User:J lightning

The Strike of My Life By: Janae Montes When you’re a kid you have a dream, and there’s not a doubt in your mind that it won’t come true. June 22nd 2005. “Hey Mom, can Lindsey sleep over tonight?” “Yes Janae that’s fine.” My cousin Lindsey and I have been close since we were born. We had another long night playing monopoly, watching movies and eating everything in sight. “Gosh Lindsey it’s 3:30 in the morning, I need to go to bed. I have a scrimmage tomorrow afternoon.”  We hit the lights and fell asleep, positive about what to expect of tomorrow. June 23rd 2005. It was 11:30 A.M, and my mom decided to call to see if Lindsey and I were awake yet after our fun night of keeping her up late. We decided to get out of bed and eat some Captain Crunch cereal for breakfast. “What time is your scrimmage at?” Lindsey asked. “5:30p.m at East High School, but I have to be there at 5,” I replied sounding uninterested. I woke up with a bad attitude being the outcome of my lack of sleep from the night before. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the scrimmage this afternoon. “I’m tired; maybe my mom won’t make me go to it.” A few hours passed and it’s about an hour until I have to leave. I decided to call my mom before I got ready; I was tired and didn’t want to go. “No you have to go, you already missed last Thursdays scrimmage because you went camping remember? You don’t want to be benched for missing it.” I gave in expectantly and started to get ready. “ Later, the shuttle van from the car dealership my mom worked at picked us up. We drove in silence until we got to Lindsey’s house. I was a little more excited, being I have no other option at this point. The van then pulled out and we left to meet my mom. She worked at a car dealership a mile from East High School. There I switched vehicles, put my bag in the trunk, and hopped into the front seat of my mom’s Honda Civic. We pulled up to the grassy softball field and she dropped me off, “Have a good time and I’ll see you when I get off “my mother said very confidently that she would get me back in one piece. It was a perfect day as I walked up to the field with a few of my teammates joking around and laughing. We sat in the grassy outfield and put our cleats on. Then we jogged up and down the fence, got in a circle and began to stretch. Still laughing and talking we put our dirty gloves on sprinted into two straight lines across from each other and began to play catch to warm up our arms. “In-field out-field,” my coach shouted to us with 2 balls and a bat in his hand. Our other coach told us our positions. “There’s lightning in the far distance, our coach said, “but if it get closer we’ll call the game.” I ran out to my position, with determination and spark. I fielded a few pop-flies, then the thunder rolled loudly overhead, I blacked out instantly. I had closed my eyes for what seems like hours, it had actually been weeks until I realized I was at the Children’s Hospital in Denver Colorado. My family was ecstatic to see I could communicate with a pen and paper. They asked me if I wanted to know why I was in the hospital and as to why I have so many needles and tubes sticking in and out of me. Moments later I found myself in shock; I had been struck in the back of my head by a lightning bolt. It left me with hemorrhages in both sides of my brain and my left side entirely paralyzed. From that moment I knew my life had changed forever. I spent two long months in the hospital receiving physical, occupational, and speech therapy 6 times daily. A year after my accident I lettered playing varsity softball one sided and having no running ability. When life puts a stop to a dream you’ve had since you were a kid, don’t stress, you just learn to find a new dream, another way of life. Today, I am a successful student in college and a mother, living a new dream.