Three Wishes

Three Wishes

Welcome to Christianity Oasis. This is Three Wishes from our Sojourn With Luz Leigh Collection. We hope you enjoy this enlightening reading and it helps you on your own be-YOU-tiful Christian walk.

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Sojourn With Luz Leigh

Three Wishes

Rides in 18-Wheeler, Helicopter and Ambulance

She always wanted to ride in an 18-wheeler or a helicopter, or an ambulance. I suppose those could be normal wishes for a sixteen year old girl. But, as an adult now, she will tell you ... be very careful for what you wish. A chain of events began unfolding late one Friday night. She and a friend were returning home from an evening of fun with their friends in a nearby town.

Both of the girls had a curfew and it was drawing near, so the girl behind the wheel of the sports car was driving a little faster than she should have been. She was not familiar with the car since it belonged to another of their friends. Something happened. According to the story that reached me that night, a deer ran across the road in front of them. In trying to avoid the deer, the driver lost control; the car spun around and slid backward into a big pine tree in the ditch next to the road. We later found out there was no deer. The driver was speeding, ran off the right side of the road; over-corrected and completely lost control of the Firebird. It doesn't really matter at this point in life.

Not realizing how badly she was injured, my child managed to get out of the passenger seat where she had been riding. The driver had been thrown out the driver's side and was laying in the ditch, stunned but otherwise unhurt. The girls decided to start walking to go get help. This was country road on which there was almost no traffic late at night. After they had walked nearly a mile, a nice gentleman, driving in a18-wheeler, stopped to assist them. He helped the girls get up in the truck and drove them to the emergency room of the local hospital.

After the doctors determined my daughter had sustained a broken neck, Life Flight was called. She was transported to a large medical center some seventy miles away. Upon arrival at the hospital there, she was transferred to an ambulance to be driven to a nearby hospital that does not have a heli-pad on which the helicopters could land.

So, in a matter of hours, this young lady had been granted her three wishes ... rides in an 18-wheeler, a helicopter and an ambulance. She later told me that about the worse thing that happened was when a mosquito landed on her cheek and began to have his midnight snack while she was strapped down in the helicopter. She could not reach up and swat him away. When I reached the big city hospital, I noticed a big red spot on her cheek that I had not seen while she was in the emergency room. I commented to her that the red spot was the only visible injury from the accident. She laughed and said, "Mom, that was no accident. The mosquito intentionally bit me."

That night was the beginning of a seventeen-day ordeal that forever changed our lives. We had to stand by and watch our child suffer discomfort and excruciating pain. We were faced with the decision about neck surgery that carried the danger of permanent paralysis. There were therapy sessions to help her re-gain the use of her right arm. But, even through it all, our Faith in the Lord never wavered. In fact, it was strengthened when we realized He was the One who would get us through this ordeal. I spent long hours sitting by her bedside, reading the Bible, particularly the Book of Job. That gave me strength to face what had been brought into our lives. I also kept a written journal of everything that happened to her ... every pill she was given ... every physical therapy session ... every breathing treatment that was administered. The name of each visitor was noted, as were the flowers and gifts that flooded her room.

There was one particular night, prior to the surgery while she was still in traction, the pain became almost unbearable. We were unable to reach her doctor; the nurses could only do so much; it was almost more than I could bear to watch her suffer. The pain was so bad she needed to be in almost total darkness with no sound around her. She was silently crying, tears flowing like a river down the sides of her little face. As I held her hand and tried to comfort her, she whispered to me that she loved me ... that I was her best friend. This caused me to begin shedding tears. When she realized I was crying, she squeezed my hand and said if she had known I was going to cry about it, she wouldn't have told me that. I realized in the dim light, I could see a faint smile on her face ... she was trying to make light of a bad situation.

She is a grown lady now with children of her own. Other than the terrible scar on the back of her neck where the surgery was completed and the scar on her hip from which bone was harvested to fuse the neck, the occasional headaches, and the inability to turn her neck as far to the left as most people can, there is little to remind us of that fateful night when her three wishes were granted.

Oh, we will never forget the accident and those long painful days, but we do not dwell on it. We just thank the Lord for his care during those terrible days and nights on the twenty-first floor of St. Luke's Hospital.

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