Let me tell you a little personal background information first. I am a registered nurse, in fact, the day of the accident, I had taken my 16 year old son to the DMV to take his driving test for the 2nd time, he'd failed once already the week before. He passed so he got his first driver's license. I let him drive home from the DMV where he was going to switch to an old Mustang we'd bought him, and then he was going to go to high school and I was going to see some patients I saw in their homes that were expecting me. I worked for a Home Health place here in Las Vegas. Instead the course of my life changed forever that day. While driving home my son came up to what he thought was a 4 way stop. He stopped, then pulled out in front of a gravel truck, fully loaded, heading from the gravel pits on our side of town.

My son, Clint, thinking it had to stop pulled out in front of it, not knowing that it didn't have to stop, the intersection was only a 2 way stop. The truck was on the gravel truck route, and the truck hit the drivers side of my brand new Chevy Prism, (3 weeks old), my son, Clint, was not wearing a seat belt, and neither was I. The police said that if he'd been wearing his seat belt, he'd have been crushed and killed and I would have walked away, without a scratch. The truck dragged us 80 feet before it stopped, and I think we had to be cut out of the car. My memory is totally blanked out of the accident occurring. The last memory I have of that day was talking to my boss for Hospice nurses on my cell phone at the DMV waiting for Clint while he took his driving test with my car. I also saw patients in their homes for hospice ss well as for Home-Health nursing. As you can see I was one busy , productive lady then!

Clint was knocked unconscious, suffered a pneumothorax, some cracked ribs and a broken collar bone on his left side. He remembers coming to in the ambulance. I was much more seriously injured, I had to be resuscitated, either at the scene, or in route to the trauma center, at UMC, where I underwent emergency surgery for a hemothorax (bloodclot) on my brain, and abdominal exploratory surgery. My husband was notified at work of my accident and he called my two places I worked at that they'd have to get someone else see those patients and he informed them of my auto accident. Nurses from both agencies showed up at the hospital and reviewed my records and status and knew how seriously I had been injured, and that my death was expected imminently. The Chaplain for Safe Harbor Hospice, (now called Odyssey) held a prayer service for me at a Lutheran church and invited all the nurses from In-House Home Health as well. I know they came because a book was given to me later where the people who attended this prayer service had signed in and wrote notes of encouragement to me. All the members of my ward congregation were asked to fast and pray for me all on the same day. My parents, in Utah, who were temple workers in the Logan, Utah, a temple for the Mormon church, had my name written on the prayer list of names prayed for by those attending the temple that day for all the temples in the western United States that day. Prayer is a tangible force, a power for good here on this earth!

Many people ask me what was the 1st thing I thought or felt when I came out of my coma, about 3 weeks after the accident. What I felt, was the incredible feeling of power by being thought of by many and them praying for my recovery to God. I could feel his love and compassion for me, and I believe this communication led to my incredible experience with Christ in that heavenly garden. I now no longer hope that there is heaven and that Christ's life experience and atonement are real, Now I know! Just like I know that I gave birth to all 5 of my children and tangibly held them in my arms. My testimony of Christ burns within me, now when I think of him, I have a visual memory of him looking at me there in that heavenly garden. The love and concern in his eyes for me is overwhelming if I think about it too long I feel emotionally overwrought.

Since my accident all my emotions have been on the surface, many would think I'm emotionally immature, like a kid. I am an innocent, emotionally, I say what I think, I'm very honest, but I've never said anything cruel or hurtful to anyone, just my observations surprise people, and quite often they don't quite know how to take me. My husband is very protective of me, but he is often happily surprised how I say & do things now. He quite often says now I've lost the cautiousness I used to have in conversations with others, he says my nievete is refreshing. I now pray each day for and follow the promptings of the spirit of whom I should talk to & about what, my soul tells me who I should speak with and whom is distracted by other things, who wouldn't listen to what I had to say and if they have good motives.

I was in a Convalescent Care Center for about a month, that's where I came out of my coma. Then I went to a Rehabilitation Hospital for 2 days. They had told my husband that I'd receive physical therapy and speech therapy & occupational therapy everyday and that these therapies would aid in my recovery but progress was very slow. My parents had come from Utah to see me and assist in my care, because my husband had to go to work each weekday. So what we all came up with was that I would go home and my parents would stay for as long as I needed their help, and that I would receive the therapies I needed from In House Home Health, from my friends. Basically all my rehabilitative therapies have been done in my home. From walking around my house, exercising, walking around the block with my physical therapist from throwing & catching a foam ball with my affected side, to carrying a weight in my left hand while exercising. The exercises got even more complicated when the occupational therapist starting making visits. I had lots of memory exercises and hand eye coordination stuff to do, and in between their visits I was doing rehabilitative stuff for myself just by doing things caring for our home, instead of being tied in a bed peeing on myself because no one answered my call button to untie me and take me to the bathroom. Everyone rallied around me, my Dad would massage my sore spastic muscles each morning after I got out of a jacuzzi tub we have in our master bathroom, and then we'd go for a walk together, this is during the same period of time the therapists were coming to the house. My parents stayed for 1 month, then I was able to care for myself at home. The ladies in my church all signed up at a Relief Society meeting for different days of the week to go walking with me. I now have many interested friends, involved in my life, because they had volunteered then to go walking & talking with me.

If you want to read more about me check out my poetry by clicking here and what I do to be able write it.

Email Derry