I was doing a class project when we were on the side of Highway 231 in Glencoe,
Alabama, which is near Birmingham.
I'm a first grade teacher, and I was at school
the end of the day, and my husband came to school and got me and said Cole's
fine, he's still breathing, but he's been in an accident and they're
gonna med-flight him to Birmingham.
A drunk lady ran off the side of the road and hit
myself and another student.
About five days in, the doctors told us that he would have no meaningful
recovery, and that we needed to think about that and that if we wanted to
withdraw services that they they could do that and that hit us like
a ton of bricks, but the three of us, my husband and my daughter and I, we gathered
together and we prayed about it and we just had a hope, and we had a
peace that God didn't take him the first time when the accident happened and we
just felt like if He was ready for him, He would be the one to make that
decision.
Once they found out exactly what was going on with his GI bleed, they
were able to go in and fix that and he started getting healthy and then
Cole has a Pray for Cole page that his sister set up and there were a lot of
people sending us messages saying you need to go to Shepherd, you need to get
him to Shepherd.
When we first got to Shepherd he stayed in ICU for a
couple of days and that evening we realized that he didn't have
any tennis shoes we had worried about PT gear and making sure he had shorts and
t-shirts and things like that but we didn't think anything about tennis shoes
until the lady taking us over to housing, she had mentioned something about tennis
shoes and so I told my husband we've got to get tennis shoes, so my husband my
daughter Libba and I, we left that evening and that was the first time that
we had left him.
Having to go from having my own freedom to being where I needed
somebody with me 24/7 that was just a change of pace for sure
we're blessed that his dad and I were both able to be here with him during
this time and the housing just made it that much more easy, that was
something that we didn't have to think about, something we didn't have to take
care of and the proximity is so close that we
were able to just run grab a shower and get back and be able to be with him so
for me as a mom it was just an amazing
opportunity that Shepherd provided us with.
We live here now that
way we could just be in proximity to Shepherd, really take advantage of all the
programs that they have.
My goals are to get back to where I can be a part of ROTC
physically again, and hopefully join the Navy someday, that consists of going and
working out. I don't even realize that it's working out because I finish my
session, then I realized okay I'm a little bit tired, but during it's so fun
that I don't even realize I'm doing work.
He has yet to reach all of
his potential that he has made so much progress and just being able as a parent
to to see that and to watch that.
my advice would be to take every moment as
an opportunity to better yourself and listen to those around you as far as
therapists and doctors.
That's my advice to other parents, we have taken
advantage of all the opportunities of the peer groups and the parent groups
and just make sure you're in those and you're talking to other people just for
that encouragement to help keep you going.
Hope is here