Prognosis Hope: A Care Givers and Care Seekers Guide to Empowered Care

Chapter 1

Divine Intervention

You are full of unshaped dreams…you are laden with beginnings…there is hope in you…

–Lola Ridge

As I pulled over into the emergency lane, with steam coming up through the hood, I was so disappointed that once again my journey to college was being delayed. Only a week before, my car had overheated for the first time. The engine had gotten so hot that the block actually cracked, and the engine had to be rebuilt. If this had been any other car, I might have just left it behind. However, this was no ordinary car. She was the Green Queen, a 1969 Cougar with a 351 Cleveland engine under her hood and I had worked three jobs to pay for her. This was the car that would be with me through college and medical school. At the ripe old age of 19, she was my prized possession. She was also a reminder to me that hard work paid off and when you wanted something you go after it and give it your all. The guy I bought her from only wanted $1,800.00. He gave me three months to come up with the money. When I handed him the cash, before the 90 days were up, he seemed pretty impressed. He gave me the keys and said, This car is old, but solid, and if you take care of her, she will take care of you. I gave him my word that I would take really good care of her and told him about the journey ahead for me and the Green Queen.

That journey began with a cross-country road trip from California to Pennsylvania. I had been accepted into the University of Pittsburgh, where I would complete my Bachelor of Science degree and then hoped to head to medical school after that. Cindy, my best friend from middle school, had flown into San Diego to do the road trip with me. We thought we’d have a little fun before we both had to get serious about our college careers. My mom, Linda, had decided to relocate back to her home state of Pennsylvania, so she would also be making the trip with us. Our plan was to drop Cindy off in Missouri, where she currently lived, and my mom and I would continue to Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, on day one of our road trip, as we entered Arizona, the Green Queen was not happy. I had never experienced any mechanical issues with my car until that day. However, I also had never driven in 115 degrees. I can’t remember how many times we pulled over to let her cool down. When the light-colored steam turned to thick black smoke just outside of Gila Bend, I knew we were done. This was beyond anything we could fix.

As fate would have it, there was someone we knew who lived in Phoenix and could help. My mom and I had both worked for a guy named Bill in San Diego. His brother-in-law, Jim, lived in Phoenix and happened to be great at working on cars. After finding a payphone, we made the call and he agreed to help us. When Jim said that it would take several days, but he was pretty confident he could rebuild the engine, my heart soared with hope. Although my mom was not completely thrilled about this situation, the decision was made that I would stay in Phoenix with the Green Queen and she and Cindy would drive ahead to Missouri, where I would meet them in a week or so. Jim’s wife, Nancy, was very kind and agreed to let all of us stay with them that night and for me to extend my stay with them until my car was fixed. Because my mom was not happy about me driving to Missouri by myself, Nancy offered for her cousin, Lyle, to drive with me. I had never met this guy before and was not all that interested in having him as my travel companion. However, who was I to make demands at this point, so I acquiesced. But from that moment on I felt guarded and certain something really bad was going to happen on this trip.

A week later, as my car overheated for what would be the last time, I wondered if my doomsday thoughts had brought this to life. Was this the really bad thing that I felt so deeply would happen? Or was this just the fact that the Green Queen was 16 years old and not capable of functioning in this type of heat? As I put on my hazard lights and got out of my car to assess the damage, I realized it really didn’t matter. Here we were, in the middle of Arizona, well outside of the city, with no way of communicating for help. If the Green Queen could not recover, we were basically stuck and would have to wait for someone to stop and help us. It was mid-day and the temperature was 121 degrees. We had diet coke and a few snacks with us. We realized quickly that this situation could be quite serious. It was a Wednesday, and this stretch of highway was not populated nor heavily traveled. In fact, when I started thinking about the last time we had passed another vehicle my concern grew. I decided the best thing to do was to get the hood up which might cool off the engine and also let any passersby know the car was disabled.

While I stood in front of my car with Lyle, that doomsday feeling returned. The engine smelled hot and the heat coming up from the highway felt like it was actually melting my flip-flops. One car passed by, and I watched to see if they might pull over to help us, but they kept on going. While I was thinking of options, I thought I heard Lyle say something. I looked over to see what he was saying and realized he was staring at the engine also deep in thought. Then I heard it again, Get back in the car. The voice was clear like someone was physically speaking to me. Before I realized just what I was doing, I told Lyle we needed to get back in the car. I sat back in my seat and propped my right foot on the center console, trying to get comfortable, knowing that we most likely had a long hot afternoon of waiting ahead of us. Within what had to be less than two minutes, I looked into the rear-view mirror and in the distance saw what I thought was a car coming towards us. The heat coming up off the highway distorted my view, but I could see that there was indeed a car approaching and it was entering the emergency lane. Hooray! Help had arrived! I was about to get out of the car to greet the Good Samaritan, when the same voice, this time much louder said, stay in the car.

Watching in my rear-view mirror, the heat waves made the car look as though it was moving in slow motion. For just a moment I was mesmerized by the realness and fluidity of the mirage I was seeing. Then my awareness turned back to the car. Something was wrong. The car seemed to be accelerating and was approaching way too fast. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Why weren’t they slowing down? I barely got the words oh God out of my mouth before we were rear-ended at a speed of more than 85mph. The sound from the impact was deafening. It felt as though the inside of my car exploded as chards of glass came from every direction. I cringed and held on to the steering wheel as I felt the force of the impact throw me forward. Simultaneously the car lunged forward and to the right sending us down a steep embankment. I wanted to put my foot on the brake, but it was still on the center console. I attempted to pull my leg down, but now there didn’t seem to be enough room. It felt like my seat had been pushed forward and I was in this weird bent position. When we finally came to a stop, there was a very strong odor of gasoline. Instinct took over and I knew we needed to get out of the car.

As we stood at the top of the embankment, I had no idea how we had gotten out of the car and were now in this spot. It felt like we had teleported there. I turned to look down at the Green Queen and was completely shocked by what I saw. She was literally half the car she had once been. The rear end was completely folded into what had been the back seat. The back seat was now pushing into the front seats. I was in total disbelief and began shaking uncontrollably feeling as though I was going to collapse. I grabbed onto Lyle’s shoulder, so I wouldn’t fall. He looked over at me and said, you’re bleeding. I looked down to see multiple streams of blood running down my legs. As I looked up at the sky, I realized I was now lying down. A man with a very bloody face was looking down at me and trying to talk to me but his words were slurred, and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I thought I should get up and help him, but when I tried to, a woman with a very kind voice said, you need to stay still. I wanted to look up to see her face but couldn’t because she was holding my head, so I couldn’t turn my neck. I wondered how long she had been here with me. She seemed to know what she was doing so I listened to her.

I could hear bits and pieces of many conversations going on above and around me. Apparently, the man who rear-ended us was drunk because they found open beer cans in his front seat. He had thought my car had been moving, but when he saw the hood up he swerved and as a result hit the driver’s side of the rear end of the car. Another man was telling someone that he and his wife had passed us but then heard the impact and came back and were actually the first people to get here. It sounded like a truck driver had been the one to call the police to report the accident. As I listened, I kept seeing the car coming towards us in the rear-view mirror and then going through the crash over and over again. It felt like a movie that was on auto replay and my brain couldn’t stop it. Even when I closed my eyes it was still there and running with flashes of the man with the bloody face. It was just too much, and I began to cry. Right now, more than anything, I wished my mom were here. The woman who was holding my head reassured me that everything was going to be ok, and then we heard the sirens in the distance. This time help really was arriving.

After being evaluated at the hospital, I was diagnosed with a concussion and whiplash. Thankfully, Lyle had sustained no injuries and at the time mine seemed to be fairly minor. As we waited for Jim and Nancy to pick us up, I kept thinking about the voice I heard telling me to get in the car and then again to stay there. Had we still been in front of my car when the drunk driver hit us we would have been killed instantly. In my heart I truly believed Divine Intervention had saved our lives. As for the woman at the scene who helped me, it turned out that she had been in the car with her husband and they had passed us just before the accident happened. They had heard the impact, and as a nurse, she felt compelled to come back and help us. Once I was able to talk to my Mom, of course the first thing I wanted her to know was that I was ok. But I also wanted her to