Survivor Spotlight: Lily Chaterjee

The year 1987 held so much promise. That spring, I graduated with a degree in Merchandising Management. In October, I moved to Monterey, California, where I got a good job and worked on living a healthy life. I celebrated my 25th birthday with family and friends that November back home in Michigan, and made plans to spend Christmas in Colorado with my mother, grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins. Afterward, my mother and I were going to travel to Pasadena to watch our Michigan State Spartans in the Rose Bowl.

December 10 was a remarkably beautiful winter day in Monterey. I finished work early and got into my 1967 VW bug with plans to spend a quiet evening with a friend. All I remember after that are flashbacks of glaring lights, screams, crashing sounds and a tree.

I woke up feeling like I had just had a terrible nightmare, with excruciating pain, not sure where it was all coming from.

Laying there, I remember something deep inside telling me, "whatever has happened to you, you will pull through. You will survive, it will be a long haul but you will get through it."

A doctor explained that I was in a terrible accident and had been unconscious for several days. I had multiple fractures of my left femur and tibia, my right pelvic bone and seven ribs. I had second and third degree burns on my hands and face. My future was uncertain and grim due to the severity of the injuries.

On Christmas Eve, I went under a twelve-hour surgery to restore my leg and hip. Several weeks later came the first surgeries on my face and hands. Three months later, on Good Friday, 1988, I was able to walk out of the rehab facility with a cane. For the next seven years, I had a series of reconstructive surgeries on my face. It was a difficult period of adjustment. My emotions experienced as many transformations as my face, from complete euphoria that I was alive to struggles, despair and loss of faith, then back to a level ground of acceptance.

When I was injured, there was little support for burn survivors. I had to reenter society alone, carrying the stigma of being severely disfigured. Through the help of family and loved ones, I was introduced to Betsy Wilson, director of Let's Face It, an organization for people with facial differences, who in turn introduced me to the Phoenix Society.

Today, eighteen years later, I have found my own skin again, metaphorically and physically. More so than before the accident, I have learned to evolve and be grateful for who I am. When things are difficult, I find myself repeating, "It is what it is," and in the same breath I say, "It is all good."