WEBVTT

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I'm actually going to share
something with you

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I haven't talked about
probably in more than 10 years.

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So bear with me as I take you
through this journey.

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When I was 22 years old,

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I came home from work,
put a leash on my dog

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and went for my usual run.

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I had no idea that at that moment,

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my life was going to change forever.

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While I was preparing my dog for the run,

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a man was finishing drinking at a bar,

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picked up his car keys, got into a car

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and headed south,

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or wherever he was.

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I was running across the street,

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and the only thing
that I actually remember

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is feeling like a grenade
went off in my head.

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And I remember
putting my hands on the ground

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and feeling my life's blood

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emptying out of my neck and my mouth.

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What had happened is, he ran a red light

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and hit me and my dog.

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She ended up underneath the car.

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I flew out in front of the car,

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and then he ran over my legs.

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My left leg got caught up
in the wheel well --

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spun it around.

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The bumper of the car hit my throat,

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slicing it open.

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I ended up with blunt chest trauma.

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Your aorta comes up behind your heart,
it's your major artery --

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and it was severed, so my blood
was gurgling out of my mouth.

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It foamed, and ... horrible things
were happening to me.

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I had no idea what was going on,

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but strangers intervened,

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kept my heart moving, beating.

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I say "moving," because it was quivering,

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and they were trying to put
a beat back into it.

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Somebody was smart
and put a Bic pen in my neck

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to open up my airway,
so I could get some air in there.

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And my lung collapsed,

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so somebody cut me open
and put a pen in there as well,

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to stop that catastrophic
event from happening.

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Somehow I ended up at the hospital.

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I was wrapped in ice,

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and then eventually put
into a drug-induced coma.

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Eighteen months later, I woke up.

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I was blind, I couldn't speak

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and I couldn't walk.

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I was 64 pounds.

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The hospital really has no idea
what to do with people like that.

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And in fact, they started
to call me a "gomer."

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That's another story
we won't even get into.

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I had so many surgeries
to put my neck back together,

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to repair my heart a few times.

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Some things worked, some things didn't.

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I had lots of titanium put in me;

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cadaver bones,

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to try to get my feet
moving the right way.

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And I ended up with a plastic nose,

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porcelain teeth
and all kinds of other things.

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But eventually,
I started to look human again.

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But ...

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It's hard sometimes
to talk about these things,

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so bear with me.

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I had more than 50 surgeries.

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But who's counting?

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(Laughter)

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So eventually, the hospital decided
it was time for me to go.

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They needed to open up
space for somebody else

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that they thought could come back

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from whatever they were going through.

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Everybody lost faith in me
being able to recover.

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So they basically put a map
up on the wall, threw a dart,

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and it landed at a senior home,
here in Colorado.

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And I know all of you
are scratching your head:

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"A senior citizens' home?

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What in the world
are you going to do there?"

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But if you think about
all of the skills and talent

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that are in this room right now,

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that's what a senior home has.

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So there were all these skills and talents

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that these seniors had.

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The one advantage
they had over most of you

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is wisdom,

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because they had a long life.

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And I needed that wisdom
at that moment in my life.

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But imagine what it was like for them

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when I showed up at their doorstep.

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At that point, I had gained
four pounds, so I was 68 pounds.

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I was bald.

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I was wearing hospital scrubs.

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And somebody donated tennis shoes for me.

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And I had a white cane in one hand

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and a suitcase full of medical
records in another hand.

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So the senior citizens realized

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that they needed to have
an emergency meeting.

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(Laughter)

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So they pulled back
and they were looking at each other,

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and they were going, "OK,
what skills do we have in this room?

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This kid needs a lot of work."

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So they eventually started
matching their talents and skills

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to all of my needs.

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But one of the first things
they needed to do

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was assess what I needed right away.

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I needed to figure out how to eat
like a normal human being,

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since I'd been eating
through a tube in my chest

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and through my veins.

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So I had to go
through trying to eat again.

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And they went through that process.

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And then they had to figure out:

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"Well, she needs furniture.

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She is sleeping in the corner
of this apartment."

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So they went to their storage lockers

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and all gathered their extra furniture --

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gave me pots and pans, blankets --

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everything.

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And then the next thing that I needed

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was a makeover.

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(Laughter)

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So out went the green scrubs,

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and in came the polyester
and floral prints.

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(Laughter)

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We're not going to talk
about the hairstyles

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they tried to force on me
once my hair grew back.

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But I did say no to the blue hair.

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(Laughter)

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So eventually, what went on is,

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they decided that, well,
I need to learn to speak.

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You can't be an independent person

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if you're not able to speak
and you can't see.

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So they figured not being able
to see is one thing,

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but they need to get me to talk.

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So while Sally, the office manager,

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was teaching me to speak in the day --

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it's hard, because when you're a kid,
you take things for granted.

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You learn things unconsciously.

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But for me, I was an adult
and it was embarrassing,

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and I had to learn how to coordinate
my new throat with my tongue

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and my new teeth and my lips,

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and capture the air and get the word out.

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So, I acted like a two-year-old,

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and refused to work.

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But the men had a better idea.

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They were going to make it fun for me.

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So they were teaching me
cuss-word Scrabble at night.

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(Laughter)

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And then, secretly,
how to swear like a sailor.

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(Laughter)

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I'm going to just leave it
to your imagination

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as to what my first words were --

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(Laughter)

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when Sally finally got
my confidence built.

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(Laughter)

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So I moved on from there.

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And a former teacher
who happened to have Alzheimer's

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took on the task of teaching me to write.

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The redundancy was actually good for me.

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So, we'll just keep moving on.

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(Laughter)

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One of the pivotal times for me

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was actually learning
to cross the street again

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as a blind person.

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So close your eyes.

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Now imagine you have to cross a street.

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You don't know how far that street is,

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and you don't know
if you're going straight.

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And you hear cars whizzing back and forth,

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and you had a horrible accident

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that landed you in this situation.

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So there were two obstacles
I had to get through.

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One was post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Every time I approached
the corner or the curb,

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I would panic.

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And the second one

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was actually trying to figure out
how to cross that street.

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So one of the seniors just came up to me,

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and she pushed me
up to the corner and said,

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"When you think it's time to go,
just stick the cane out there.

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If it's hit, don't cross the street."

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(Laughter)

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Made perfect sense.

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(Laughter)

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But by the third cane
that went whizzing across the road --

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(Laughter)

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they realized that they needed
to put their resources together,

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and they raised funds

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so that I could go
to the Braille Institute

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and actually gain the skills
to be a blind person,

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and also to go get a guide dog,

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who transformed my life.

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And I was able to return to college

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because of the senior citizens
who invested in me,

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and also the guide dog
and skill set I had gained.

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Ten years later, I gained my sight back.

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Not magically --

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I opted in for three surgeries,

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and one of them was experimental.

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It was actually robotic surgery

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that removed a hematoma
from behind my eye.

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The biggest change for me
was that the world moved forward,

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that there were innovations
and all kinds of new things --

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cellphones, laptops,

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all these things
that I had never seen before.

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And as a blind person,

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your visual memory fades,

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and is replaced with how you
feel about things

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and how things sound

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and how things smell.

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So one day, I was in my room

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and I saw this thing sitting in my room.

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I thought it was a monster,

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so I was walking around it.

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And I go, "I'm just going to touch it."

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And I touched it and I went,

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"Oh my God, it's a laundry basket."

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(Laughter)

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Everything is different
when you're a sighted person,

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because you take that for granted.

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But when you're blind,
you have the tactile memory for things.

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The biggest change for me
was looking down at my hands

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and seeing that I'd lost
10 years of my life.

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I thought that time
had stood still for some reason

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and moved on for family and friends.

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But when I looked down,

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I realized that time
marched on for me, too,

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and that I needed to get caught up.

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So I got going on it.

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We didn't have words like "crowdsourcing"
and "radical collaboration"

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when I had my accident.

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But the concept held true --

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people working with people to rebuild me;

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people working with people
to reeducate me.

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I wouldn't be standing here today

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if it wasn't for extreme
radical collaboration.

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Thank you so much.

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(Applause)