While at the Shepherd Center I was on a ventilator. The lung specialist told Shane, Mama, and Diddy that I would never come off the vent. Of course they didn't tell me this. Mama said she looked at the doctor and said "You must not know my God. He's the Great Healer." With a vent comes a lot of extras. Your body secretes a thick mucus in your lungs which was called secretions. Several times a day they had to go in and suction out the secretions with a mini vacuum type pump so they wouldnt settle in my lungs and cause me to quit breathing. This was a lot on me with the vent and trach. It caused me to have severe panic attacks. This scared everyone because I had never had panic attacks before. Well the longer I was on the vent the stronger my lungs became. After about a month I started being weaned off the vent I started with 30 minutes a day and worked myself up to 20 hours. I'll have to thank my Diddy & Mama for pushing me and not letting me give up! After 3 1/2 months I found myself in an overnight stay in the ICU for my first full night without the vent. (ICU was for precautionary measures and observation). I remember the day I posted on my Facebook page that I was vent free. I think I had over 100 likes and comments. My parents then told me what the lung specialist said. My response was "My God is bigger than medicine."
Not only did I have a trach and vent, I had a halo, feeding tube, a catheter, and a knee immobilizer. With God, prayer, hard work, and prodding and encouragement from my family. I was able to shed each of these assistance devices.
The diagram below shows the possible levels of spinal cord injuries. My level was C1 which is not on the chart because 99% of the time that is a fatal injury. I'm happy to say I'm the 1%! If you look I also overcame the C2-C5 effects of spinal cord injury.
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