The Accident

So, as I said, I had been doing archeology jobs since I graduated college. I got a new job working about 60 or 70 miles outside Albequuerque, New Mexico. It was on the first day of the new job and I guess it wasn't stormy at all and a lightening bolt came out of no where and struck me. I don't remember anything about a week prior to the accident or several weeks after, so all this information has been relayed to me by others. I guess when the lightening struck me, a co-worker gave me CPR for about 15 minutes, and thank God for that because he saved my life! After those 15 minutes, the EMTs arrived and continued CPR for over 20 minutes. Following that I was life-flighted to the ICU at UNM. That night, my parents got the phone call that would change the rest of their lives. It was a restless night for them (to put it mildly) and the soonest they could get a flight was the next morning. My dad immediately started the caring pages website so he had something else to focus on other than always worrying about me. So, if you'd like more information from their point of view, you can visit care pages.com and enter Tesser(my nickname)!

The Beginning

My name is Tess Sunderland and I am 26 years old. I grew up in Leawood Kansas and I went to Shawnee Mission East high school for 2 years and then transferred to Barstow (a private school in Missouri) for the last 2 years. I went to Colorado College in Colorado Springs and got my BA in Anthropology and my minor in Art History. I was based in a little town up the mountain from Colorado Springs called Manitou Springs. Since I graduated college about 3 years before, I had been working various CRM [cultural resource management] archaeology jobs that took me all over (eastern Colorado, western Kansas, Wyoming, New Mexico, ect.). I'm kinda a nerd, I love being an archaeologist- there's something that I think is amazing about discovering something that hasn't been seen for hundreds of years! I have MANY interests: I love being outdoors and doing extreme sports like rock climbing, kayaking and snowboarding to name a few. I also love all animals because they don't scream and make poopy diapers: my favorites are dogs, monkeys, and horses (gosh I sound like a dork, oh well). I also love movies (my favorite is Jurassic Park) all different kinds of music except for country (right now my favorites are Kings of Leon, Radiohead and Ray Lamontane) but it's kinda subject to change depending on how I feel at the current time...
Anyway, about the accident, I had just started working for a company in New Mexico (previously I had worked for one based in Utah and one based in Colorado). It was my first day on the new job and I guess a lightning bolt came out of no where and struck me. All of this I've been told since I can't remember about a week before and several after. And maybe that's a good thing because I don't think I want to remember such a traumatic event. I guess finally the paramedics came and thank god a coworker knew CPR because he saved my life until the paramedic got there! I guess I needed CPR for about a half hour and after that they took me to the ICU at UNM. I was there for about a month and then I was taken to a hospital in Denver, and then I was moved to the connecting rehab hospital. Finally, I went to a rehab facility in Nebraska called Quality Living Inc. This blog will unfold my story...

Info Pt.1

I think a little more background information is important for understanding how and why I got through this whole experience... First of all, I should talk about Buddhism and why it helped me get through this whole thing. I would say I'm not very religious but I'm very spiritual and Buddhism is basically my life philosophy. Growing up, my parents encouraged me to explore my options and pursue something if it made sense to me. I researched many different avenues and this(Buddhism) is the one that really clicked. The absolute last thing I would want to do is preach (I HATE that) but I think it's a big part of my recovery process. Some of the main values are compassion and patience (which is something[patience] I really need to work on)...
I try to meditate every day which consists of me trying to calm my mind and recite my mantra "om mani padme hum" which basically translates to "compassion" in Sanskrit.

Background

Basically, archaeology is like research of the past, using artifacts as clues to piece the puzzle together. As a field archeoligist, I did a TON of walking (we had GPS coordinate lines that we were assigned to stay on) and we would put a flag on anything unusual ( i.e- weird stone cicles, odd loking mounds, flakes[debris of rocks discarded from tool making]).When we did actually dig, it would mostly be these things called shovel tests where we would be assigned coordinates to this little box area. We would record artifacts or anything odd. The 1st company I worked for was in Vernal, Utah called MOAC. The land was beautiful and interesting but the little Morman town wasn't very tolerant of us outsider archaeologists (and that's putting it VERY mildly.) Then I worked for SWCA based out of Denver and that was good because I could keep my home base in Manitou Springs (right up the mountain from Colorado Springs). For SWCA, they would send us off to survey certain different areas before they could build (power lines, wind farms, roads, etc.) We would be sent all over Western Colorado, Wyoming, Eastern Kansas and since none of us were very near our homes, the company would pay for us to stay in long term hotels.