PART ONE
Well, to start off I'm not very good with words, so I'll
do the best I can and hope you guys can bear with me. What I wanted to do today,
is write down my experiences that I had four years ago today. Actually, I'm
going to start back six and half years ago, because it will help you get a
better idea of where my life was at. I was a stay-at-home mom to two cute
little boys. I was enjoying motherhood, but was trying to find a way to earn a little
extra money when I had this idea come to me in the middle the night. I wanted
to do shoe parties!
There were all types of parties out there, but at the
time there weren't any shoe parties! After a lot of work and convincing to my
husband I figured out a way to do it. I promised him I would start out by
hosting my own shoe party in our home. So I began the preparations with invitations,
etc. I didn't tell anyone I invited about my little experiment. I wanted to see
how it would fare and I didn’t want anyone doing me any favors. It was my test
to see how well it was going to turn out, if this could really be a viable
business.
My husband was a little skeptic and so he anxiously watched
from the hallway as he saw woman after woman coming in and purchasing shoes,
then leaving with their purchases that night. After the party ended, we counted
the money and found it was a success! We had found something that women love,
shoes! Not only that, but it was a fun way to shop with your friends. All we had to do now was develop a way to
make it work.
Now, at the time I was so excited about this new idea I
came up with that I told my husband all I would have to do to take parties to
others homes was pack up all the shoes in the car and take them to the hostess's
homes and then unload my car each time, sell and then load it all back up and
go home. Well, my husband was smart and said that after awhile that would get
really old and I would get burnt our really fast. Looking back now, he was
absolutely right, so instead we came up with a way to make a mobile shoe party.
It took lots of hard work and trial and error to get our system developed. Yet,
we did it! We developed a shoe store on wheels. We purchased a 7x16 foot long
trailer and built out shelving and restraints to keep the product in an
organized fashion. Then we showed up to people’s homes and set up a display then
let the fun begin. The customers loved the idea of trying it on and taking it
home with them in the same night!
It didn’t take long for the parties to take off. It was a
unique idea and come on, it was shoes! People were able to host parties, get
all the girls together and earn free product off of their friend’s purchases. I
was so busy with parties that I was months booked out! It didn’t take long
until I had multiple people coming to me wanting to be a part of our system and
sell shoes. We started selling franchises which not only was a benefit to me
and my family but it also allowed other moms to make money, without having to
work too much out of the home. I loved that part, I felt like I was helping
families. This also helped our franchise business to grow. Due to the growth of
our business we were quickly getting too cramped where we were living and we
made the decision to start building our first home. Life was busy with a growing
business, building a home, running our other business (my husband and I also
owned a Smoothie/Sandwich/Salad restaurant, but he mainly took care of that) and
on top of that we were expecting our third baby! Things were exciting, not only
with business, but also with our family. We found out we were expecting our
first baby girl and we were so excited! I felt like I was on top of the world
and at other times I wondered how I could manage everything! Overall things
were going really well.
When I was 7 months pregnant we found out I needed to be
on moderate bed rest. How was I supposed to keep up with my very busy schedule?
Our house was getting closer to being finished and quite honestly I couldn’t wait
for that. My plate was full and I kept thinking that having the house done
would be one less thing I would have to worry about. This part of the story
brings me to four years ago.
We had just sold our 9th franchise, which
always requires tons of work. Things were crazy at our house. My mom knew we
had a lot to work to do and she didn’t want me over doing it so she offered to
take my kids for the weekend so I could relax and take it easy. We finished
the trailer and spent a little time resting and then we started the drive out
to my mom’s house to pick up the kids and have a little family dinner. My mom
lives out in the beautiful country and so we always enjoy our drives there. We
thought this would be just like any other.
On the way home my husband and I discussed the week
ahead, talked about what kind of light fixtures we wanted to put in our new home,
etc. It was dark driving on this one lane highway. I was always on the watch
for deer on these drives so in the dark they seemed more intense. The next
thing we knew a big truck was coming at us with their brights on. This blinded
us for a second as we were turning the corner, when the next thing we knew
there were three black cows in the middle of the road. Driving 65 miles per
hour doesn’t give much time for reaction. I don't remember anything; I don't
even remember seeing the cows, although my kids in the backseat said that I
screamed so I must've seen them.
Before we knew it, we collided with one of the black
cows. The cow came through the windshield on my side (the passenger side of the
car) where he collided/kissed my face! The impact turned our car and made it go
down to the right side of the road into a little swampy area with big tall
weeds. My husband said at first he thought I was ejected because it was so dark
and all he saw was a big hole in the windshield. He quickly realized that I was
laying there bleeding profusely my head. My husband knew immediately that it
was an emergency, so he tried to call 911, but there was no cell phone
reception. He told my boys to wait there while he went to go get help.
My husband walked up to the side of the road and in the
process another vehicle drove over the cow we hit that was still lying in the
road. My oldest son (5 years at the time) said that he heard that big noise and
thought that dad got hit by a car, so he unbuckled his seat belt and got out of
his car seat. He then says he came and shook my shoulder saying, “Mom, wake up,
wake up, we need you. Mom, please wake up, we need your help.” Obviously, I wasn’t
much help unconscious. Luckily, my husband didn't get hit by a car and came
back down the hill and was able to get the kids out of the car quickly so that
they didn't have to watch me, their mom lying there unconscious. The highway patrolman
called me a fatality and said they were just trying to save the life of my
unborn baby.
The first ambulance arrived where they took me out of the
car and got me on the way to the nearest hospital. I found out later that my
husband rode with me in the ambulance. I asked him, “Why did you do that? Why
did you leave our two little kids by themselves?” He said that they were
waiting for another ambulance to arrive and that he had to have faith and trust
the people in charge would take care of our kids and do the things that were
best for them I learned about a family that
let my boys sit in their car while they worked to get me out of the car and to
keep them away from me. What a blessing! I wish I knew who they were to thank
them. It really means a lot to me, still to this day.
I went by ambulance to the nearest hospital where they
quickly determined that they were going to be unable to take care of me so they
called for life flight where they were sending me to the top trauma hospital in
our state. My husband was unable to come in the helicopter with me so he
quickly got in the car and started his trek to the hospital. Once I arrived they
put me through tests and then I quickly underwent major surgery. They found
through 3d scans that my damage was intense and prepared my family for the
worst.
My face was
shattered from the top of my jaw up to the middle of my skull. Once they cut me
open they realized quickly that the little bones that were left intact would
shatter when they would try and screw plates and screws into them. Any bone
that was left was unstable and fragile. The doctor said they had to vacuum the
bones out my face. My first surgery went a little over eight hours when my
heart rate was dropping so they had to quickly stitch me up. I was place in the
ICU and had to wait to get strong enough to go in for surgery again Because
they were unable to finish what they started my family said they sat by my bed
and had to listen to the bones crunching anytime I moved my face. They watched
as I sucked through a straw and witnessed my face sinking in. My husband said
it was horrible to watch.
A few days later I
went under another major surgery for another eight hours where they were able
to go in and work more on my face and head. When I woke up my eyes were stitched
closed and my mouth was wired shut with a breathing tube down my throat. I
remember feeling very claustrophobic. I couldn’t see anything, so all I had was
my sense of touch and sound. I longed for the touch of my husband and mothers
hand. I hated the time I was all alone when they made my family leave during
nurse shift changes. I remember them telling my family to go home one night and
get some rest because they had given me so many drugs that I would be out of
it. Well, I wasn’t! That was the worst night of my life! I was scared and felt
so alone. I started to imagine that I had been sent to a misfit place out in
the middle of nowhere and I wondered if I would ever get to go home. I would always be thinking about all the
business things that needed to be done and how my kids were holding up. I
worried about my unborn baby and prayed she would be ok. Because my right arm
was also broken I was in a cast from my shoulder to my fingertips. I am
right-handed so that meant I couldn't even write. I love to communicate, so not
being able to talk was really hard for me. I would try to write with my left
hand to get messages to those around me. They were usually a scribbled mess
with something like, “Don’t leave me”, and “I need you to do this for the
business” and “How are my kids and the baby?” It’s amazing when you don't have
certain senses how much you learn to appreciate and be grateful for all you do
have. 
The doctors kept saying, “You are a miracle!” “You should
be brain-dead!” “We can't believe you're okay!” “You should have never survived
that impact!” To go with all of that, they couldn’t believe that my little baby
was still inside my tummy. She was a huge miracle! They even had a place
reserved for her on our hospital bill in the NICU. The doctors monitored her
extensively and they gave her a steroid shot to help her develop her lungs because
they really did not think that she would stay in the womb. They watched her
closely as I was having contractions but she was a fighter and she was not
ready to come out! Lucky for our family she did camp out a little longer and didn’t
make her appearance until she was only a week early!
The days and nights all blended together while I lay in
the hospital. I recently learned about family members that were grateful I couldn’t
see during most of my stay, because they would sit next to me and hold my hand
while they cried. While tears streamed down their face they would comfort me
with their “fake” strong voices. I know that really did help me stay positive. I
remember lying in my hospital bed and not being able to breathe on my own. I remember wanting to drink water so bad. After
they removed the breathing tube, I had to pass a swallow test. I failed my
first one and I was devastated. I barely made it through the 2nd
test a long while later. I learned that drinking water is a wonderful blessing
that I took for granted before. Having my eyes stitched closed only complicated
the situation.
Yet, while I laid there I couldn't help but be grateful
that no one else in my car was injured that night. I was so grateful that I was the only one that
took a hit. It could've been a lot worse; I could've lost my entire family that
night. They say that when you hit a cow, they usually end up in the backseat. If
that happened in our case it would have killed my two little boys. I don’t remember
ever feeling sorry for myself, as I laid there in pain. I felt a lot stronger
than I thought I was. I understood what really mattered and was so grateful for
all the miracles that happened that night. 
Once I got out of the ICU my husband still stayed with me
around the clock, but as I got stronger I wanted him to go home and start
getting caught up on things and visit with the kids and I will never forget my
husband coming back and telling me his Home Depot story. He had to pick out all
the light fixtures for our new house because the electrician needed them asap. He
was so worried that I wouldn’t like them, or I would want something else. He told
me how stressful it was and I remember looking at him and saying, “I don’t even
care, that stuff doesn’t even matter.” I really did feel that way. Those are
just things and I had what mattered most, my family. By the way, he did a great job!
When it finally
came time for my stitches to come out of my eyes I'll never forget the first
time I got up and saw my face. I’m a redhead, and there aren’t many redheads
around, so when the nurse helped me up to the mirror all I saw was a very
swollen, bruised, cut, very unattractive redhead. I was wondering what had
happened to this poor girl? When I looked behind me I realized this poor person
was me and right then and there I had a decision to make. I could lose all of
Cari or I could lose the exterior Cari. I felt like time stood still and I
quickly made the decision that I was Cari and I dint want to lose who I was.
Just because my exterior had changed, that didn’t mean the inside needed to
too. The funny thing throughout all of this, was the time that I was able to
talk to those around me, I found myself joking with the nurses and having a
good time. I laid there in bed, I didn't see what I looked like and I didn't know
the extent of the damages. I was Cari. I knew things were bad, but I guess I
never thought it would affect the way that I looked, it would just all heal
back the way it was. I wish that had been the case, but even though it wasn’t,
I knew I was still blessed.
I remember going through physical therapy I was required
to go up two stairs and then go back down. I did the two stairs and I looked at
my therapist and I said, “No I can do more, don't let me get away with just
doing two!” He didn’t know who Cari was. I am not one person to let things be
easy for me, infact most things in my life weren’t easy! Being a mom isn’t always
easy, starting a business is not an easy thing to do both require lots of
questions you have to answer, and a lot of things you have to learn. These were
things that I, Cari would do, why would I stop now? I had to push myself when I
opened up the business and so I learned I could use the same things that I
learned in business to help me push through recovery. My doctor was amazed at
my progress and I begged him to go home. I missed my kids so much and I was dying
to see the progress of our new home. The time finally came when I would get to
start phase two of this adventure at home…
