Sierra Reed felt something was missing in her life. That began to change the day her son Declan needed care at the Blessing Emergency Center.

“The staff was super kind,” she recalled. “They comforted him very well. After that, I could not get it out of my head - what can I do to get into that environment?”

Soon after that experience, Sierra became part of the Blessing environment - hired as a lab assistant (phlebotomist).

“I love my job,” she said with a smile. “I really feel like I make a difference. Working at the hospital fulfills me in ways that I have never had in a job,” she said.

After three months on the job at Blessing, Sierra’s life took a tragic turn. She was involved in a traffic accident on Thanksgiving Day 2023. The crash caused small strokes on the left side of her brain. Sierra was 26 years old at the time.

Flown to the University of Iowa hospital, her diagnosis: Traumatic Brain Injury with Stroke.

Sierra’s search for normal

To give her brain a chance to heal, she was put into a medically-induced coma for two weeks.

“My brain was like scrambled eggs,” Sierra recalled being brought out of the coma. “It was all I could do to remember who I was and what happened.”

“They did not know what condition I would be in because of the trauma,” she continued. “They said how much I would recover depended upon what parts of my brain were damaged.”

Two weeks after being brought out of the coma, Sierra’s memories slowly began to come back – things like her address and phone number. Then she began dealing with the physical issues of the strokes.

“I could not move the right side of my body. None of it. I couldn’t twitch a finger. I could not move my facial muscles. This was the biggest trial of my strokes.”

“If I decided to not push myself, then I would have to accept my fate and that would be that.  I was not down with that. I am young and have a lot of life ahead of me. I am a fighter. With everything in me, I fought to return to normal – as normal as possible.”

“It was very hard to relearn how to move the right side of my body. I started by wiggling my toes. That was the biggest victory. It took everything in me just to do that. Every day, I had it in my mind to advance as far as I could. Whatever I could not do one day, I would try even harder to do the next day.”

Sierra’s inspirations

“I have two kids,” she said. “I wanted to play with them in the yard again. That really sparked something in me. I had to fight.”

And then there was her job.

“I love my job and I didn’t want to lose that. I fought so hard to be able to come back to work. It was on my mind every day.”

Sierra said during her hospital stay in Iowa, her supervisor Laura Lawrence came to see her and brought get well cards from coworkers. Her family hung the cards – and pictures of her children – on her hospital room wall.

“I used them for motivation, to push harder.”

After a month hospitalized in Iowa, Sierra was transferred to Blessing Hospital for 14 days of physical rehabilitation.

Her pushing paid off. Sierra returned to work in June 2024, seven months after the accident.

Sierra’s fight continues

She describes herself as being 90% of the way back to normal. Sierra continues to work on strengthening the right side of her body, lifting weights and doing stretching exercises daily.

Today her “caregivers” are her family – including her children, seven-year-old daughter Kyleigh and three-year-old son Declan.

“My daughter and I practice our handwriting together. She knows that I am right-handed and had to learn to write my name again. She has been there with me. We critique each other.”

Life is different for Sierra today, in a good way.

“I have changed my way of thinking, the things that I hold dear to me. I have chosen for my accident to affect me in a positive way.”

“I faced the hardest thing I had ever faced and I feel I came out stronger. Maybe not physically, but mentally.”
 

Sierra shares this insight with others, “You can do anything. You just have to believe in yourself.”