Deana's story

Transformation through Trauma
A crash-course in Self-Healing

I decided to share my story here in more detail on my website, because it is my mission to help others who have suffered or gone through what I went through. We have all gone through trauma at some point in our lives. I know I found it tremendously helpful to hear inspirational stories to help get me through my own challenges. I am hoping that if folks read my story, they will know, that if I can do it, they can do it. Like many, mine was not an easy journey. However, having the help of God, and a great support network of family and friends made a huge difference. It was definitely a hard journey, but very rewarding and lead to amazing growth and change for me in many, many positive ways. So for that I am deeply grateful. I experienced many occurrences of profound fear, doubt, self-judgment, pain and many other things during my self-healing journey. But I was able to overcome these things because of my faith, my family, and my belief that without a doubt, everything would turn out all right, and that I was fulfilling my soul's mission to help others alleviate their suffering and heal themselves.

I first began serious investigation into holistic health and alternative healing about 20 years ago when I needed to find a natural way to deal with hormonal imbalances and emotional healing. My freshman year in college at Fairfield University, I took a course in World Religions. This changed my life, and I found that most of the world religions and spiritual traditions teach many of the same things at their core, which helped to open my mind and heart to looking at these various cultures and what they had to offer in terms of spiritual healing. I discovered nutrition, yoga, chiropractic, flower essence therapy and spiritual connection as a way to empower myself and heal myself naturally, as conventional treatment, medication and therapy offered me little relief. If you were to tell me that 20 years later I would be a healer myself, giving massages, balancing people’s chakras, and studying with medicine people and shamans from various countries I would have thought you were nuts.

Deana & Gonzalo, tour guide, teacher and shaman, Macchu Picchu, Peru

This laid the ground work for when I really needed to rely on these tools and find many more to recover and heal from a near-fatal car accident. This was my crash-course in self-healing. This incredibly intense, life-altering experience that happened 13 years ago was my first initiation as a healer, which gave me the opportunity to see first hand the role that Spirit, the Natural World, and our own intense will and desire to heal can indeed create miracles.

At the time of the accident, I was working in the corporate world as an art director and graphic designer, and thought I loved my job. Though I did have this knowing, underlying sense that there was more for me to do, that I was meant to help people in some way. I  just wasn’t sure in what way.

The accident happened on July 12, 1997 when I was driving home from the movies. I had met my then-husband for dinner and a movie a few towns away from our home in Bethel. While we were driving home, we were in separate cars since we met after work. I was following him, and as we were approaching a hill on this narrow back road, two cars were coming the other way. In a matter of seconds, the car behind the other car tried to pass, almost hitting my ex husband Chris, then driving straight into me at 85 miles per hour, hitting me head-on.

My little Volkswagen Golf crumpled under the impact, with me slamming into the steering wheel and the dashboard and at the same time them smashing into me…my car’s only safety feature was a lap belt…no regular seatbelt or airbags.

The intense pain after the crash left me crying and shaking. But the worse part was that I couldn’t breathe. My chest hitting the steering wheel had broken some ribs and simultaneously collapsed both of my lungs. I sat there for a moment, thinking I wouldn’t die from the injuries, even though I knew there were pretty bad. But I thought, if I don’t start breathing I AM going to die. So I thought do I want to die? I felt like I was given the option if I wanted to stay or go.

I knew I wanted to stay and do more. I was only 30 years old at the time and I didn’t want to go yet. I also knew I couldn’t leave my parents or my husband at the time. So, since I couldn’t breathe on my own, I asked God for help. I said, “God, you have to help me, because obviously I can’t do this by myself.”

In that instant that I said this prayer, all of a sudden air entered my abdomen ever so faintly and I was able to breathe. My breathing was pretty labored but I was breathing. That’s all that mattered. In that moment I felt this incredible warm energy fill my body, the light of God and Heaven for sure. I felt very calm and peaceful, and I knew everything was going to be OK. I knew that the healing process would not be easy, but no matter what happened I was going to be OK. I also knew, without a doubt, the deep connection between healing and our connection to God, the Universe and Spirit. Which is, of course, the main philosophy of shamans and indigenous medicine people the world over.

Chris got to my car just a few minutes later, and he helped prop me up so that I could breathe better until the ambulance came. I also tried to move my legs and wasn’t having much luck because my dashboard was pushed way into the car from the impact. So, we waited and eventually the ambulance came. And the fireman who helped get me out of the car, indeed an angel in disguise, kept telling me, not to worry, because I was going to be OK. But I already knew, because God and I agreed on that fact, and here I am today.

It took a while to get to this point, after that accident. In addition to broken ribs, I had bruised several internal organs, lacerated my liver, tore most of the ligaments in my neck and shattered both of my femurs. Any of the major injuries could have been fatal. At the hospital I went through several hours of tests to determine the extent of my injuries, then prepped for surgery 9 hours later. I went through 8 hours of surgery to repair my legs, my lungs, and then emergency surgery on my liver because I started to bleed out during the surgery on my legs. My family was told that I probably wouldn’t make it and I was placed in critical condition at the ICU at Danbury Hospital and closely monitored by the very compassionate ICU nurses.

I was pretty heavily sedated for the first few days to keep me quiet, and because I was on a ventilator since I couldn’t breathe on my own. Many family members and friends came in to visit, I could sense and see the worry on their faces. But I still knew I was going to be OK. By the 5th day in ICU, I started to choke on the ventilator tube. So I knew it was time for THAT to come out. I pulled that tube out and the one up my nose that went down into my stomach. If I had my way I would have pulled ALL the tubes out. I felt like they were holding me back from healing.

The nurse came in and told me that I was going to have to go back on the vent. I refused and told her to do whatever was needed for me to breathe on my own. And I did, with an oxygen mask, no more ventilator. Three days later I was released from ICU, and into a regular room. Evidently I was healing really fast and shocking the doctors and nurses. I moved around in bed as much as I could to keep my strength. Even hooked up to all those tubes I exercised my legs and ankles. I had rods and screws in both legs so no casts. It was a blessing because I could move at least. I started physical therapy so that I could use a wheelchair and a commode on my own. At first I could barely wash myself, and needed help using a bed pan. Not being able to use a bedpan on your own definitely puts the rest of your life in perspective. And also seeing your once intact body, covered with horrendous bruises, swelling, bandages, staples, tubes and assorted other atrocities was shocking and scary. I wondered if I would ever be able to move or look "normal" again. Though somewhere inside, I knew that I would.

This was one of my first goals: be able to use bathroom again, on my own. That will be a good day. Very soon I was able to do that and get in and out of bed sliding on a board, then using a wheelchair. My doctor told me he didn’t know when I would be able to walk again. I demanded a time-frame, and he said 6 weeks, 10 weeks, he didn’t know. I said that I would be walking in 6 weeks. I did, much to the major surprise of my physical therapist, who had never even met anyone who had broken both of their legs before.

After 10 days in the hospital I demanded to be taken off of painkillers. I didn’t want any more toxins in my system draining the energy I needed to heal. My doctors thought I was nuts, but I insisted. I thought the pain would be a teacher, I wasn’t afraid of it. Even though I was covered with staples, immense bruises and swelling. After 18 days in the hospital I went home to recover at my parents house. In 6 weeks I was walking with a walker, after 10 weeks back in the hospital to have the locking screws taken out of my legs which were above both knees and in both hip joints. Once these were out and after 2 more weeks with a walker I could walk full weight down on both feet. Here I was 30 years old and learning to walk again for the 2nd time. more>>