On April 1st, 2007 we were visiting my sister in southern Minnesota, when I received a call from another one of my sisters who lives in Western Wisconsin. It was the call that every family dreads. My niece was stuck by a drunk driver in an SUV while she was walking to visit a friend.
My blood ran cold, and I immediately became sick to my stomach. As I state in my profile, family is very important to me, but that doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel for Tiffany and her brothers and sister. I was their nanny for two years, and even after that I was at their house a lot, because I was close to my sister, and to them. These children were as close to being my children as you could possibly come with out actually being my children.
We started packing to leave and had just finished when we received the next call saying the doctors said she wouldn’t live through the night. This call was from my brother, and we had no idea what hospital she was at. We couldn’t leave until we heard back from someone to at least give us the name of the place. The next 15 minutes was the longest 15 minutes of my life. We received the call to tell us where she was, got directions and left.
We drove all night to get to the hospital, and yes, Jonathan came with. If this was going to be the last time anyone was going to be able to see Tiffany again, I was not going to leave him out. He loves Tiff a lot. If I took his last chance away from him, I know, from personal experience, there would be resentment. We went straight to the hospital and sat there for a couple of hours, at which point, we decided it was best if my mom went back to my sister’s house to try to get some sleep as well as Jonathan. They stayed there, with some of the family, until around one or two in the afternoon, at which point it was decided everyone should return to the hospital.
She suffered an Occipital-Atlanto dislocation, which is the same injury Christopher Reeve suffered, and only 5-10% of people even make it to the hospital with this type of injury, as well as spinal cord and brain stem damage, a middle brain injury, two broken hips (one of them actually had the led bone come out the back of it), and a lot of internal bleeding. As doubtful as all the doctors were, as bad as the news coming out kept becoming, Tiffany fought, and continued to fight, and continues to fight this day.
So why am I telling you all of this? Just because we are single parents, doesn’t mean we are immune to emergencies. If it weren’t for my family and friends. If it weren’t for my support network that I talked about in my other blog, I don’t know what I would have done. I would not have been able to spend as much time in Wisconsin, at the hospital, nor as much time with my niece, if I did not have that support network there to help care for Jonathan.
I know a lot of single parents are very proud that they are doing it “on their own.” Trust me, you have reason to be proud, but don’t allow yourself to be so proud of yourself that you don’t grow a support network, or ask for help when you need it.