Recovery

My system was so saturated with alcohol and drugs, withdrawal was very difficult. I had the shakes so bad much of the time it would take three to six tries just to get a teaspoonful of sugar into a cup of coffee.

And at times I had mild convulsions. I should have had medical treatment, but back in those days that kind of recovery was not a valid reason to be hospitalized as it is this day and time.

Day by day it got a little easier, God, and my husband was my greatest support system. The first six months were the roughest. Sometimes the compulsion to drink and pop pills would come upon me so heavy, and I would wrestle with it awhile.

Just when I would reach my breaking point and I started to pick up the phone and call someone to bring me something or take me to get something or find my car keys if I had the car to go myself, the compulsion would lift instantly.

Later I came to realize this was the working of the Holy Spirit teaching me how to resist temptation.

1963 was a hell of a year; so much happened in this year, but it was also one of my best, all of it came as blessings in disguise, although at that time I didn't recognize them as such, but later looking back over my life I did realize this.

My deliverance came in March; then in April I was hospitalized and had surgery, while Chuck was at sea. In September I made a trip with my neighbor to Kansas to take her daughter to enroll in college there.

Bahia Honda State Park
photo by The Real Florida

On the way back; she was driving at the time, just as day was beginning to break she fell asleep at the wheel on the mainland end of the old Bahia Honda Bridge and wrecked her Volkswagen micro bus. 

There was a fairly steep embankment from the roadway down to the little pond that you can see in the photo. 

When she left the road she woke up and jerked the wheel, the vehicle flipped, and we rolled over two and a half times before we skidded to a stop, with the right side of the vehicle down, and driver's side up.

My children and I were in the back, I was laying on the back seat and they were sleeping on a mattress on the floor; we had removed the middle seat so we could put the mattress down for sleeping.

I had just dozed off, but I woke up when she left the road, I vaguely remember a big steamer trunk hitting me in the head and it knocked me unconscious.

When I regained consciousness two brothers on an early morning fishing trip had seen her headlights where there should not have been any lights and had stopped to investigate and help us; they were first to stop.

They got my children out to safety and then helped me out, but they could not help Maxine, one of her legs was threaded through the steering wheel and the other knee was jammed into the dash. When the emergency crew arrived they had to cut her out.

We were taken by ambulance to Fisherman's Hospital in Marathon because it was the nearest. The Highway Patrolman took my children to the hospital in his car. 

Chuck was called and while I was still conscious I asked them to call Bobbie Hickman who lived in Marathon, to come and take care of my children till Chuck arrived because it would be at least another hour and a half before he could get there.

There were several places on my body where I had no skin left, and the Dr’s at Fisherman's had conferred with the Orthopedic specialist in Miami and told Chuck I would never walk again due to Compressed fractures; three upper and two lower, and the severe trauma to my spine.

Every moment that I was conscious I was praying; asking God to heal me. We were later transferred by Navy ambulances to the U S Naval Hospital in Key West, and seventeen days later I walked out of the hospital. I was in a full metal body brace, but thank God I walked out and I am still walking.

One thing that really touched my heart was Chaplin Reese, from the Boca Chica Naval Air Station read about the wreck involving two Navy wives in the newspaper and he made that 110 mile round trip every day for fourteen days to come and visit and minister to us, and he didn't know us from Adam, till he came. 

Neither of our husbands were stationed at Boca Chica, they were both attached to the main Navy Base in Key West. I think this was the first time I had ever experienced the love of God in action, and I knew it at the time. As long as Chaplin Reese was stationed at the Chapel at Boca Chica; Chuck and I took our children to the services there.

I had my first meltdown of emotion when the two Hospital Corpsmen and the two Navy nurses walked in to transport us back to Key West, I was so happy to see Navy uniforms again! 

I had two years of physical therapy three times a week before I could finally take that metal body brace off and walk free. I also had the best Orthopedic Dr. at the Navy hospital, Dr Benivedes.