In August of 1994 I had just started back to school after summer vacation. I had decided to attend night classes with my best friend Alecia. About 2 weeks into school on August 24th, I borrowed Alecia's car to use for the afternoon. I shouldn't have even been driving alone, because I didn't even have a driver's license..But I foolishly made the decision to drop her off at work and keep her car.

No one would ever know. Was I ever wrong. I was heading back to drop by and see my boyfriend. I was pulling onto a four lane road at a busy intersection with no traffic light. I don't remember the crash. I guess I didn't see the car coming, or maybe the little straight shift car I was driving hesitated. What ever the case, I was hit broadside on the driver's door, by an Explorer that was traveling at about 65 m.p.h. I am told I was unconcious and barely breathing when help arrived. My car was on fire under the hood, and fortunately 2 or 3 fire extinguishers appeared on the scene, as well as an off duty E.M.T. who immediately called Life Flight. They used the jaws of life to extract me from the car and transported me to a trauma center in Atlanta. My spleen was removed first , then they determined that my brain was bruised.

But by the following day, my neurosurgeon realized there was much more serious damage than that. I was in a coma for 2 months, went through 2 bouts of pneumonia, woke up unable to respond at all. I just laid and stared.

To make things a little more complicated I was pregnant. This news was giving to my mom along with the news that I could die. Anyway, the decision was made that I should have the baby. Slowly I began to regain some function. I was able to sit in a wheel chair, began to relearn to talk, and several months into rehab, started learning to eat again. I stayed in Rehab until my little girl was born in April of 95. Then we both went home. She was a healthy 41/2 pound little bundle of joy, that I wasn't able to care for. My Mom took over that job for me, and I continued out patient therapy and learned to walk again.

Today I can handle the everyday routine of caring for myself physically. I still have some mental deficits to deal with. My short term memory is terrible, but has made some improvements lately it seems. I deal with the frustrations common to other tbi survivors. I have lost friends and in many ways don't feel like I fit in. I can't drive, and I haven't been able to work yet, but I hope someday I can. Sometimes I laugh too much, or at things I shouldn't laugh at. Sometimes I think things have happened that have not happened.

I hope that in the future maybe I can give hope to the family of a TBI survivor. I want them to know that just because a doctor says somebody will never do something again, (like wake up, walk, talk, or even live,) doesn't mean it is necessarily so. I am living proof. I wasn't suppose to wake up, but here I am, back in the game. There is always hope.

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Rebecca's Homepage (with Pictures) http://community.webtv.net/MeridithFH/BECCASHOMEPAGE