Recovery...

So, it was my 2nd year at Indiana University.  I had planned on trying out for cheerleading, and also rushing a sorority this year, but dramatically changing my path, over the summer, on my way to a National Cheerleader's Association (NCA) camp that I worked and taught for, I had a car accident.  My car overturned 3 times, and threw me back into the road 75 feet.  Amazingly, the car behind me held a doctor and a nurse, who told the police, who came to the scene, that I had been looking down doing something...like changing the radio station (no doubt)...After what was described as attempts at Karate on the paramedics, who were trying to airlift me (I took Karate 1st semester at IU)...I was, in fact, airlifted and went in to a coma for 7 days...

Pictured above are my late-mother & my sister, Tunde

To my right side in this picture is my mother & father & then on my left side are my sister, Tunde, then Dad's sister, my Aunt Shari, and Uncle Paul

When I woke, I didn't remember who I was, nor how I got there...nor who stood around me.  My father asked if I knew who he and my mother were...I said "Yes! Jean and lady-friend." ( My mother's name was Jean)...My mother later told me that I'd also had moments where I spoke like I had an "old soul"...as tho reincarnation could have been a factor, as tho I was going thru passed lives when I was in the hospital.  Then on another day, when I was in the coma, my father had believed that spiritual motivation could bring me out of it..Dad believed and taught us the "POWER OF THE MIND," so he put some headphones over my ears, and placed a cassette tape in a "walkman" and proceeded to play "Reverend Ike"...then a motivational leader who would YELL as tho he was a baptist minister to get his point across...at that time in my life...age 19, August 2nd, was the day of the accident, I told my father that I didn't like our Sunday lessons, where Dad would drum this man and his message thru our house AND on the speakers outside and around the pool...so virtually anyone within earshot could hear his message!!! Well, when Dad did this, and I was in my sleeping "coma" state, I picked up the "walkman" slowly and raised it to the side of the bed...and dropped it on the floor!! I have no memory of this incident in my life, except for 1 day waking up in my hospital bed...looking around, and seeing another empty bed across the room from me...

For a couple of weeks after I woke, my parents left me in the hospital, as they were told stories like I may never walk again. I had a "head injury'"...But, after my father did word association with me, and he said the word "life," and I responded "school"...He realized that they had to get me out of that hospital ASAP and get me back to my life, and back to SCHOOL...Indiana University...and normalcy for me...even if I was walking with a limp, I couldn't write, had very little memory recall and my college room had been given away, so I had to stay on the locked top floor of a dorm called the "virgin vault."

This picture of me is a few months following the accident.  I thought I might try modeling, and my parents encouraged me to do a photo shoot with a local photographer & put together a portfolio.  Got a bunch of nice pictures, but never actually put myself out there for any modeling jobs...didn't think I was tall enough, and then, really I still felt I had some growing to do to get back to the "performer" that I'd been before the accident.

After this experience, I felt that it had happened for the growth of my parents and family.  As I did have a battle ahead of me to get my body physically and mentally back, I didn't remember much of it, and knew it had been incredibly painful for all of them to watch.

I met my x-husband within the first month living in Naples, FL, and got married 9 months later on June 21, 1992.  We were married for 17 years, then separated, and the divorce became legal 2 years later.