A young woman in her later 30's survives a devastating lightning injury that has left her partially paralyzed and relying on crutches or a wheelchair to get around. (She also has chronic pain that is oftentimes disabling.)
Gretchen Peters is a remarkable young lady who has gone through a lot lately in her life.
I met Gretchen Peters when working in the Medical Intensive Care Unit; I was on duty there at that time. If anything, I was in charge of getting information about new patients that had come into the Ward, and also obtaining their names and medical histories. I wasn't able to do a lot of the physical lifting, as I had a bad back problem and often had to use a cane to walk. (But that is another story.)
Gretchen was 38 years old, blonde haired, and had big, brown eyes; and when I first saw her, she was lying in a Stryker frame, steel Crutchfield tongs attached to her head, to hold her head in place; and she honestly looked scared out of her wits. She had been struck by lightning (it hit her in the lower part of her neck, between her shoulder blades [just the very thought of this made my back rebel and go into painful spasms!]) while getting the mail from her mailbox several weeks earlier. (This happened last year.) When brought into the ER, she had been without breath and without pulse for over a half hour. But they eventually got her back; and she spent several months in the hospital, one of those months in the Medical ICU. She then went to Rehab and had extensive physical, occupational, and speech therapies; she had to learn to do just about everything all over again.
Well, I had forgotten about Gretchen until the other day, when I ran into her at the store; and the change in her was remarkable. The last time I had seen her, she was in Rehab, sitting up in a wheelchair, her body jerking spasmodically, and not knowing if she would ever get her life back; now here she was, standing up between two blue Lofstrand crutches, braces on her legs; and a big smile on her face. She also had longer hair; it now fell to just below her shoulders; and her eyes sparkled with life. She looked like she was glad to be alive. She was still hurting pretty badly (you could still see the pain on her face), but she still managed to give me a wide smile when she saw me.
I couldn't believe my eyes. Here was a woman who had nearly been killed by a devastating injury; and now she was standing in front of me, as big as life itself, looking altogether different than the sick, frail woman lying helpless in a hospital bed, unable to talk or move. It was definitely a Miracle from God; and inside, my heart was beating with pure joy and praise!
But looks were deceiving. Despite the joy Gretchen was feeling at being alive; her life was anything BUT joyful at times. She was still wracked with severe, often disabling pain, her hearing and speech were still affected, and she had short term memory loss. She could remember things from way back, but she couldn't remember the most recent of conversations; in fact, during the time we were talking, she had asked me what my name was again several times. She was also partially paralyzed, and her body often went into spasms. So her life was anything BUT joyful.
And all because of one lightning strike that immediately changed this young woman's life forever.
A page-turning novel about a relationship between best friends that is interrupted because of betrayal , deceit, sexual promiscuity and pregnancy happens!
