It was roughly four am when my now mother in law received the phone call that no mother would ever want to receive.
She was told her son had been in a major car accident, was currently on life support in a chemically induced coma, and they needed permission to remove a quarter of his cortex in his brain. She immediately fell to the floor and started screaming.
My husband, Brett, was in Georgia fifteen hours away for training to become a Homeland Security officer when he had fallen out of the back bed of a truck. It was a rainy night and he had spent the evening at the bar drinking with friends. On the drive home he hopped in the back along with another person. The driver, who was also drinking, began recklessly driving at high speeds and they speculate that he was messing around and swerving when he ultimately fell out.
My husband sustained 32 skull fractures, shattered both eye sockets and sinus cavity, fractured teeth, jaw, and a tear in his carotid artery. He also broke a small bone behind his ear that punctured his ear canal which ultimately saved his life by relieving the pressure in his brain to allow the arterial blood to pour out instead of swelling.
Brett was given a 1% chance to live and less than 1% chance to remain normal.
But he got better. To the doctors astonishment he gradually started showing signs of improvement and after many months of confusion, agitation, hate, fear, and depression (There are many stages that one must go through after a traumatic brain injury) he was finally cleared.
Now I know you may be wondering why I would ever say that this night would be the night that OUR stars aligned but without this accident we never would have the life we do today.
I knew Brett at this time. He was friends with my brother years before and they had lost touch. I was 15 or 16 when I first met him and not exactly interested, sorry hunny, HA! When my brother had found out about the accident he called my mother in law non stop to find out how he was doing. Months later my brother and Brett finally got together to grab food and my brother asked if I wanted to come.
I was intrigued by him.
I saw Brett in a new light that day but was still not interested. He called me everyday from that night asking to meet him and everyday I stood him up until he finally called me and said to meet him at such and such time on a certain date and for some reason I showed up. I knew from that moment that I would marry him.
Looking back, this is nothing like my husband and his personality. When I asked him what made him do this he said: when you almost die you realize you have nothing to lose.
Six months from our first date we moved in together, engaged four months later, and married the following year. It’s been eight years of wedded ups and downs and ten years since this horrible day.
When I think back to important days in my life I am flooded with the many anniversaries and birthdays that mean so much to me but when I think of the day that I truly believe the stars aligned, there is no other day than this.
The day my husband almost died, was the beginning of our forever.
