My New Car

by Jessica Jackson
(Kent, WA, USA)

Ok.. so here we go... My story starts on May 14, 2008. I got a new car, couldn't drive it because it was a manual. My brother was supposed to teach me how to do it. Well, the morning of the 14, my mom didn't want us to go to school because she felt like something bad was going to happen and that it was going to be final.

We teased her and went to school anyway. So, I was leaving my last class and heading to the main building with one of my guy friends. Thats the last thing I personally remember. For the next little while, its things I've been told. We met up with my boyfriend and two of my girl friends. The boys left to go get drinks, and us girls went out to my car.

I had always sat on trunks of cars before, and so we sat on the trunk of my new car. It was a little red Dodge Neon. Well, me and one of the girls got so wrapped up in a conversation that we didn't notice when my brother came out and got in the car and started it. It started moving, but we didn't want to jump off because we were afraid we would get hurt.

He was only going 5 miles an hour, and he went around a turn and we fell off and I hit my head. I was knocked unconscious and they finally got me awake and I didn't know anyone. I was screaming that I wanted my mom but when she finally got there I told her she wasn't my mom.

I was blind and sort of deaf and really didn't recognize anyone's voice, and I yelled when people touched me. The ambulance took me to the hospital and did a CT scan and saw bleeding. They said they didn't thave the proper equipment, so they life-flighted me to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.

My parents beat the helicopter there, and when the techs wheeled me in, they were sweating. All of the adrenaline made me fight them so hard, they had to give me so many medications, more than they would give a full grown adult. I was in a coma, but they weren't sure if it was medically induced or because of the injury.

Anyway, so basically, I was in the hospital for a little over a week. They did another CT scan and found petechial hemoraghing and a subdural hematoma with lots of bruises all over my head. They thought I would be in longer, and when I did get discharged, they said it would take me a long time to recover.

I was wanting to hang out with a few select friends soon after, but I seriously withdrew and a lot of my friends turned their backs on me because they thought I was being selfish.

Seriously, I had several say that to me. They didn't really understand what I was going through and still don't. Anyway, so my mom told me later that she always knew she would not see one of her children walk.

But that somehow, someone was on my side and begged God not to take me from my mom. SO I still have problems with my smell and taste, and sometimes my hearing. My sight sucks, and my prescription for my glasses has changed a few times since then.

I've had seizures since, and they finally did an MRI and found atrophy of my left temporal lobe. I am on Lamicatal which helps my seizures, but I still have one every now and then, which makes me feel like the progress I'm making is going backwards sometimes.

I still have problems socially and I have to take medication for depression, and sometimes it gets worse. It is really hard because a lot of people have toruble understanding some of the lasting side effects I have, and I didn't know there were support groups until now. But yeah... So that's my story.