don’t take my daddy. I’m not ready. Please Jesus don’t take my daddy.

I hear the sound of rotor blades and see a helicopter land. I vaguely remember my aunt racing past me and praying over my dad. I wish I was strong enough to do the same. They loaded my dad onto a stretcher and put him in the helicopter to take him to the hospital. My mom is racing to beat the heli and get there before he does. My aunt takes me by the arm and makes me move my car out of the middle of the street. We grab gear from the house and drive to the hospital. I post a prayer update and texts and calls flood in. One of my best friends meets me at the emergency room along with my family.

And we pray. And we beg God.

We find out he can’t feel anything. Then we find out a scan shows a mass in his bladder. Then we find out he has slight feeling in his toes. I see my mom try to be strong. I see my brother who is my dad’s clone crying alone in the corner. I pray my sister arrives safely.

Our world is upended and you want to know what I feel next?

Peace.

Jesus was there.

Jesus told me it was going to be okay.

Y’all. Jesus.

We go in to see my dad. We pray over him as a family after waiting to long to see with our own eyes that he’s alive. That my daddy is still here.

My dad is a strong man. But I saw sides of my dad I never thought I would see in this lifetime. I heard my dad tell his friend through watery eyes and a choked voice that he felt himself leave his body. He saw himself laying on the ground on that dirt bike track. And he begged Jesus to let him stay for his family.

That still wrecks me to this day. It’s something that will always make me cry.

I watched my dad fight for his life.

And I watched Jesus lay His hands on us daily.

My dad became septic in the ICU. Praise God my mom is a nurse and recognized it immediately. Praise God He saw fit to continue breathing life into my dad.

I saw my dad hold our hands and ask us if we could feel him squeeze. I wanted to lie. Every ounce of me wanted to tell him I could feel it. But my mom slowly shook her head, looked at my dad and said, “You’ll get it one day. You will.” And I watched my dad’s face drop. I heard him say, “I’m telling my arm and hands to move, but they’re not getting the signal.” The ICU was scary. It was heartbreaking and sickening. It was exhausting. It was where the trauma Doctor told my dad he would never walk again, and if he just happened to (which most likely wouldn’t happen) it would be months before he took his first assisted steps. I watched my dad laugh (yes, laugh in front of the trauma Doctor) and say, “Give me two weeks, I will walk again.” I saw the Doctor shake his head, look at his colleagues and walk out of the room. I saw my dad’s determination.

The spinal cord unit was just as bad, if not worse. I remember us having to watch my dad like a hawk, because the neck brace was holding his fractured C2 together. Multiple nurses would come in without reading his chart and would go to yank the brace off. The brace we were told wouldn’t come off for a minimum of 3 months. Not to shower, not to sleep, not for anything. I still get anxiety thinking about what could have happened if he didn’t have someone with him at all times.

I remember going home for the first time to sleep in my own bed and take a shower at my own house. I remember feeling really lonely. I remember waking up the next day to news that they were going to move my dad to a live-in rehab facility within the next day or so. I remember getting ready to relieve my mom at the hospital, standing in the middle of the kitchen, crying as worship music played in the dining room. And I will remember what came next clear as day, for as long as I live : Jesus spoke to me in the most audible and moving way I had ever experienced and have yet to experience again to this day.

Jesus told me my dad would walk again.

Not 30 seconds after Jesus spoke this to me, my mom, sister and cousin called me.

“Your dad just took his first assisted steps.” (And it didn’t even take two weeks, ya’ll. Go God!)

I crumbled to the ground in a heaping mess of sobs, crying out, “Thank You Jesus. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You Jesus.”

I remember my dad moving to RHI that afternoon. I remember the blessing of getting a private room (which we were told happens very rarely) and being able to sleep on a couch that night to watch him. I remember waking up to the morning nurse opening the curtains and telling my dad to get out of bed and to the dining room. I remember my dad giving a humorless laugh and telling her he couldn’t, that he was paralyzed. I remember wanting to simultaneously puke and cry at the same time.

I remember the first day of therapy. I remember him trying so hard he was shaking. I remember him trying to use humor to play off the pain. I will forever remember ‘Team Emily’s.’ The OT and PT that taught my dad to live a mostly normal life again. I remember the sessions of parallel bars, learning to walk again, my dad’s utter amazement that a body that has been stupid athletic can forget a task as simple as walking. I remember those bars progressing to table work, hallway walks, tasks with beads, clips, bars, bikes, electrodes, turkey shooting games, learning how to dress himself, shower again and brush his own teeth. I remember a day when he didn’t feel well and I went to the gym to tell Emily Moore that he wouldn’t make it to therapy, she told me she would come to him. I remember her coming to the room and stretching him and telling him to feel better. I remember the sweetness she exuded and the care she exemplified. I remember Emily Miller constantly pushing my dad. Her ornery level matched his, and God knew he needed that. I watched her goad him in games and tell him he could go faster. I watched her push him to be better.

I remember our goal of being out before Thanksgiving, and wanting so badly to be home again, but also being scared to death to not know how to handle our new normal. I’m not sure you ever settle in after trauma strikes.

Since that fateful day and the months and years that followed, we have had our ups and downs as a family. My dad fought bladder cancer twice since that night. (The mass they found tested positive for cancer and we more than likely would never have known until it was too late, so we count that blessing every chance we get that it was discovered amidst the chaos.) His latest scan this October was clear, praise Jesus. My dad fights pain daily. The spinal cord is an amazing thing that controls far more than I ever knew before this all happened. My dad’s nerves don’t receive the right signals since the night of his accident, because of his fracture in his C2 and spinal cord syndrome, the nerves in his body feel like someone is poking him with white hot needles everywhere, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. (An adult human body contains approximately 46 MILES of nerves. His are affected from his earlobes, down.) That’s 1,095 days of pain. We have had two tumor removal surgeries, two spinal cord stimulator surgeries, a rotator cuff surgery and are gearing up for what we are praying will be his most successful surgery to date. November 8th, at 11:30 AM a team will remove his spinal cord stimulators (unfortunately they didn’t work the way they were intended to) and will go into his butt to clip a nerve that we are praying releases the pain he feels in his butt and asking right alongside that for a miraculous relief from the pain in his feet. (It hurts my dad to sit, but it also hurts my dad to stand. Please pray with us for this surgery to be a tool God uses for a miracle for my dad.) My dad’s body can no longer differentiate between being hot and cold. We have to constantly watch for over-heating or hypothermia. His spams and pain are exacerbated in cold weather. He cannot tell when he gets cuts, so we have to watch for open wounds and infections. And yet amidst not being able to feel those things, he still deals with chronic pain daily. The hardest thing to date is seeing the pain etched in his face all the time. My heart feels like there aren’t enough pieces to break for the way he hurts, and yet he still pushes through every single day. I wish I could tell you that I am positive through it all, but I struggle.

I will never discredit what Jesus has done. He spared my dad’s life that day and in the days and months that followed. He has continued to do so and I will forever be grateful for that. As a girl who has the desire to be married, all I dreamed of as a little girl was to have her Dad walk her down that aisle. I am so thankful mine is still here to do so.

When I hear, ‘Counting every Blessing’ by Rend Collective I am reminded of His goodness.

“You were there in the valley of the shadows, You were there in the depth of my sorrow. You’re my strength, my hope for tomorrow. I’ve been blessed beyond all measure. I am counting every blessing, letting go and trusting when I cannot see. You are good to me.”

Multiple Doctors told us because of where my dad’s neck was fractured, he never should have lived. Behind that statement, they said he should have been on a trach his entire life (had a machine breathing FOR him.) Behind that statement they told us he should have been paralyzed, bound to a wheelchair, never to walk again. I stated at the beginning of this post that I cry selfishly because of all we have lost as a family, but I want to end with all that we still have as a family.

My dad is alive when he shouldn’t be.

My dad breathes on his own, when he shouldn’t be.

My dad is walking, and while he suffers from being an impartial paraplegic, and has spinal cord syndrome amongst the pain, he is WALKING, when he shouldn’t be.

Because of Jesus and his grace and mercy, one day my dad will walk me down the aisle. I still pray every day we will see more miracles and healing this side of Heaven. It is hard for me to lay down and accept that my dad may live his days out here in pain. It surely makes me yearn for Jesus’s return more than I ever did before the accident. But I also know one day, sooner than we imagine, Jesus will call us home and we will all be whole with Him. Until that day, I will continue to pray for healing - physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. And I will continue to ask Jesus to show Himself to those around us through my dad’s story.

I will continue to say, “Thank You Jesus.”

My Dad at one of his last races before his accident

My brother helping rub my dad's eyes. Before he regained movement in his arms, not being able to rub his own eyes was one of the things that bothered him the most.