A long over due letter to the students of UD

After mass on Sunday, September 23, I climbed into my truck to the sound of my cell phone buzzing across the dashboard. My daughter, Kate, was calling. As soon as I said hello, I knew something was wrong. Before she spoke the connection between mother and daughter screamed emergency. The news was bad. She’d found her sister, Amanda, on the floor of her bedroom having a tonic clonic, or grand mal, seizure. She’d called 911 and Mandy was continuing to seize. Amanda seized until eleven o’clock Sunday night. When she finally stopped she slipped into a coma.
The doctors expected her to wake up on Monday. When, by Tuesday morning, she showed no indications of waking up, an EEG was ordered. The results were heartbreaking. Kate, always by her sister’s side, was the one who received the news. Her brain wave activity was almost flat with only slight elevation to deep pain stimuli. They weren’t sure if she’d ever wake up. They did an MRI later that day and we received news that her brain showed no visible signs of damage, but we still needed prayer.
News spread across the UD campus. Drew Johnson organized a novena for Amanda. We started receiving phone calls from friends of Amanda’s telling us they were praying for her in their home parishes. Her face book wall filled up with friends from California to Vatican City who were praying for her. A friend of mine was attending a wedding in Utah and said when she prayed for Mandy on Tuesday, her name “burned red in her mind” and she felt like she had “hooked into something really big.” She had.
At 11:00 pm the nurse came to the waiting room to tell us Mandy had blinked. I never thought a blink could bring so much joy. At 3:00am, she began wiggling her feet and squeezing hands. Wednesday, our neurologist told us she would be in the hospital a couple of weeks and then be transferred to a rehabilitation facility to re-learn activities of daily living, simple things like how to walk, eat, dress… They weren’t sure where she’d be cognitively until she was able to breathe on her own and started speaking. While she lay in a coma, she “postured” which is a neuromuscular reflex usually indicating severe brain damage.
She continued to improve Thursday and by the afternoon was able to breath on her own. When they prepared to take her off the ventilator they warned us that she probably wouldn’t talk at first. The most beautiful sight was walking into her room and seeing her sitting up eating a grape Popsicle. She looked at Kate, her dad, and me and asked how she got there. She was talking ten minutes after they took her off the ventilator!
She was weak on her left side and couldn’t sit up without falling over, but she managed to shuffle her way to the bathroom Thursday night, albeit with 2 nurses by her side. Friday morning she learned to use the walker. She was still weak on the left and required help to keep from falling over. She struggled to make a lap around the nurse’s station and then turned it into 3 laps. She was moved out of ICU on Saturday. By Saturday afternoon, she was motoring around with her walker solo. Friday she couldn’t hold a Styrofoam cup, Saturday she was coloring and staying in the lines. She was doing so well they discharged her on Sunday. She attended one class on Monday and by Wednesday was back in school taking classes. She used a cane for about a week but now, she is 100% back.
The mortality rate of surviving a 12 hour + seizure is over 60%. The chances of having no residual problems are even greater. She is our miracle girl and the students at UD are the catalyst. How can I thank you for giving us our daughter back? Your generous hearts and unyielding faith has produced a miracle. I tell this story to anybody who will listen. It is such a testament to prayer and the rosary. My words of thanks seem so empty on paper but believe me my heart is singing and my soul is rejoicing. I can’t stop smiling. Liz, Jeanie, Jim, Valera, Amber, Tess, Brittany, Shore, Brian, Mark, Katelin, Gabe, … I know I’m forgetting people. But, your visits to the waiting room helped us get through the hours between visiting hours, your cards and letters were read to Mandy every chance we got until she woke up and was able to read them herself. ( Can you believe it! She’s able to read them herself!) The flowers were beautiful and the food…wow... well y’all are amazing. But most of all thanks for the prayers. You are wonderful and may God Bless each of you. You brought Mandy home.