Can I get a Woo-Hoo!!

It's been one month since the accident and YongAe is doing SO much better! We must have turned a corner on Sunday because she started making progress like crazy. Today was huge...she WALKED!!!! Using a walker she went ~30 feet four different times! In addition to that, she was able to sit up, stand up, and lie down without me assisting her! I still need to stand by her due to weakness and occasional dizziness, but oh what progress! And she was able to sit up just over four hours today! YongAe is ecstatic. To top it all off - she got to shower today for the first time in a month! She feels like a new woman :) I am so thankful for the progress she is making and just so thrilled for her. Again, thank you so much for your prayers and support!!

p.s The picture is YongAe today after walking and showering :)

Busted Her Out!

Today we moved YongAe from the hospital to her home here in Hunchun. No longer does she have to deal with an IV she doesn't need every day or lie in a hospital that is dirty and has cockroaches. She gets to be home. Now the thing about getting her home - she can't walk, she continues to have significant pain and vertigo, oh yea...and she lives on the SIXTH floor! We were desperate enough to get her out of there (and her 10x more desperate to leave) so we devised a plan. We strapped her onto a stretcher and carried her 6 flights of stairs. It was brutal for YongAe as the stretcher was awful and the ambulance ride anything but smooth but she was determined to make it. It took a while for the pain to settle once we got her to the apartment, but she made it!! And now she is in the comfort of her own home :) I could barely sleep last night as I was going over all of the details of the move and had butterflies this morning. But, the crew that helped me did an amazing job and the teamwork was flawless. What a relief - it's over!!

Here's a recap of the move. We had to get her out of the room (the beds don't fit through the doors), onto a stretcher, strap her into the stretcher (they don't strap patients in), get her into the ambulance, carry her up the stairs...some corners were a little tight. Take note of the huge gap in the middle of the stretcher...not comfy at all. YongAe is a rockstar!!

Yong Ae - 3 weeks

First, I want to thank all of you for the outpouring of support. I've gathered all of your encouraging words and put them together on a piece of paper that I can frequently read. I feel as though those words put strength behind my knees and softness in my hands. Thank you so much for being there when I needed you.

Tomorrow marks 3 weeks since the horrible accident. I saw photos of the car and it sent shivers down my spine. How did they all survive??!! The front half of the car (where the driver and front seat passenger were) is completely smashed. The steering wheel was crushed down to the ground. I don't understand how the two men weren't trapped in with their legs crushed. How did they get out? Neither can remember. I remember looking up into the car as I was lying there with YongAe and seeing no room except where she was lying. It's unbelievable! The way everything happened...I just don't see any explanation other than God.

YongAe is making progress! She still requires assistance to obtain a sitting position on the edge of the bed but she is able to do more and more of the work to get there. Last Sunday, I helped her transfer to a chair for the first time. That day she tolerated 3 minutes in the chair before needing to return to bed due to dizziness and pain. Yesterday, she was able to tolerate 30 minutes in the chair and took little shuffle steps to transfer! It's very exciting! YongAe is, of course, wishing that the recovery was moving faster but she's done well with being patient and listening to her body.

Please continue to pray for her. As you can see, she still has a long road ahead of her. YongAe still struggles with pain in her low back and significant muscle tension in her upper back as well as vertigo when she sits up. I can complete a procedure to address the vertigo but YongAe's pain needs to be lower first. Her spirits have remained high for the most part but she struggles with discouragement from time to time. In addition to all of this, YongAe's daughter (her only child) will be delivering her first child in late November. The original plan was for David and YongAe to fly to the States on November 15th. It is so important to YongAe to be there for her daughter. Please cover her and this entire situation in prayer.

I'd also appreciate your continued prayers. I want my hands to be filled with love and comfort that pours over YongAe every time I come into contact with her. I want my words to be uplifting, encouraging and motivating and my medical judgment to remain clear.

Thanks everyone!!

One Week Post-Accident

It's been one week since the car accident. It's amazing to see how quickly the recovery is going for everyone involved regarding the circumstances. Tina remains at home with her mother and just said today she is able to do more and more on her own and that the pain is slowly getting better. I plan to visit her tomorrow.

David (Yong Ae's husband) and the 3 of us who were at the scene (Lori, myself, and Zaibin) were able get the taxi driver's phone number and visit him at his home. It was such a good visit. He couldn't stop apologizing and saying how badly he felt but we were able to look him in the eye and tell him that we don't hold him responsible. We wanted him to know that we consider him a friend and that we care about him and how he is doing - physically and emotionally. We all talked for awhile and just before we left, David handed him an envelope with some money to assist him since he currently cannot work. He tried so hard to refuse it but eventually David won. He sat there on his knees and cried (so, so, so unusual for a Chinese man). He couldn't believe that we were helping him and caring about him so much when he was "supposed to be the one providing the help." Friendships were definitely formed that night. Ah, it was such a good visit.

Yong Ae has been doing well thus far. The doctors had instructed her to lie flat for 1 month but that is absolutely crazy...for many reasons (bed sores, pneumonia, blood clots). Again, the medical care here is greatly lacking. Nurses rarely come around, 3different doctors have given 3 different diagnoses, no one even checks vital signs let alone anything else important (sensation, reflexes, respiration rate, etc). It's amazing. Anyway...initially, I and various members of our crew here were helping her roll into sidelying and by Thursday she was able to do it on her own. For those of you who are medical - don't worry. I have been full of instruction regarding proper precautions.

Tonight we began the next phase of therapy - sitting up on the edge of the bed. Yong Ae has been wanting to sit up since the day of the accident. :) I knew that pain and dizziness would be present and made sure to go over everything with Yong Ae before the transition. David and I assisted her into sitting but she struggled with significant dizziness and a severe pain in her low back (not part of any of the 3 dianoses) that caused her to need to lie back down almost immediately. Her words were "wow. I'm shocked. I had no idea it would be this hard." Yong Ae is a tough woman. Remember, she endured 8 hours of pain after the accident without pain meds. So please continue to pray for her recovery: quick healing; no further complications; an emotional toughness; no discouragement. She has a long road ahead of her.

Please also pray for me. In regards to the medical aspect, I'm basically flying solo here and I have moments when I doubt my ability. Without a medical team behind me it is easy to second-guess myself. There is not one medical person here whom I trust and can turn to. It's so strange. I've never been in this boat. It would be one thing if it were a minor injury but totally different with it being such a serious circumstance. I'm part confident in my ability and part scared. I think that fear comes from many places - the lack of medical support, not having reliable information to go off of, having emotions from being at the scene, having emotions because she is my friend, feeling like I have sole responsibility of what happens because it is me and me alone who is progressing her. It's a heavy weight. But I know it's NOTHING compared to being one of the ones who was actually in the accident. I'm just saying that I really need prayer right now and through this whole thing.

Once again, I need you guys! Your support has given me strength this past week and I can't thank you enough. Truly. I love you!

God in the Midst of a Nightmare

What started out as a typical day ending up taking a serious turn. Zaibin came and picked me up at 6:45 this morning and we headed over to get Lori to head out to the ranch to prepare for hippotherapy. We generally leave town right away but today was different as we needed to pick up corn feed for the cows. This delayed us about 20 minutes. It was a cold, rainy morning. We were out of the city limits and about 1/2 way to the ranch when Lori noticed something far up ahead in the ditch. She said "uh oh, this can't be good. It looks like a tractor." Zaibin slowed as we got closer and I rolled down my window to see what had happened. I'll never forget looking out the window and making eye contact with my dear friend, Tina. She was standing down in the ditch near the car and had the shear look of fear on her face. It hit me that the red, crushed object was a taxi and that Tina had been a passenger. Zaibin pulled over and Lori and I ran to the scene. Tina then told me that Yong Ae was still inside the car. I immediately ran down to help her and saw that the car was upside down and broken glass was everywhere (the car had hydroplaned, hit a tree knocking it over and flipped). A calmness and pure focus came over me. Yong Ae was conscious but in a great deal of pain. Some men were trying to pull her out but I urgently told them to stop - don't move her!! I got down with her, held her hand and was able to speak calmly to her. Zaibin called the ambulance (which they initially said they needed payment first before they drove out. Zaibin told them to shut up and get out there right away - it was a serious accident!) and Lori immediately checked the car for leaking fuel and various dangers...which, thank goodness, there were none. I won't go into all of the details of the accident. There's no need to fill your head with unpleasantries.

There were 4 people in the car - the driver (a Chinese man in his 40s), Tina (she is a 22 year old Chinese gal who has worked with CRAM for several years and is so loved by all of us), Yong Ae (she is 52 years old, part of our team here and has lived in Hunchun for 4 years. She has recently battled cancer but has such strong faith and courage), and her friend Abe (in his 30s from South Korea. He was only visiting). Miraculously, no one was thrown from the car. Everyone experienced severe shock and I'm sure the flashbacks will be there for a while. As far as we know, Abe only had a small cut on his head and some pain in his back. Despite our encouragement to stay, he went to Yanji to catch his flight back to South Korea and will see a doctor there. The driver's forearm had pretty bad cuts and swelling and his neck hurt but the doctor said nothing was broken. He's in a good deal of pain though. Tina has bruising and swelling on the left side of her face, her left arm and knee are painful and swollen, and her neck is extremely stiff and painful. X-rays show no broken bones. I predict she may have a concussion but no CT scan was taken. Because she was walking around (although holding her neck) the doctor said she was fine and that she couldn't stay at the hospital. We are bringing her back tomorrow with a local person of great "influence" helping us. Yong Ae was hurt the worst. She is so tiny so her body was easily banged up. A bone in her spine (T7) is fractured as well as her sternum (the long, flat bone in the middle of your chest). She is in a great deal of pain but it is an absoulte miracle that there are no additional injuries.

The hospital was a difficult experience and so far separated from what medical care is in the States. On the stretcher in the ambulance there are no straps to hold the person on. I actually had to brace Yong Ae as we flew down the road. There are no neck braces. There was no care in the ambulance at all. No ER to rush to...we waited out in the hall for hours. For the first X-Ray the doctor wanted Yong Ae to walk to the table...she could barely move. We, her friends, had to transfer her from gerny to X-Ray table then back to gerny then to the CT scan table, then to gerny, then to the MRI table, etc. None of the hospital staff knew how to safely transfer her while keeping her stable. I thank God I could be there to help and to instruct people in the safe way to move her. Yung Ae had to endure all of this - all of the testing and the moving and the waiting - for 8 hours before she was given pain meds. Can you imagine?!

We took Tina to her home in the village to be with her mother. She was able to sleep this afternoon for a couple of hours but is still in a great deal of pain. I visited her tonight and she shows no acute signs of a major concussion. Yung Ae is in the hospital and is more coherent now. She knows who everyone is, where she is, etc. She is experiencing tremendous pain and was only able to sleep 30 minutes this afternoon. Despite all of this trauma, she still thanks God that it was her who was hurt so badly and not any of the others. She is an incredible woman! The driver has been home resting. He got to the hospital this morning after we did and rushed up to Yong Ae with a look of sorrow and remorse. His eyes filled with tears (Chinese men do not show emotion like this) and he put his hand over his heart shaking his head. The look in his eyes broke my heart as I could see the weight of this whole incident resting on his shoulders. Please, please pray for him. The shame that the Chinese carry for something like this can be extremely severe. He has been on my heart all day. Our crew will be making a point to befriend him and to show him that we care and we don't hold him responsible. Please pray for his heart and mind. Please.

I tell you my friends, I am know that God protected each of them in this horrible accident and that he brought us on the road at the perfect time. I am sure of it! If you could have seen the car you would know it is a miracle that everyone lived. And we came upon the scene a mere 2 minutes after it happened! Had we not stopped to get corn, we wouldn't have been there to help. That may not seem like that big of a deal, but people in China don't stop to help when there is an accident or any type of injury for fear of somehow being held responsible. With us there, we were able to get the ambulance called, stop people from moving Yong Ae (and now knowing she had a spinal fracture - even better), and comfort our friends who were hurting and afraid. The song that I sang to Yong Ae as she lay in the taxi waiting for the ambulance continues to come into my head throughout the day (David, Yong Ae's husband, said he was singing it as he was driving to Hunchun from Yanji to come to the hospital)..."Jesus, we love you. We worship and adore you. Glorify thy name in all the earth. Glorify thy name. Glorify thy name. Glorify thy name in all the earth." Ohh, yes...he was there.

Dad

It's been two years since dad died. That day is still so vivid. I spent the last couple of nights out at our ranch here in China in order to have some quiet and stillness. I sat under a big tree with a nice breeze blowing and wrote the following sweet memories of dad (both when I was a little girl and a young adult) -

* him tickling me until I couldn't breathe * him thumping the nose of my teddy bear, Herman, every night when tucking me into bed * closing the "wall bed" with me in it and him walking away like he might forget * him letting me ride in the trunk of the car if we were going a short distance * teaching me how to drive out at the Holyoke airport. I had to sit on a pillow so that I could see! :) I think even with the pillow, I had to look under the top of the steering wheel, ha! He let me practice at the cemetery when I got good with turning * going out with him on the motorcycle. I remember we were coming back home and turning into the driveway in the alley and somehow we fell over – on the motorcycle. We weren’t going fast so we didn’t get hurt. At first it scared me, but then I couldn’t stop laughing * playing softball (catch) in the backyard * pulling over during our trips to the mountains so that we could go stomping in the river * going to visit dad when he was working at the hospital – if he were down in the basement where the cardiac rehab room was, we’d always go back upstairs passing by the morgue room. It never failed that just as we got to that room, dad would scare me and I’d run up the stairs as fast as I could, my heart pounding and him chasing after me laughing * flying in his airplane with me in the very back (the little jump seat, I think) giggling constantly because of the turbulence * him saying “oh honey” every time he saw a nice motorcycle * various people frequently bringing fresh fish and/or vegetables to our house in the summer. I never knew why but later discovered that it often was a form of payment dad was accepting for doctor visits that that person couldn't afford. Of course, dad didn't make that known to us...it wasn't his style to build himself up * him hugging me for an extended period of time while standing in the kitchen in the Swink house. For a long time he didn’t say anything. I felt his body shake slightly in his attempt to hold back tears. Then he said “your mother and I are so proud of you. You’ve become a fine young woman.” I went to Thailand less than a week later - that trip to Swink was the last time I saw him. * Us sitting in Chili’s at Lincoln and I-25 (mom was with us) and I had an overwhelming feeling to tell him how much he meant to me. I had written little things in cards here and there but never looked him in the eyes and said much beyond “I love you” and “thank you.” That afternoon I looked him in the eye and watched this strong dad of mine cry as I told him: how much I loved him, how grateful I was that he took on us 3 kids when he married mom. He could have easily said he didn’t want to raise another 3 children at that point in his life – he already had two grown children of his own. But, that didn’t bother dad a bit. In his mind, it didn’t matter that marrying mom was a package deal. Not only did he take us into his home, but he treated and loved us as his own. Calling him my step-dad didn’t work for me. I didn’t want that separation. He was dad – I just happened to have two :) I told him that he had been an incredible role model for me as to how a man should treat a woman: the way he loved mom, the way he cared for her, the way they resolved conflict, the way he supported her dreams and efforts. I finally told him that so much of the good parts of me were because of his role in my life and the things that he and mom had taught me. I knew he supported my dreams and aspirations and he would do anything to help if he could or if he was needed. I’ll never forget us crying together that day – in the middle of Chili’s. * Talking with dad while he was in the hospital after his back surgery: for the first time, I talked to him about a possible male relationship and wanted to know his opinion on this guy. Never had I done that. It was actually a sign to me that I had entered a healthy stage in the world of romantic relationships. I had realized, there in the hospital, that my desire of dad’s input regarding the man I wanted to date or was dating was a sign that I wasn’t trying to hide anything – which meant that it was more unlikely that I was “settling” for a guy that wasn’t right for me. I decided that this was going to become my litmus test – if I didn’t want dad to know about a guy I was interested in or if I didn’t want dad to meet him, I was in a wrong relationship. Seems obvious, but at the time this was a new page I had turned :) Since I was struggling to trust myself with relationships, it was a huge relief knowing I had dad to weigh in on it and tell me like it was. It made me feel safe. * I spent mom and dad’s anniversary with them in Salida, CO – their favorite place – in June ’08. The first day there, dad and I went out just the two of us. We ate lunch out on a patio by the river and talked about life. Then we went to a small winery and took a little tour, tasted some wine and picked our favorites to buy. I realized on this day that dad and I had shifted our relationship from strictly father-daughter (more disciplinary) to a friendship. I remember my heart smiling and thinking “mmm. I like this.” I made dinner that night for the 3 of us and he loved it…salmon on a bed of raw spinach and blacked beans topped with a Caribbean jerk seasoning and pineapple salsa. The next day, the three of us and Sparky (the dog) went into town and watched the parade and then the rafting and kayak competitions. We were all so happy and content in our quiet, little, comfortable-feeling mountain town. That night at dinner I wanted dad’s opinion on a topic that was and is really important to me: did he know any couples that were truly happy, content and fulfilled without ever having children? As with everything, I knew he would give it to me straight. Again, this was a milestone in our relationship. I was seeking dad’s opinion and wisdom – not resisting it.

I am so thankful for the memories I have and for the path that my relationship with dad was on that last year. These things will forever be in my heart.

hippos, horses, and wee ones

There is never a day that I’m “not in the mood” to see the children at Special School. I have no idea what it is like to be a parent, but my heart always lights up when I see one of the students; it warms when one of them hugs me or grabs onto my hand; I get a sense of joy when I hear “laoshi hao”/ “hello teacher”; I have a sense of pride when they accomplish something – great or small; I hurt when I can’t fix something for them or keep the bad from coming their way; I shed tears at times out of love, joy and/or pain. What I share with my students is so special to me and I’m so incredibly thankful for it.

I’ve had the joy of witnessing some short-term volunteers interact with the children and the joy and love that is exchanged. I watched the students jump and scream, smile and laugh and hug as 3 American guys handed over a gift of 2 new soccer balls to them. It was awesome! And they were SO excited that these foreigners would take the time to play a game with them. I smile now as I relive it all. The kids only stop playing with those soccer balls when it’s required for sleeping, eating or class time :)

There have also been a few tears of joy shed during hippotherapy this season. In addition to my pro-riders that have been coming each season for the past couple of years, we’ve had some new children joining in. One is a little 5 year-old boy (pictured above) who cannot speak and was slow to follow directions during therapy. When he first started hippotherapy, he rode with a slightly-slumped posture and didn’t follow directions or respond much to anything. With his father accompanying him, he has come 3 days/week for 4 weeks and has been making little bits of progress each week. On Wednesday, I held out a ring and within seconds he grabbed it! He was even able to put it up on the pole! He’s making noise now when he rides and smiling ear to ear! How awesome that his father gets to experience this with him. There is a 3 year-old girl who was so scared around the horses when she first came and she would just cry and cry as her mother held her. Now, she is up on the horse riding with one of the teachers. She smiles, speaks a little and even grabs onto the ring! Another little girl, 4 years old with Down Syndrome (in picture), just rode today by herself for the first time! She is so alert when she rides, can follow most directions, and today she could not stop smiling and waving at me! :) They are all so incredibly precious and I am so thrilled that they get to experience such a thing as hippotherapy here in China. I’ve watched them gain physical strength, coordination, balance, flexibility, etc. But moreover I’ve seen them benefit from interacting with the horses and the volunteers. They get to accomplish something so grand – riding a horse – and their disability isn’t holding them back. Finally, they get to be “normal.” They get to move freely through space because their horse is helping them. No more limping, no more slow pace, no more crouched posture, no more head being held low, no more crutches/canes/walkers…no…here they get to sit higher than anyone else and hold their heads high. And sometimes, they even get to make their horse “run”…something that makes each child squeal with pure, untainted joy.