Post #164 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
July 2011 Memoir Contest
Kendra and I are pleased to publish Valerie Benko’s Honorable Mention story from our July Memoir Writing Contest. Congratulations Valerie for sharing your storytelling abilities with us.
Memoir Contest Winner
FIGHTING FOR INDEPENDENCE
By Valerie Benko
As I drove my Nissan Sentra through the rural town of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, I was relieved that the normally congested streets were virtually empty. The university campus, which is the heartbeat of the town, was silent now that the future graduates had returned home for the summer.
That summer before my senior year of college, I signed a one year lease on an apartment with two of my friends. We planned to remain in our apartment over the summer and work the same jobs we held during the school year. My mother was less than thrilled with the idea. She didn’t want me to have to worry about rent and utility bills when it all could be wrapped up into a nice student loan payment if I stayed on campus. Looking back, my decision allowed me to return to college my senior year and keep my independence.
It was July 3rd and I rolled my window down to feel the warm breeze as I drove to my sister’s house. She was going away for the holiday weekend and didn’t want to leave her new dog home alone. I agreed to puppy-sit that night and take the dog to her mother-in-law’s house in the morning. I’d then stay with her to view the fireworks.
The next morning, I watched the dog romp around the yard, reluctant to let him in my car. Something didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the overcast sky. Maybe it was a premonition. I kept finding excuses to delay my trip like using the bathroom and then wanting a soda. Finally, I loaded the dog and left.
I was less than a mile away from my sister’s house when I came up over a grade and collided with a truck that had run a stop sign.
Whenever I had imagined a car wreck, I pictured broken glass, crunching metal and blood. So the moment I slammed on the brakes and realized there was not enough time to stop, I prepared myself for the windshield to shatter. Instead, all I heard was a soft pop and the hiss from the radiator.
Stunned that I was fine and wanting to check on the other driver, I slid the gearshift in park and unbuckled my seatbelt. I tried to reach for the door handle, but try as I may I couldn’t move my neck to look in the direction of the door. I was confused and scared. It was so simple. So why couldn’t I do it? And then the pain came.
A neighbor, hearing the noise, ran out. As soon as she saw the situation, she called an ambulance. I was whisked to the hospital while paramedics assured me I’d be fine. My sister’s mother-in-law met me in the ER and frantically called my family members who were all out of town.
I was strapped to a backboard on a gurney and pain radiated from a goose egg on the back of my head. My knee throbbed where it had hit the steering column. An emergency room nurse pressed on the back of my neck and I let out a yelp as a voltage of searing pain shot through my body.
The nurse hastily informed me I had broken my neck and hurried off before I could react. My heart leapt into my throat. Didn’t people die when they broke their neck?
She returned with a syringe and plunged the inch long needle into my thigh. The pain faded away as I slipped into a drug induced haze.
I lay in the ER for six hours while the doctors debated if they should airlift me to a Pittsburgh hospital. Finally, they decided to keep me there and moved me into a hospital room. As the nation celebrated its independence, I started fighting for mine.
The next morning, the neurologist informed me that I was a “very lucky girl.”
He explained that people do in fact break their necks and live. Sometimes they are fine and other times they are paralyzed. But people who break their C2 vertebrate rarely survive because the nerve that controls breathing runs through the C2 vertebrate. Whenever that vertebrate breaks, it severs the nerve and the victim suffocates. I crushed my C2. I was in for a long recovery.
I was released from the hospital four days later and was transferred to a hospital bed in my mother’s living room where I remained for the rest of the summer. Visiting nurses checked on me weekly to make sure I wasn’t developing pneumonia from bed rest.
That summer I learned a lesson in humility as I had to rely solely on my mother to bathe me, dress me and help me use the bathroom. She hadn’t seen me nude since I was a pre-teen!
Walking had to be done carefully and sometimes movement would send me reeling since my equilibrium was off. Once I passed out in my mother’s arms.
As August faded into September I started worrying about my senior year of college. I did not have the ability to look down to climb stairs and I couldn’t carry or lift any weight. Returning to college was supposed to be out of the question. Against his better judgment, the neurologist cleared me to return to my apartment. Had I been scheduled to live in the dormitory, I would have missed my senior year.
After making special arrangements, the university provided a key to access the elevators in the classroom buildings. I got a rolling backpack to haul my books to class. Simple things became challenges like navigating on gravel and carrying a tray in the cafeteria. But I refused to give up the freedoms I once had.
I learned to change my cervical collar myself to a foam one for showering then back again to the rigid plastic one once I was dry. I mastered dressing myself and preparing simple meals, like a sandwich. It would have been easier to stay home with my mother, but my spirit wouldn’t let me quit.
Graduation Day with my two roommates.
