Jacy Good's journey

Her weakened left hand is curled into a soft fist. After the accident, her dark hair was cut short so doctors could insert that thing...

She turns to her boyfriend.

What was that thing, she asks in a high-pitched, soft voice. Use your own words, he says evenly.

She thinks for just a second. They put something in my head to measure the pressure in my brain, she says.

It is coming back, the old Jacy, the Jacy who was a double major in international studies and German studies, the Jacy who was a sparkplug for environmental issues at Muhlenberg, the Jacy with the 100-watt smile and large brown eyes "that tell you everything."

But it is a day-by-day journey.


Early steps


The early days after the accident were horrible. Good, a 2004 Warwick High School graduate, was in critical condition at Reading Hospital. She had suffered internal injuries. Her left leg and pelvis were extensively injured. She was in a coma and on a respirator.

When she first emerged from the coma, she was combative, hitting and biting people.

But promising signs began cropping up.

Johnson gave her a pen and she started writing notes. Oddly, they were in German at first.

She wrote, "My uncle only speaks German now" and "I wish to be back on the farm."

Most of the notes did not make much sense, but they were signals that her brain was starting to recover.

Then Good began saying simple sentences, often over and over again.

"She would say, 'It hurts' about 50 times in a row," Johnson recalls.

"It wasn't easy," he says. "Every stage we went through, I thought I hope we're not stuck on that stage."

Good remembers nothing of this time. Her first memory is of the July 7 ambulance ride to Bryn Mawr Rehabilitation Hospital — seven weeks after the accident — where she stayed for the next two months.

"That kicked things into gear. Once they started stimulating her there, she came around more," Johnson says.

After a little more than a month, she could stand. Then her injured left leg began moving.

"And one day, she kicked a ball," Johnson says.

As she began her rehabilitation, Good's brain was still a bit scrambled. She would recognize people, but not know their names.

She thought her boyfriend was her older brother Jared, 25. Both were a constant presence at the hospital, as were other family members. Then she thought she actually had two brothers, both of them named Jared.

She would dream things and think they actually occurred to her.

One of the hardest things for her to grasp was that her parents had died. Her mom was an eighth-grade teacher at Ephrata Middle School; her dad was a diesel mechanic.

"I kept saying I wanted to call home," Good recalls. "Everyone kept saying I couldn't call home."

"They told me lots of times what happened. At times, it didn't affect me. I didn't believe it."

In fact, she accused both her boyfriend and brother of lying to her about her parents' deaths.

The truth, and the finality of it, eventually sunk in.

"I just started crying one day," Good remembers.

Aware in her grief, she also feels her parents' presence.

"I have that gut feeling," she says. "I know they're watching me."


Still healing


Home now, Good returns to Bryn Mawr twice a week for therapy.

She is now walking and working on shedding her cane. She is strengthening her left arm.

She also is trying to rebuild her brain. She reads books and does Sudoku number puzzles. She can do math in her head, follow a recipe and balance a checkbook.

But some things still are beyond her grasp. The other day, Johnson asked Good to find her way from the Bryn Mawr cafeteria to the therapy center, a route she's traveled dozens of times.

"I had no idea how to do it," she confesses.

She's still working on planning and reasoning. Doctors tell her it takes two years for the brain to fully heal after injuries like hers. Her age, her good physical condition and her intelligence all are assets.

Eventually, she plans to move to New York with Johnson, and get a job. There are no guarantees in her recovery, but there is hope.

"Because she's come so far, so fast, things look good," Johnson says.


Full circle


After the accident, help seemed to come from everywhere.

The Good family's church, Bethany United Church of Christ, and her mom's co-workers from Ephrata Middle School brought meals, something they continue to do.

A fund was started at Sovereign Bank to help her pay for medical expenses. Two car washes were held. Muhlenberg College's lacrosse team is raising money. The college also will be donating a collection from an Advent church service.

A local man organized a car and motorcycle rally to be held Saturday. Her church will be holding a chicken potpie supper Saturday, Oct. 18. (See box for details.)

People want to do what they can to help. And in unexpected ways, her recovery is reaching out to them.

The Rev. Peter Bredlau, the chaplain at Muhlenberg College, taught both Good and Johnson in a senior seminar and wanted to come and see how his "very bright, very strong, very capable" former student was coping after the accident.

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FUNDRAISERS FOR JACY GOOD
• A fall foliage motorcycle and car rally will leave the parking lot of Weaver's Market in Adamstown at 10

a.m. Saturday. Meet by 9:45 a.m. Rally goes to Mauch Chunk Lake Park in Jim Thorpe. Cost is $10 per cycle or car.

• A chicken potpie dinner will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, at Bethany United Church of Christ, 140 E. Main St., Ephrata. Cost is $8. Tickets will be sold at the door.

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"When I visited Jacy the second time, I asked her, 'What can we do for you?' And she said, 'Visits.' And people have wanted to do that, to visit her and support her. It's that sense of presence that can be so important in someone's recovery."

And it has been important to those who have sat beside her bed, too, including Bredlau.

"I came away thinking, 'Holy cow, this is remarkable,' " he says. "Not only the way in which she was recovering but just everything: her positive attitude, her strong will, just the remarkably close relationship she and Steve have."

Janet Martin, the church president at Bethany, says members there have felt it too.

Before church last Sunday, Martin, of Ephrata, was busy chatting about the upcoming potpie dinner — church members are donating all the ingredients — when she saw Jared Good walk in the church. In front of him stood his sister, leaning on a crutch.

"I all about passed out," Martin says, "because I haven't seen Jacy stand since the accident. I was overwhelmed.

"I've never been like that in my entire life. For me to be standing there in church, where we had that prayer service for them, I thought, 'Prayers are answered.'

"Right now, where we are in the world, with the economy and so forth, we need miracles. We need to realize them. And that's what it was on Sunday."

Jacy's grandparents, Dottie and Ivan Good of Fairmount Homes in West Earl Township, say seeing her takes away some of the pain of losing their son and daughter-in-law.

"I think she is back to the way she was before the accident," Mrs. Good says. "I think if Jacy would have gone, we would all have been devastated. This certainly is a large help for all of us in the family because we have her to cling onto, her and her brother."

Remembering Good in the coma and seeing her today is an emotional experience for Martin.

"I just sat there and the tears ran down my face and I thought, 'We have come full circle here, folks.' "


Staff writer Cindy Stauffer can be reached at cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024.