Guest post written by Breanna, my lovely girlfriend.
Two 2️⃣ years ago today while tent camping on Lake Hartwell, Matt asked me to be his girlfriend.
This was our tent camping spot.
In my heart it was an immediate “Yes!“
…. but what came out was,
“Are you sure?!” 😳😬😅
Sitting under the stars that night by the campfire we laughed and agreed that fate had brought us together, camping is awesome, and to give it a go at being “official.”
The sunrise was so beautiful, especially when I woke up realizing I now had my boyfriend next to me.
Two years later and this has been the best, craziest, most sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat adventure. But it’s also been the most “feels like my heart is at home” adventure.
Last November, to celebrate our very first anniversary, we spent the weekend in Savannah, GA. Our Airbnb host had remodeled a vintage 1960s Shasta camper as a “glamping” experience. Since we were used to tent camping, this seemed like a luxurious splurge.
Me in front of the Shasta, it was 40 degrees and raining outside but that didn’t stop us from having a blast.
We fell in love.
Not only with each other – but also with the idea of “glamping” in an RV. By the time we were on the drive home we had a spreadsheet going of costs involved with owning a camper, pros and cons, and what future camping trips could look like if we were to buy one.
Fast forward to February ‘22 and (with completed spreadsheet in hand) we’re at the RV dealership. We decided to keep adventuring – in style – and bought a motorhome.
Proud owners of a 2022 Coachmen Crosstrail XL 23XG – brand new off the lot.
Four short months later, we say yes to chasing adventure and abandon “normal.”
We set our sights on living and traveling full time in the RV. We sell the house, our cars, and 90% of everything we owned. Matt quit his job as a Mechanical Engineer to be our full time driver and to take a break from what is corporate America. Thanks to the power of the internets, and the COVID-inspired shift to working remote, I’m still working with clients & they afford me the flexibility to travel full time and embrace this lifestyle – ya girl got bills to pay! Lol.
In the six months since we’ve:
- Visited ✨10 states ✨ (our goal is to hit all 50 before we turn 30).
- Camped at state parks, US Army COE campgrounds, wineries, an alpaca farm, national forests, a casino, city parks, beaches, lakes, private RV resorts, and music festivals.
- Swam in waterfalls, lakes, rivers, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, & countless campground pools.
- Driven just under 10k miles.
- Watched and photographed many sunrises and sunsets.
- Matt taught me how to change the oil in the generator – #feminism. lol.
- Set up and taken down camp at least 62720932 times.
- And we’ve met folks from all different walks of life; we even met someone from our hometown in Greenville at a concert in Arkansas!
Okay, so those are all the “humble-brag-worthy” things. There have also been plenty of not-so-great things. Things like traffic jams, flat tires, missed turns, mechanical issues, no cell service, wild animals getting into our trash bin, Luna being a puppy and causing chaos, poop hose debacles like in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and baddd weather (like 9 degrees bad 🥶).
But, on Labor Day weekend, the thing of my worst nightmares happened right before my eyes.
We haven’t really posted about this yet, but, I feel like I’m ready to now that I’ve had time to process and he’s had time to heal. I really do feel like I’ve learned one of the fundamental purposes of our humanity through this tragic accident & I want to share it publicly here.
While traveling to a new campsite one morning we found the rock face in the picture below in Rolla, Missouri (you can see a very small version of Matt in the top left of the picture). Being the adventurous tourists that we are, we pulled over and thought this would be a great spot to grab some pictures. If you look at that picture you’ll notice that the boulders were almost stacked like stairs so we thought it’d be an “easy up, snap a few pictures, and come back down” 15-minute pit stop.
Matt standing at the top of the rock face – proudly conquered.
I’ve never been more wrong.
After he climbed to the top and I take a few pictures from the ground, it happened right in front of me.
On the way back down from the top, Matt looses his footing.
I watch as his body ricochets off of the rock face – falling, falling, falling to the ground. He smacks the ground, landing on unforgiving rock.
Mortified, I run to him.
Blood. Lots of it.
I call 911 screaming for help.
Bystanders rush over giving me T-shirts to wrap his head in to stop the bleeding. It felt like a lifetime before the first ambulance arrived. They start to stabilize him and I notice one of the EMS guys making a circular motion with his hand while the others nodded. “What is that? What does that mean?” I thought, trying to remember to breathe.
A police officer named Jenna (I’ll never forget her face) quickly pulls me aside. She calmly explains what would happen next.
Due to the severity of the fall, after a quick triage, the ambulance would take Matt to this small town’s hospital with a helipad where he would be medivac’d via helicopter to the trauma center back in Saint Louis.
I physically heard her words but they weren’t comprehensible to me. She escorts me to the local hospital behind the ambulance. I’ve never been more appreciative of a law enforcement officer; if you know someone working this incredibly complex and emotionally demanding job – thank them.
While on the way to the helipad the EMS team triaged Matt as best they could. This included cutting away all his clothing so he could go directly into surgery if needed, shaving his chest and hooking him to monitors, wrapping and re-wrapping his head wounds, and pumping him full of chemicals to keep him as stable as possible. The helicopter arrived, I kissed him on the forehead and told him I loved him, and he was up and away. The helicopter ride to the trauma center would be 45 minutes for him. I plug the trauma center’s address into my phone’s GPS, it’ll be an hour and a half drive for me and Luna in the RV.
The EMS guy that had been calling for the helicopter earlier pulled me aside as silent tears rolled down my cheeks and I counted my breaths to try to stay calm.
“I don’t lie to my patients and I don’t lie to their families. This doesn’t look good.”
My heart plummets through my chest down to my stomach, landing with a sucker punch to the gut.
He went on to explain the injuries they were seeing and that their main concern was a brain bleed/swelling or internal bleeding due to the height of the fall and his spiking blood pressure. At the end he reminds me, “You’re no good to him if you’re not calm. You’ve got to stay calm and get to the trauma center, safely. He’s in the best hands possible and your only job is to drive safely.”
I walk back over to the RV and sit in the driver’s seat. I completely fall apart under the weight of what I was just told. The worst outcomes swirl through my mind.
Luna jumps over to me, trying to understand what was happening, why I’m so distraught, and where her dad is. I shifted her, trying to put the key in the ignition and get going. I kid you not, she crawled over me, down onto the floorboard, and sat on the pedals blocking me from moving. It’s like she knew it wasn’t safe for me to drive until I calmed down. After a few minutes I gather myself, she hops back into the passenger seat, and we leave.
What should have been an hour and a half drive in the RV turns in to two and a half hours because of rain and traffic jams. I called Lauren (my best friend in the whole world) hysterically on the way explaining what was happening. No doubt, I have the absolute best friend in the entire universe. She stayed on the phone with me – keeping me calm and praying.
I hang up with her and call the hospital. I needed answers. I ask them if a helicopter with the patient Matthew has arrived yet and for an update. They say they have no one by that name in the system.
What?!?
I get transferred what felt like 5000 different times to people trying to find where he is and give me an update. They keep telling me they don’t have anyone by that name under their care and transferring me to different departments. I’m panicking. Later, I learned that because they had to cut off his clothing, and I had his wallet with his ID, they entered him in the system as a “John Doe” until they could verify his identity. After the worst 2.5 hour drive of my life, I finally get to the hospital, whip the RV haphazardly into a spot, crank the generator and AC for Luna, and run into the ER.
I get through security and walk to the room with the “John Doe” sign.
I knock.
No response.
Nothing.
Heart pounding, I ease my way into the room.
There he is.
He’s awake, covered in bandages, there’s blood all over the bed, he’s hooked to too many monitors to count. We lock eyes. He’s alive. I run to him and burst into tears.
Here’s where I finally start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and this story turns around.
His nurse comes in and walks us through what’s happened since he’s arrived. To say he is lucky, blessed, has a guardian angel, has nine lives, or whatever else you may want to call it – is an understatement. Testing shows no brain injuries or internal bleeding- the best, most seemingly impossible, news ever on what was arguably the worst day ever.
His injuries include 22 staples to close his head, 4 broken ribs, multiple strains of the ligaments in his neck resulting in bulging discs, severe deep tissue bruising across his back and butt, lacerations all over his body, a sprained ankle, and a severely mangled hand/wrist.
But NO internal damage.
Lucky, blessed, has a guardian angel, has nine lives, or whatever else you may want to call it. Understatement.
The last two months until now have been a blur. His mom flew to Saint Louis to meet us and be with him. THANK GOD for a mother’s love, I was so thankful to have her with us. Brooke (another one of my amazing friends) and her brilliant doctor brain walk us through MRIs, scans, test results, and physical therapy exercises. Lauren and I share several teary phone calls talking through his daily updates and progress. Close family and friends reach out as the news spreads and they offer to help however they can and pray. We’re enveloped in love and empathy by the people closest to us.
After two months, I’m happy to share that Matt is off pain medication, has been cleared to remove the cervical collar on his neck, had his staples removed, is walking, has healed wounds that only left faint scars, and has clearance from neurosurgery to start (safely) traveling again. We’re starting to slowly travel again and have plans to have family fly out and meet us for the holidays. He’s in good spirits and is cracking jokes about it all. 🤪 Humor is cathartic.
Never been happier to remove this after 8 long weeks of feeling like a giraffe.
There have been so many examples of what I personally call “God Winks” along this journey. Moments where I could tangibly feel the presence of the Divine working directly through someone to help heal, support, or care for him. For instance, if you look at the picture of him standing on the top of the rock face you can see a faint cross above his head in the clouds; this was taken literally seconds before the accident. Even when we felt completely alone and helpless while waiting for EMS to arrive, we were never alone.
Post accident there hasn’t been a single day that family or friends didn’t check in on us. Through this horrible accident, I was able to experience the outpouring of love and support from our circle of people – and I will be forever grateful for it.
As I reflect on our two year anniversary, I can’t help but find the correlation between the love Matt & I have for each other, the love of the Divine, and the love between members of our small community of family and friends. Love.
Love. Love. Love.
Love is all you need.
(Beatles reference there for ya 😉).
Love your partner, love your neighbors, love your doggos, love your karen of a coworker, love your enemies – just be freakin’ kind. Life is too short to be filled with hate. If we all embrace each other with empathy, the world will be a better place – and you’ll be a better person for it.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading my short novel and coming to my TED Talk, lol. This post feels like a blend of a life update, diary entry, and therapy session.
On a serious note, reading this much shows that you love me enough to take time out of your day to read my post and hear our story. Thank you for showing me love, I hope to show you the same. ♥️
Real love,
Breanna
Here are some JOYFUL pictures from our recent adventures, you always have to end on a good note! 😄
No Place Like Gone 