| A Better Life for Dan... | Dan's Blog |
Our Faith & Beliefs |
Miracles do happen... I write this story for all of the people that have experienced a traumatic, life changing event such as a brain injury of any kind. These kind of events come without advance warning, and in an instant life has changed and will never be the same. Over twenty-one years ago, such an event happened to our family. On January 20, 1986 Dan was struck by a car while working on our car up a snowy canyon road. We had been tubing with a youth group on Saturday, and we met some friends in the canyon that had access to some snow mobiles. They invited us to come over and give our children a ride on the snow mobiles after we were finished with the tubing activity. We did and ended up going with them to their condo at Bear Lake to visit. After a full day, we headed for home (Logan, Utah) and had to travel through Logan canyon to get home. It was about midnight as we set out for home, and on the way our car broke down. We thought it was a fuel pump that had gone out, but instead it was the timing belt ( I now religiously service my timing belts...). Monday morning came, and it was snowing. Dan left to go up the canyon with a friend to retrieve the car, while I went to the office on work related duties (we owned a computer dealership in Logan at the time). Dan was squatting down by the car getting ready to unhook the drive line so they could tow the car, when another car came around the bend, lost control of their vehicle, crossed the on-coming lane of traffic, hit our car and the neighbor's pick-up and ran over Dan in the process. Dan was left rolled up in a ball against the rear tire of the pickup. Our friend, who had just previously walked around the back of the pickup, came to check Dan's pulse. Dan was pretty lifeless at that point and Pete (our friend) went to direct traffic around the scene as other cars had gone off the road. When he returned, he noticed a tear had welled up in the corner of Dan's eye, and he started to question him - “Dan, are you there?!” At this time, Dan started to make some signs of life. Pete immediately gave Dan a blessing (prayer) that he would be able to survive long enough to reach medical attention. Our friend (Pete's wife Colleen) had received word of the accident and called me to tell me what had happened. I immediately dropped what I was doing and rushed to the hospital. I arrived at the hospital before Dan did, and I watched helplessly as he was brought into the hospital on a stretcher from the ambulance. He was arching his back with every breath he took. He was fighting for his life... What you don't know is that Dan had experienced a very serious motorcycle accident almost two years prior to this accident. We were young entrepreneurs, and insured everything (business, cars, home, etc) except ourselves. We were young, healthy and strong! Nothing could happen to us! We were faced with what we thought were enormous medical bills that we had been paying on from the previous accident. I knew that we could not afford another round of medical bills as we still did not have any health insurance. This knowledge forced me to consider the seriousness of the accident and allow my heart to be willing to accept whatever God had in store for us. I immediately went into a secluded waiting room, knelt down and gave my heart to God. Whatever was to happen with Dan, please let it be His will, and bless me to be strong enough to get through the experience. Dan's injuries were too serious for him to remain at Logan Regional Hospital for treatment. They made arrangements to fly him to Salt Lake City via a life flight helicopter. I was told to hurry home and pack an overnight bag so that I could accompany him on the flight. While I was gone, the helicopter came, but was unable to land due to fog (caused by a temperature inversion). Dan's condition was so serious that they could not wait any longer, and he was sent via ambulance to the second facility of choice, McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden. I returned to the hospital only to find that my husband was on his way to Ogden via ambulance without me. That first day at the hospital was a blur... it is hard to describe the overwhelming feeling of having such a traumatic accident happen to a loved one. The best way to explain it is 'numbness'. I remember saying something funny in the elevator and everyone laughed, but I can't remember what I said. Only that the laughter brought a much needed release of stress. I remember chewing my food and forcing myself to swallow. I don't remember tasting the food, just the fact that I had to force myself to eat it. But through it all, there was a ray of hope. Later that evening, my Bishop (religious leader) came to the hospital and gave Dan a blessing. During that prayer he blessed Dan that he would be healed. I believed that Dan could be healed through the power of God, and during that prayer – I knew – that this would be the case. It wasn't a hope or a wish, but pure knowledge that told me it would be so. It is the most powerful experience I have ever had with prayer and faith. After this wonderful blessing, we were all thrilled! We had felt a promise from God to heal Dan and we believed it could be so. What happened next was totally unexpected. The doctor came to do his rounds and to visit with us as to the nature of Dan's injuries. Throughout the day, several doctors had been giving us a very grim prognosis, but this was the neurosurgeon. Surely he would be the best to explain what could be done for Dan! We gathered in a conference room and he took me by the hands. “Are you LDS?”, he said. (He was also a member of my faith – the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). I answered 'Yes'. He said, “Have you been married in the temple?” I again responded, 'Yes'. His answer was, “Then let go of him. If Dan couldn't be Dan, he wouldn't want to live. As a neurosurgeon I can not help him. He has sustained an injury to his brain stem, and I can not perform an operation that will help. Please... let go of him.” This answer stunned me. I sat there bewildered at what I had just heard. Had I not just recently felt powerful spiritual feelings that Dan would be healed? How could this be? Well, a week passed with no change to Dan's condition. He was in a coma with a Glascow coma score of a three to a four the entire week. I would sing hymns to him and talk to him while he was in his coma, even though the doctors were shaking their heads, saying 'the family' just didn't understand the severity of his accident. He had lost all involuntary functions of his body-- he could not breathe on his own, he could not maintain his own temperature. He had to lay on a cooling pad to keep his temperature down. His legs were covered with air filled plastic wraps that would pump up every few minutes to squeeze his legs and keep the circulation going. His head was shaved because they had inserted an intra-cranial shunt the first night after his accident to reduce swelling. He even had a lesion down the back of his head that they didn't stitch up the first day, because it was of 'minor' consequence. (I guess after he lived the first 24 hours, they decided to stitch it up....) On Sunday, my Bishop came to see me again. We had a long heart-felt conversation about Dan and his condition, where we looked to the scriptures for answers. He quoted me the story of Abraham and how Abraham's faith had been tested. Abraham was told to “take now thy son, thine ONLY son, whom thou lovest and ...offer him for a burnt offering...” It was almost as if the Lord was putting salt on the wound to ask Abraham to make this great sacrifice. After this discussion, the Bishop said to me, “LaNae, I believe you are strong enough to carry on if Dan were to die, and I also believe that you have the faith to believe that he can be healed. But, what if the miracle is you? What if he stays the way he is right now... can you live with that?” This option had not even crossed my mind! The reality was that Dan was seriously injured enough to be on the brink of death, and at the same time, I had felt very strongly that he would be healed. However, the thought of living with a disability had not entered my mind until that moment. Could I deal with Dan the way he was? What would happen if he lived, but didn't recover? That was the strong, overpowering reality that I had to face. It took me a couple of days to work through my thoughts and feelings on this. I knew I had been carried throughout the week by a Power greater than I. I felt lifted up on angel's wings as I knew that I had not made it through the week on my own abilities. Now came the BIG decision. COULD I go on with Dan in the condition that he was in? I knew that God loved me, and I knew that whatever was in store for me would be for my good, and so I resolved to put my trust in God. But I had to know what was God's will for me so that I could offer appropriate prayers. I was resolved to find this out. The next morning, I knelt down and said a prayer – it went something like this – I am willing to accept whatever is in store for me, but I just have to know what it is.... that day Dan opened his eyes for the fist time. First his eyes opened to a command (but nothing was there), then we watched as some life came back into his eyes. We watched as his sweat glands started to work again and he started to maintain his own temperature. We watched movement of his fingers on the left side of his body, and then some movement in his legs. We watched as the right side of his body started to respond. Slowly but surely over the next few months we watched him progress from a state of complete paralysis to walking with assistance. He couldn't walk on his own, but he could move his legs if another person were to balance him. When we left the hospital in May, we had 'Dan' back. He still had some mobility and speech problems, but his cognitive abilities were intact. We had witnessed a miracle! Today I am grateful for the experiences that I have had. Even though they are not the ones that I would choose for myself, I have gained a great appreciation to a loving Heavenly Father that answered a heartfelt prayer. I know there is a God in Heaven, and that He loves us on a very personal level. He is keenly aware of our pain, our sorrows and our struggles. He will bless us with strength to meet the challenges that come our way if we will but open our hearts to Him and allow Him into our lives. At times, we can catch a glimpse of His Power, and when we do, we stand in awe. I hope that by sharing our story, it will help you face the challenges that you have, and especially that you will gain the strength from Above to meet them. |
Two people can accomplish anything, if one of them is God.