An open letter to Mr. M:

Dear Mr. M-:

1000s of pills.

33 screws & 4 plates.

11 pins/rods through my leg for 3 months.

 Roughly 24 hours total spent in surgery.
Roughly 50 stitches/staples.

7 surgeries.
11 incision sites- some opened multiple times.

7 weeks off work.
12 weeks of pic line meds.
5 teams of doctors.
3 months of wound clinic visits.
6 months therapy.

15 months spent in a wheelchair/walker/crutches.
1 amputation.
1 new leg.


Those are the solid numbers. Not included are: countless nightmares, immeasurable tear drops, numerous sleepless nights, multiple days of depression, more office visits than I care to think about, and many, MANY, more things that I can go on to name.

I know my struggle is minimal compared to many others, but I am still a survivor.

 I have battled an infection that ravaged my body.

I have (tried to) smile in the face of adversity.

For heaven’s sake, I completed my first year of teaching with metal sticking out of my leg and had 4 surgeries in 4 months during that one school year.

The physical damage has been immense, and the mental damage has been considerable. I cannot drive without shuddering at every intersection. I quadruple check for unseen vehicles at every push of the brake and at every sound of a siren. Loud noises terrify me because, well, airbags are really loud when they hit your face.  These things haunt me every single day.

Then there's this prosthetic leg thing. Every morning and every evening when I put on and take off this leg, I'm reminded of what happened. Some days are harder than others. For instance, when I'm sitting on the edge of my bed at 2am staring at my bathroom door debating on using the wheelchair next to my bed, or hopping that distance, those moments are hard. In the times I actually forget I have a pseudo leg and get an itch on my calf, I reach down to scratch but hit plastic: Those moments are hard.

You don’t know that I was headed home to prep for a funeral that day, and one the next day too, when you almost made me attend my own. Another thing you don’t know, all of those above numbers are incomparable to this one fact: hundreds, possible thousands, of prayers have been sent up on my behalf in the past 2 years. I'm not sure why my God saw it best to keep me here, but he did. And you can never possibly know how terrified I was thinking I took your life that day – there are no words that can express that terror.  I STILL have nightmares about that possibility.

There are days when I wish I could speak with you (although it's probably best that we never meet because my family probably isn’t as readily to forgive as I am). I don't want to hear an apology, I just want to talk because you are a person who made a mistake. You are a person whose sins were paid for at Calvary and I'm not sure if you know that or not. So, Mr. M, I hope that wherever you are, you are doing well. I do say, however, I hope you think about being a more careful driver now. I hope at every intersection, you look twice because of the girl in the gray impala that you didn't see. I truly hold no bitterness in my heart, and forgiveness was done almost immediately (It was probably on day 3 because of being out of my head with drugs and medication reactions from day 1-2). I have the occasional sadness and mourning of what I've lost, but that sadness is small compared to the peace that God has given me in this battle. Philippians 4:7 says that there is a peace of God that passeth all understanding; I cannot begin to explain how incredibly true that has been. There are literally no words in my vocabulary that I can use to tell you how that peace has gotten me through – how that peace made me able to smile about not having a leg any more, and how that peace doesn’t make me bitter. There are no words, and if I tried to explain it, I’d probably just end up crying while thinking of that undeserved grace.

I am a survivor who will forever have fear and panic imbedded in me because of your lack of attention; I am the consequence of your actions. Thankfully, 2 years later, I am finally getting back to who I was before. I’ll be getting a new leg soon, which is pretty exciting, and I’ve been thinking of some positive things about having 1 full leg:

-          Less to shave

-          Only 5 toes to paint/manicure

-          Not having to wear a sock on my prosthetic, which makes a pair of socks good for two days

-          New shoes make blisters only on one foot

-          Only one leg gets cold during the winter

-          More covers at night for my other leg

-          The ability to walk into a teacher meeting and say “sorry guys, my leg is squeaking today”

-          Being able to fix your leg with WD40

-          Less toes to stub on things

-          People can step on my “toes”, or kick my leg, and I can’t feel it

-          Pretty good conversation starter

-          Completely mortifying students by making a leg joke in class

-          Having a new body part created just for you every so often

So there’s some good things in light of the bad. I’m 3 weeks shy of turning 26, and I have the rest of my life to enjoy.

Sincerely,
Andrea Myers, the girl in the gray impala who now drives a red SUV.

P.S. I didn't include your whole name because you still deserve some anonymity.