An unexpected place of healing Ramona Pierson

I’m actually going to share something

with you I haven’t talked about probably

in more than 10 years so bear with me as

I take you through this journey when I

was 22 years old I I came home from work

put a leash on my dog and went for my

usual run I had no idea that at that

moment my life was going to change

forever while I was preparing my dog for

the run a man was finishing drinking at

a bar picked up his car keys got into a

car and headed south or wherever he was

I was running across the street and the

only thing that I actually remember is

feeling like a grenade went off in my

head and I remember putting my hands on

the ground and feeling my life’s blood

emptying out of my neck and my mouth

what had happened is he ran a red light

and hit me my dog she ended up

underneath the car I flew out in front

of the car and then he ran over my legs

my left leg got caught up in the wheel

well spun it around the bumper of the

car hit my throat slicing it open I

ended up with blunt chest trauma your

aorta comes up behind your heart it’s

your major artery and it was severed so

my my blood was gurgling out of my mouth

had foamed and horrible things were

happening to me I had no idea what was

going on but strangers intervened kept

my heart moving beating I say moving

because it was quivering and they were

trying to put a beat back into it

somebody was smart and put a big pen in

my neck to open up my airway so that I

could get some air in there and my lung

collapsed so somebody cut me open and

put a pin in there as well to open up my

to to stop that catastrophic event from

happening somehow I ended up at the

hospital I was wrapped in ice and then

eventually put into it

ugh induced coma 18 months later I woke

up I was blind I couldn’t speak and I I

couldn’t walk I was 64 pounds the

hospital really has no idea what to do

with people like that and in fact they

started to call me a gomer that’s

another story we won’t even get into I

had so many surgeries to put my neck

back together to repair my heart a few

times some things work some things dent

I had lots of titanium put in the

cadaver bones to try to get my feet

moving the right way and and I ended up

with the plastic nose porcelain teeth

and all kinds of other things but

eventually I started to look human again

but well it’s hard sometimes to talk

about these things so bear with me I had

more than 50 surgeries but who’s

counting

so eventually the hospital decided it

was time for me to go they needed to

open up space for somebody else that

they thought could could come back from

whatever they were going through

everybody lost faith in me being able to

recover so they basically put a map up

on the wall threw a dart and it landed

at a senior home here in Colorado and I

know all of you are scratching your head

a senior citizens home what in the world

are you going to do there but if you

think about all of the skills and talent

that are in this room right now that’s

what I senior home has so there were all

these skills and talents that these

seniors had the one advantage that they

had over most of you is wisdom because

they had a long life and I needed that

wisdom at that moment in my life but

imagine what it was like for them when I

showed up at their doorstep at that

point I had gained four pounds so it was

68 pounds I was bald I was hot wearing

hospital scrubs and somebody donated

tennis shoes for me and I had a white

cane in one hand and and a suitcase full

of medical records in another hand and

so the senior citizens realized that

they needed to have an emergency meeting

so they pulled back and they were

looking at each other and they were

going okay what skills do we have in

this room this kid needs a lot of work

so they eventually started matching

their talents and skills to all of my

needs but one of the first things they

needed to do was assess what I needed

right away which I needed to figure out

how to eat like a normal human being

since I’d been eating through a tube in

my chest and then through my veins and

so I had to go through trying to to eat

again and they went through that process

and then they had to figure out well she

needs furniture she is sleeping in the

corner of this apartment so they went to

their storage lockers and all gathered

their extra furniture gave me pots and

pans blankets everything and then the

next thing that I needed was

a makeover so out went the green scrubs

and in came the polyester and floral

prints we’re not going to talk about the

hairstyles that they tried to force on

me once my hair grew back but i did say

no to the blue hair so eventually what

went on is they decided that well i need

to learn to speak so you can’t be an

independent person if you’re not able to

speak and can’t see so they figured not

being able to see is one thing but they

need to get me to talk so while Sally

the office manager was teaching me to

speak in the day you know it’s hard

because I you know when you’re a kid you

take things for granted you learn things

unconsciously but for me I had I was an

adult and it was embarrassing and I had

to learn how to coordinate my new throw

with my tongue and my new teeth and my

lips and capture the air and get the

word out so I acted like a two-year-old

and refused to work but the man had a

better idea they were going to make it

fun for me so they were teaching me cuss

word scrapple at night and then secretly

how to swear like a sailor so I’m going

to just leave it to your imagination as

to what my first words were when Sally

finally got my confidence built

so I moved on from there and and a

former teacher who happen to have

Alzheimers took on the task of teaching

me to write the redundancy was actually

good for me so we’ll just keep moving on

one of the pivotal times for me was

actually learning to cross the street

again as a blind person so close your

eyes now imagine you have to cross the

street you don’t know how far that

street is and you don’t know if you’re

going straight and you hear cards

whizzing back and forth and you had a

horrible accident that landed you in the

situation so there were two obstacles I

had to get through one was

post-traumatic stress disorder every

time I approached the corner or the curb

I would panic and the second one was was

actually trying to figure out how to

cross that street so one of the seniors

just came up to me and she pushed me up

to the corner and she said when you

think it’s time to go just stick the

cane out there if it’s hit don’t cross

the street

made perfect sense but by the third cane

that went whizzing across the road they

realized that they needed to put the

resources together and they raised funds

that I could go to the break institute

and actually gain the skills to be a

blind person and also to go get a guide

dog who transformed my life I was able

to return to college because of the

senior citizens who invested in me and

also the guide dog and the skills that I

had gained ten years later I gained my

sight back not magically and I i opted

in for three surgeries and one of them

was experimental it was actually robotic

surgery that removed a hematoma from

behind my eye the biggest change for me

was that the world moved forward that

there were innovations and all kinds of

new things cell phones laptops all these

things that I’d never seen before and

has a blind person your memory of your

visual memory fades and is replaced with

how you feel about things and and how

things sound and how things smell so one

day I was in my room and I saw this

thing sitting in my room and I thought

it was a monster so I was walking around

it and I go I I’m just going to touch it

and I touched it and I went oh my god

it’s a laundry basket so

everything is different when you’re a

sighted person because you take that for

granted but when you’re blind you have

you have the tactile memory for things

the biggest change for me was looking

down at my hands and seeing that I’d

lost 10 years of my life I thought that

time had stood still for some reason and

moved on for family and friends but when

I looked down I realized that time

marched on for me too and that I needed

to get caught up so I got got going on

it we didn’t have words like

crowdsourcing and radical collaboration

when I had my accident but but the

concept held true people working with

people to rebuild me people working with

people to re-educate me I wouldn’t be

standing here today if it wasn’t for

extreme radical collaboration thank you

so much