Lisa Boone
The Sacred Tree
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
3/16/2009
I was enjoying lunch on the sunbaked patio with a friend, sharing how it was my last day of freedom before Jessie arrived home. At fifteen, she was challenging my momma heart with a continual stretching and pushing for more independence, so I was not surprised when she begged me to not come on her youth group’s spring break ski trip as the chaperone nurse. Part of me had wanted to go to protect her and the other part had been eager for a parental break from the constant pushing for more freedom.
But missing her was harder than the boundary pushing, so I was excited for her to come home and hear what she was willing to share about her adventures.
I could feel the vibrations in my back pocket and answered the call from my son.
“Hey Justin–”
But before I could get another word spoken, his voice broke through with a barrage of words, “Mom, there’s been an accident. It’s Jessie. She’s hurt. She’s hurt real bad.”
I knew my son and his prankish ways, always going the distance to get a reaction.
“Justin, this isn’t funny. Stop,” I said in my stern mom voice.
His voice changed to a different rhythm. “Mom, I promise I’m not kidding. She’s hurt and the helicopter is here taking her to a hospital.”
Is that a helicopter in the background?
Unconsciously picking up my purse, I found my car keys, hearing the proof needed to know it was real and that I needed to get to her as fast as I could.
“Son, what happened?”
Words I knew from my nursing career were striking my ears in a different disbelieving sort of way. “Skiing accident, head hit tree trunk, ski patrol, intubation, head injury, vomiting, not responding… It’s bad, momma.” Sobs broke through his words.
Shock and disbelief overtook my mind as I sorted out how I would traverse the distance of 700 miles in the shortest possible time.
Answers Before I Needed Them
As with most stories, mine started long before that dreaded call on March 16, 2009. In fact, I can look back and know for certain that I had been more prepared for this moment than most.
This wasn’t my first encounter with brain injuries or navigating traumatic experiences in a healthcare system. As I entered my sophomore year of nursing school, my older brother’s head went through the windshield of his truck, launching me into the depths of family trauma and researching traumatic brain injuries (TBI’s) as we struggled and searched to find the resources to help him recover from his devastating injuries.
Then early in my nursing career, I worked in a small community hospital ER providing me with widespread opportunities to care for the trauma of others, including the one tragic night when the ambulance brought a small child into the ER with a massive head injury. After hours of heroic measures, the child didn’t survive. Witnessing and attempting to comfort these young parents in the loss of their beloved little one seared into my heart—a horror I would never forget.
Spending the next several years as an ONC (orthopedic nurse certified) nurse manager in an orthopedic hospital, my focus was providing exceptional health care by implementing the highest standards of orthopedic nursing to assure people would have the best possible outcomes for the quality of their life.
With the newly built rehabilitation unit within the hospital, I transitioned into a unique opportunity for the position of rehab nurse manager, developing policies and procedures and hiring professionals while supervising the nursing care of this twenty-four-bed unit.
Surrounded by expert physiatrists and therapists, my experience and knowledge grew each day as I witnessed the brutal pain and life-changing struggles of injured people, and the tiny miracles of recovery and regaining the quality and independence of one’s life.
After twenty years in orthopedics and rehabilitation, God orchestrated an unexpected job change and altered the course of my life. Becoming a CHPN (Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse) helped me master evidenced-based practices in the education and management of end of life symptoms, with a heavy focus on bringing comfort and peace to the patient and their families.
We Can Survive and Endure
What I thought would be impossible to survive, I found myself suddenly hurled into—the dark, hell-like abyss of my fiercely independent, wildly active, and love-filled daughter’s massive brain injury. Freefalling out of control, I began to fiercely claw to find some way to regain the orientation of who I was and whose I was.
It began in the moment.
Finding each moment helped me to defiantly refuse the zero visibility of the grief of the past and the immobilizing fear of the future. In the moment, I could find God. I could find breath. I could find me.
With my eyes focused on the moment, I witnessed a greater Power that is always present, bringing forth provision even before we know we need it or ask for it.
My prayer is that every one of my spoken and written words reminds you that you are never alone, and help is on the way. That you may have the grace to see beneath the surfaces of your circumstances and find the hidden seeds that are just waiting to burst forward in the moments of your deepest needs.
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