This is a story I think every one should read to remind them of their own blessings and how quickly life can change. A story about our life as a family--the before, during, and after story--about our beautiful daughter Sammy. Sammy is best described as a loving and tender child who could find a way to smile on the rainiest of days, knew no strangers, and had her life changed forever in an instant.
The Allen family-my family--is one that loved to go on road trips. All of the kids learned how to swim in different oceans. Justin (16), Tiffany (10), Samantha (8), and Cheyenne (6) all were very healthy and happy children. Mom Priscilla (that's me) and dad Jerry had met at a young age (13 and 14) and married by age 18. I'm a housewife and Jerry a brick mason. The girls loved to swim, cheer, dance, and play house. Justin loved to ride bikes, skateboard, and the gym. We were a very happy family. We had been trying to get our masonry company going for many years. After some success we were finally able to advertise in the Yellow Pages, getting business, and making it possible for us to do some of the things we had not been able to do for ourselves and our children. We had thought life was getting better for our family.
Then on one ordinary day-May 12, 2003-one day after Mother's Day, Tiffany and Samantha were playing in the front yard of a house that we had recently rented, thinking it would be a great house for our family to live in for many years. As Samantha and Tiffany played, after just getting off the school bus, Samantha crossed the street to get some water from her friend. That's when a car struck her. Everything changed in that instant, forever, for all of us, and especially so for Samantha. CPR was started right away. Tiffany saw her sister hit by the car and said, "She went higher than the trees, Mommy!" On the way to Wishard Hospital we all experienced our own hell. Jerry suspended in a nightmarish dream state in slow motion as if to magnify the experience. Me feeling panic and a level of helplessness washing over me the likes I cannot describe. Justin and Cheyenne in shock and bewilderment. Tiffany was lost, completely and totally emotionally distraught. A state that went on for more than two months. Once we got to Wishard Hospital, a doctor took us aside and told us that Sammy was not doing so well and he did not think she would live. That's when Jerry and me went to see Sammy-a vision that tore a hole in Jerry's soul and rendered me helpless. The doctor wasn't able to look us in the eye as he suggested we should let her go. No! That was without hesitation. No! No! No! One ounce of life left in Samantha was worth fighting for. No matter what the doctors thought, Sammy held off the angels with everything she had and we knew we had to give it everything we had too. No matter what.
As we went back to our three other children in the waiting room, we knew that all they needed to hear was that Sammy was still alive. Even the notion that she would live as a quadriplegic didn't phase their willingness to have Samantha back.
That's when Sammy was sent to Riley Hospital. As a family we would sit and wait to see Sammy. She was in a coma and not expected to come out of it. We would stay at the Ronald McDonald House just long enough to get some rest and then go right back to the hospital to see Sammy and hope that she would wake up from the coma. The doctor had been doing lots of tests and at this time we were again asked to let Sammy go. But we had already decided-as a family-that would never be an option.
The doctor told us that Sammy had a C1 spinal cord injury and they did not know if it was totally severed. She also suffered a femur break so severe that the doctor had never seen one like it before. They were able to repair the femur and she was put into traction for eight weeks: a form of traction not used in 27 years at Riley Hospital. Samantha also had to endure a probe placed in her head to monitor the swelling of her brain. Later she would have four blood transfusions.
One day as I prayed and prayed, I stood over Sammy and brushed her beautiful hair and she began to wake up from her coma. She was smiling to show off the two front teeth that had come in while she was in the coma, unaware of her condition. Those five days of coma and tests and test results seemed like five years. I just about had a heart attack, seeing Sammy finally come back to us, from the coma, and the only thing I could say was "Sammy, just shut your eyes and rest." She did so for a moment. Then she looks up at me and smiled, still proud of her new teeth. And even then the doctor asked once again to take Sammy off life support. I was so offended, I left the room to get away from him. When I went back to Sammy's side she puckered up so I could give her a kiss and I knew that Jerry and I had made the right decision-our girl was so full of life and such a fighter. Since then, Sammy has shown more progress than was ever expected. She suffered no brain damage whatsoever. She can move her head, shoulders, and chest. She has already exceeded the expectations of all the medical professionals who treated her. Typically a person suffering a C1 spinal cord injury is unable to eat or taste food, let alone move their head, shoulders, and chest in less than one year's recovery time, but Sammy showed them!
At that time we were asked to leave Ronald McDonald House because we lived in state. So we had to go to the house where the car had hit Sammy; neither my children nor me were able to sleep. We just kept thinking about what had happened to Sammy.
Once we knew Sammy would be coming home, we had to find the best place for us to live. We tried to rent a different house, but it wasn't handicapped accessible. Jerry and I built ramps for the house we had been renting while we continued to look for something that would be better for Sammy. We kept looking and looking and couldn't find anything. Our family is just too big, with four children and all the medical equipment and supplies that Samantha needs. The insurance money from the driver that hit Sammy ran out quickly and we were forced to get state funding. That meant that Jerry and I could not work and we would get a very small amount of money from the state to live on. The kind of house that we needed for Sammy was too big for Habitat for Humanity, another option that didn't work out.
So now our hopes and prayers are adapting our current house for Sammy. A house she can truly live in, not just exist in. The house needs to be totally handicapped accessible for her. Sammy's situation made us realize there are probably many more children just like her with the same needs and that maybe something positive could come from the terrible thing that happened to Sammy. That's when the dream of "Samantha's House" came alive. Samantha's House will be a non-profit organization that will help families like ours to have a home for handicapped children where they could live with as few limitations as possible. The dream of Samantha's House was like a ray of sun poking through this dark cloud we know as helplessness. With help from people like you and The Lord, this will work and we can make Sammy's life as normal as possible and help other children like her.
My family and I thank you for reading our story and your time. God bless. Priscilla Allen
