Paintings

Art has always been a very important part of my life. Before the coma I was an art major and had been creating art for as long as I could remember. Unfortunatly I lost almost everything I ever owned when I got sick, however by the grace of God I did manage to hang on to a few of my old paintings. I would like to show the progression of my art before the coma to my art after the coma. I think you will be able to see that I sort of had to relearn a lot of things. and ofcourse I am always learning. Here are the paintings from before the coma and here are some of the paintings from after the coma...

and finally getting back to my old self....

so what do you think?

Having Faith and Memories

The harder I try to be a good Christian the harder it gets. There is always some sort of obstacle trying to get in my way. It certainly makes it harder sometimes to keep the faith. I wonder what would have happened if my family had given up faith while I was in the coma. I doubt I would be alive right now. They would have unplugged me. I am so blessed to have a family who cared so much that they turned their lives upside down to stay by my side and keep faith that I would recover.

I've been told, that while in the coma my left lung collapsed. I had some sorta blockage somewhere, I had a staff infection, my organs began to shut down, I had influenza (I think) I got down to 85 lbs, a lot of my hair fell out and I lost a tooth. Which I am very much aware of because my front tooth is gone. I had a trach and a feeding tube.

I don't remember the trach and I don't remember much about the feeding tube except -

~dream sequence~

I remember that depending on how I laid in my bed I could hear voices. Like different radio stations. These were not the voices of people in my room. If I laid my head in a certain place on the mattress I might here a room full of children. I remember when they left I was very sad. In another position I could hear two boys outside the hospital trying to get in. Another position might let me hear other people talking. One such position held a pair of people who told me how I could commit suicide. They told me if I pulled the feeding tube out of my belly I would lose all the nutrients and die. So I did. I think I did this more than once and I would get in trouble by the nurses. I remember one time right after being fed through the tube I pulled it out and it leaked fluid on the bed. I laid on the wet spot until the nurses found out what I had done. I don't remember neccesarily wanting to die, but apparently I did.

When I was released from the hospital I still had the tube in my belly. I don't remember what it felt like though, or even looked like. I had to wear bandages over the wound for a while though once it got taken out.

Isn't it strange what we remember?

I did what?

According to my family I've been in the back of a police car, an ambulance and a helicopter. Are you kidding me? I don't have the faintest recollection of any of these things. I'm not saying I would cherish a ride in a police car or even an ambulance, but to not remember the experience... it seems a shame. Especially to not remember a helicopter ride.

I thank God that I don't remember the terrible things that my body went through while I was sick. I only wish my family didn't have to suffer through it. I can only imagine what they went through. To this day it blows my mind that they stood by me through all of it. Not just through the coma but afterwards.

At age 23 (almost 24) I had to move back in with my parents. I was pretty much like a child again. My mother had to sleep in the same room with me for months because I had horrible nightmares. I went to therapy four days a week to relearn many basic things that most people take for granted. My recovery process was long, and yet they stood by me the entire time. (More like carried me)

You might think that I have all sorts of questions about why I got sick. Why me? What caused it? Why did I survive it? So on and so on, but I don't.

I know why.

God saved me.

He knew He had to get me out of the situation I was in. He allowed me to get sick and hit my rock bottom so He could get me back on the path of His will.

He has a reason for me to live and although I'm still not exactly sure what that reason is, I know that he is leading me toward it. Or perhaps I'm living it right now.

I believe we make our own decisions. God has a path for us and we can follow it or we can go our own way. That doesn't mean that He will not help lead us back to his path. We may take a detour or two but if we believe that Jesus died for us and repent of our sins he will forgive us and give us another chance. I have been given another chance.

I'd like to quote a prayer from a book I am reading right now.

A Prayer for Joy

Help me, O God,

To listen to what it is that makes my heart glad

and to follow where it leads.

May joy, not guilt,

Your voice, not the voices of others,

Your will, not my willfulness,

be the guides that lead me to my vocation.

Help me to unearth the passions of my heart

that layed buried in my youth.

And help me to go over that ground again and again

until I can hold in my hands,

hold and treasure,

Your calling on my life...

-from Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire

I know that the events of my life have happened for a reason. I know that God has shown mercy on me and I want to glorify Him. It is the smallest thing I can do. I've been praying that He would show me what it is I am to do. I know I must be patient (which is not my best quality).

Apparently staying on topic is also not my best quality. Let me regroup.

continued

Ok, where were we? Oh right, waking up from the coma. Well, I'll spare you the gory details for right now.

Let's skip ahead two years to 2004. I've been though a lot but now I feel like I'm recovered. Which I know realize was sort of like a drunk person thinking they are sober. I started attending a technical college where my father worked and the first week of school I met my now husband.

Skip to present. 2010. We've been married since September 2007 and we have a wonderful amazing 15 month old son.

How did it all come to this? God's Grace.

God took me out of a bad situation and saved my life in more ways than one. At the time it may have seemed horrible. It may have made no sense at all but God knows what he is doing. He gave me new life. I may have laid in a hospital bed for five months but God got my attention. His forgiveness and grace is more than I can even imagine. Although I have felt it touch my own life.

Know that you know the jist of the story, let me explain.

the beginning

My story is a great story, one so amazing and full of God's grace that I do not know where to begin. So I'll just take a deep breath, trust in the Lord, and start.

I grew up as most Southerners do, with a religious family. We went to church although as a child I disliked it. I was shyer than most and disliked having to interact with others. (I've completely outgrown that). I knew who the Lord was and was baptized at a young age... but okay, let's get past all of this. Let's get to the nitty gritty of why I'm starting this blog.

In 2002 I went into a coma. A five month coma. The doctors said I would not make it. They said if I survived I would be a vegetable for the rest of my life. Now, I'm no expert but I don't think a rhudabaga could be typing this. So, here is my story.

It was August 2002. I was living in a small town in Vermont. I remember not being happy because my living situation was less than ideal, but there must have been something else wrong me. Apparently I lost my memory. I remember not being happy and deciding to move back to Rome, Ga where I had gone to college and met my then husband. We got a moving van and packed up. The next thing I remember is being in Kingston, Tn driving through the fog looking for my ex father in laws house. The next thing I remember is sitting in Rome, Ga crying. Then looking at an apartment we were supposed to move into.

Skip five months and I'm in a caged hospital bed.

Have you ever seen a caged hospital bed? They zip on the outside so the occupant of the bed cannot escape.

I cannot claim that memories from this point on are in any sort of order or even if they are true. The mind is powerful thing and my mind was messed up. My thoughts get all scrambled up from what people have told me, what I have dreamed and what I think really happened. So bear with me while I regroup.