The Smile on My Forehead Jennifer Mosher, Lulu Press Page 6 of 6

Finally, I’ve been able to sleep. For two nights in a row, I dreamt about Jennifer at different stages during her recovery: in a wheelchair, learning to walk again, and with a Halo Brace on her head. Then the next morning, I combed my hair while looking in the mirror, and another thought flashed through my mind: Brent and Jennifer graduating college together. I take these as messages from God and they bring me hope.

From then on, she felt stronger every day. “I just have to believe that Jennifer is going to be okay,” Mom told herself. This deliberate positive thinking helped her start smiling a little, and her sense of humor even returned.

Eighteen days after the accident, she called the hospital early in the morning to see how I was doing. My nurse, Kelly, answered the phone. “Everything is stable, Loretta, except Jennifer bumped the button on her bed, and raised her head way up. So, I unhooked the motor just in case,” she explained.

“Oh! That must’ve looked pretty funny to watch the bed go up and down,” my mom quietly whispered into the phone, and they both started giggling.

“Why are you whispering?” Kelly asked.

“Well, because I don’t want to wake up Tom. He’s still sleeping,” Mom answered softly.

“What Loretta?” my dad yelled from the bed. “What? I can’t hear you!” He must have heard my mom say his name and assumed she was talking to him. Neither of my parents slept very deeply during this time.

“I’m not talking to you!” my mom answered back, almost in banter, but still in a whisper.

Kelly heard this short conversation and laughed over the phone. “You guys are pretty funny.”

“We’ve got to laugh about anything we can these days, to keep our sanity,” Mom responded.

On Thursday, September 15, 1994, 23 days after the accident, Mom wrote in her journal: “I didn’t sleep well last night because I was so worried about Jennifer.” She called the hospital and talked to another nurse named Kathy.

“Jennifer has been pretty ornery this morning,” she explained. “She pulls off her heart monitor, I put it back on and she pulls it off again. It’s like she’s playing a little game with me.” Mom got really excited because if the nurse recognized that I was playing games, it meant my personality was returning. Later that afternoon, she got even more excited.

Brent and my mom sat in the hospital room, exercising my arms. “You’re doing great, Jennifer,” Mom cheered. “You’re really progressing and I’m so proud of you.” And then she asked me for a hug. I reached up my arms and pulled my mom towards my chest to give her a genuine, sincere, half-hug. She said it was the sweetest hug she’d ever received. Clearly I was responding to her.

“Can your brother have one too?” Brent asked, and I pulled him down towards me, to give the same gentle hug, and they both started applauding; not that I could hear them, but it was another sign that I was coming around.

Just then, my anesthesiologist stopped in my room, to get an update on my condition, as all of my doctors often did. “Hi! What’s all the excitement about?” he wondered.

“Jennifer just hugged us both!” Mom was elated, as if I was a toddler who had just taken her first steps.

“That’s great news! I stopped in earlier this morning, and noticed that Jennifer is looking brighter.” He sounded just as thrilled. “I’ll post signs around the hospital.”

“That’s what’s so great about this place,” Mom wrote. “Everyone knows Jennifer, and is concerned about her. I know we’d never find this same kind of intimacy at a big-city hospital.”

We spent just over four weeks in Nebraska, all of which time I have no memory. According to the hospital discharge report, I was able to let ice chips thaw inside my mouth, and I had begun taking minimal sips of water. On September 28, 1994, I was stable enough for Mom and I to board a two-engine air ambulance bound for a hospital in Minneapolis. Mom wrote in her journal that some of my nurses, Duane, Kathy, and Kelly, cried when we said good-bye to them.

Two pilots and two flight medics accompanied us on our flight home. Strapped to a cot, I was so agitated that I flung my arms from side-to-side until the medics gave me a sedative so I’d relax. The drug didn’t work for very long. Each time they tried to clip an oxygen tube near my nose, I’d frantically pull it away. Finally, they just held it close, but whenever I felt too much air blowing at me, I’d pull the towel over my face.

As the plane got closer to the airport in Minneapolis, the urban lights sparkled and my mom felt the city’s energy. “Finally we’re coming home,” she said to herself. “Five weeks is a long time to be away, especially in a small town like Scottsbluff, Nebraska, under such miserable circumstances.” When we landed, an ambulance was waiting to deliver us to Abbott Northwestern Hospital, which would be my home for one week until I could be admitted into Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute.

From The Smile on My Forehead: Memoir of My Life with a Brain Injury by Jennifer Mosher., Lulu Press. Copyright 2009 © Jennifer Mosher. Used with permission. www.lulu.com. To learn more about Jennifer Mosher, go to www.jennifermosher.com.

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