On June 14th 1997, my friend Jenn's whole destiny changed. She was 21 years old .She was the passsenger in a car driven by her sister Lisa. Lisa swerved, attempting to avoid a branch on the highway. The car went off the road and under a tree that had fallen in a storm earlier that week. The car got wedged under the tree. Upon arrival of emergency personnel, Jenn was found under the dashboard on the passenger side. She had sustained a traumatic brain injury when the car went under, and was posturing, a sign of severe neurological damage. Both girls were airlifted to a nearby trauma center. The prognosis for both girls was grim. Jenn held on, but Lisa's head trauma was just too severe to recover from. She passed away 10 days later. After a month in a coma Jenn's conditon gradually improved and she regained contiousness. That contiousness from day one was radically different then the one she had before. She had to grow up all over again, while in a rehabilitation hospital Not only did she have to face the reality of being permanently limited by the continual posturing (having limbs frozen in place, due to spaticity in muscles),and she also had to deal with the emotional trauma,memory loss, and fustration, and anxiety of not understanding what had happened to her, And later the profound loss of her younger sister. It has been a long 7 years for Jenn, a long recovery to try to regain what she calls a "normal" life. It had been hard at times to watch her have gains and set backs, physically and emotionally. There was a time though when it was not thought she would be able to live independantly, but she is, and I am so proud of her. She should be proud of herself too.

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