Elizabeth Wiley

If you lived when you should have died, what word would you use to describe yourself?

On August 4, 2022 I was driving home after just after going out to dinner with my best friend. It had just been raining and I was driving around a curve. I hydroplaned and crashed into a tree! The whole left side of my body including my head hit the tree. I ended up having a broken pelvis, a fractured femur, and 4 brain bleeds!

The ambulance rushed me to the hospital where I ended up staying there for 2 months! I there, was in physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy. I had to relearn normal everyday tasks. I continued to do occupational, physical, and speech therapy for months following my discharge from the hospital. A word that has continued to be a constant nickname for me has been “miracle.”

I am literally a miracle! I had survived a very traumatic experience, in which I should have died! I have been told that my doctors didn’t even know if I would survive.

The night of my accident, August 4, I was rushed to the hospital and the paramedics didn’t even have the chance to ask of my name. They came up with a name to call me since they didn’t know my actual name. They called me “Hope”. Hope was my name because they HOPED that I would survive. I don’t know if that has the same effect that it does on me, but the fact that the doctors who took care of me HOPED that I would survive kind of gives clarity on just how severe the situation was. I was placed in a coma to let the swelling of my brain diminish. It was unknown if I would wake up from my coma. The doctors told my family and friends that it would be a miracle if I woke up.

I did wake up from the coma two weeks later. It was a miracle! I am a miracle. “Miracle girl” has been the nickname I have been given since then.

So what word would I use to describe my TBI journey? I would use the word miracle. Miracle describes my TBI journey as I was/am seen as miracle.