![]() Jesús and I married in November and by the end of December I was pregnant. I asked the doctor what I needed to do, but he told me I shouldn’t even consider the idea: “You can’t risk it, it’d be dangerous for you, don’t even think about it!”. And among those plans was also the idea of having children. From the first day, from the moment of the accident, I had decided to face the situation positively, to face the tragedy with optimism, with enormous will to live and to continue enjoying everything life offered me. ![]() Shortly beforehand, a doctor with whom I’d been in touch in Madrid offered me work as a psychologist at the Hospital La Paz, to help and encourage the victims of accidents with spinal cord injuries. It was a bit of an on-off relationship, but when he at last got his degree, we resumed the relationship and after three years of being together we decided to get married. My boyfriend at the time, Jesús, was doing his military service in the Canary Islands and managed to escape now and then to visit me. Furthermore, because there weren’t many seriously injured patients, I was able to receive two or three hours of occupational therapy and another two or three hours of physiotherapy and time in the swimming pool every day five hours of daily rehabilitation for a year and a half. I was lucky in that hospital that my mother and sister didn’t have to sleep in an armchair, as they had in the previous hospital in Valencia they had a bed next to mine and there was a small terrace where we ate on sunny days. With a marvelous “Salve rociera” that two friends who were dancers danced for me and which made me cry because I realized at that moment that I would never dance a sevillana again.ĭuring the year and a half I was in the hospital, I assumed the role of psychologist (in reality, my profession), I decided I was there to help and encourage others. ![]() And so, as soon as they removed the compass and placed me in a wheelchair – albeit with a type of corset that held my neck and back and which was horrible and cumbersome –, I used any excuse to leave the hospital for a little while: the farewell party for a nurse, dinner with friends… On January 21, two days before my birthday, they moved me to another hospital (Asepeyo, Coslada) and on the occasion of my twenty-sixth birthday, they organized a surprise party for me with one hundred and fifty guests the most beautiful and moving party of my life. Two months during which, despite the circumstances, the desire to leave and enjoy myself grew. I was in that position for two months, hardly moving my body except my arms a little. (I remember I shouted, in the anxiousness of the moment as they were going to cut open my suit, “No, it’s my sister’s and she’ll kill me!”) When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, face up, with a compass on my chest and 40 kilos of weight to align my vertebras. They removed me from the car through the window and left me on the ground, face down, until the ambulance arrived that took me to the Hospital La Fe of Valencia. On that 20th of September, we were returning from a weekend in a Valencian town when the accident happened it was a split-second, a tiny distraction by the driver as he changed a music cassette and, because my headrest wasn’t properly positioned (it was positioned for my neck instead of on the nape), I was left a quadriplegic for life. I had finished my degree in industrial psychology, I loved to dance flamenco (I was like a clone of Lola Flores) and practiced lots of sports (waterskiing, tennis, gym, horse riding, sailing), I was a very active person who enjoyed every minute of the day. ![]() I crashed, but I was reborn after the accident. People have always told me I’m lucky, that I was born under a lucky star. ![]()
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