Are you ready to be inspired by a story of resilience and the power of love? We have the pleasure of hosting Meredith Carter, a woman who at the age of 14, faced a life-changing accident that left her with a severe spinal cord injury. Despite the challenges, she emerged with an unbroken spirit and an extraordinary tale of survival.
In a riveting conversation, Meredith transports us back to the summer of 1997, to the moment that changed her life forever. She recounts the details of the accident and the arduous, yet enlightening journey of her recovery - from multiple surgeries to the grueling rehabilitation. We also hear about the unwavering support network of loved ones, particularly Wes, her partner of 7 years. From meeting Wes to starting a business together and finally tying the knot in 2017 - it’s a testament to the power of love and faith in the face of adversity.
But Meredith’s story doesn't end there. She shares her reality of living in the chair for a while and shares her insights of living with a disability for the past 26 years. From the importance of normalcy and respect to her and Wes’s shared experiences - it’s a heartwarming tale that underscores the value of acceptance, kindness, and giving each other an awesome life. Tune in for an episode filled with determination, love, and life lessons that will impact your life for the better.
Are you ready to be inspired by a story of resilience and the power of love? We have the pleasure of hosting Meredith Carter, a woman who at the age of 14, faced a life-changing accident that left her with a severe spinal cord injury. Despite the challenges, she emerged with an unbroken spirit and an extraordinary tale of survival.
In a riveting conversation, Meredith transports us back to the summer of 1997, to the moment that changed her life forever. She recounts the details of the accident and the arduous, yet enlightening journey of her recovery - from multiple surgeries to the grueling rehabilitation. We also hear about the unwavering support network of loved ones, particularly Wes, her partner of 7 years. From meeting Wes to starting a business together and finally tying the knot in 2017 - it’s a testament to the power of love and faith in the face of adversity.
But Meredith’s story doesn't end there. She shares her reality of living in the chair for a while and shares her insights of living with a disability for the past 26 years. From the importance of normalcy and respect to her and Wes’s shared experiences - it’s a heartwarming tale that underscores the value of acceptance, kindness, and giving each other an awesome life. Tune in for an episode filled with determination, love, and life lessons that will impact your life for the better.
really nervous. Well good, I've talked about this a billion times and now it's it's mine. I own it. You know, it's my story to tell people, to share with people. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, well then, good, well, let's just get into it. Okay, all right. So this week, man. So I was gonna change some things up and go with a different, different, a difference, guess, this week for the first week. But what this is? This is Meredith Carter and is she is. I've gotten to know her, she's got a cool, awesome story, but more important is the way that she lives her life today, and so, basically, I just wanted to let you kind of get a brief kind of tell us you do you do you do this how you want to do it.
Speaker 1:So when I was, when I was 14, I was had a lot going for me. I know it doesn't seem 14 is very young, but I come from a very athletic family. My dad was a football coach, my brothers both played college ball. I was captain of my cheerleading squad, I ran track, I played softball, I was a catcher my up until from I don't know six years old till 14. I was. I loved it. I loved sports was my life. Really that's all my family did.
Speaker 1:And January of 1997 I tore my knee up playing basketball and I tore it up really really good all the way and that summer I had recovered and had to wear a knee brace and I went to cheerleading camp that summer getting ready for I made the high school squad at Yazoo County high school, where my dad was a football coach, and I had to do that summer, had to do cheerleading camp in my knee brace and and was was getting really recovered, looking forward to my first high school year as a ninth grader. My dad used to coach at Ravel High School in Louisiana, so when we lived there we were really involved in church and everything. Really it's just the town, the school, all of it. We were there for four years and we made friends there, of course. Well, when we moved to back to Mississippi in 95, I kept those friends and we kept in touch. And the summer of 97 my mother grew up on Lake Bruin really yeah so she's.
Speaker 1:That's where my grandparents lived their whole life, so we learned everything. That's where we learned to ski inside a lake out suddenly inside, right across well, not across from the airport, but real close to the golf course in the airport wow, that's, we got a place like right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah so that's where I mean we learned everything down there skiing, swimming, trot, lining, I mean that that's what we did all every summer. Anyway, one of my friends from Ravel they had a camp down there and she called me July 3rd. Well, she came to my house for these are details, you don't matter but she came to my house and stayed for four or five days and for the summer, you know, and she said you need to go back to the lake with me for the 4th of July and I didn't want to. Jeff was playing ball. I had finished all stars that summer in softball. Jeff and John Mark, my little brother, they were still playing all stars.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I wanted to go to Jeff's game because I I mean they were cute boys there you know, and that's I just wanted to go anyway, and she begged me and begged me to go to the lake for the 4th of July and I was like I don't, I really don't want to go, whatever. We, you know, stayed up all night with her there and I was finally like okay, okay, I'll go. Even though I've been a billion times, it doesn't matter. So her sister, july 3rd well, I just went back with her and her sister picked us up in Vicksburg, my dad drove us to Vicksburg and met her and we went back to Lee's house for the day and we're going to the lake that evening. Anyway, there were five of us in Lee's cousin's brand new Toyota 4Runner and they had fought it's. It's a crazy. Like the way the day went, the the, the way the events went, I just feel like I don't know. I should have never been in that car, just looking back on it 26 years later. Her and her sister fought about who was going to ride in the brand new 4Runner and Lee won. She had more friends going with her, so we rode with her cousin.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we stopped in Rable, leaving Rable at Burger King, and got food, and I was in the back in the middle and I had my seatbelt on when we left the house. I always wear it. I just I do, it's what I do. But when we got back in the car I had food in my lap and I don't know why I didn't put it back on, but I didn't, and that's all I remember. I don't remember leaving Rable, and I mean I've all my family lives in Louisiana, you know that's. That's where we're from, where we were born. We were born in Delha, been down those roads a hundred billion times, go into the lake, and I don't remember leaving Rable. So I think that's a god thing, it's really good. I'm glad I don't remember what happened.
Speaker 1:But so we were on highway 65, right outside of Tallulah, just past the country club oh yeah, yeah, and you know that roads flat, you know it's not not super curvy or anything, but we were passing, or our driver, rather, was passing a boat, a car pulling a boat, and the speed limits like 55, and I don't know how fast she was going, I have no idea, but she was passing, so it would have been, you know, more than 55. Well, when she got up next to this car pulling the boat, she thought that he was gonna cross the center line, so she freaked her out and she over corrected and this is all what I've been told. So she jerked the wheel and we flipped end over end and then side over side and I was thrown out and it was dark I mean, it was 8 o'clock anyway. It cut me all the way around my side and a bunch of other stuff. I lock that door. Hey, we're not open today. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I need to go lock yeah, so this is just the way it goes. You know, this is it Meredith, and and I. We both have these traumatic injuries and we've learned to deal with it. And and and and her store haven't heard her story, so I'm gonna hear it for the first time, just like y'all are. So, anyway, this is. This is interesting. I did not realize that you're. You're, it was close to like Bruins.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you a funny story about 65 right there yeah it's highway 65 right so in college, you know, I needed to make some extra money and so had a buddy that somebody knocked out a lawn mower, knocked out my back window, my Tahoe, so I was able to get some work over there at Lake Bruin and me and a buddy went over there and and we were, we were driving back and I was, I was, I got pulled over for speed and and and the in the cop was like he's like you know, you were going 70 something in a, you know.
Speaker 2:And I said, sir, I swear I saw 65 miles an hour sign and and he he's like that's highway 65 and I actually believe you and I can tell that you're trying to go do something here, so I'm gonna let you off and and you'll have a good day. That's the one man. It was a, it's the funniest. My buddy was like man, did you know that 65? So I said, man, I don't know, but it, it just kind of worked out. So anyway, didn't realize that your story is on.
Speaker 1:65 is crazy, so keep going so you guys, so, so I was. So the girl to my left, she, she kind of fell out and she cut her arm, and then the girl to my right, broker collar bone. The two up front had their seatbelts on, so they were fine. Of course an ambulance came. There was here's the thing that I found out later that I almost couldn't believe, but the car behind us was a nurse and her husband.
Speaker 2:Oh that's how it all went. I'm telling you, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:And it's unbelievable. And so she kept me alive until the ambulance got there. And anyway, the ambulance got there, took me to Tallulah and I've never met her. I would love to. I don't know who it is, but I did really quick. I'll tell you how I met the ambulance driver.
Speaker 1:My grandfather had a stroke when I was in high school at Bruin. We were down there just for the weekend and my dad and my papal were out on the pier hammering something they were fixing some boards, whatever and anyway he had a stroke right there and my dad had to take him to meet an ambulance because they didn't bring an ambulance all the way down to Bruin. So he went and met the ambulance and the ambulance took him to Tallulah where he later died. He didn't survive the stroke, but when we when this was years after my rec, so he died in 2003, years after my rec well, I was still on a walker then and we went to the hospital and the ambulance driver was talking to my mom at some point. I was sitting there in the waiting room and my mom said come here, I want you to meet somebody. And so I went in there and she said this was the ambulance driver the night that you had your rec and he was crying, like looking at me and he was like oh my gosh. And I was like what? And he's like I can't believe you made it. I didn't. I didn't think that you would make it. And he was like I can't believe you're walking. You know, anyway, it was the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 1:So they took me to Tallulah, back to 97. And Tallulah called Jackson and said we've got, we've got one of your people over here and we just need to get her. Get her to y'all, because we can't do anything for her. We think something's going on internally and we can't. They weren't a trauma center. So my parents were with both my brothers Kaziasco and Yazoo City, I think and so they weren't home and back then we didn't have cell phones. So they airlifted me to Jackson with permission from my dad. Somehow, somebody from Rable got in touch with a ballpark, with the sheriff's department at Kaziasco, I think, whatever county, that is at Tallulah County, I don't know, but they went out to the ballpark and found my dad. So you got to call this guy whatever. So they airlifted me to UMC in Jackson where they saved my life.
Speaker 1:My parents got home at like 11 o'clock that night from ball games and there was a message on the answering machine Back when we had answering machines and it was a guy from Rable and he said Mark Mayor, just been in a bad car wreck, whatever this was. After he had already talked to them, they listened to the message anyway. They went to Jackson in a hurry and when they got there I was landing, the helicopter was and my mom told me that when they brought the stretcher off of the ambulance she said that I was moving my left leg and my eye was all messed up. And she said she said Meredith, like she kept saying my name and she said I would just roll my eyes over there and look at her and there was a lady sitting on top of me with one of those big breathing bags. You know, I don't know what that's called, but she was breathing for me and she said you need to talk to her because it's not good.
Speaker 1:And so they just, you know, went in with me and initially sat down with the doctor after they got some x-rays and stuff and the first thing that they noticed was that I was bleeding internally, I had something, had I'd ruptured my kidney anyway. So they had to get in there and fix that first. But my mom saw the x-rays and she goes oh my God, her back is broken and they were like it is, it's broken, pretty bad Anyway. But they couldn't do anything about that. First they had to save my life first. So they did exploratory stomach surgery to find out what it was and clean me up and they had to wait a few days to stabilize me before they could do my back surgery. And it's very important with a spinal cord injury the time, you know, if you don't get right in there it could swell anyway. So they you know they couldn't do that had to wait a few days but on my T12 and L1 vertebrae were just shattered.
Speaker 1:The doctor that was supposed to do it had gone on vacation, so I had Dr Bowles. He did my back surgery. He was a wrestler. He was like this short black guy, bald headed, like this yo wrestler dude Anyway, that I got to meet later on, you know, after I was awake and stuff. But my dad really liked that because they share the whole sports thing. Anyway, after he did my back surgery he came out to talk to my parents and he said she was an athlete, wasn't she? And my dad said yeah, she lived and breathed it. That's all she did. And he said I had to cut back layer after layer after layer of muscle off her, off her back to get to it.
Speaker 1:He said but let me tell you something. He said, uh, it's real bad. He said her spinal cord was damaged. He said I had to piece back her bone like a puzzle. Um, it's, it's just a tangled. It was a tangled mess in there and he said she's not ever going to walk again. And my dad said he and my mom just held hands and slid down the wall, thinking like you know, because it's my world, you know, sports was my world.
Speaker 1:But uh, anyway, I was there, I was at the hospital. I had staples around my side, staples down my back, staples down my stomach, my eye, I just uh, everywhere. It was awful. I could only lay on one side. It was terrible and I don't remember most of it. I mean I do. I remember little things like that. You know, I remember eating McDonald's in the hospital, stupid stuff. I mean I and I I never even really saw the. I mean I saw the nurses all the time but I never knew their names or anything. And I was in the children's whatever part at UMC. But my mom took me back there after I got out of that and went to a Methodist rehab to recover more and start therapy. She took me back to that children's hospital part that I was in and I didn't remember it, but I knew all those nurses faces, like it was crazy. You know, I knew every single one of their faces and they remembered me, but I didn't remember even being in there.
Speaker 2:So you knew their faces and you remember the food. Yeah, yeah, that's. I mean, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've. I've experienced the same thing Like I. I think there's certain things that are just you just remember because and you, it's like instilling you to remember something like that.
Speaker 2:I don't know what that is, but what I say that when I, the reason I brought that up is because I think that you, that's why people pour love through food oh yeah you know to people is that you have a real opportunity to make real influence, impact on somebody that is going through very some traumatic that they are when you're, when they get to your age. I can remember that yeah that's, that's, that's, that's, that's like a hitting up, hitting up hanging fastball, you know, yeah, curveball, or you know it's just like so easy opportunity to impact people's lives. So, anyway, let's keep going.
Speaker 1:Sorry about that no, that's all right. Um, so I started therapy in miss it. In met the Methodist rehab hospital and my kidney started bleeding again, so I had to go home for six weeks on Bedrest, which was awful. I just they had to bring a hospital bed in there. That's when we got internet and cable TV had to worry about the bed.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, I had to turn all the time.
Speaker 1:That hurt and I know and I, it was awful and I didn't wait. I weighed a hundred pounds. I had, you could see the bones in my face.
Speaker 2:It was just and I had no strength. Which way do you think you look like percentage? Like I think I lost 40 or 50 pounds. I mean it was great.
Speaker 1:I mean not, maybe not that quite it may, it was a lot well, I mean, I mean I was 14, no, carter, I mean I, I lost all my muscle, you know it, and my, my legs, just at your feet, down to nothing, because they, you know it, it was bad, it was bad, but anyway, um, I could. I couldn't move, like I had been cut everywhere, so I didn't have any stomach muscles or anything and you had all that, all that bandages.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it was horrible. It's horrible.
Speaker 1:I mean, they eventually took them out.
Speaker 2:But you know, I remember. What I remember about my leg, my hips were, is that, that feeling of how bad this just pulling it off right at the beginning I'm talking about, you know, pulling those bandages off to like change out the bandages.
Speaker 1:How bad that hurt, yeah yeah, yeah, I, I had a back brace, like on top of all that, it was this big plastic white back brace that just like went all the way up and it it was just which I'm sure everybody looks at that and say I had to wear that in my chair. You have to wear?
Speaker 2:did you have to wear the air boots?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah yeah, and I couldn't feel them.
Speaker 2:I mean, I couldn't that and then did you go to like they remember, like those white looks like she's talking, yeah, mm-hmm to something about preventing blood clots, like yeah, yeah, I had to do all that take shots in your head, in your stomach and stuff they probably give it.
Speaker 1:I don't remember I had I. They took blood every day. I don't know what they did, but I'd have to get myself a shot every day yeah and some weird.
Speaker 2:For some weird reason, lila love to do that, so she comes every day pop pop, but maybe she'll be a nurse. That'd be great, she's a nurse for some animals?
Speaker 1:I think yeah probably yeah for turkeys yeah yeah, that's funny all right, so keep you so anyway um, so I'm home on bed rest and and I've missed a lot of points I mean I've you know, being initially told that that I had a severe spinal cord injury. That was very tough and not being able to feel stuff, but I did. I did feel when they would take blood. They took blood out of my arms so much that they just hurt and and I hated it, and so I was like, if I can't feel my feet, take it out of my feet so they did and you know you have some big veins in your, in your feet anyway.
Speaker 1:So they did one day and I felt it and I was like there we go, oh my gosh, and that was in the hospital, so that was exciting, and and so then, then I had this, this thought in my mind. Well, you know what if this doctor's not right, like what what if there are messages getting through?
Speaker 1:you know what if, what if he's wrong? You know, and it was an incomplete injury. So the difference in a complete, incomplete injury is a complete injury means nothing, you're done, your spinal cord is not necessarily severed, but no messages are getting through from your brain to the rest of your body. So you don't, there's no, you don't have a chance. But an incomplete injury, nobody knows, because it's complete. I mean that's why doctors are practicing. I mean there's no, there's no end. All be all answer to it. So that was exciting.
Speaker 1:And then when I, when I start, when I went home on bed rest, that was very difficult. I couldn't do anything because it was. I had to actually rest. But then I got to. I had to come back to Mississippi Methodist Rehab and the night before I came back my grandmother was staying with us. Then, back when she was still alive, the night before, my stomach was just killing me and she was like give her some water, give her some water, maybe she's got to go to the bathroom, whatever. And it I was in so much pain and my stomach was huge and I was like, oh, I just I didn't know what to do. So my dad took me, put me in the back of the van we had a van then put me in the back of the van and took me to back to the hospital where I was going the next day back to rehab and but to UMC and my catheter had stopped up, so I was like it was. It was insane oh, that was.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I did not. Let's, don't go there, that's sorry. Now, that's just you, just when you to when you. It's crazy how, when you say your stuff, I can remember my stuff in that time you know yeah so all right. So so when you started getting that feeling, when did you like when it start, when did it what you said a minute about whether doctors are wrong yeah. I love, I love doctors. Oh, me too, don't? They don't have all the answers and they're not supposed to.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not the human, and the good ones tell you that exactly when say hey, yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, the human body is insane. I mean it's, it does crazy, crazy stuff. He was. So I went back to Methodist rehab and finished therapy to where I could go back to school, because I missed, I don't know, a month and a half, maybe two months, of my ninth grade year anyway, and they had teach me everything they could teach me to function in a wheelchair. So I went back to school and then I started physical therapy out on Lakeland Drive three days a week and I couldn't drive yet. So several different people helped my parents and my parents would take me or whatever. So we did that three days a week. Well, after I was taking a nerve regeneration pill that was experimental and I didn't take it for very long because it I didn't like the way it made. It made my tongue numb, it was weird yeah, so I just quit doing it.
Speaker 1:Well, probably two I had. So my first, I had a back surgery in 99, february of 99 to take the rods out, because when I sat in class um the, the rods hit the top of the wheelchair and it formed a assist in the top of my back and it was just excruciatingly painful and just anyway.
Speaker 1:So they went in in 99 and took the rods out of my back. After that I don't know what happened, but I started being able to move more in therapy. Of course I was working. I was working super hard especially on upper strength.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I would. All I could do was sit and do arms. You know I was working hard. But then they started, you know I'd I'd get on a mat sideways and like try to kick, you know, try to do whatever, try to move toes, all those things. And I, I started up here at my hip flexors, at the very top of my legs, just getting a little bump when I would lay on my side and try to move it. And it was like, oh, you know, and Connie, she was 411. She was my first physical therapist she was like oh my gosh. And I was like oh my gosh. And so that got exciting.
Speaker 1:And then, uh, then I just worked on it every day and I would lay on my side and we even had a sliding board at home and I would work on it and then I would get to where I could sit in my chair and kind of got to where I could lift my legs a little bit. Well, then that's when it got serious, because then I could try to put some weight with it. So I started strengthening there and then I started being able to kick out. So I got a little bit of quad. It started happening, just just little bumps. And so I I started being able to do some weights with that. I mean, this took a long time, you know.
Speaker 1:And then, um, they got where they could stand me up in a standing frame. You know, I couldn't walk or anything, but I could, I could move, I could, I was starting to move stuff. So I just built on it. You know, I just took every little thing that that God gave me back at that moment and just built on it as much as I couldn't, worked on it.
Speaker 1:Finally, um, uh, didn't have braces yet, they, they would take ACE bandages and tie my toes up because my feet just fell. You know, I had to complete, um, nothing from the knees down Still don't but, um, they would tie my toes up to my knees with ACE bandages so that I could stand up and try to, you know, take some steps where I, where I, when I got, I had very little hamstrings, but I got to where I could stand and I could, with a walker or hold onto the walls or whatever, and with the Walker I got to where I could take some steps and it went from, you know, me taking four steps a day before I was too tired and had to sit down.
Speaker 1:Man, oh, my God so then I got to 17 steps and my dad would go with me. And then, you know, three years later, before I knew it, I was walking around the whole thing, you know, with help with somebody that had a weight belt or whatever, and then it just, I don't know, it just blew up and and I kept working and strengthening and and I mean, I got man muscles now my arms, they're so strong and then I graduated high school and started college. I went to Mississippi State and I got up there and it was probably my, my second semester, I guess I wasn't using my chair all the time, but I brought it with me and I had a room in the dorm by myself so that I could move around, and I had a private bathroom which was nice, but I didn't use my chair all the time, but I had to. Once I got braces on my legs. I got blisters a lot because I was walking a little bit, you know, and my feet had to get used to it, because my feet, you know, they don't move, they just have to go where the brace tells them or where I tell them anyway. So I got blisters a lot which would put me right back down. I'd have to sit down, I'd have to let them heal. I'd have to go get my braces adjusted, which felt like once a month and I still do. I mean, I've been three times this year, maybe four times, to get them adjusted broken straps, you know, whatever. But now I'm now I'm walking a whole lot better.
Speaker 1:So about my second semester I was a business management major. So I was in a cool hall all the time and I said I'm going to walk in there today and I'm not going to take my cane and I'm not going to take my walker and if I fall I'm just going to fall. I'm just going to do it. I'm ready because I can walk around my dorm room without it, as long as I have something to just kind of touch and balance every once in a while. So I did it. I got out of my car, I walked up the thing. I was super nervous and super terrified that I was just going to bust it in front of everybody. And I didn't. I walked and I just kind of had the wall to guide me and I got to class and I sat down and I didn't have any assisted device. I had no cane, no walker, no wheelchair and I was like oh my gosh the most.
Speaker 2:that's the biggest accomplishment it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1:I was like I did it. I am walking, I am a walking miracle and I just sat in here with nothing by myself, by myself.
Speaker 1:Nobody here to nobody was like you can do it, you can do it, Cheering me on. I just did it and I was so excited, Anyway, and from then on I just I just kept plowing through and I left the, the walker and cane behind when I didn't have to have them, I mean, when I had blisters I had to use the wheelchair and stuff, but but then I was like nope, it's gone, I don't have to, which I use one every day now because I can't, I can't, I can't stand without my braces. Well, I have a shower chair in my bathtub and I sit down in my wheelchair first and then just use my arms to pick myself up and put myself in my shower chair now every day. But that's the only reason I would use my chair now.
Speaker 2:So you're still using the chair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but only just to sit in it and put my makeup on. But, if we, if we, if Weston and I were to go on a, a vacation, like where there was a lot of walking, then I would probably take it, because that's really hard to do, especially on him too. You know, cause if I get tired, if I'm in the chair, it would be easy, cause then I'm, it wouldn't matter if I get tired I'm sitting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, so tell me, tell me about Wes.
Speaker 1:Wes is, oh my God, he's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me.
Speaker 2:Every time I sit, you know, every time I see Wes, he's, it's always like we have never missed. Yeah, I'm not, we don't. We're not that close, right.
Speaker 1:Right, obviously yeah. But but it's just, he's so super nice he's so, he's so calm, and that's one thing that I love about him, cause I I can tend to get upset, you know well, just about work, and you know I sometimes I tend to to react in the wrong way, and Wes is just so calm. But Wes and I we met, do you think?
Speaker 2:it before you get into what you think. You think it could be that we're, we might be, we might be built different.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It could be that we are. He built us to be so determined, and so we're going to go get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That that's good, but you can't. You got to have somebody that can call me off, you said and say, hey, and then he does.
Speaker 1:he's so good at it you know he'll help me work, so how'd y'all meet?
Speaker 1:So we met in 2015. Wes and I are both divorced. We both have a child from our first marriage, just to put that out there. But we met in 2015 and I had a little store out in the country and was running it every day and he has a deer camp out there, he and his dad and his brothers, and he would come in all the time. I mean, I guess I've known him. I don't ever remember, you know, talking to him or anything in the store.
Speaker 1:But once I was single he would. He would come in there, go and deer camper, come about, calm, and his dad, his stepdad actually, um buddy, he would come in there and and I just asked buddy, one day I was like who's that? Who's that cute guy that's always with you. And he was like, oh, that's my son Wes. And I was like, okay, he was like you think he's cute. I was like I do think he's cute.
Speaker 1:I was like but don't tell him, don't, don't do that, you know anyway. Well, he did. And then just, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Thank goodness he did.
Speaker 1:But he gave him my number and then one thing led to another, and I don't we, just he didn't want to. He was so scared because he had been divorced, um, for like seven years, when we met and he had Jack and Jack was, uh, jack, 17. So Jack would have been eight, eight or nine, um, and he didn't. He didn't want to bring somebody else into Jack's life and you know, he just didn't want to. He wasn't ready for all that and he didn't know if Jack was ready. So when we started dating, he like the, he would get to where sometimes he wouldn't even text me or call me, like during the week, it was like only when he was going to deer camp and I was like, okay, I'll see what he's doing, I'll see what he's doing. Anyway, it was, but it wasn't that, he was just worried about it and he told me, he, when we finally made the decision to he was slow playing it, yeah, he was.
Speaker 2:He was trying to be careful you know, I guess for Jack, you know and I was like God.
Speaker 1:He told me he really likes me and we have a really good time when we go out or whatever, and he's just not acting like it or something you know, but he, I don't know.
Speaker 2:He's just a. He's just a balanced guy.
Speaker 1:But then then, when we decided to seriously start dating and move in together, you know, he was like he told me, said I'm, I love you and I want to, I'm ready to get rid of my apartment and all that stuff, and I was like all right, you know I'm too.
Speaker 1:Anyway, he he had been at my house for for whatever reason after deer camp or something and he was going home and he, um, he prayed for me. He prayed for God to take me away from him. If it was, if that's what God wanted, he wanted a definitive answer. If I was supposed to, if this was the way it was supposed to be, he wanted, he wanted that. He said if she is not the right one for me, please let something happen and this, this be done. You know I'll be fine whatever, but it didn't. He said and I know for sure God told me that day that that you were the one for me and it's been unbelievable. We've been. We opened this before we got married. We opened this in 2016 and then we got married in 2017, and it's been fabulous.
Speaker 2:You know, going back to that prayer, I think that that's a pretty good prayer because if you, if you I think that I don't think prayer is rocket science I think that if you, when you're praying for something, you're going to be more aware of whatever that is, so you're going to be thinking, you know, I think you might be able to see, you know, the red flags. If it's not supposed to be so to me, what what he did there was say, hey, I really want this, but I'm going to take a step back and say, if it's supposed to happen, it's just going to. It's going to, it's going to work and that's that was. That was a, that was a godly thing to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you get to that, that point in your life, you know both of us really, really liked each other a lot, you know, and we were both like this is awesome. But you're like, should we take? If you take that big step and you've got two kids, you know it's just a lot, a lot of thought goes into it and you're like, oh, I don't want to mess up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't at all talked about you know, I just recently got divorced and it was really fast. It was a, it was a um. I didn't do what West did. You know, I didn't take my time, I just I wanted my family, I wanted a new family and I wanted it now, and you know which is understandable, yeah. I mean, but it you know, it's just.
Speaker 1:I can't say that, though I don't know, I've never lost somebody like you have.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't. I don't know what I would do. I have no idea.
Speaker 2:For me, I think that what I did was I focused on Lila too much. I wanted to give her everything. I wanted to give her a new you know to where she wasn't missing her. You know crying, you know those things that are you're trying to fix something and you can't. This is something you know. That is something that you don't need to try to fix. You need to be doing what Wes did, which is take a step back and say you know what's the what's the Lord, if this isn't supposed to be, it's cool. You just make that decision. I think that, for me, if I would have done that, I think that I would have listened to my brother more. I think I would have listened to my and look at all the the person that I was with awesome, awesome, awesome person, but we were not ready.
Speaker 1:We're in the right time.
Speaker 2:Not only were we not ready, but the Lord didn't design us to be together. I think he designed you and you know that's the he, he, and when you get in front of him and you go try to fix things on your own real fast.
Speaker 1:Yep, You're, you're messing up the, the design. That's right, you know it, I, I. I see people all the time and I'm like, nope, that's not going to work.
Speaker 2:And I wish, I wish more people would be able to say hey man, I love you so much that I'm going to say I don't like this.
Speaker 1:This is a bad idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because and now I know that from from being through that and I have, I have accepted I have, I have worked on myself, I have put in extra work, I, I, I, I know the Lord has a plan for them. And that was the cool thing about it as crazy and hard as it was, as bad as it was is that I had a sure piece that the Lord was saying you know, get them, get them back, get back where they need to be. And you need to get back to where you need to be and it's okay. And having people tell me that they like have a dentist friend, she's a like a sister to mine, and she said, she said we're stubborn, we are stubborn, but she said you're going to be just fine, just, everybody's going to be okay, you learn from it and and and, and, don't, don't, don't do this again.
Speaker 2:And I'm like man that's that just said you love me, without having to tell me exactly all the mistakes I just made, right, because I don't, I already know those. I think that we I think we know things that are we don't need anybody else, I don't need anybody else to tell me what I just did, I know. So anyway.
Speaker 1:Do you have a best friend?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I have a, a, a, one and only best friend.
Speaker 2:I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't when Wes is now, but I I've never I have two now.
Speaker 2:I had three. I had two now. That's awesome. So uh, yeah, but they're not around here. That you know, one's in Starville and one's in Birmingham.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but Wes is my best friend, like we're we're buddies, we're you know, we're we're lovers, we're we're we're everything Like. And he always says he can't stand to be more than two feet away from me. And I love it, I think, and he does. He chooses me over dear camp sometimes. And I'm like it's totally okay Like.
Speaker 2:I'll be fine, I'll clean house or whatever.
Speaker 1:It's fine. He's like I don't want to go. I just don't want to go. I'd rather be here with you and I'm like oh, which makes you want him to go more. Yeah, and he does.
Speaker 2:I mean that's, that's something I'm I'm working on with Lila right now. It's like um, is that I want her to when I? Okay, this is what I want to say about it.
Speaker 2:And I tell her I want to, I want to do whatever she wants to do. She wants me to do what I want to do. It's like. She's like no, don't do that, let's do what she you know, and it's just. And and her mom was, I was that was that way with her, like the relationship you all have, same relationship I had. I had a best friend, um, that friend, you know, um, she wanted me to Hang out with my friends. I wanted her to hang out with her friends. And I think that if you will look at your person and say, what can I do for them to give them an awesome life?
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Yep, and when you do that, they're going to give you an awesome life back.
Speaker 1:It's, that's, that's a hundred percent. I mean it's, it's you. You give to each other everything. You know, I mean Wes and I have the same thoughts Like I can finish his sentences. You know, it's just, it's just crazy meant to be and I'm extremely happy I could cause. It was hard, you know, when I, when I was 14, 14, I mean that's a, that's an age when you're going into high school, you know, you do you start liking? You know boys or girls or whatever you know guys start liking you start having relationships.
Speaker 1:You start having little boyfriends, little girlfriends.
Speaker 2:So what was that? What was that like? Now that you're a handicap Non-existent?
Speaker 1:It just looked a bit, yeah, they just you know when, when a person sees a person in a wheelchair, it's like nope In my mind. Then you know, and still today you know people, just they, they, just it's almost like they dismissed that person rolling by.
Speaker 2:It's like they don't, you know and I don't think that it's they're. They're not in my world. I don't think that they're trying. You just answered it.
Speaker 1:They're not being ugly. They're not being ugly. They don't understand. They don't understand. They have no knowledge yeah.
Speaker 2:And so for me, now that I've sat in the chair, I love how you sit. When you sit, you don't call it wheelchair, I call it, it's the chair man. It's like go get the chair, go get the, you know, and and I love it. That's a cool thing to me now.
Speaker 2:Like if somebody said you sit in the chair, it means I'm like, I want to. I want to get to know that person, because, you know, one thing that kills me is people. I saw this. I've shared it a couple of times with this guy. He's like talking about how inspiring this girl was being in the gym and she was in a wheelchair and she was not like the other girls and she wasn't wearing all these things, but she was so inspiring and so I, you know, I did what, what I should do, and I went over there and and told her how inspiring she was and I was like that's not inspiring. You're calling her out, you're you're. You are seeing that she is not like you and and I'm cool with it. It's just the interaction needs to be like now, and if I see somebody in the gym that's in a wheelchair and be like hey, man, sit in the chair, I know, you do.
Speaker 2:You, I'm over here, you just say hey, whatever, and I'm, I'm there for you. If not, I'd love to. I'd love to to get to know you more, but I am not going to mess with you during this time.
Speaker 1:We went to the beach in June. We go um Johnson Drew's birthday is June 4th. We go every year. He loves the beach, we all love the beach. Anyway, well, I have to have. I can't walk in sand, it's just something I can't do. It's very difficult. So I hold on to West the whole time that I'm walking down and always have shorts on. My braces are out where everybody can see them and my hey dudes. Anyway, we're walking down to the beach and and I I have to like stand there and hold on to West while he sets my chair up so I can sit down. Well, we get all set up and this lady walks over there in front of us, like in front of everybody, and she was like I just want you to know that you're awesome.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:I was like, because you have no idea what to say. She was like you do it, girl.
Speaker 2:And I was like thank you, you know, I'm like, I just I know it's all good, I know that's the that's I mean would you do that to an old woman that had trouble walking down there, or an old man that needed to hold on to somebody.
Speaker 1:I don't know what makes me different. That is, that is literally what makes me different.
Speaker 2:That is literally what I want to do with this podcast. Let's see what I want to do. I want people to to know that you're going to have to find a way to treat. Treat them the way that you're treated and the way that other don't. They already know, I already know. I'm inspiring. I'm not trying to be you already know you're inspiring.
Speaker 2:You already know that you're tough. You don't need a stranger to walk up to you and tell you I mean, that's some things, that that that honestly, I had to go get fixed because so many people were. You know, I welcome it now. But if I'm healing, if I'm grieving, if I'm healing it's you need to be careful going to those people because you know a lot of things. A lot of a lot of people don't realize traumatic injuries take a lot of your brain availability, your energy for your brain and they puts it into your growth, and so you're just not in a good place.
Speaker 2:but that's, that's healing, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally get that, because I was not in a good place when I was hurt and sometimes I'm not now, but that's just being a human. But things like that, when those, when those things happen and people call you out and tell you that you're inspiring, I mean I want to. I want to jump up and be like look, I can run circles around somebody in a kitchen, there we go.
Speaker 2:I'm no different.
Speaker 1:Come watch me at work. You'll be like dad gum yeah, that's right Like I'm literally no different. It's gonna take me a minute to walk across that street by myself, but I'm gonna get across. Stop me and be like you're so awesome.
Speaker 2:Let me help you. Right, I'm good, I'm good, thanks, yeah, and that's if.
Speaker 1:I fall. It'd be cool if you help me up, if I needed help up, but other than that, I'm doing what you can do.
Speaker 2:I'm walking across the street, which is normal for anybody going to pick somebody up. Yeah, so it's. Yeah, I mean to me it's. I'm losing my ability to to consistently work in the woods. When I go work in the woods I step on, you know, especially logging jobs, I step on twigs, trees, and I'm down for like two or three days. Like my muscles it's just my back. You know that you're short. Different things just get off and um, but if I need to do it, there's no one that can do what I can do. That's right. There's no one that can literally. I mean, I've learned how to reshift, like when my lower back starts hurting, I can reposition my walking to where I take pressure off of that. And who has to, who has, who learns that you compensate, you compensate and that, and that's the thing is like like my body is right now. If every storm you know this every storm that comes in, I feel it or you feel it Well, sometimes, yeah, sometimes.
Speaker 2:It's sometimes to me it's. There's only a few storms a year. They're really pressure packed and those are the warm I mean. I get them really hard in the winter and early spring.
Speaker 1:But sometimes I don't ever, ever think about the weather affecting my body. You know, I just know that I'm in pain or I'm struggling.
Speaker 2:And for me it's. I look, I can look at it today finally and say what a, what a gift for me to have hurt legs, to where I always have to be aware of my body. I always have to go take care of it. I can, I can sense storms coming. I can. I know how to use chills in my, on my, you know, for my nerves and like get a little bit. You know, I used to when there was so much pain in my legs, having to re learn how to walk remember that pain, my gosh, and and, and I had to figure out a way to get a little bit extra boost here and there, and that extra boost came through chills. So if I could figure out a way to use my chills, I could get 10, 15, 25 pounds extra. So I think that what we have experienced, I think that people no offense everybody look, this is just us no offense to anyone, but people don't have the more storms you go through, the more breaks you have when you're built back from that.
Speaker 1:You can overcome anything. And back to the people calling us out or anything. I don't wanna sound rude or crude because I'm not. I'm very kind but I don't. I welcome it as well all the time. It's just after a while it gets annoying. After 26 years of fighting and fighting and being super tough and going through this every single day and keep doing the same thing that I'm doing. It's just the people that don't know me that pointed out.
Speaker 2:I'm like here we go again, but I don't mean it ugly, yeah, I get it. I don't think they'd take it that way either. And so if you had to give people advice like, no, let's not say that, let's say, if we wanted to fix that, that, the way that people kind of look at people in wheelchairs and stuff like what would you do?
Speaker 1:I mean, I would like to tell people the same thing that I tell my 11 year old and that I've told him his entire life stop staring, baby. Stop staring. That person has a story and you don't need to stare at them and look at them for that length of time. You don't need to watch them turn your head and watch them walk all the way by. It's fine. Don't stare, don't talk to people, don't talk down to people that have a different thing going on than you do, whether it be a wheelchair or on crutches, even, or whatever. There's a story there that you weren't there for and you don't know. So just be their friend, just be nice, be kind to tell him that every day when I drop him off at school and, like Johnson, be nice and be kind. You hear me. Be very sweet to everybody today. Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am, and I know he gets tired hearing it, but that's what you need to do. If there's somebody in the gym that's working out in a wheelchair, yeah, just you, do you and let them do them, don't.
Speaker 2:So if you, yeah, so if you had a youth group, a bunch of kids, you would tell them. That's what you would tell them, and then you would tell them Just invite them in.
Speaker 1:Let them be a part of your life. That's all you wanna do. Just let them be a part of it. Be friends with everybody, no matter their circumstance. They need it so much more than you do Exactly.
Speaker 2:But they don't need. You know, megan always just say this. She always just say there's the man right there. But Megan used to always say this Everything she went through treat me normal.
Speaker 1:Treat me normal, cause you are normal yeah.
Speaker 2:And it like like like okay, worst, worst worst day of the year, very bad day, very, very bad diagnosis. Whatever it is, treat me normal.
Speaker 1:All right yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't change it up. If I decide that I wanna not be that way, I'll approach you and say I don't wanna be normal today. I wanna talk about this, let's talk. But I think that if, if we were gonna fix that, if we were gonna say y'all, we could do so much more. I think it would be.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:Treat them. Treat them normal. You know what?
Speaker 1:Wes says absolutely. Just welcome them into your life for whatever reason, be friends with them. Wes says when I, when I say things like, or the word handicapped, period, he doesn't like it. But I'll say, god, just I wish people would quit looking at me, you know, or saying things to me or anything like I'm handicapped, and he's like you're not handicapped, you're inconvenienced.
Speaker 2:And that's all he ever says.
Speaker 1:And I'm like I know, but you know what I mean, you know I am.
Speaker 2:Megan, even when she couldn't breathe. Literally she was like we don't park in handicapped.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't even have a handicapped thing, she's like we're not and I was like she's.
Speaker 2:like we're going to park where we normally park when we park before this stuff. If I can't do it, we'll get a little closer, but there's somebody that is that needs it more than I do.
Speaker 1:That needs it more than I do.
Speaker 2:And I'm like you can't even you know, and, and, but she never changed that up and that was. That was huge, and that's what you got too.
Speaker 1:So I, exactly I have a. It's a placard like a. I don't have a handicap tag on my car or anything, cause I just think that's ridiculous. I'm not doing that, cause I'm not. You know what I mean. And that's been my mindset for 26 years. I'm not, I'm not going to put myself in this group of.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's. It's the same way as, like whenever I, you know I was trying to make a decision on am I going to be fully? To say could I you know you talked about it earlier you know what are the options on full disability? I just the things that I've been through in the past and all those things that, like Megan, you know, saying hey, we're not going to put, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 1:I'm not either I'm not going to be.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to take the easy way out. It's going to be the harder way. Some days I'm like, well, I wish I wouldn't have done that, but but.
Speaker 1:I'm not, I'm standing, I'm going to stand on my feet and I tell people that every day they're like God, do you ever sit down? And I'm like not if I have to, not if I don't have to, what if I? What?
Speaker 2:if I just said, felt sorry for myself and gave up and say well, you know, I deserve this, I deserve, you know these, this company, to pay me a check for every week, every month. At that point, what am I telling? What am I teaching my child? And I'm not. I'm look, I'm not.
Speaker 1:This, look, there's people that need it. Yeah, absolutely, and they can do it.
Speaker 2:But my mind, my mind said how I'm built, how she was built, how you're built, we can't do that.
Speaker 1:And if it's a choice, garter, then then it's your choice. You know I choose, and I choose to run around this restaurant like a crazy person all the time and I have fallen in front of people and it doesn't matter, it doesn't face me one bit.
Speaker 1:This is what I do. I'm not. I'm not going to sit down, you know, unless I'm hunting or doing this, or I mean I've sat down and did the did time cards while I go, but I stood there most of the time and then I finally sat down. You know, I'm going to stand up as much as I can because God gave me this, he put me back on my feet and I owe. I don't owe him, but I owe it to myself for everything that I've worked.
Speaker 1:Yes for everything that I've worked so hard for, to just give it everything that I have, every single day because people are going to.
Speaker 1:They're going to learn from that. They're going to, they're going to be like you know what. What I woke up complaining about this morning is totally fine. You know, like and going through it, all the bad stuff that happened so many years ago that I had to learn in the beginning. You know you appreciate being able to stand up and brush your teeth. You know people don't and I'm saying it, I'm calling everybody else.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:People don't appreciate being able to stand up and brush their teeth. They don't appreciate being able to wash clothes in a washer when some people have to do it from a wheelchair.
Speaker 2:You know, for me it was the grass. I wanted to go in the grass.
Speaker 1:You can't roll in it.
Speaker 2:You can't roll in the grass and it's just like I can't get in the grass, I can't get the, I can't get the remote off of the floor for my child. That's humbling. But you know, going back to when I, when I saw you say I can work, I can don't look at me like that. I can work, I'm, I'm stronger, I'm, I can walk circles or run circles around you, I knew that was. That's not a bragging, that is a straight up confidence that there is no one that will, that that can go through what you've been through because of the pain that you've taken on for the amount of years and you've kept telling yourself I don't deserve that. I deserve West, I deserve this business, I deserve.
Speaker 1:I'm just as normal as anybody else, and you know life is great I love.
Speaker 2:My dad is, oh my gosh, like my dad is such a planner in his financial plan of business and he did things for me that if I did not have him, there is absolutely no what no doubt that I'd be a homeless man if I didn't have them from the injury. That there is no doubt. But the things that he put in place for me took care of me during those disabilities, um, provided for my family, took stress off of my life, allowed me to get back and heal the right way. But but I remember this talk with my surgeon and him and we were trying to make this decision for me coming off disability, and my dad was just like, didn't agree with it.
Speaker 2:I can see exactly now where he was and I would say that I didn't agree with. I would have agreed with his stance of where I was physically. I should have taken that. But my surgeon looked at me and said what Carter's saying is that this is what he wants. This is what he. This is the life that he wants to go. He wants to go back to work. He, he wants to go, do these things and and and that's, that's good you need, let's, let's, we need, we need to um follow him and let him do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, celebrate with him. Let him live his life the way he wants to and push, push, push forward. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:This, this is this is awesome, so this one is all right, this is what we're going to do. I'm going to come back next week. Is that cool? Yeah, and, and, and. You just give maybe give some tips on to people. That just tips, just things that you have learned over the years to help you not get through a disability but be the strongest in the in the room. Okay, thanks, thanks for doing this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll see y'all next week. This is uh, we're going to get get her back on here. Um, this is awesome so.
Speaker 1:I enjoyed it. Thank you for letting me be here.
Speaker 2:See y'all next week, guys See you.