A woman on a podcast I listened to this week told this story. At the age of 19, she was working a low paying service job, had skipped college despite her parents’ best efforts to encourage her to go and was a typical carefree young adult.
One night, after going out dancing with a bunch of friends, she jumped in one friend’s car for a ride home. She didn’t realize how drunk he was. As he was speeding down the highway, she looked over and said, “You need to slow down…”. At that moment, he missed the turn, the car went through the guardrail and flipped multiple times as it rolled down an embankment.
She woke up the next day in the ICU with multiple broken bones and severe internal injuries. Later she was told her chances of survival were hit or miss. They could not perform surgery for at least a week because her condition was so unstable.
Her family stayed at the hospital 24 x 7. Her mother, father, siblings and friends rotated shifts those first few weeks until she had stabilized, had multiple surgeries and was moved out of the ICU to a recovery room.
She was in the hospital for months. For much of that time, she was laying on her back with her leg fully casted from foot to hip, suspected from the ceiling.
After the first few weeks, the surgeries were completed. Her pain was manageable. And she started to get bored. Her only interaction was with nurses and her visitors.
She complained about boredom to the nurses. The nurses came up with a plan. They moved her to a 4 person ward where other long term stay patients were. They explained to the woman that the other patients were elderly and needed someone to keep them awake, alert and maintaining their mental faculties by talking to them. They gave her this “job”.
At the same time, she complained to her father, who had spent every single night bedside since the accident. He, a college professor, said, “Why don’t you sign up for a college class? Any class at all that you’d be interested in. I’ll go to all the lectures, record them for you and bring you all the assignments and tests to do while you are here.”
She agreed and chose a Psychology 101 class. Her father, who had a PhD in biochemistry spent that semester attending every lecture so he could record them for her.
Wow.
Of everything in her story, this floored me. I never heard of anyone doing this. I can’t imagine having someone who loved me this much.
The woman eventually recovered. It took months to leave the hospital and years before she could walk without a cane. She became a noted, published researcher and professor with a PhD, who specialized in the psychology of aging. I googled her – she is renowned and a trailblazer in her field.
I was only somewhat interested in her research. Her father’s love, however, amazed me.