At seventeen years old, Ruthie was hit by an ambulance outside of a gas station in rural Louisiana. She broke her neck, punctured her lungs, and ruptured her spleen. Doctors performed a spinal cord fusion using wire and miraculously, she walked out of the hospital within a month. I sat down and talked with Ruthie (before #quarantine) all about how her life unfolded after the accident. We talk about marriage and divorce, the passing of her father and living with unbearable chronic pain that left her depressed, addicted to painkillers, and bedridden. Ruthie just released her memoir “There I Am, from Hopeless to Healing,” empowering others to find purpose in their pain, to look for beauty in the midst of their brokenness.

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