FOLLOW US

Her airbag deployed. It knocked her out cold.

The car careened across the road and stopped only when it struck a pole that supported high voltage power lines.

Michelle did not feel the pain, nor realize that she was trapped until she was pulled from the car by emergency services. The people on the scene feared Michelle would be killed by an explosion or electrocuted by dangling power lines. They ripped her from the car to safety, unaware her foot was still pinned beneath the gas pedal. Her ankle was shattered and visibly mangled.

Awakening at the hospital she was afraid.  But Michelle Gamble had never been a quitter, not even close, and she wasn’t about to start now.  She faced long and uncertain recovery and unprecedented challenges to her personal and professional life.

She fought through agony, using every ounce of determination she possessed, for a month in the hospital. She had to decide whether she would live her life and make the best of this new normal, or fall into a deep depression and become a victim to her circumstances. Michelle was brave, positive and determined. But, she had no way of knowing that the worst was ahead and that this was only the beginning of her recovery.

Just as the path to recovery seemed clear, Michelle was told that she had contracted MRSA Super Bug in the hospital through her open wounds. The bug – a drug resistant staphylococcus bacterial infection – had eaten through the tissue and entered the bone in her foot. There was no way Michelle could have avoided exposure to this potentially fatal, and highly contagious infection.  The doctors stated the situation simply. To save her life they would have to amputate Michelle’s foot.

Other experts repeated the same warning, steering the conversation to options in prosthetics and recovery programs. They said that they understood how hard it was for her to accept losing the foot but they were the experts and they needed her to listen and make the decision immediately or her son would grow up without his mother.

Staring at the ceiling of her hospital room, already a year into her recovery and still unable to walk, Michelle thought about her options.  Should she accept the many doctor’s assessments and go through with the amputation?  They assured her that this would save her life and she would be able to return to work and her personal life.  Or would she challenge the doctors and face a long uphill battle where her very life was on the line. She thought about her family and the friends, projects and clients and how many people her decision touched. In business, there were always big obstacles but usually there were options. She built a career by never accepting there was only one way to do things. She built a reputation as someone who always challenged the status quo and never accepted defeat.  Michelle spent so much time fighting for clients, so she decided she would fight for and her family. She decided to fight and walk again on her own two feet.