The Day that My Heart fell in love with Hope

It is not unusual for you to find my family celebrating. We celebrate everything. We love birthdays, graduations, promotions and any event that promotes an opportunity to laugh, have fun and be together. My husband created birthday weeks. On the Sunday before your birthday, you begin celebrating your birthday for the entire week. This was a great solution in a big family when we often didn’t have the money for the “big” gift that a child may concentrate on. So we celebrate them everyday so that they can control the outcome of what happened for the day. For example, the birthday person can choose what we have for dinner. They can choose activities that are available in our area that don’t cost a lot of money and they can decide what the family will do throughout the week. We have theme parties, scavenger hunts and take advantage of all the restaurants and businesses that celebrate you on your day. We love to celebrate and learned that the celebration of the child was often the biggest gift of all and not the present that was often expensive and died after the enthusiasm wore off. For my son Jordan’s 29th birthday, we asked him how he wanted to celebrate. Jordan said that he wanted to ride electric scooters in a near by park and eat Korean Barbeque. It became the plan of the day.

My husband and I carved out time in our schedule and met Jordan at the park. I had never written a scooter - but I had experience riding a Segway and decided the prior experience was enough for me to know what I was doing. After renting the scooters, we started on the journey. My son went first up a hill and I attempted to follow him. As I attempted, I excelerated the scooted and did a 360 on the scooter falling to the ground. I screamed as I fell and found myself on the ground. We were not going to make it to Korean Barbeque. It happened so fast, and I began to feel pain in my left wrist..a throbbing that continued to increase. Phreddie and Jordan immediately went into emergency mode. Phreddie wanted to carry me to the car, but decided against that due to the damage that was evident with my leg. It wasn’t a good idea. As I looked at my knee, I could tell that is was completely displaced. I only looked once. The first look was enough to shock me and there was not need to look again. Both of them decided to call an ambulance. They both had pillows, blankets and first aid items in their car. They took turns getting the things they thought would bring me comfort as I lay on the ground. By this time, I had started doing the short breaths that you learn in childbirth. I was controlling my breathing and concentrating on the breathing rather than the pain that was continuing to intensify as I laid there. Emergency personal arrived and they were unable to treat my injuries. The protocol would be to wait for the ambulance to get me to a higher level of care. We continued to wait for the ambulance and it seemed as if it took forever. As the ambulance arrived, I heard someone yelling my name “ Terrilyn, why are you laying on the ground?” You should have just come to the house” - As I looked at the ambulance, I saw our family friend. A friend that believes like I believe and that my husband had married a few years ago. He greeting me with humor, love and confidence that I would be take care of. He transported me to the hospital and stayed with me until the doctors took me. As the nurse was makin her assessment - she kept taking x-rays looking for internal bleeding. She told me that I had 3 broken bones, my tibia, my humerous and my radius. I threw up. I was rushed into surgery. This is the day that I feel in love with Hope. I remained in the hospital for 11 days and was in a wheelchair for 3 months - unable to walk. My biggest takeaway from the entire situation is to understand that you have to have hope to believe. My believe is what I used to action the faith that I needed to turn the situation that I can testify about God’s goodness. It was so surreal, but there were so many God moments to know that the hope that I needed was there. Key things that I am grateful for:

1. I didnt injury my head or have internal bleeding

2. God sent our friend to take my and prepare me for the hospital

3. Phreddie and Jordan were prepared for the emergency

4. This was the day I met Dr. Karim - who saved my limbs

5. I began the journey of applying my faith as I have taught so many others to do

6. We threw a Big Birthday Party for Jordan, on the year anniversary of the accident. We will keep celebrating and our expectation and hope is bigger than ever. The note on Jordan’s birthday invite said “no scooters allowed”#lifelessons #Faith #Hope #Healing #ThingsHappen #Scooteraccident