Anniversary of "The Fall"

Three months ago today, on January 18, 2011, I had a catastrophic fall down the stairs of my home. I broke my collarbone, but more crucially, the collision of my head with our banister caused a blood clot and within an hour I was in cranial surgery fighting for my life. After a six-day stay in the hospital I was allowed home to continue my recovery. From the moment I regained consciousness in intensive care, I knew that my life had been miraculously spared and I began a mission to discover why -- what God would have me do next.

On this anniversary I would like to share what I wrote during those first days after returning home from the hospital. This tells the story. (I apologize for the length and pray that you will determine that the message is worth your time!)

January 2011

God, I do this to glorify You and not to bring attention or praise to myself. Please let the message you have been speaking to me flow out of me so that it may bring blessings to those who read my (our) story. I will speak of your tender mercies so that all may know that the miracles they see come from You.
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As I stroll through my house a lovely fragrance washes over me, the sweet homeyness of roses, the strong exotic smell of tiger lilies and orchids, and the shy faint aroma of cyclamen, bromeliads, and daisies. It is comforting, energizing, and transports me to a place where there is no pain, no bandages or staples – surely no bad things could happen in this beautiful floral haven – here in my own home of 25 years, and yet….

My focus shifts and now I can see the cracks in the wall where the banister has recently had to be reconnected to the wall, there is a gash in the wall of the halfway landing of the stairs which appears to have been made by something hard and round like a ceramic cup or saucer hitting it with force, and look, there are even uncleaned dried splatters of coffee still on the wall. What happened here in this peaceful and comfortable home?

Bits and pieces of incomplete memories nudge my mind – it was a weekday morning, Tuesday, January 18, 2011, the day after the Martin Luther King holiday. I was ready for work and making my last walk downstairs, carrying everything that didn’t belong upstairs – if you have a two-story home like me you know about the “last run” where you gather that collection of downstairs items and you pile them all precariously in your arms so you don’t have to make two trips…. And in my world, on a cold and damp January morning, that eclectic array of things to be carried downstairs on the last run, a purse, jacket, coffee mug and saucer, printout of my Bible study class roster, etc., can sometimes even include a little brown dachshund who is finicky about cold wet grass and resists going outside in the mornings…. So, nothing unusual or scary about that memory – I am at the top of my stairs about to trot down and leave for work. But there is a memory gap, and the next image that floods back to me is of myself inexplicably looking up from the floor, holding my bloody hands up, and the sweet face of my beautiful daughter, Holly, leaning over me, and the unanswerable question of the last week and a half leaves my lips for that first time, “Holl, what happened?”

The next memory is a strange view of the inside roof of an ambulance clattering along and me glibly telling the EMS technician, “Hey, this is the first time I have ever ridden in ambulance …….except for that time when my son fell in the cave!” (As if they would know what THAT was about….)

Then, fleeting unrecognizable faces flashing into my line of vision, “Mrs. Carpenter, how many fingers am I holding up?” (Why do they keep asking me that? And do they think it’s a hard question – it’s always TWO!) So I look around and there are my favorite faces gathered around me with worried half-smiles, Holly again, but now also Ryan, Gary, and even my sister Emily. How nice of them to all come – but…….. where are we, why are we here, and again…..what happened?

Holly tries to help – “Mom, you fell down the stairs.” Then my next terrifying question as I notice for the first time a horrible throbbing pain in my head and right upper body, and have a memory flash of the precious little brown doggie being carried in my left arm…… “Is Annie okay?”

“Yes, she’s just fine.” Which explains why all my injuries are on the right side of my body – was I subconsciously protecting her as I tumbled? Do maternal instincts carry over to four-legged “children?”

Uh oh, then another black hole of memory……until waking up with bandages on the right side of my head, the now familiar excruciating head throbbing pain, nausea, shoulder searing pain and IVs and tubes coming out of both my arms, and a beehive of hospital technicians buzzing around me, poking, measuring, testing. But there they are, those sweet faces still smiling and looking down at me, and my spoken question again, “What happened?”

Gary this time takes a turn answering me, “Sweetheart, you fell down the stairs at the house and got a concussion and they found a blood clot between your skull and your brain so you just came out of surgery. You also broke your collarbone. “Hey, the only other bone I have ever broken was my left collarbone when I was three years old and the first night out of my crib I rolled out of my ‘big girl bed and broke my collarbone.” Always a fount of helpful stories, I am….

Then a blur of tossing and turning, sleepless nights, and armies of technicians, “Mrs. Carpenter, I’m going to get your blood pressure;” “Mrs. Carpenter…..a little stick…..I’m going to test your blood sugar;” big machine being rolled in – “Mrs. Carpenter, your breathing is shallow so we need to get a chest X-ray;” “Mrs. Carpenter, you are developing fluid on your lungs so I am here for your breathing treatment – here, deep breath and blow into this….good, now deeeeeep breath again and blow…..good. Okay, just six more times.” Ugh. And my personal favorite, “Hi Mrs. Carpenter, I’m from your neurology team, I need you to count backwards from 100 by sevens.” “I can’t do that even when I’m well!”

But finally some answers to my question of what happened…. “Mrs. Carpenter, you had a ‘subdural hematoma’” (Hey, I have heard of those because of my medical transcription! But just because I know how to spell it doesn’t mean I know what it is…..) “A subdural hematoma is a blood clot between your skull and your brain and it is very dangerous , so that is why Dr. Hummel had you in surgery within an hour of your fall.” (Yes, thanks to God who had my sweet Holly move back home just days before this happened, so she could hear me and act so quickly, calling 911 and family members, staying by my side until help came, wiping blood off my face and of course answering my repeated questions, “What happened?;” even packing me a bag and following the ambulance to the hospital. Can you imagine what she must have been feeling? Bless her heart.)

This being just the first of literally hundreds of specific blessings directly from God -- I would have been home alone when I fell if Holly had not just moved home after four and a half years away at college AND was not scheduled to start her new job yet until two weeks later (which also would have left me home alone at 8:30 a.m.), to name one. Another “God thing” in those early moments was the simple fact that I was asking the same question over and over within earshot of the EMS team and because I also couldn’t remember my own age (hey, when you are 52 you have entered the era where you sort of lose track, even without a head injury!) But these seemingly inconsequential details influenced the EMS technicians to transport me not to either of the hospitals closest to my home but directly to Brackenridge Hospital Head Trauma Center, where I received the best most specialized care in Texas, including being assigned to the care of renowned neurosurgeon, Matthew Hummel, M.D., who was at my side within minutes of my arrival, assessed my status with one of several CT scans, and performed a successful emergency craniotomy, and subsequently has followed me throughout this whole time as if he had always been my personal physician and we had specifically requested him.

For you engineers out there, another way God protected me in the moments of my accident is this: The banister of our open staircase was torn almost off the wall by the impact of my acrobatic tumble and yet it held on. Otherwise, I would have fallen through to the dining room and crashed onto our dining table. On the other hand, the banister did give as I hit my head and collarbone, thus protecting me from much more severe, possibly permanent or even fatal injuries.

You know, so many who came to the hospital to visit me and were greeted with this almost unrecognizable person with a shaved and bandaged right side of the head, a black/blue/purple right eye swollen almost shut, body battered and bruised and arms prickling with IVs and ports. And they all would say, almost without fail, “Oh my, Ellen! I CAN’T BELIEVE this happened to you!!” And as my own thinking got less foggy, when I would hear this exclamation I would think, “YOU can’t believe it?” I still almost have the sensation (until my pain meds wear off) that this whole ordeal happened to someone else. I mean, I have NEVER had anything like this happen to me – I have only been in the hospital two times in my entire life and both times it was to have a baby – totally naturally, NO drugs, no complications – happy visits to the hospital!

But you see, underlying the “Ellen, I can’t believe this happened to you” comment many times is the unspoken implication, “How could God have allowed this to happen to you?! A loving God, the God who protects, watches over us, who even “Gives His angels charge over you so that you will not strike your foot against a stone" (Psalm 91:11-12) I tell you, I certainly struck more than my foot in this deal…. So if these unspoken questions had dared to be voiced, what would I have said? I most emphatically would have said and still do say, “God absolutely DID protect me.” He did have his angels all around me, even as I tumbled! I am alive, I can speak, think, be myself; I don’t have the ordeal of having to re-learn anything like swallowing, breathing, talking, walking, even writing. AND, I have been given the gift of seeing my family and friends and even strangers reach out to me in caring and support, flooding my hospital room with flowers and cards, dropping everything to even make the trek down the infamous Austin I-35 corridor to come visit me at Brackenridge Hospital.

So, I am here. I am thankful. And I am asking God with joyful anticipation…..”What is my story? Why DID this happen to me? How will You use this in my life? How will You use my life now?”

And I will listen. I will trust. I will follow.