September 25, 2017 35 year old Jennifer Flewellen had dropped her 3 kids off at school and was heading to work when she called her husband and told him she felt light headed. While speaking with him , she lost control of her vehicle and slammed into a tree.
She was air lifted to a hospital where doctors told her family they did not think Jennifer would survive.
After a few days the Doctors began encouraging the family to remove Jennifer from life support.
Her mother Peggy talks about it. "They encouraged me, by like day two or three to take her off [life support] "I said, 'No, not as of today, we're not going to do that.' And then each day, they kind of encouraged me more, and I'd say, No, it's in God's hands, "A few months into it I remember one respiratory nurse told me, 'Well, you know, she'll only get worse,' and I told her, 'Don't you ever say that to me again, and never say it around my daughter,'" Means recalled. "I'd say, 'It's very easy to be negative, but we have no room for negativity.'"
After a few years in the coma with the doctors giving her no chance of waking up, Jennifer's husband filed for divorce.
Peggy works as an industrial sewer. So she not only works 10 hours a day on her feet she would spend hours working with the insurance company trying to maintain the coverage for her daughter. She says that things got better thanks to her employer making a huge concession for her. I could only go see Jen 2 or 3 three days a week because I had to work during visiting hours." Her employers very unexpectedly announced that Peggy could begin sewing from home. "When they let me take my machine home, then it was on. I could sew in the morning, I could go see Jen and then I could come home and sew. I knew she would improve with me talking to to her every day.
Another big break when there was a facility that Peggy was told would help Jennifer but she couldn't get her in. "I called every month for 2 years. I called once when the lady that does admitting was on vacation, and it was a different lady, and I got Jennifer in"!
Peggy spent 6 days a week with her comatose daughter and the 7th taking care of Jennifer's 3 sons. "This was really hard on them because basically their mom had died. Their dad was trying to move on with his life and I don't blame him for that."
After years of this Peggy was doing her daily routine of pushing Jen around the facility grounds enjoying the fresh air. She stopped by a bench and sat there enjoying the sunshine and was just talking to her. She told her a joke she had heard and for the first time in 5 years heard a response. It was a little laugh. She told the medical team who ran some tests and said she must have imagined it because her scans showed her brain wasn't functioning at that level. Several weeks later she began getting more reactions. "I would ask her questions about the boys and stuff, and she couldn't she couldn't speak even a sound, but she could shake her head yes and no," Means recalled. "I said, 'Jen, am I your dad,' and she made a face like, no. And then I'd ask about the boys, I'd mix up their names, like one middle name to another one.'"
She showed the medical team her videos. Doctors were shocked that someone who had been in a vegetative state for years was coming back.
Yesterday Peggy got to spend her first Mother's day in years with her daughter. Jennifer now 41 got to spend her first Mother's day with her son's. She also got to spend her first mothers day as a grandmother! Her oldest became a dad a few months ago.