I'm Back!

Now that my schedule has settled down and I’m not as busy, I’ve decided to start blogging again! When I had my accident, my family started a blog called March For Marsh that kept everyone in touch with my recovery. Now I’ve decided to personally keep you up to date with my life, therapy, and my road to independence. If you don’t know my story, I will give you a quick summary, but If you want to learn more you can visit my old blog www.marchformarsh.blogspot.com.

Exactly 2 years ago, on May 21^st, 2012, I was involved in an automobile accident with 3 other friends. I was the only one that sustained permanent injuries. I broke my fifth cervical vertebrae which pinched my spinal cord against my sixth cervical vertebrae. I had to undergo an 11 hour surgery to reconstruct my neck. They fused the fourth, fifth, and sixth cervical vertebrae together using titanium rods and plates and a cadaver bone. After the surgery, the rest was up to God.

My stay at Children’s Hospital was dreadful but the sweet fun loving nurses, multiple visitors, my awesome family and of course, God by my side, all helped me get through it. After my accident and surgery, my diaphragm became so weak that my left lung collapsed and I had to have a tracheostomy to help me breathe. A couple weeks later, because I lost so much weight, I developed a life-threatening disorder called Superior MesentericArtery Syndrome (SMA). This happened because I lost so much weight (I was skinny to begin with) that my artery collapsed on my intestine preventing whatever was in my stomach to pass. My stomach was very bloated and I puked all night and day until the doctors found out what was causing those symptoms. It took weeks to finally feel better. I had two tubes in my nose, one pumping out my stomach acid and the other tube went past the stomach to the small intestine to feed me. Finally after I was all better and back to my normal weight, I was discharged to Frazier Rehab in Louisville, Kentucky for intensive physical therapy for 5 weeks. There, I also had my trach and my feeding tube removed. After a total of 5 and a half long awful months, I FINALLY GOT TO GO HOME! That was when my real journey began.

I returned to high school as soon as I could to catch up and graduate with my class. Every week day I would go to school for half the day, then travel two hours to therapy (Frazier) to do PT and OT then come home around 5:30 ish/6, finish homework, and relax. My days where very long and my life was always on the highway. Then after I graduated high school (2013), I was in therapy even longer; I left home at 8am, started therapy at 10am then ended around 4:30pm, and depending on traffic I got home around 6:30pm. I didn’t have much of a normal life then but it got better.

I just finished with my freshman year of college and I declared my major a couple of weeks ago as graphic design. I now go to therapy in Ohio two days a week and it's about 40 min away from home. I also have a personal trainer that comes to my house once a week. Altogether, the major things I’m working right now is strengthening my core so I can do things like sitting up completely from laying on my back, strengthening my arms, and strengthening my legs. Then at home when I’m with my parents, I’ll work on completing tasks on my own, like doing my makeup. What some people do not know or do not realize is that my fingers are “paralyzed” just like my legs. I can’t move them. Now you’re probably thinking, ‘but I saw you move them!’ unfortunately I did not. What you saw was me moving my wrist up and down, causing my hand to open and close (if you relax your hand and move your wrist up then down you can see your hand open and close, this is also called tenodesis grasp), and that’s how I pick up things. I work on this at home too using electrical stimulation.

I never really understood the phrase ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’ but I sure do now.

Here are some pictures over the past two years