When students go onto college and tell their new friends about their old lives, many do not have a story quite like one student’s summer experience.
Shannon Jessen, senior, had mononucleosis over the summer, and her spleen, which was enlarged due to the disease, burst while she was tubing at her uncle’s lake house, and she spent the rest of her summer vacation recovering from the life-threatening injury.
“We didn’t know how serious [the injury] was, we just knew my spleen burst, but the doctor said that when you burst you spleen, you only get about an hour to live before the blood and toxins overtake your entire body and your body can’t fight it off. He said I was seconds away from dying because of the time it took from getting off the boat, to the ambulance, to the hospital, to the doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with me. He didn’t know how I survived, or how I’m still alive, but he was so glad,” Jessen said. “He was the sweetest, nicest guy ever, and I cannot thank him enough because he’s the one who saved my life.”
Jessen said that she felt a shock throughout her whole body when she initially hit the water and had no idea that her spleen had burst.
“When I hit the water, I felt this huge explosion. It felt like getting the wind knocked out of you times ten, and I was like, ‘okay something’s definitely wrong,’ but I thought it was my ribcage,” Jessen said. “I somehow miraculously got back to the boat, and when I was climbing up, I almost passed out. Then I got on the boat, and I was blind for about a minute and that was really scary. My uncle had me lay down, and he was saying, ‘It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay,’ and that’s when I knew something was definitely wrong. He rushed me back to the dock, called 911, and as we were waiting for them, I threw up. I could not move at all, it was just a sharp, shooting pain. I was barely conscious at that point, and they had to use a lift board and lift me out of the boat to the ambulance.”
When she arrived at the hospital, Jessen said the doctors could not figure out what was wrong with her for a while. When they took an x-ray, they discovered that her whole abdominal cavity was filled with blood and pieces of her spleen.
“When the x-ray was over, the doctor was standing there, and I was still on the board in excruciating pain, and I remember slipping in and out,” Jessen said. “They were like, ‘Okay, we’re going to operate on you. Everything’s going to be fine.’ They still didn’t tell me what had happened because they didn’t want me to know, and I just passed out and woke up with a twelve inch vertical incision on my stomach, which is very, very rare because they only really cut you open if it’s an extreme emergency.”
The recovery process was a long and painful one, according to Jessen. She was in the ICU for four days. Jessen could not get out of bed or eat real food for a whole week, and she struggled sitting up and rolling out of bed for the second week in the hospital. Jessen said that she perked up when a few of her friends came up to Wisconsin to visit her.
“The worst part [of the experience] was probably just the torment and pain that it caused me when I was in the hospital. I’ll still have flashbacks, which is weird, where I just remember waking up crying during the night because of how much pain I was in,” Jessen said. “I had to learn how to walk, I had to learn how to sit, I had to learn how to shower, and I had to learn how to get out of bed. Stuff you don’t even think about.”
Although the recovery was a difficult one, Jessen did not allow her pain stop her from doing what she had planned.
“I had previously signed up to be in a Distinguishing Young Women competition, and I begged my mom and she still let me do it. It was very intense because there was exercising, so they had to modify it for me because I could not do a crunch, I could not do a push up, I could not do anything,” Jessen said. “Now that I think about it, I probably shouldn’t have [competed] because it made me tired and exhausted, which is not what I needed after that traumatic experience, but I did it anyway. I actually became the state finalist for the Distinguishing Young Women of Lake Zurich and Hawthorn Woods, so that was very cool.”
Although Jessen was able to compete in the competition, when she went back to see her doctor over winter break for a check-up, Jessen said she received disappointing news. The doctor told Jessen she would have to wait a year or a year and a half until she could play a contact sport again.
“I asked [my doctor] about lacrosse, and he said if I were to get hit hard enough, because there is still a space in my body from my spleen that’s still trying to heal, it could cause major internal damage,” Jessen said. “The news was awful because I’ve played lacrosse since freshmen year, I was a captain last year, and I wanted to make varsity my senior year. Missing [the season] really hurts not only because I’m letting my teammates down, but I also just wanted to have that one last season with them and end my senior year on a good note. It hurts to have to stop after my third year, and that in my senior year, I can’t play the sport that I love.”
Although Jessen cannot play on the team, she said she wants to stay involved with the program by being a manager, keeping score, and coming to games to cheer the team on.
Despite the hardships that the accident over the summer has caused and is still causing, Jessen said she could find the positive side to her injury.
“It definitely taught me how strong I am as a person,” Jessen said. “Just to get over [the injury] was ridiculous. It taught me that I really could do anything because I was a state finalist even after that medical condition and the horrible accident. It really showed me that no matter what happens, there’s always some way to get through it, and always a brighter side. Now, when little things get to me, I’m like, ‘you know what? I survived this [injury] over the summer, so I can do this, it’s no big deal.’ I want to say yes to more things, too, because life is short and you never know when life will decide you had a good run.”
Jessen said she came out strong enough from this experience that she will not let the news about lacrosse keep her from making the most of her senior year.
“Since I can’t do lacrosse, I’m trying to find other things to keep me busy, like working out and exercising,” Jessen said. “Also, I was looking into dance classes and singing lessons in Chicago. I already kind of know how to play the guitar, but I was going to take some lessons and learn to how to play some songs so I can start writing my own music. So I’ll keep myself busy.”
Although she came close to death, and this injury had a huge impact on her life, she said she learned a few lessons from the experience that she would like to share with people.
“I would tell people don’t take life for granted, you never know what could happen. Don’t complain about the little stuff, which may seem big now, but in the grand scheme of things, you have your whole life ahead of you,” Jessen said. “It’s not going to matter 20-30 years from now. I hope that people can take away to try more things and join more clubs or join that sport that you were like, ‘I don’t know if I should join.’ If you wish you would have done something, do it now. Learn a dance, learn the guitar, learn to play the piano, learn the sport that your friend plays that looks really fun. If you’re on the fence about something, just do it. What do you have to lose? Nothing!”
