688MOM
12-29-2008, 10:28 PM
Hello everyone, first and foremost I would like to say Thank You once again to Rider Down for the check they sent Amanda. What a God-send… You know right after your loved one is injured people are willing to help in any way possible…. Several months, a year and even a year and a half later people just assume your loved one is taken care of. I have to say a year and a half later is when we needed it most. All the help that we had at the beginning has ran its course and before the RiderDown help we were wondering where we were going to find the money to continue some of the Therapy sessions that Amanda needed, that Amanda made life changing improvements with. The serious injuries are absolutely mind blowing… And I would like you to read an essay that Amanda wrote for her Psychology class. It truly puts things into perspective in Amanda’s eyes….
Spinal Cord Injuries:
Physiologically and Psychologically
On March 11,2007 I experienced firsthand several of my worst fears in life…I hate flying and heights, I hate hospitals and doctors, and my worst fear was breaking my neck (I thought that was how you became paralyzed), I hate fake people and the drama that comes with them. I used to worry about physical training, nutrition, and keeping a schedule for racing; now I have to follow that regimen just to walk. From this experience I have changed my views on life, and which way I want my life plans to go. I now want to become a nurse, and Psychology 101 is a required class. While taking this Psychology class I learned the answers to many questions I had about my body and many life experiences.
When we learned about Sigmund Freud in class I found his theories very interesting. Some of them seemed very far-fetched and a little ridiculous but I think his interpretations of dreaming with the Manifest and Latent Content are on the right track. I believe dreams have a meaning in them. Some are obvious, some are a little harder to understand and not what they seem. Years before I broke my back I would have dreams I was running and then would fall to my knees and couldn’t walk. I would have to drag my body to keep going. I always thought my dreams were telling me I was running from something, but now I think they were trying to prepare me that someday I wasn’t going to be able to walk. I haven’t had those dreams since I got hurt. Now I have dreams I am running, which I still can’t do. Most of those dreams feel so real that when I wake up I go to hop out of bed really quick and then I realize, oh yeah, I can’t do that.
At twenty years old I thought I was set and my life was going in the perfect direction. I was the happiest I had ever been. I had a wonderful job as a licensed manicurist making up my own hours and barely working; yet making very good money. Right before I got hurt I was actually looking into buying my own house. I really stepped it up with my racing and felt the best I ever did. My physical fitness and health was awesome. My life was wonderful and carefree; the only things I worried about were where the next race was, how I was getting there, and the occasional boy problem. But, that all changed in a blink of an eye.
On March 11, 2007 I woke up in my toy hauler to the sound of dirt bikes revving and the smell of race gas, my favorite thing to wake up to. That Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day, I was at my favorite local track and I had an all-around good feeling. My good feeling was proved the first moto. I took first after a battle with another girl rider. I even passed some of the older men that went out ahead of the girls’ race.
The second moto I was at the gate early, and was having a good time chatting with some of the other girl racers. Some of the men that I had passed even gave me a hard time; guys can’t stand the idea of being beaten by a girl. Girls are supposed to be inferior to guys. I got up on the line and waited for the gate to drop. I got the whole shot (off the gate 1st and to the 1st corner). Man was I having fun. There was this girl on a KTM that I battled with a little the first moto and she was right on me the whole race. Last lap out of five and I was still in front with her right behind me.
All day I had been taking the same line to the right on the back straightaway section of the track. That section of the track was getting really beat up, so at the very last minute I decided to take a new line to the left; that was a very bad idea. As I cut over to the left the whole back end of my bike started to swap (that’s when the back starts to fish tail violently) and on a straightaway you are going as fast as you can. I remember thinking in my head, “Oh my god, this is really going to suck.” I really think those were the exact words that went through my mind. After that I don’t know what happened. I came to and was on my stomach with the side of my helmet smashed in the sand. As a natural reaction with racing I tried to get up really quick and up off the track so I wouldn’t get hit, but I couldn’t move. It was the strangest feeling. Instead of being freaked out I felt probably the calmest I ever have.
While people were rushing to me and asking me a million questions I calmly slid my goggles all the way off my helmet, wiped the sand out of my eyes, and tried to get the sand out of my mouth. My mind was totally blank and my body totally calm. It was as if my life was in slow motion. I definitely was experiencing my parasympathetic nervous system working. I then told the flaggers and paramedics I couldn’t move my legs. The really bizarre thing is, I kept asking the paramedic to put my legs down for me. I swore they were up in the air, which they weren’t. That’s when I lost my sense of kinesthesis. Two years later, I am finally starting to get the sense of where my legs and feet are.
When the ambulance got there the Lead Paramedic said he wouldn’t take me, I had to be transported by Care Flight. Never mind the fact I couldn’t move my legs but the idea I had to fly in a helicopter scared me to death. The paramedic kept asking me if I needed drugs and I kept saying, “No, I think I’m ok” then I would say, “Well maybe, no actually I’m fine”, finally my friend that was there told the paramedic “Yes, she needs some drugs!” I think I agreed because I knew I was going to have to fly. When Care Flight was loading me the guy jokingly asked if I wanted some peanuts with my flight, I didn’t find that too amusing. To top it all off, I was strapped down, looking up at the sky because the top of the helicopter is see through. All I could think of the whole flight is; what if we were to crash, I can’t move my legs so I would be helpless. Now I realize that was a dumb thought anyway.
I arrived at Renown because that is the only Trauma Unit in Northern Nevada. I remember the doctors and nurses all hovering over me, it all seems like a blur. I remember the nurses telling my mom they were going to have to cut off my gear and my knee braces. My mom agreed to the gear, but begged them not to cut the knee braces and boots; my mom won. When the Trauma Doctor told my mom and I that I had broken my back I thought, that’s not such a big deal, my friend just broke hers last year and she was up dancing in a month. The Doctor told us that I would be on severe steroids to reduce swelling for at least 24 hours before surgery. They moved me into a private Trauma room and that is when I met my neurosurgeon, Dr. Khosla. I immediately hated him because he acted like he was so tired. His voice was on a monotone level. I thought in my mind that he would fall asleep doing my surgery. I looked at my mom and a friend that was there with us and said, “I don’t want him”. My mom was feeling the same way until Carrie our friend said that is the type of doctor you need in a surgery like this. He will be r ight there next to your spinal cord and you don’t want someone that is wired, shaky, and jumping up and down. Now I thank God for Dr. Khosla and I really liked him once I got to know him. Dr. Khosla advised us that the surgery would take place the following night unless my vitals showed any sign of something wrong. So off to the ICU I went.
The time was around 4:00a.m. when I was finally able to really go to sleep. I don’t really remember anything in ICU after this. The head nurse told my mom that now would be the time to go home, get a little sleep and whatever we needed. She promised she would call my mom if anything changed. Around 5:00a.m. the nurse called my mom and told her to get back to the hospital because something was terribly wrong and they were prepping me for surgery. My mom caught me just as they were wheeling me into surgery that would take about two to three hours. Approximately six and a half hours later Dr. Khosla came into the ICU waiting area and told everyone there that the surgery was a lot more than anticipated.
Bone fragments from L1, L2, L3, and L4 had violated my spinal cord. The spinal fluid had leaked into my body for approximately nine hours before they figured it out. Instead of having to put some rods in my back like he first planned, he had to put in a cage that will have to stay in forever to surround and hold my vertebrae. They had to call in a specialist to hook electronic leads from my head to the bottom of my toes and follow what nerves were getting signals through and which ones were not. He said initially he thought the spinal cord was severed, but at a closer look he found that it was actually folded in half. They plugged the hole that the bone fragments caused and said that the spinal fluid would replenish in time. I was to lay completely flat and immobile for twenty-four hours so the “plug” could take effect. They actually take your own blood and make a blood clot to plug punctures on your spinal cord, very amazing.
About a week later I was moved to a room in the Neuro wing. Once I was moved up there I had two ladies that did physical therapy with me. The first time when they held me up to try and get me to walk and I couldn’t walk, I got waylaid with emotions. That was the point when I realized I was not ok and had a very long unknown road ahead of me. Let’s just say my calm turned into a major breakdown.
When I was still in major shock over getting hurt I think I also suffered from major denial and repression . When I was in the hospital I wasn’t living in reality and for some crazy reason it took me forever to realize my life had majorly changed and I wasn’t ok. I think that was my body’s way of keeping me halfway sane through all of that. People would always say they couldn’t believe how strong I was being through everything, and my answer was always, “I have no other choice”. I really felt like I had no other choice at that time. Now looking back and meeting some very week people, I have realized, I had a
million other choices and ways I could have gone and reacted. I have always been a very dependent, strong, competitive person and I think that’s what has got me through all this.
For about a week after my accident I was paralyzed from the belly button down. After that my left leg slowly started coming back. When you have a spinal cord injury you are usually paralyzed from the point of injury down. When my left leg started to come back it was the worst pain and strangest feeling I ever had. Even though my leg was totally numb it ached so bad, and it felt like my foot was crippling and tightening into a ball. I would beg my mom to straighten it out, and she would tell me it was completely straight. I would look down at it and even though I could see it was straight, it was like I didn’t believe it and once again I would beg my mom to at least move it or do something.
To this day I still get severe nerve pains in my right leg and mild ones in my left. They aren’t like the ones I got when my leg and foot were coming back but they are very uncomfortable and hurt. There are tons of different nerve pains spinal cord injury people get and it is hard to distinguish which ones are which. Nerve root entrapment pains occur below or right at the injury (Spinal Cord). It is the worst, most annoying pain ever. It feels like electric shocks that stab me in sets of three or six and keep repeating. If you touch lightly the numb area where I am getting them, it gets worse. They say the pain stems from compression of a nerve root or damage to your cauda equina.
Your spinal cord and central nervous system is an absolutely amazing thing. The central nervous system controls most functions of the body and mind and has two parts to it: the brain and spinal cord. Your spinal cord acts as a communication highway between the body and brain. When the spinal cord is injured that disrupts the exchange of information. Damage to the spinal cord results in loss of function such as mobility and feeling (Spinal Injury). My spinal cord injury is called an Incomplete Paraplegic L2 Burst Injury, even though I have almost full function of my left leg now. Incomplete means that the spinal cord’s ability to convey messages to or from the brain isn’t completely lost.
I fractured L1-L5 but my L2 and L3 is what burst and went into my spinal cord. Each section of vertebra controls a certain part of your body. Your Lumbar spine controls signals to the lower part of your abdomen, back, butt, some parts of your external genital organs,
and parts of the leg. For quite awhile I wasn’t able to move from the waist down and the doctors thought I would have to have a colostomy and catheter bag for the rest of my life. I still have bladder problems but
Nothing like the doctors said I would.
There are approximately 100 billion neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Learning about the cell body and action potential really helped me understand what all goes on when you have a Spinal Cord, cells from the Immune System go towards the injury site causing damage to neurons and death to the others that survived the initial trauma. Oligodendrocytes die causing axons to loose their Mylination, which badly impairs the action potential, messages, and makes remaining connections useless. The neural information highway is disrupted because many axons are severed, cutting off the lines of communication (C. Reeves).
When I was still in the Neuro wing of the hospital the strangest thing happened. I love water so that is all I wanted to drink, but my water always tasted like really sweet fruit. My mom got me bottled water and even brought me water from the house. No matter what water she brought to me, it all had a very fruity taste. We eventually just came to the conclusion it had something to do with all the steroids I was on. There is a small little section about taste phantoms in are psychology book, and it explains exactly what I experienced. I was really amazed; I wasn’t crazy like I thought.
It was amazing to see how people acted when I got hurt. A lot of the people I thought really cared and were my friends proved to not be. People I never dreamed really cared about me proved me wrong. When any kind of major trauma happens it either brings people amazingly closer or breaks people apart. I really don’t think there is an in between. People are such competitive creatures, especially if they are any kind of athlete. My so-called close friends would come to visit me in the hospital every once in awhile to see how bad I was, and then I wouldn’t hear from them for almost a week; but if any one asked them how I was doing they were full of information and acted like they were so distraught over me being hurt. I very well could be committing the fundamental attribution error but I have seen this happen with many other friends that get hurt. I really believe it is that satisfying need for them to know that someone is worse off than them; they want to feel important, and by people giving them sympathy because their close friend is hurt that makes them feel needed and special; last, I think people get too wrapped up in their own lives.
When I got out of the hospital and got home, i t was like everyone forgot I was still hurt and still needed support. Two years down the road I still need that support. People I have raced with over the years stopped coming around and calling me because they now know I am not a threat to them with racing anymore. There for awhile girlfriends that saw me as a threat because they thought I was prettier and guys liked me more stopped coming around because they figured I wasn’t as attractive anymore. I even had an ex-boyfriend come over to my house and tell me I should get back together with him because no guy would be able to look past my disability now. There for awhile my self esteem was so low I believed him, but thank goodness I pulled myself together and realized that was a horribly
shallow comment and far from true. People will tear you down as much as they can to get what they want from you.
I don’t want to just talk about the people that proved not to be my good friends; I also met some very amazing people through this experience. I couldn’t even imagine going through that very difficult time in my life without them. My family and I became amazingly closer. Some friends I had before really20proved they would always be there for me. I met some people from an absolutely amazing non- profit foundation called RiderDown.org, that really truly gives with all their heart and I don’t think they have a bad bone in them. A racer that I went to high school with became my very best friend. Without him I really don’t know if I could have made it through all this the way I did. I really truly believe everything happens for a reason and everything eventually falls into place how it is supposed to.
I used to be very angry that this happened to me and I still have my moments when I break down and wonder what I did to deserve this, but when I take a step back and reach deep inside my feelings I wouldn’t take this experience back for anything. I used to be so mad because dirt bikes literally saved my life and dirt bikes also ruined my life. But I don’t see it that way anymore; I was a very depressed young kid and I got into dirt bikes when I was 15. If I hadn’t got into racing I really think I would not be here today. Five years later, that thing I absolutely loved took away my life as I knew it, or so I thought. Now I believe dirt bikes weren’t suppose to be who I was or what my life is; dirt bikes came into my life to give me a second chance at living.
Even though I struggle with something everyday mentally or physically, I have learned there is so much more to life than competition and I took everything for granted. My life revolved around dirt bikes and I thought dirt bikes were what made me who I was. That is definitely not so. What makes you who you are is far more than what you do for a hobby or career. It is all the little quirks in your personality and your beliefs. Those hobbies and careers just help shape us. One night when I was in the rehab hospital my mom was helping me take a shower and I remember asking my mom,” What am I going to do now that I can’t ride? I have nothing now.” What a sad feeling and comment. I wish no one ever has to feel that helpless and realizes there is so much more to life. Just like it says in the psychology book when talking about stability and change,” The struggles of the present may be laying a foundation for a happier tomorrow”.
Again, RiderDown has made such a difference in our lives; not only for financial help, for our mental state too. Becoming an “Angel” was such an honor for us and I truly saw the emotional upswing in Amanda the days and even weeks following our “Angel” duties. All she talks about is being able to do this again. I am truly indebted to RiderDown and will make it my life mission to help this cause. Thank you again RiderDown.
Sincerely, Mona Andersen
Spinal Cord Injuries:
Physiologically and Psychologically
On March 11,2007 I experienced firsthand several of my worst fears in life…I hate flying and heights, I hate hospitals and doctors, and my worst fear was breaking my neck (I thought that was how you became paralyzed), I hate fake people and the drama that comes with them. I used to worry about physical training, nutrition, and keeping a schedule for racing; now I have to follow that regimen just to walk. From this experience I have changed my views on life, and which way I want my life plans to go. I now want to become a nurse, and Psychology 101 is a required class. While taking this Psychology class I learned the answers to many questions I had about my body and many life experiences.
When we learned about Sigmund Freud in class I found his theories very interesting. Some of them seemed very far-fetched and a little ridiculous but I think his interpretations of dreaming with the Manifest and Latent Content are on the right track. I believe dreams have a meaning in them. Some are obvious, some are a little harder to understand and not what they seem. Years before I broke my back I would have dreams I was running and then would fall to my knees and couldn’t walk. I would have to drag my body to keep going. I always thought my dreams were telling me I was running from something, but now I think they were trying to prepare me that someday I wasn’t going to be able to walk. I haven’t had those dreams since I got hurt. Now I have dreams I am running, which I still can’t do. Most of those dreams feel so real that when I wake up I go to hop out of bed really quick and then I realize, oh yeah, I can’t do that.
At twenty years old I thought I was set and my life was going in the perfect direction. I was the happiest I had ever been. I had a wonderful job as a licensed manicurist making up my own hours and barely working; yet making very good money. Right before I got hurt I was actually looking into buying my own house. I really stepped it up with my racing and felt the best I ever did. My physical fitness and health was awesome. My life was wonderful and carefree; the only things I worried about were where the next race was, how I was getting there, and the occasional boy problem. But, that all changed in a blink of an eye.
On March 11, 2007 I woke up in my toy hauler to the sound of dirt bikes revving and the smell of race gas, my favorite thing to wake up to. That Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day, I was at my favorite local track and I had an all-around good feeling. My good feeling was proved the first moto. I took first after a battle with another girl rider. I even passed some of the older men that went out ahead of the girls’ race.
The second moto I was at the gate early, and was having a good time chatting with some of the other girl racers. Some of the men that I had passed even gave me a hard time; guys can’t stand the idea of being beaten by a girl. Girls are supposed to be inferior to guys. I got up on the line and waited for the gate to drop. I got the whole shot (off the gate 1st and to the 1st corner). Man was I having fun. There was this girl on a KTM that I battled with a little the first moto and she was right on me the whole race. Last lap out of five and I was still in front with her right behind me.
All day I had been taking the same line to the right on the back straightaway section of the track. That section of the track was getting really beat up, so at the very last minute I decided to take a new line to the left; that was a very bad idea. As I cut over to the left the whole back end of my bike started to swap (that’s when the back starts to fish tail violently) and on a straightaway you are going as fast as you can. I remember thinking in my head, “Oh my god, this is really going to suck.” I really think those were the exact words that went through my mind. After that I don’t know what happened. I came to and was on my stomach with the side of my helmet smashed in the sand. As a natural reaction with racing I tried to get up really quick and up off the track so I wouldn’t get hit, but I couldn’t move. It was the strangest feeling. Instead of being freaked out I felt probably the calmest I ever have.
While people were rushing to me and asking me a million questions I calmly slid my goggles all the way off my helmet, wiped the sand out of my eyes, and tried to get the sand out of my mouth. My mind was totally blank and my body totally calm. It was as if my life was in slow motion. I definitely was experiencing my parasympathetic nervous system working. I then told the flaggers and paramedics I couldn’t move my legs. The really bizarre thing is, I kept asking the paramedic to put my legs down for me. I swore they were up in the air, which they weren’t. That’s when I lost my sense of kinesthesis. Two years later, I am finally starting to get the sense of where my legs and feet are.
When the ambulance got there the Lead Paramedic said he wouldn’t take me, I had to be transported by Care Flight. Never mind the fact I couldn’t move my legs but the idea I had to fly in a helicopter scared me to death. The paramedic kept asking me if I needed drugs and I kept saying, “No, I think I’m ok” then I would say, “Well maybe, no actually I’m fine”, finally my friend that was there told the paramedic “Yes, she needs some drugs!” I think I agreed because I knew I was going to have to fly. When Care Flight was loading me the guy jokingly asked if I wanted some peanuts with my flight, I didn’t find that too amusing. To top it all off, I was strapped down, looking up at the sky because the top of the helicopter is see through. All I could think of the whole flight is; what if we were to crash, I can’t move my legs so I would be helpless. Now I realize that was a dumb thought anyway.
I arrived at Renown because that is the only Trauma Unit in Northern Nevada. I remember the doctors and nurses all hovering over me, it all seems like a blur. I remember the nurses telling my mom they were going to have to cut off my gear and my knee braces. My mom agreed to the gear, but begged them not to cut the knee braces and boots; my mom won. When the Trauma Doctor told my mom and I that I had broken my back I thought, that’s not such a big deal, my friend just broke hers last year and she was up dancing in a month. The Doctor told us that I would be on severe steroids to reduce swelling for at least 24 hours before surgery. They moved me into a private Trauma room and that is when I met my neurosurgeon, Dr. Khosla. I immediately hated him because he acted like he was so tired. His voice was on a monotone level. I thought in my mind that he would fall asleep doing my surgery. I looked at my mom and a friend that was there with us and said, “I don’t want him”. My mom was feeling the same way until Carrie our friend said that is the type of doctor you need in a surgery like this. He will be r ight there next to your spinal cord and you don’t want someone that is wired, shaky, and jumping up and down. Now I thank God for Dr. Khosla and I really liked him once I got to know him. Dr. Khosla advised us that the surgery would take place the following night unless my vitals showed any sign of something wrong. So off to the ICU I went.
The time was around 4:00a.m. when I was finally able to really go to sleep. I don’t really remember anything in ICU after this. The head nurse told my mom that now would be the time to go home, get a little sleep and whatever we needed. She promised she would call my mom if anything changed. Around 5:00a.m. the nurse called my mom and told her to get back to the hospital because something was terribly wrong and they were prepping me for surgery. My mom caught me just as they were wheeling me into surgery that would take about two to three hours. Approximately six and a half hours later Dr. Khosla came into the ICU waiting area and told everyone there that the surgery was a lot more than anticipated.
Bone fragments from L1, L2, L3, and L4 had violated my spinal cord. The spinal fluid had leaked into my body for approximately nine hours before they figured it out. Instead of having to put some rods in my back like he first planned, he had to put in a cage that will have to stay in forever to surround and hold my vertebrae. They had to call in a specialist to hook electronic leads from my head to the bottom of my toes and follow what nerves were getting signals through and which ones were not. He said initially he thought the spinal cord was severed, but at a closer look he found that it was actually folded in half. They plugged the hole that the bone fragments caused and said that the spinal fluid would replenish in time. I was to lay completely flat and immobile for twenty-four hours so the “plug” could take effect. They actually take your own blood and make a blood clot to plug punctures on your spinal cord, very amazing.
About a week later I was moved to a room in the Neuro wing. Once I was moved up there I had two ladies that did physical therapy with me. The first time when they held me up to try and get me to walk and I couldn’t walk, I got waylaid with emotions. That was the point when I realized I was not ok and had a very long unknown road ahead of me. Let’s just say my calm turned into a major breakdown.
When I was still in major shock over getting hurt I think I also suffered from major denial and repression . When I was in the hospital I wasn’t living in reality and for some crazy reason it took me forever to realize my life had majorly changed and I wasn’t ok. I think that was my body’s way of keeping me halfway sane through all of that. People would always say they couldn’t believe how strong I was being through everything, and my answer was always, “I have no other choice”. I really felt like I had no other choice at that time. Now looking back and meeting some very week people, I have realized, I had a
million other choices and ways I could have gone and reacted. I have always been a very dependent, strong, competitive person and I think that’s what has got me through all this.
For about a week after my accident I was paralyzed from the belly button down. After that my left leg slowly started coming back. When you have a spinal cord injury you are usually paralyzed from the point of injury down. When my left leg started to come back it was the worst pain and strangest feeling I ever had. Even though my leg was totally numb it ached so bad, and it felt like my foot was crippling and tightening into a ball. I would beg my mom to straighten it out, and she would tell me it was completely straight. I would look down at it and even though I could see it was straight, it was like I didn’t believe it and once again I would beg my mom to at least move it or do something.
To this day I still get severe nerve pains in my right leg and mild ones in my left. They aren’t like the ones I got when my leg and foot were coming back but they are very uncomfortable and hurt. There are tons of different nerve pains spinal cord injury people get and it is hard to distinguish which ones are which. Nerve root entrapment pains occur below or right at the injury (Spinal Cord). It is the worst, most annoying pain ever. It feels like electric shocks that stab me in sets of three or six and keep repeating. If you touch lightly the numb area where I am getting them, it gets worse. They say the pain stems from compression of a nerve root or damage to your cauda equina.
Your spinal cord and central nervous system is an absolutely amazing thing. The central nervous system controls most functions of the body and mind and has two parts to it: the brain and spinal cord. Your spinal cord acts as a communication highway between the body and brain. When the spinal cord is injured that disrupts the exchange of information. Damage to the spinal cord results in loss of function such as mobility and feeling (Spinal Injury). My spinal cord injury is called an Incomplete Paraplegic L2 Burst Injury, even though I have almost full function of my left leg now. Incomplete means that the spinal cord’s ability to convey messages to or from the brain isn’t completely lost.
I fractured L1-L5 but my L2 and L3 is what burst and went into my spinal cord. Each section of vertebra controls a certain part of your body. Your Lumbar spine controls signals to the lower part of your abdomen, back, butt, some parts of your external genital organs,
and parts of the leg. For quite awhile I wasn’t able to move from the waist down and the doctors thought I would have to have a colostomy and catheter bag for the rest of my life. I still have bladder problems but
Nothing like the doctors said I would.
There are approximately 100 billion neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Learning about the cell body and action potential really helped me understand what all goes on when you have a Spinal Cord, cells from the Immune System go towards the injury site causing damage to neurons and death to the others that survived the initial trauma. Oligodendrocytes die causing axons to loose their Mylination, which badly impairs the action potential, messages, and makes remaining connections useless. The neural information highway is disrupted because many axons are severed, cutting off the lines of communication (C. Reeves).
When I was still in the Neuro wing of the hospital the strangest thing happened. I love water so that is all I wanted to drink, but my water always tasted like really sweet fruit. My mom got me bottled water and even brought me water from the house. No matter what water she brought to me, it all had a very fruity taste. We eventually just came to the conclusion it had something to do with all the steroids I was on. There is a small little section about taste phantoms in are psychology book, and it explains exactly what I experienced. I was really amazed; I wasn’t crazy like I thought.
It was amazing to see how people acted when I got hurt. A lot of the people I thought really cared and were my friends proved to not be. People I never dreamed really cared about me proved me wrong. When any kind of major trauma happens it either brings people amazingly closer or breaks people apart. I really don’t think there is an in between. People are such competitive creatures, especially if they are any kind of athlete. My so-called close friends would come to visit me in the hospital every once in awhile to see how bad I was, and then I wouldn’t hear from them for almost a week; but if any one asked them how I was doing they were full of information and acted like they were so distraught over me being hurt. I very well could be committing the fundamental attribution error but I have seen this happen with many other friends that get hurt. I really believe it is that satisfying need for them to know that someone is worse off than them; they want to feel important, and by people giving them sympathy because their close friend is hurt that makes them feel needed and special; last, I think people get too wrapped up in their own lives.
When I got out of the hospital and got home, i t was like everyone forgot I was still hurt and still needed support. Two years down the road I still need that support. People I have raced with over the years stopped coming around and calling me because they now know I am not a threat to them with racing anymore. There for awhile girlfriends that saw me as a threat because they thought I was prettier and guys liked me more stopped coming around because they figured I wasn’t as attractive anymore. I even had an ex-boyfriend come over to my house and tell me I should get back together with him because no guy would be able to look past my disability now. There for awhile my self esteem was so low I believed him, but thank goodness I pulled myself together and realized that was a horribly
shallow comment and far from true. People will tear you down as much as they can to get what they want from you.
I don’t want to just talk about the people that proved not to be my good friends; I also met some very amazing people through this experience. I couldn’t even imagine going through that very difficult time in my life without them. My family and I became amazingly closer. Some friends I had before really20proved they would always be there for me. I met some people from an absolutely amazing non- profit foundation called RiderDown.org, that really truly gives with all their heart and I don’t think they have a bad bone in them. A racer that I went to high school with became my very best friend. Without him I really don’t know if I could have made it through all this the way I did. I really truly believe everything happens for a reason and everything eventually falls into place how it is supposed to.
I used to be very angry that this happened to me and I still have my moments when I break down and wonder what I did to deserve this, but when I take a step back and reach deep inside my feelings I wouldn’t take this experience back for anything. I used to be so mad because dirt bikes literally saved my life and dirt bikes also ruined my life. But I don’t see it that way anymore; I was a very depressed young kid and I got into dirt bikes when I was 15. If I hadn’t got into racing I really think I would not be here today. Five years later, that thing I absolutely loved took away my life as I knew it, or so I thought. Now I believe dirt bikes weren’t suppose to be who I was or what my life is; dirt bikes came into my life to give me a second chance at living.
Even though I struggle with something everyday mentally or physically, I have learned there is so much more to life than competition and I took everything for granted. My life revolved around dirt bikes and I thought dirt bikes were what made me who I was. That is definitely not so. What makes you who you are is far more than what you do for a hobby or career. It is all the little quirks in your personality and your beliefs. Those hobbies and careers just help shape us. One night when I was in the rehab hospital my mom was helping me take a shower and I remember asking my mom,” What am I going to do now that I can’t ride? I have nothing now.” What a sad feeling and comment. I wish no one ever has to feel that helpless and realizes there is so much more to life. Just like it says in the psychology book when talking about stability and change,” The struggles of the present may be laying a foundation for a happier tomorrow”.
Again, RiderDown has made such a difference in our lives; not only for financial help, for our mental state too. Becoming an “Angel” was such an honor for us and I truly saw the emotional upswing in Amanda the days and even weeks following our “Angel” duties. All she talks about is being able to do this again. I am truly indebted to RiderDown and will make it my life mission to help this cause. Thank you again RiderDown.
Sincerely, Mona Andersen