Watching from the Outside

“WATCHING FROM THE OUTSIDE”

In 2004, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Kirsten Timmons at a Christmas dinner. She was a nurse practitioner, working with my husband, who was a physician at the Emergency Department.

It was an honor to sit next to her that night. My husband had described her as the best nurse practitioner he had ever worked with, and she was a bright, beautiful young woman, with flashing green eyes and long dark hair. She was witty, intelligent and quick. She talked rapidly of her little girl, and we conversed about the impending birth of my son and the balancing of motherhood and work. I was enchanted by her. I felt like I was sitting next to the cool, smart girl in high school.

For her, life as that girl ended shortly after. 

She wasn’t at the Christmas dinner the following year. A week previously she had been involved in a serious car accident on an icy night. Her husband, driving a separate vehicle, on their way out to dinner to celebrate her announcement that day of her pregnancy, watched helplessly as a truck smashed into Kirsten’s vehicle.  He called 911, then set into  working  tirelessly, alone,  to see if he could free her from the vehicle, smashing the window with his fist, and then made himself stand back as the paramedics arrived to release Kirsten and took her to the same Emergency Room where she was an employee . Her friends, colleagues and a combination of both began work on her, diagnosing a broken hip, wrist and unknown brain bleeding.

The pregnancy, so newly known, and not even yet completely celebrated, became a secondary issue, in the midst of CAT scans and X-rays. The focus was on saving Kirsten, and it was agreed that there was little hope for the 6-week old fetus, now subjected to a barrage of radiation.

Kirsten remembers nothing. Not only this night, but a two- year period following the accident. Both her husband and her daughter became strangers to her. Photographs taken that Christmas, on the occasion that Kirsten had physically healed enough to be allowed out of hospital for the day, showed a vacant and blank gaze on her newly- scarred face. She holds her daughter in that photograph, but didn’t understand who or what she meant, when previously Emily had been everything to her.

The journey had just begun. It has been a journey of 8 years, and of incredible recovery and perseverance. It is a story of hope for all those suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury, all the more compelling because it is told from the point of view of the one in the process of healing. 

Kirsten had the blessing of a driven husband, whose goal was to heal her. Even while she still lay in hospital, relearning basic functions, he had arranged for an extended stay with friends in another town so that she would be able to attend grueling rehabilitation days at a specialized clinic. She responded to commands obediently, and was a compliant patient, yet unable to make decisions or take initiative on her own for even simple concepts, such as the necessity of brushing one’s teeth.  However after the two months treatment was completed, she was remarkably able to take a driving exam and began the journey of getting back on the saddle, which she did with remarkable courage.

My husband remarked that the birth of her son, several months later, was the closest thing to a miracle that he had ever witnessed. He stated that there was no reason that Jacob should not have suffered terrible birth defects due to the necessary diagnostic equipment the night of the accident. And yet he was perfect. Jacob was Kirsten’s incentive. In her own way she determined that once he was born, she would be back to normal. It was of course, not true, but it was a step to a new definition of something tolerable as normal.

Kirsten’s learning curve was always steep. In the course of the first two years, she relearned being a wife, mother, homemaker and the innumerable tasks and responsibility that goes along with the position. It was a long journey to where she is now.

Over the years, I have seen her go from a young woman unable to hold a simple conversation, slow in speech and manner, to a poised, intelligent, and vivacious girl that is almost the twin of the woman I sat next to at that Christmas dinner.

The most fascinating part of her recovery is that she has always had an awareness of who she was before. That has been her goal line, that memory and understanding of her former self. She has been unable to return to her prior career, but has thrown herself into full-time motherhood and volunteering in community, school and church events.

You would not know now what she went through. Just these last few years, she has developed an ability to see beyond the concrete and reach for more profound concepts such as trying to understand and make peace with a purpose of the accident, discovering and learning about faith in this process. She has always been able to follow commands and instructions, has an excellent memory and understanding of numbers and formulas. The ability to process the “bigger picture” has been her latest evidence of continual healing. She now believes that she has a greater appreciation for her life and her family and her God because of the accident. She also sees that she has an ability to spread hope to others, and she has a very definite belief that recovery will take the rest of her life.

Over the course of the last year, I have noticed subtle changes, an ability to understand and create humor, a greater awareness of situations in which inhibitive skills should be invoked, the understanding of the use of sarcasm and other subtle body language changes that we all process without even being aware of.  It has been a remarkable story to watch unfold. And it gives me hope when I see situations such as the most recent one of Gabby Gifford. I know that such, for all intents and purposes, complete healing, cannot be possible in all situations, but watching where Kirsten began does encourage me greatly.

 That girl at the Christmas dinner? 
She has returned.
God bless you all.   
We know how valuable our lives are.
Look for a book on Kirsten’s experience coming out in 2013.