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katesomers · 3 years

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For years, I knew, deep down in my soul, that I was attracted to other women. I also knew that those feelings were not the norm.

I tried for years to fit into the mold of the norm. I fell in love, honest love, with a young man but that relationship didn't last. (I'm happy to still be friends with him today.) I tried dating other men but I was miserable.

Then I had my accident.

Two female friends came to visit me in the hospital. They wheeled me down to a visiting lounge and we sat and talked. They kept saying to me, when will you admit it, etc. I finally said, "what do you want to hear that I'm gay? Fine. I'm gay."

That was the first time I uttered those words to other people or myself. The release I felt was immediate. I could feel the burden releasing from my mind, my heart and my shoulders.

It was then that I realized I needed to be comfortable in my own skin if I wanted any chance at happiness. From that point on, I worked on being comfortable with myself while healing physically and mentally.

Not long after, I finally made the decision to come clean and be honest with my family. That honesty started with my Mom.

I was in the dining room, grabbing a bite to eat before heading off to work. My Mom was in the living room (within earshot of me.) As I was eating, I said, "oh yeah, Mom. I'm gay." She said, "I know but what took you so long?" I asked her to tell Dad and my brother then ran out of the house for work.

I came home from work, dreading the repercussions I'd be dealing with. Walked in, went into refrig to get a drink and Dad came to me and put his arm around me and said, "I don't care if you are purple." I knew he was ok with it.

Then I heard my brother's footsteps and he turned the corner, looked at me and said, "shit. Guess I can't tell anymore gay jokes." Right then, I knew he was ok with the news.

I was fortunate to have that reaction from my family.

You see, there is a disproportionate number of homeless youth in the US who identify as LGBT. This is primarily because of hostility or abuse from their families that leads to them being thrown out or running away.

In addition to homelessness, the LGBT community suffers from a higher rate of substance abuse than the population as a whole. That's due to societal obstacles. For instance: discrimination/stigmas, hate crimes/abuse, rejection from family, loss of employment (for being LGBT) and/or self-loathing.

Our LGBT youth are also almost five times more likely to attempt suicide then their heterosexual peers and that's because of the societal obstacles they face.

I wish all LGBT youth had a coming out story like mine. Love is beautiful. Love is love. It shouldn't matter if it's two women, two men, one man and one woman, etc.

As a society, we need to pick LGBT youth up and support them, especially when their families turn their backs. Most importantly, we need to break down the stigmas so that our youth don't feel isolated, unloved and unsupported.

#coming out #lgbtq community #pride

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katesomers · 4 years

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Stronger than the drunk driver

Everyday I am alive, I am reminded that I am stronger than the drunk driver that attempted to kill me in July of 1996.

In May of 1996, I graduated Phi Theta Kappa with an AA in Communications. I was accepted and excited to attend a media workshop at UCLA, in California, in late July. I was also set to start classes at Temple University in the Fall to continue my education. I did not get to go to UCLA that summer. I did start at Temple in a wheelchair but withdrew because it was too physically difficult and emotionally draining.

I was employed as a Nanny of three great children. I was loving life and excited about my future because the possibilities seemed endless.

Then my world came to a crashing halt.

On July 8, 1996, I grabbed my youngest charge (who was a toddler) to load him into my small Geo Metro. I had decided, for whatever reason, since it was just he and I travelling from Philadelphia, PA to Wilmington, DE to pick up his sisters at a relative’s house, to move his five-point child seat up to the front. He NEVER rode in the front seat. He felt like such a big boy!

We were stopped at a traffic light waiting to make a left-hand turn when I saw an old, metal, battle-axe barreling towards us. I had no where to go to escape the crushing blows of the heap of metal. We had a small gulley to the right of us, traffic to the left of us, so with my foot holding steady on the brake, I leaned over to shield my little passenger.

Everything after that point has been juxtapose together from memories that flood back into my conscious. Memories like the sounds of crushing fiberglass from being plowed into by a metal battle-axe or the sounds of glass being broken or the feeling like I was stung by a horrendously large bee in my left femur or the smell of blood and lots of it. I would then blackout with my head on my little passenger’s lap. I can feel his little hands rubbing the top of my head. I can remember the faint sounds of his voice. I would pass out again.

I woke up, albeit briefly, to the sounds of sirens, loud voices trying to speak over the sounds of metal and fiberglass being cut by the jaws of life. The smell of blood filling my nostrils. I had passed out again, but this time I came to and my little passenger was not there to comfort me. I was still in the car, as it crushed in on me like I was being trapped in a large accordion. People in fire, police and medical uniforms were all around me telling me to stay with them. I thought, I am trying to but do not know for how much longer. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, I heard a helicopter land, and the workers finally freed me from the sardine can I called a car. I was put on a gurney and put in the helicopter and off we went.

I kept asking for my little passenger. I later learned, he was asking to go in the helicopter with me, but they transported him via ambulance because he was not severely hurt, thank God for that. It was a miracle that he escaped with only a bruised torso.

It was not until I was well on my recovery path that I learned I had given the hospital not only my parent’s telephone number but also the phone number of the parents I worked for. My family was in NJ for vacation and it took them a ferry ride and a decent amount of driving to make it to me. Whereas the family I worked for was much closer, so they got to the hospital first. I also apparently told the emergency attending orthopedic about an ACL and Cruciate Ligament tear in my left leg/knee. The orthopedic, who I later felt resembled a Leprechaun, told me I said to him, “when you are fixing my left leg, can you also fix my ACL and Cruciate Ligaments because I am still having problems from when I was plowed down by a car in 1993.” I do not remember that conversation.

At the first hospital, where I was medevacked to was in Delaware. Initially, I was in the ICU hooked up to machines that helped me breathe and heavily sedated while I was treated for a comminuted open fracture of my left femur (I lost about 4-5” of bone when my car door was impaled into me), collapsed lung, left ear was torn and needed to be stitched back on, numerous cuts that required stitches, broken front teeth, broken ribs and black and blue (or as my Mom would say, eggplant purple) from head to toe.

It was at this hospital, that I started to feel like I was having an out of body experience or a near-death experience. You see, I felt my body floating and hovering around the ceiling looking down at myself and the people around me. I vividly remember seeing a tear roll down my cheek when I first saw the Mother of the children I cared for. Then I remember the tears that streamed down my cheeks when my parents, brother and his girlfriend came in. I recall seeing everyone around my bed, trying to hold my hands or stroke my arms. I heard myself telling them, “Please do not touch me. My body hurts too much to be touched.” But no one heard me.

My second hospital stay was in Philadelphia and closer to my home. I remained stable in the ICU until I could be transferred into a more comfortable and private room. Yes, I benefited from the fact that the father of the children I nannied was on staff at this hospital. Again, having an out of body experience and while first in the ICU, I can recall seeing the nurse, who was a friend of the couple I worked for. Then the parents of the dad I worked for, greeted me as I arrived at the hospital. I could see grandfather with tears in his eyes as he leaned down to whisper in my ear; the grandmother was crying when she first saw me before she pulled herself together and stroked my hair. Then there was Valerie, tears would fall down her cheek as she meticulously worked to ensure I was hooked up to everything correctly and checked and changed my many bandages. Eventually, I was given this nice private room. I was still heavily sedated. I later learned, when I was in this room, I told my friend that my Great Grandmother and Great Uncle were coming to get me to take me home. My friend argued with me by saying they were not coming for me. You see, she knew they were dead.

I had horrible medical insurance, and insurance being what it was, dictated that I be transferred to another hospital; the third and final one for the time being. It was here, I was put on a recovery wing filled with older people. It was there that I heard the woman across the hall screaming for a cigarette and where my roommate used my chair at the foot of the bed as a toilet. Being almost 25 years old and being around geriatric patients did not bode well for my psyche. Every time Physical Therapy would get me up for rehab, we found something else hurt and more testing was needed. We learned my left femoral neck was cracked and inserting pins would help stabilize it. So off to surgery I went. Then when they would try to get me up again, we found my right foot hurt. Turns out my foot was broken, and it required a cast. Now I was truly, non-weight baring and needed to master the wheelchair to bed transfer and the wheelchair to car transfer before I could get home. Plus, my parents had to manufacture a way for me to get into the house that did not require walking up the steps and they needed to figure out where to put the hospital bed and commode. My parents decided that my dad, brother, and others would build a wheelchair ramp in the back of the house to get me into the house from the back door. They also decided, since my bedroom was upstairs that they were going to reconfigure their living room to make it a space for me. When that was all done, the medical equipment was delivered and the PT, OT and Visiting Nurses were all scheduled, I was finally released from the hospital. It had been one month and hell.

My recovery journey was long, and I had many surgeries between 1996-1998, but I was finally up and walking by myself.

My doctors would make predictions on when I would be able to take my first step or achieve other milestones. Not liking those odds, I worked harder to beat what they predicted. I guess it would be accurate to say I am stubborn.

I mentioned in my victim impact statement during sentencing for the drunk driver that I would “think of him every time I put one foot in front of the other.” And boy, let me tell you, that is the truth all these years later. I also told him that “my resolve was stronger than he, the boy, who tried to kill me.” For the record, DUI laws at the time were not as strict as they are today. The young man who drove intoxicated received probation for two years and had to serve 10 days, over five 2-day weekends, at a half-way house where he had to perform community service. He was also told he had to pay for medical insurance that I chose for the entire time he was on probation. I had only received a handful of payments for my medical insurance. When I called the prothonotary’s office at the courthouse to see where payments were, I was told, “We are not a collection agency. Whatever money he pays us is to cover his fines and court costs and then you will receive what is left over.”

For many years, I walked with one leg longer than the other (the rod in my left femur made my leg longer than the right) and pain in my left leg, hip, and right foot. I finally decided the pain just got worse, so I went back to see an orthopedic in 2009. In 2010, my medical odyssey started again. I took medical leave from a job I loved so that the surgeons could try and remove the rod, but they were initially unsuccessful. That one surgery opened a pandora’s box of medical issues for me. I have had 20+ medical surgeries or procedures since 2010 and there is no end in sight.

I am now permanently medically disabled, or as I like to say, “medically retired.” I struggle to make it through a day without laying on my side to decompress my spine. The nighttime is horrendous as I am never able to remain comfortable enough to get a restful night of sleep. I continue to try and keep up with my three kids, who are teenagers now. I am still stubborn and want to beat every recovery milestone set for me by my medical team. And I spend time reminding people why they should NEVER drive intoxicated.

I still suffer from PTSD, it is really jarring for me to see car accidents in real life or in the movies, and from depression. But through it all, I came out on top, because I was stronger than the drunk driver that tried to kill me.

Whenever you drink, please never drive intoxicated. Call an Uber. Call a friend. Call a family member. But never get behind the wheel. The pain you cause to another person is never worth it, especially when a ride is a phone call away.

#StrongerThanTheDrunkDriver DontDrinkAndDrive HealingJourney

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