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Frances West (Redmond) Cook's Tale of Survival
My Karma ran over my Dogma
Now my memory acts like Teflon sometimes.
Nov.
19, 1998 was the night that shattered Frances
West Redmond. The details are still unclear. The night was dark and the rain was
thick. A sales rep for Cellular One, she had just been named
Mississippi's leading salesperson for October. Her award was to be presented to
her the next day. Her victory would be short lived and the last moment she'd
remember for more than a year. A one car accident altered her life forever.
She was immediately airlifted to Memphis and had been admitted "presumed dead." Her left arm was crushed, right femur broken, liver lacerated, lungs collapsed and she had other physical injuries. She would remain comatose like Sleeping Beauty until March of the next year. It would be an understatement to say that her injuries were life-threatening and it would take more than a kiss to wake her from her "sleep."
Frances West received a helicopter ride to the Elvis Presley Trauma Unit. This facility is supported by Presley fans. Every patient is carefully guarded by a doctor and specially trained nurse at their bedside 24-hours-a-day.
Frances West's coma was caused by a "brain stem contusion." Doctors had to drill a hole in her skull to put a pressure monitor into her head. Mom says "she looked like a unicorn!" This was done to monitor bleeding and inter-cranial pressure.
Frances West was operated on by two teams of orthopedic surgeons, one on the right side of her body, while a second reconstructed the left. The waiting room was crowded with the many people who came to pray for Frances West with mom. Believing "God's Word is living and goes where He sends it and accomplishes what He purposes," her mom, Flo, and her family read the Bible over the comatose young woman. At first, Frances West's prognosis remained grim and doctors believed she would be in a skilled care nursing facility for the rest of her life.
"People told me I should accept it, prepare for it," says Flo. "But I knew that wasn't what God had told me. He'd said 'PROMISES KEPT' and He can't lie. Everyone thought I was nuts." Frances West says that once she finally regained consciousness, she never doubted her recovery. "I grew up knowing God doesn't do sloppy work. He wouldn't just let me live if I wasn't going to be able to tell others and give them hope too."
Indeed, Frances West would live. Yet every day brought new struggles. She began months of grueling recovery. Special pneumatic boots pumped blood up her legs. She had a trac, a stomach pump and a central line. The doctors thought se might eventually lose her hand because it was so drawn, even after they removed the cast. An ostomy bag at her neck collected two liters of saliva every day. Frances says, "It seemed more like two gallons!" Not only could she not eat; she couldn't even swallow and doctors doubted she ever would.
Mom remained determined that her daughter would fully recover and with the help of nurses, lifted the unconscious 5-foot,10-inch Frances West to her feet every morning. Mom made her sit up in a chair, talked to her, gave her all her baths, made the bed and changed soiled linens.
Waking
from a coma is rarely like what's portrayed in movies, explains Flo. "It's
gradual. An eye opening one day. A fingertip moving another. But Frances West
was still unconscious when we moved to rehab.
The professionals at the rehabilitation hospital were able to get her up
and walking unconscious. Her mom learned to handle the therapy that would
continue at home, including all the medications and procedures. She had to empty the
cath bag and learn about trac care, sucking fluids from the hole in Frances
West's neck and mastering the stomach feeding tube. Mom was a real hero and was
herself strengthened by her deep faith in the power of God to do anything.
Her
mom kept talking to her, just like she was awake. She'd take her outside in a
wheelchair to hear conversations, feel the wind on her face and see the lights.
On one of those trips through the lobby as they wheeled past a
"singing" sunflower "it opened its little face and sang You Are
My Sunshine." And Frances West smiled.
Frances West started to wake up around the first of March in 1999. This
was the start of some of the darkest days for mother and daughter. "I
couldn't talk, walk or drink water," says Frances West. Mostly, I wanted
water - plain old tap water - but I couldn't have it for fear the liquids would
dump into my lungs and I'd drown. Try being so thirsty, you'd even suck the
water from a wet washrag!" "My mother stuck by me through good times
and bad," says Frances West. "And every day, I knew that if I needed
something, she'd be there."
Her doctor had said that if reconnection of her esophagus were possible, it would only come after she'd mastered the skill of swallowing. After six months in rehab, Frances West would have to go home, ostomy bag still attached to her throat. She continued the struggle to learn to swallow. On the way home, mother and daughter stopped off at the trauma unit and walked back in!
In the year between her accident and the last of 15 operations, prayer wheels ignited fund-raisers and the community came together as never before to support the young woman they had come to call "the miracle girl." Every day was a challenge, but everyone refused to give up. "Exactly one year from the date of the wreck," says mom, "Frances West walked out of UT-Bowld Hospital awake, reconnected - doctors had remade her esophagus out of part of her colon - and ready to resume her life. Who but God could have planned that?"
(Source: February 17, 2001 article that appeared in The Clarksdale Press Register entitled, "Promises Kept" By: Rebecca Hood-Adams, Lifestyle Editor.)
From Frances West (Redmond) Cook
See, in my wreck something happened to paralyze my left vocal fold (chord) so I couldn't talk for a looooong time. Well, my doctor had surgery on me and gave me a "vocal fold implant" so that the vocal walls would touch when they moved back and forth. Like, hold your hands out flat in front of you. Then move them back and forth to touch, thumb to thumb, while your hands are flat. Well, then pretend your left hand couldn't move and your right hand couldn't touch your left hand. That's how my vocal fold was demonstrated by the doctor!
The good doctor gave me a vocal fold implant which allowed my vocal walls to touch causing sound and they thought I'd sound like Minnie Mouse right after! BUT, I didn't! I pretty much sound the same but my soft palate isn't really moving, SO, I had to go see this speech doctor/dentist (which I saw today)! They are fixing, for me, a prosthesis/retainer thing that closes off my soft palate so that I won't loose air out my nose, when I talk, and sound hyper-nasal.
I'm telling you, I've had 17 surgeries and I am prob. the most complex individual you'll ever meet! But, if you just looked at me, you'd NEVER know! If you stared at my neck, you might know something though! Now, I have an incision from about 2 in. below my belly button, to right below the middle of my collarbone. And, speaking of my collarbone, I had to have part of the left side collarbone removed. My esophagus is now made from part of my colon too. I have a metal rod in my left femur. Many, many plates and screws in my left forearm. Oh gee, besides that and a few more things, I am pretty uncomplicated! Ha Ha Ha!
Medically, everything else is fine but the one thing is, after my wreck, I have TERRIBLE headaches! I can't remember things at times, but I heard that's all part of a TBI. Plus, everyone gets forgetful at times...this, I'm speaking of, is quite frequently.
OK . . .
Since her accident, Frances West and her childhood sweetheart, Dale Cook were joined together in the bonds of holy matrimony thus putting new meaning to "In sickness and in health and till death do us part!"
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