The Ultimate Crash and Recovery - Toni's Story

I drive over again to Traci's house where Toni is visiting her sister for a few days. It is a nice summer morning. I know the way I was just here a week or so ago. It is fun to meet a fraternal twin. They look so much alike. I instantly liked her it was the same way as with Traci. Both are wonderful people. Toni invites me in, and we sit down at the dining room table. I ask her if she has any questions before we begin. Traci already told her everything, so we began the recording almost immediately. 

Toni had an accident, a major one. 

I cannot see visible signs now. She was asked a few years back to speak about her accident and she stood up in front of a group of people and openly shared. She tells me it was one of the scariest things she did, she was really nervous. Toni feels that it is very important to be upfront about our experiences, good and bad, in order to start a conversation on issues affecting our community. Both Traci and Toni tell me that they would rather be the patient than the family member who has to deal with seeing their loved one's injured. Toni tells me her personality is if we have a problem, let's fix it. 

It is so funny we said it exactly at the same time. Nursing brains. We laugh. 

Toni tells me Traci and she is total opposites in this regard. She feels like even that they are twins and went through the experience, have the same memories their perceptions were very different about their upbringing. There are things that Traci remembered that Toni did not. Toni felt that a bad thing happened to her, the attitude was to let it go and move on. We discuss some of the memories Traci and Toni had that were different. They had talked about the water bottle in the fridge that was their dad's. Toni has no recollection of that. She was like what water bottle? All she remembers is the milk. When her father picked up the glass and set it down, that meant they were to fill it with milk. We are all different and how we perceive things is different. Toni has so many stories she was not sure where to start. 

She decided to start with early memories. She is telling me that her mom was the main person at the home, she was the one who kept the family together. Her dad was a workaholic. He did not know how to be a person outside of the Coast Guard. He was in the Coast Guard. When he was home, he was the stranger that come in and really disrupted the household. He was abusive. They even had to watch how they look at him. She gives me an example. Traci was looking up into the ketchup bottle to see if it was getting ready to pour. This angered her father, so he grabbed the bottle and proceeded to pour it all over her. He made her sit in it. That made no sense. Growing up she said when their dad was home, they were so afraid of doing anything. They were afraid to even look at him or do anything to draw his attention. Toni feels that looking back their dad only knew work, did not know how to be a husband or a father and this frustrated him. Toni feels that when her dad came home, he expected the family to be all over him and get permission from him for things to do, but the kids did not really know him, so they went to the familiar and that was mom. He was the stranger for them in the home. Toni feels that was where she thinks his aggression came from. He was frustrated and did not know how to correct it. He went back to what he was used to with his dad being physically and psychologically abusive. Toni said what she is grateful that he showed her what she did not want to be in life and her mom showed her what she wants to be in life. She is grateful for those lessons. Even as kids they asked their mom why she is staying with him. Finally, when they were sophomores in high school the parents divorced. 

Toni become rebellious; she wanted the separation yet she did not know how to handle it. She started smoking and was hiding cigarettes. When her mom found them, she lied about it and said they were someone else's. She always was trying to do it in secret. 

That was her first addiction. 

It took her accident when she was 30 years old to quit. She had tried to quit many times before, but it was unsuccessful. She quit for 7 days then it would take her a ½ pack of cigarettes to feel herself again. It seemed always to be on the 7th day. She also got into drinking. She was out drinking with friends and she was thinking that if she can walk a straight line then she could drive home. Now she thinking back is going:" you idiot, how you are being drunk could think that you are walking a straight line, but it does not mean that you were". Toni describes that her drinking then threw her into using marijuana. She remembers being a teenager cadet at the sheriff's department. There was one day when she went in to go to their meeting and she forgot that she had a marijuana joint on her. She went into the station bathroom and hid it so she would not be busted with it. She did not see a problem with it at that time. She felt she was just being rebellious and pushing the limits to see what she could get away with. This all affected her grades and she ended up not graduating from high school. She was behind and started to take some college classes to make up, but it was not enough. They told her during the rehearsal that she could not graduate. She did not walk. Her Mom had told her that if she did not graduate, she would need to move out. Her mother felt that would put fear in her and cause her to walk the line. 

She went home, packed, and moved out. 

She moved in with some friends who were a couple of years ahead of her from high school. In that apartment, there was a lot of drinking, drugs, and partying. One day she woke up and walked out of her room. People were passed out everywhere. It clicked in her head. She has got to stop this because if she does not something very bad is going to happen. That day she went to her best friend and told her that they need to move out. They got their own place. Her best friend was a diabetic and she wanted to be like everyone else. She was always eating sugar, drinking alcohol, and smoking. Many times, Toni had to give her insulin, when she found her passed out and not breathing. She was afraid that she would lose her. Eventually, they met their partners and went separate ways. Toni admits she smoked when she was pregnant. She realized she was in a bad relationship with a man that had a similar trait as her father. After her divorce, Toni met another guy. He was big into cocaine and alcohol. He was running around with local friends who were big into doing cocaine and alcohol. This started Toni down a path where she felt if they were drinking, she needed to drink. If they are doing coke, or smoking marijuana she felt she needed to do the same thing to fit in. This created a long time in Toni's life doing drugs and alcohol almost every night. This was all the precursor to Toni's accident on July 28, 1997.

The accident

On the day of her accident, Toni and her boyfriend were meeting his cousin and his girlfriend. They went to a beach in Portland and played games, drink, had a good old time she calls it. There was barbeque, it was a nice, warm, sunny day. At the end of the day Toni remembers eating, playing, but she does not remember the rest. Her boyfriend later told Toni that she said that they could not go home, and they need to go to his cousin's house which was right down the street. He decided that he did not want to go there, he wanted to go home. Toni passed out in the passenger seat. He drove through Cornelius Pass on their way home. Toni does not know what made him go off the road. They ended up going off the road at Cornelius Pass, rolling down to the bottom with a railroad tie sticking out. During the rollover, the top of the car ended up on the railroad tie and it come through the roof, hit Toni's seat and her neck, pinned her against her legs, shattered C6 and C7 of her neck. Piecing together the timeline she thinks that her boyfriend was knocked out for about 20 minutes. The only thing Toni remembers is waking up against her legs and feeling something warm. It was her blood. She was folded in half. Imagine sitting in a chair and pinned against your legs. The next thing she remembers is arguing with the ED doctor about Traci's phone number. The next thing she remembers is being in ICU. She was in a halo because she had a broken neck.

It was really weird she recalls. She woke up and she thought she had been abducted. She felt like she was tied down, she could not move. She thought she had to be abducted, because why she would be tied down. She was not. She was paralyzed. She did not realize it. She started freaking out. She remembers the male nurse coming in and talking to her, Toni kept saying it is not right. The only thing he was able to do to calm her down was roll her bed out of her room so she could look at the nurse's station with other people and monitors. Then she was like ok, something did happen, although she did not know what. Her hands were all injured she had a lot of scars; she shows me her hands. I hold her hands and look at old scars. Trying to imagine what she went through. She almost lost a finger. Looking at her scars one looks like a cross. She laughs. What she just told me that was all she remembered from the first two weeks of the accident. She has no other recollection. Then she remembers one more thing. The doctor came in and told her that they can try and attempt surgery with the worst-case scenario that she does not make it off the table, the best-case scenario she might get some movement back. She said, ok sounds good let's do it. Even today she has a hard time saying this around her sister and her mom. When she does, it takes them right back. She did not want to be paralyzed, it was just not an option for her, she wanted them to try to fix it. After the surgery, if the doctor said to do something two times, Toni would do it ten times. She never wanted to play the victim and get caught up in that cycle. She saw others doing that and were having a hard time getting out of it.

Toni recalls a horse accident as a teenager when she got thrown off the horse and the horse landed on her; it broke her pelvis. She was trying to get up and she could not move. She was paralyzed temporarily from the waist down. It was a mortifying experience for Toni. The neighbor showed up and the whole Knappa fire department showed up. They were doing training that day, so everyone was there. They all wanted to take their turn with Toni checking vitals, doing this and doing that, prepping her. She brings this up to tell me that even then she had never seen herself as a victim. She had seen some people jumping into that role and then getting into depression. Pushing people away.

Toni then starts to tell me a funny side story about her family and how in her family they like to surprise each other. She makes me laugh so hard. She tells me an example when her sister Traci was going to see her daughter in Hawaii. Toni found out and she conspired with Traci's daughter that both Toni and their mom will go and surprise Traci at the airport. They arrived a few days before. Traci had no idea. Their mom was hiding, Toni was upfront and had a big camera and when Traci walked by with her daughter all she sees is the camera and Toni's hair. She walks right by her. She said," boy, somebody is really waiting for someone". Toni turns around and follows Traci. She just walked up to her and up put her arms around her, she was like what and looked Toni and was so excited, crying, and super happy, gaining the attention of everyone at the airport terminal. When Traci comes down from her excitement their mom comes out. She taps on Traci's shoulder. Traci turns around thinking it might be Toni's husband Danny. She sees her mom and the excitement and crying start again. I wish you could hear Toni's voice telling this story I cannot stop laughing. It is nice to have family fun. Toni tells me they love to do things like that. Wonderful. Surprise each other.

We then get back to talk about the accident. Toni saw how it affected her family. Toni does not remember the initial time; she did see photos of the initial tubes and bandages. I ask her if she looks at the picture what she thinks. She never saw it as her, it was a problem that needed to be solved. She likes to think glass half full; she likes to find something good in everything. With her broken neck, Toni describes herself as the princess and the pea. Toni was hypersensitive to the pain she could feel the slightest little wrinkle, it felt like a boulder to her. She hurt from head to toe. She could not regulate her body temperature. She felt like she was in a furnace, she was hot. She tells me the ice water story Traci told me. Toni also noticed she cannot say: "sounds good". It sets off memories. She was told that her dad came and saw her in the hospital, but he could not walk through the door to her room. Her brother also had a very hard time coming into the room. She described her mom as a rock. Her mom held it together until Toni was in the ICU, then she broke down and lost it once she was safe and transferred out. Toni does not remember any of this. She tells me something weird for her. Prior to the accident she could not stand the smell of whiskey and liked rum. Right after the accident till this day she cannot stand the smell of rum and love whiskey. I don't get it she said. 

The accident and seeing how it affected other people around her made Toni realize the effect of her actions. 

She was trying to put on a good front to help her family overcome the trauma. She tells me it did not work as well as she would have liked it to. Her boyfriend at that time never got over the accident. He knew it was his fault. He knew that his actions caused Toni to die twice. He lost his license for 5 years and did one month in jail. Toni knew that the accident was equally her fault and she was so grateful that no one else was involved. I asked Toni for some clarification about feeling responsible for the accident. She explained that she was talking about her prior actions drinking at a bar and driving home. That could have taken someone's life. It could have taken someone's loved one. She is very passionate about saying this and feels a lot of regret for her actions in the past. She remembers the poor choices she made in the past drinking and driving. She did not want to drink and drive again. She decided to make her accident a good experience and stop smoking. After years of physical therapy, she was able to join a volunteer fire department. She said she wanted to help others as they had helped her. This led Toni into a wonderful career as an EMT in Oregon and California. She realized how precious life is and how it can be taken from her at any moment. She believes in heaven. She died two times, once on the way to the hospital, she received CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) and during surgery. She tells me the story of her boyfriend's grandfather and his headstone. Grandpa took her to the headstone, and she was able to describe it exactly after the surgery. It was the most loving, peaceful moment in Toni's life. Filled with tranquility and love never experienced before in her life. Toni has a hard time finding words to describe the experience. She tells me that if heaven is anything like that, she is not afraid of death. She does not want to die but is not afraid at all.

We skip to when she met her husband Danny 20 years after the accident. You can read his story in this book later on as well. When Danny found out about the accident it changed him. He touches her scars. He reflects on; "what would happen if she wasn't here today". Danny sees the brightness and joy Toni brings into others' lives and wonders what life would be if Toni was not there. If she did not make it. Danny wonders what he would be like. He feels Toni saved him. It is his way of looking at it. Toni's accident affected people even long after. Toni tells me a little about Danny. Both his parents were using substances drinking and drugs. Danny did not drink at all before he met Toni. They did start to drink some wine and now they are having some conversations about drinking wine and how much. Toni prefers to do something else instead of drinking wine One thing is that Toni is in the process of getting a dog and hoping that will help them focus on other things. Toni and Danny just got a new German shepherd named Ruby. They look forward to a healthier lifestyle and focusing on greater things. She is worried about the addictive traits running in the family. They make wine from their fruit trees. She started to see herself drinking one to two glasses of wine a day and realized she did not want to go there. She refuses to go there. She has been there before. She is scared to go back to that place of addiction. I ask her straight up what about just not having any? Exactly, she said. She is working on that now. Danny tells her: "you say one word, and everything is out the door". I say at this point to her: Say the word. She said: exactly and she wonders why she does not say let's just get rid of the wine. She is really thinking about this and contemplating it. She knows they don't need it. When she is sad, has a bad day is depressed she does not turn to alcohol she turns to ice cream. Toni admits that she likes her drink every once in a while. Sometimes she has too much. She admits that she goes there sometimes. She does not want to go down the same road. She has to have this conversation with Danny. She sees the same road she has been down before. She feels it is exactly what it is this book is about. She has not touched anything else since the accident, but alcohol is still an issue, obviously. Toni looks at me with an honest realization. It is like a light bulb going on. I can see she does not want to continue with this trend.

Toni then tells me about her fruit trees and her garden. She has one of each fruit tree and freezes and dries fruit as much as she can. They also give them away to homeless shelters. They eat as much wholesome food as possible from their garden. They don't like junk food and all that fattening stuff when they go out to eat. I could not stop myself I said: Just ice cream. Her voice rose up. Yes, she adds: "I don't eat as much I could". She was defending her ice cream. She did notice that she had been leaning more towards sweets lately. She looks at me and another lightbulb goes on. She tells me in a way someone knows this is an addiction she is asking herself if she could throw away everything that is sweet at her house. I ask, could you? She does not know. When she was trying to lose weight, she went to Costco and got the jelly belly. She tells me she could have 10 and it is 40 calories. She did that as her reward system. If she stayed with her diet and her calories and her exercise, she would take them. She looks at me with the realization that is where it started. Then she started to make brownies and count out the calories and cut them up how much she can have then got three musketeers chocolate bars; the fun-sized ones, she keeps in the freezer. That was her reward and since then she started to go more and more towards it. Another thing is she tells me that if she has any sweets in the house and Danny finds them, they are gone. She has to hide stuff. It is kind of funny, but it is not because she does not want it all the time, but when she wants it, she wants it now. She does not want to have to go to the store to get it. Traci's story is very similar to hiding and defending their chocolate. That is funny she tells me, and she laughs. Another addiction she sees them having is the phones. They are on their phones a lot playing games. Now when they are out eating, she asks her husband to put the phone away. She tells me that she needs to do that more. She also tells me sitting in front of the TV. She asks me why to do people have to sit in front of the TV to eat? It is another bad habit they have she tells me. She is not sure if that is an addiction or just a bad habit. I ask her why she thinks we do bad habits that we don't like to do? It is a comfort she tells me. She feels it leads back to the rebellious stage. 

I can do this. I can get away with it. 

This is something I can do and no one else can keep me from doing this. Toni feels that addiction has a lot to do with that. It is my choice good or bad, I have the right and I am going to do it. The more people do it, the more it becomes an addiction. She tells me a lot of people become addicted to pain meds. That was one thing that always scared her to death. She was terrified of it. She had to take medications for her neck, she rather not took any. Traci is the same way. She tells me about the chemical imbalance that is causing addictions. Toni tells me about caffeine. Caffeine is a huge addiction. She cannot imagine not drinking her 1–2 cups of coffee in the morning. She cut way back. She used to drink a couple of pots a day. She told herself no, I cannot do this. For a while, she was drinking those coke frosty things, like there is no tomorrow. Then she started to have stomach issues. She stopped. Her mind said:" no you cannot do this anymore". She needs to do that with the alcohol and the drinking and needs to cut Danny back too. Yeah, she said, that is big, it is a big one and it has always been an issue. We have a reassuring conversation about roads we know and self-reflection. It is hard to recognize when somebody is in it. We discuss food addiction for a while. We talk about paths and how easy it is to fall back on what we had done previously. We discuss moderation and how that works for some people but not others. Toni knows that her sweets and her phone are the biggest problems now. Toni likes to problem solve and try to figure things out. We discuss the benefits of volunteering. Toni just started out with a new group; she loves to help people. She feels on top of the world when she can help others.

I ask Toni what addiction means to her. There is silence for a while. Then she said, boy that is a good one. Then she comes up with one of the most amazing definitions. 

To her:

"addiction is anything that takes a person's attention and time away from other things and becomes a greater part of their life"

She gives me an example about smoking cigarettes and how she timed everything about smoking. Her focus was only on when she is going to have the next cigarette. Anything that takes a person away from something that is truly important is their friends, family, career. It separates people. It pulls people apart. She gives me an example of sitting at dinner and having a conversation. It is more important to be on the phone for some people, she asserts that that is not right. There is a lot of aspects to it, rebellion, being bored with anything. It can slowly work up without realizing they become focused on just that instead of other aspects of their life. Toni feels this is very scary. Toni feels paying attention to our own life is important, look at where our focus is and ask the question what is truly important in my life is it that cigarette, or is it spending time with my kids because I am not out smoking a cigarette. What is truly important. Facing up to what is it that we are really doing. Is that piece of bread being that important?- she asks. Instead of having that piece of bread. Let's go for a walk. That candy, she continues. Do I really need that candy? Or should I just drink a glass of water?

Toni suggests if you have a craving wait 15 minutes. Are you still craving it? What is going on? Paying attention to your family and friends. Speaking up.

Toni feels this is hard to do. It is hard to do a difficult conversation. Trying to have a discussion without saying it is wrong what the other person is doing. She feels that is the worst thing someone can do. It is difficult to have these conversations and not to ruin the relationship. Toni tells me that when it comes up to the difficult conversations, she went through with that with her daughter. She was rebellious and got together with a guy who was using substances. He was addicted to painkillers and meth. She kept calling Toni for money. She kept sending money and enabling her. Toni was hearing from her son about all the issues his sister had. To try to get drugs they would drive 3.5hr to another doctor just to get drugs. It come to a point that they were living out of a house that had no electricity, no water, no nothing, going down to the local gas station to try to bathe in the sink. Toni's daughter kept calling and asking for money. Toni was wondering if this money was going for food or for drugs. She did not know. The hardest thing she ever said was no. Toni told her daughter that she will not help her out anymore. It was hard, she threw everything at Toni. After a while, her daughter got into a better relationship.

Toni then starts to tell me about social media, gun violence, school shootings. She feels like kids do this sometimes to gain notoriety, so people will know their names. Whenever someone shoots someone their name is mentioned over and over again in the media. Toni feels that when something like this happens that person and their family name are never mentioned. She does not want to hear about who caused the issue. She wants to hear about the victims and their families. She feels this has a lot to do with social media. She brings up cyberbullying. She feels like cyberbullying and social media turns people against each other. Toni feels families should talk to one another and discuss what is being said on social media and together decide what children should see. Then they need to discuss how to process and deal with all the negative media.

Toni tells me she has a Facebook account, but she never goes on it. Danny is on it every single day. Toni brings up news and how all they talk about are bad things. She suggests talking about the good things in life. We talk about brain oversaturation with the news. She asserts that people need to see the good in other people. Then she tells me about cursing and how we don't need it. Take away from Toni: If you can't say something good don't say anything at all. Take the negatives in people's lives and use them for good by using previous knowledge to help others in similar situations. Focus on the good and get away from all the negativity. Be family-oriented. Pay attention to your kids. Get back to the roots. Bringing families closer to each other would bring us away from the addictive elements.

Our Society: Addiction and More Uncovered - Ch 6medium.com

Front cover acrylic painting created by Andrea Mihaly October 2019

Our Society: Addiction and More Uncovered. Hear the voices of everyday people - collection of stories and experiences. Copyright @ 2020. 1st addition on Amazon KDP. 2nd addition Jan 2021 Barnes & Noble By Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi. All rights reserved. Dancing Elephants Press.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Bagóczky József my uncle who died at age 19 - alcohol related car accident and to everyone else who has been hurt or lost related to addiction.

Many people had been supportive and inspiring to me so I could create this book. Both of my wonderful children told me, just write that book mom. My mom. I could have not done this without all the stories provided and the encouragement love and caring from my family and friends, nurses, doctors, counselors, teachers, professors, friends who are dealing with addiction and staying sober; and children, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers of people who are dealing with addiction currently. Thank you for speaking up, sharing your stories and life experiences. Thank you for all the people who read this book while in progress to provide feedback, ideas and encouragement for me to continue writing. I would like to say special thanks to my friends and family for believing me and encouraging me to go on.