“Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” ~Winston Churchill
We all fall down. And you’ve probably heard that getting back up is the key to moving forward.
But what do you do when disaster strikes? When a loved one is so injured, so debilitated, that hope seems to have vanished? What then?
This is a true story. It may be hard to believe and beyond what you may think is possible, but it actually happened.
It took place nearly thirty years ago.
Disaster
I picked up the blue referral sheet in the physical therapy office at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas one morning, like I always did.
Scribbled on the top of the page was a patient’s name and a room number in the Intensive Care Unit along with instructions: “Physical therapy – range of motion twice daily.” I was supposed to manually move the patient’s limbs and joints to maintain mobility.
As I walked into the room, I noticed that the patient was a young woman in her early twenties. I assumed that the people seated at her beside were her mother and father. The only sounds in the room were the pulsations of the ventilator, the intermittent beep from the IVs.
The young woman, I learned later from her medical file, had been strangled and left for dead. She suffered from anoxic encephalopathy—severe loss of oxygen to the brain.
She had few signs of life. Eyes shut. Body rigid. Non-responsive to touch. The family wanted my opinion and all I could say was that I would do everything I could to help. (more…)
