Elizabeth's Story - Latitude to Gratitude
"I was in a coma for two months."
My story starts just 2 years ago. I woke up in the morning, living with my parents, and went into the living room where they started yelling at me, both at the same time. This had never happened before.
I couldn't bear the pain in my heart, and I said to myself that it felt like they had let me go and that I should just end it all. A few minutes later, my mom said, "We're going on a walk, get ready Elizabeth."
I told her I just needed to get my shoes and I would meet her outside. We lived only a block away from the highway, where we were going to walk. As I was walking by the highway, I realized that I couldn't see my mom.
While standing there, I kept thinking that suicidal thought again, then I heard a voice in my heart say the same thing I was thinking. "They let you go; you should just end it all."
This was after I saw two semi-trucks pass by, and another one passed by going a little slow. Then I saw one speeding, and with that second voice, I knew I should do it. I walked straight into the front of the semi-truck.
I woke up after what felt like a weekend, shocked to see that I was in the hospital. When the nurse arrived, I asked what was going on. She said I got hit by a semi-truck and was in a coma for two months.
Then the memory hit me, and I was in shock that I was still alive. I was in the hospital for two more weeks, and they told my mom I would be in a disabled people's home for the rest of my life.
They had me in a wheelchair, and I had two broken shoulders and two broken sides of my hip. My brain was hit five times, and my forehead cracked open. They took that piece of my brain and put it in the freezer, then put it back in my forehead and metal stapled it shut.
These were all the things I had to come to reality with. When I left the hospital, they gave me a wheelchair, and I was still receiving food through my stomach. The home nurses came to change the bandaging on the back of my head and lead me through stretches. But I am healed now.
I am not giving myself the credit, but I was thinking healthy. Now, every day I wake up with a memory of being alive when I should have died, and I am so grateful beyond words.
Every day, I have gratitude in my heart and mind. I don't know how to live without it because living without it almost cost me my life. Don't be almost thankful; be grateful for whatever you have or whatever you do.
Every time I wake up, I am filled with gratitude in my heart and mind. You should be too. It changes everything
