This is going to be a long one. First, my memories of that first day. Second, some things I learned about this kind of crazy.

One year ago today, my life changed a lot for awhile (we’re thankfully back to “normal” but you can’t undergo this kind of trauma and not have a perspective shift).

So there I was in the U of M Detroit Center, texting my mom how tired I was, her response was weird “Not now,” or something along those lines. Whatever, she’s busy at work and I was gearing up for a full day workshop on a new department at the University that our company might be partnering with.

9:30 or so, I got The Call. I knew something was wrong immediately from her voice, but mom hung up to take a call from the bystander.

She called back, Amanda was in an accident and they’re in the waiting room at Detroit Receiving. And Amanda wants me there.

I was within walking distance so I booked it over to DMC, calling Jeff on the way. He was in Vegas and it was like 6 AM there. I felt kind of bad, what if it was just a minor accident? But, I needed my husband to calm me down for a minute before I was calming mom down.

Turns out the DMC Emergency room is not the Detroit Receiving Room. The security guard tried to get a Detroit police officer to drive me over cause I’m obviously a hot mess at this point, but he’s going in the opposite direction.

Find mom and dad finally. No one knows what’s going on. They let us visit Amanda, saying it was going to be a not super fast surgery, but she had a broken leg. Seriously, my first Facebook post asking for prayers said she broke her leg…that’s it.

I didn’t get to actually see Amanda because Joey called back. We figured he’d just stay at camp since it was just a broken leg. I called Jeff and told him I’d still be on my way to meet him in Vegas the next day because it was just a broken leg.

Hours past. And then all of a sudden it wasn’t a broken leg. It was her life we were talking about. Maybe a choice between her life and her leg. But of course, please save her life. Oh Lord, what would I do without my sister. We might not get along all the time and be polar opposites when it comes to politics and religion and literally everything, but she’s my go-to when I need a laugh or someone to show up STAT. She’s my best friend.

From that point on, I don’t think I prayed for real for a while. I called priest friends and let them pray over the phone. I had friends text me prayers. I couldn’t verbalize my thoughts or feelings. The one prayer I DO remember is begging God to not let my sister die on the same day one of my best friend’s daughter was born (she had gone into labor early that morning).

By the time Jeff got there at 10 pm, she was out of surgery and we had spent some time in the ICU. I’ve never seen someone look quite so awful before in my life. We had no idea what was coming over the next three months, but that’s probably a blessing.

I left the hospital on July 25, 2017 not sure if I would ever talk to my sister ever again.

We had no idea about brain injuries at that point. We didn’t know if she would walk again. We didn’t know if she’d be self-sufficient and able to work or buy a house. We didn’t know we had a good ending waiting for us. And frankly the bad possibilities strongly outnumbered the best case scenarios and were much more likely at that point.

I crawled into bed that night and told Jeff I was too tired to talk. It was weird, him being there. I was supposed to be packing for my trip to Vegas. He grabbed my phone and started counting. I spoke to over 100 people on FB messenger that day…not counting Twitter DMs or text message updates. No wonder I didn’t want to talk to him.

Then those people started mobilizing. Our Team from Teams of Our Lady got on the meal train. NGS got on the giant banner Get Well Soon card. DCFC rallied the team and sent a card signed by everyone AND had Amanda lifted up on the shoulders of players in one of their game-day posters.

On paper, that stuff doesn’t seem that important (except food cause without food we die), but it kept our spirits high, probably as high as they possibly could be kept given the circumstances. We were supported. We were loved.

Attitude is everything in these moments. There’s that saying “You can’t control what happens, but you control how you react to it.” First, my sister’s mentality was just amazing. She started joking with the nursing staff while the ventilator was still in. One time I remember tearing up a little at the gravity of the situation (probably one of the nights I held her leg a half centimeter off the bed for an hour) and she told me to chill out and just breathe.

Just. Breathe.

Yoga style. That’s how she told me we would get through it. And the advice was pretty stellar. There wasn’t a surgery or day really that went 100% according to plan. Once she was stable, she could get bumped out of the OR by an emergency case, which happened often. Or she could get jaundice and not be able to go under anesthesia. Or whatever.

Just. Breathe.

Early on “fight like hell” became a mantra around Amanda’s recovery. According to our friend Joe, she said it half-jokingly before a friendly (but also competitive cause Amanda) game of soccer where she subsequently scored a hat trick. At first I was like HELL YEAH FIGHT! But over the last year, I’ve realize that quiet strength and determination with a dash of stubbornness and a sprinkle of humor can sometimes take you just as far.

Amanda often says “No one told me I was supposed to die…so I didn’t.” And that’s really the truth of how we survived the last year. You don’t get a choice. You wake up, brush your teeth and face the world whether your sister is happily traveling the world or laying in the ICU fighting for her life. We did make the choice to have a lot of fun and laugh through it. So you might hear us today out singing the song my dad wrote “Hit me with a Mack Truck” (yeah to that Pat Benatar song) or laugh at the #SplatDay tag on our photos. But don’t let the laughter and smiles let you forget that my family has been to hell and back…and that changes you.

People laugh at me for crying all the time about this. But I’m not ashamed. My tears are of relief, of victory, of joy, of pain still. I walked out of a hospital room on July 25th, 2017 and wasn’t really 100% sure I would see my sister breathing the next day. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s not poetic to make this story more poignant, it is the honest-to-God truth and it’s a feeling that will stick with me probably for the rest of my life.

And so today we celebrated with a bike ride through 3rd and Temple. A royal “eff you” to that intersection. I gave her a Survivalversary card with a bike on it, because humor is still important. And we will celebrate her day of survival forever because the pain of those three months in the hospital are made sweeter by her smiling face still being with us.

I smile with gratitude everytime I walk into Keyworth and see her standing at her capo spot. I smile when she texts me. I smile (and roll my eyes) when she’s a little bit (a lot) obnoxious. I smile because she’s here for a while longer with me (and I’m a selfish big sister).

Thank you, everyone, for your support last summer. We needed our community to step up and you did. We needed prayers and you delivered. We needed things we couldn’t verbalize and somehow, everything turned out okay.

This week (ish) over 78 Masses of Thanksgiving are being said around the world (seriously 22 states and 7 countries). We asked much of God, not only saving her life, but preserving her spirit and saving her leg. We must praise Him and thank Him for this glorious favor!

Praise be to God.

Some of the progress over the last year!