Read The Promise: A Tragic Accident, a Paralyzed Bride, and the Power of Love, Loyalty, and Friendship for Free Online Page A

accident, they had held strong to the notion that it was just a quick nerve issue that would resolve itself. This was the kind of thing that happened only to other people. That’s what everyone had thought, which was why there was so much disbelief about the severity of it all. I was told everyone lost it out there—all of my girls were crying. One girl ran out, and my mom had to chase her down and hug her.
    Eventually Chris arrived. He said the waiting room was absolutely quiet; he could hear people crying, but no one was talking. I had already gone into surgery, so Chris took a seat like everyone else and waited for more information. Everyone told me later that the surgery took forever. When I came out of it and people gradually came in to see me, there were tubes protruding from all over me and monitors everywhere. Most people were tall enough to sort of bend over the tubes, but my mom wasn’t. They put a stool down for my mom eventually. We called it the kissing stool, because she would stand on it and could then reach in and kiss me.
    I’ve tried to recall the first time I finally saw Chris after my surgery. There were so many drugs in my system by that point that a lot of my memories are foggy. But I do vividly remember wanting to hold his hand when I first saw him walk into my room. I was desperate for that. I couldn’t ask him at the time; I couldn’t speak because of the respirator down my throat. But instinctively, he did it. He reached out and grabbed my hand. I thought I’d willed him to do it. I couldn’t feel him, but that didn’t matter. I could feel the warmth of his hand and the pressure of it when he placed it on mine. It didn’t feel the same since I couldn’t hold it back, but it was comforting. I’d been craving the comfort he provides me the entire time and was so happy to have finally received it.
    My bridal shower was supposed to be the next day. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. 

CHAPTER 6
    Barely Breathing
    Three days after the accident my heart stopped, and for a brief moment I was dead.
    It happened, of course, in the only fifteen-minute span during which my mother left my side. From the second she arrived at the hospital, my mother, Carol, had remained awake and with me—the entire three days. She was so worried about me that she didn’t want me to spend one minute alone. My blood pressure had been falling; throughout those first few days it would drop and someone would have to rush out to get the nurses.
    Of course, the one time she did leave to take a small break, all hell broke loose. I was going in for what the doctors said would be a routine surgery, so she decided to take a few minutes to run home. She waited until they were wheeling me out of my room, and then she zipped out.
    I don’t remember anything because I’d been drugged, but basically, my heart stopped. I had to be given CPR. It was apparently extremely scary and caused major panic among the healthcare team, and it took some quick thinking to revive me. My mother was called immediately after it happened, so soon after she’d left that she hadn’t even made it home. She turned right around and came back to the hospital.
    My mom has always been my best friend. When I was little we had girls’ nights out that my dad didn’t know about. We didn’t actually go out. Most nights, she’d tuck me into bed, read me a book, and rub my back while she counted to one hundred. But on some nights she would whisper “Girls’ Night Out,” then go to bed herself, and when my dad fell asleep, she’d sneak back into my room and grab me, and we’d put pillows and blankets down in the living room and watch Disney movies and eat popcorn late into the night. It was a really special time for me, for us both, I think. We also did so much together as I grew up. We camped and shopped and rafted and tubed. She was always a kid herself to an extent. We were a team growing up, and I knew that the aftermath of my accident was as