TVHS grad back home after almost two years in the hospital

By: JOSE CARVAJAL - Staff Writer | Saturday, October 1, 2005 11:18 PM PDT ∞

TEMECULA ---- Ivy Kensinger, vocalist, photographer, college sophomore and cat lover, is finally home. The 21-year-old moved back to her parents' Temecula house last week after spending almost two years in a hospital recovering from nearly fatal injuries she suffered in a car accident.

Kensinger is still in a precarious situation. Her lungs are nowhere near full strength and her kidneys have shut down. She spends a lot of time in bed, hooked up to oxygen and dialysis machines.

The road to this point has been long and painful, Kensinger says, but being back on familiar turf helps. She gets to be with her cat, Lenore, and she gets to regain her privacy, she says.

"It's the best feeling in the world," she said Thursday.

These days, her life has regained a bit of its normalcy. She spends her days watching movies, surfing the Internet and playing with her cat.

Her father, Michael, has described her being able to come home as being a miracle. Her mother, Kathie, says that Ivy will be able to regain much of the strength she lost after the accident.

"I've seen my daughter fight and I've seen how strong she is," she said. "I think she'll be able to walk without a walker, and I think her kidneys are going to come back."

Ivy Kensinger admits that by no means has the road to recovery reached its end. But the Temecula Valley High School alumna is in good spirits. Considering where she was 21 months ago and where she is now, she's got plenty of reason to be optimistic.

The accident

Kensinger doesn't remember much about that day, Dec. 9, 2003.

She does remember heading south on Interstate 15 in her 2001 Kia Sephia to take one of her final exams at Cal State San Marcos. She said she remembers being in the fast lane with the cruise control engaged. She recalls that the car behind her was right on her tail, trying to get her to go faster.

After that, there's nothing.

The story Ivy's parents have pieced together about the events of that day is enough to haunt any parent's nightmares.

From what they have gathered from authorities and witnesses, Ivy began drifting into the center median near the Gopher Canyon Road exit before overcorrecting herself and swerving to the right.

There was little traffic, so she did not hit another car. But she was in an uncontrollable skid and crossed four lanes of traffic before going off a 150-foot embankment.

Though Ivy says she was wearing her seat belt ---- the injuries to her left shoulder are proof ---- she was thrown from the car and landed on a bush. The Kensingers believe that the latch on the seat belt failed.

"The reason we bought that car was because it had an exceptional crash rating," Kathie Kensinger said. "You don't stop to think that the seat belt won't work."

But for whatever reason, she was ejected and landed on a bush. Her chest was crushed, her spleen was ruptured and her liver was lacerated.

Minutes after the accident, Michael Kensinger got a phone call from an Escondido man who had rushed to Ivy's aid after seeing the car on the side of the road. The man, Sam Warner, used her cell phone to reach him.

"He said, 'I don't mean to frighten you, but your daughter was just in a very serious car accident,'" Kensinger recalled of that morning.

As he began the two-hour trip from his job in Arcadia to see his daughter, Kensinger said, he began assuming the worst.

"I was just terrified," he said. "I could hope for the best, but I was so afraid that she wasn't going to make it.

"Based on what he told me about the accident, I didn't think she was going to make it."

A 1 percent chance

From the beginning, Ivy Kensinger was given very little chance of surviving, her parents said.

Rushed to Palomar Regional Medical Center in Escondido by medical helicopter, her organs had completely shut down. She was on a respirator and her kidneys were hooked up to a dialysis machine.

Doctors gave her a 1 percent chance of surviving her injuries, Kathie Kensinger said.

Kensinger, who left her job at the Temecula Valley Unified School District working with disabled children to be with her daughter every day while she was in the hospital, recalled that a nurse once mentioned that it probably would have been better if Ivy had died immediately rather than prolonging the inevitable.

"I couldn't believe it," she said. "They never thought she would make it."

But in the days and months that followed, Ivy fought through three major surgeries and a series of smaller procedures and she was taken off the ventilator. Her condition slowly improved.

Nearly two years after the accident, her lungs have only one-third of their normal capacity and her kidneys still aren't functioning. She requires oxygen 24 hours a day and she's still hooked up to a dialysis machine.

Despite that, she's healthy enough to be back home and she takes pride in having proved her doctors and nurses wrong.

"I showed them," she said with a smile.

A long road ahead

The Kensingers all agree that Ivy's ordeal is far from over.

There's the intense physical and occupational therapy she has to go through. There are the regular nurse visits. There's the constant need to be on an oxygen machine. There are still several more surgeries to come.

And then there's the pain. Ivy Kensinger is still in a lot of pain. Some days are better than others, she said, but it's still there.

Does she ever get angry?

"I would say so," she said. "Especially when the times are rough."

On top of that is the financial squeeze the Kensingers are beginning to feel. They've had to do some remodeling work on the house to accommodate Ivy and they've had to pick up thousands of dollars worth of incidentals that insurance doesn't cover, Kathie Kensinger said.

They've also decided to move their son, Chris, who recently started his first year at UC Riverside, into the dorms there because they don't want him driving back and forth to school like Ivy did.

With all that, the bills are beginning to mount and to help with Ivy's care, the Kensingers have set up a benevolent fund through the Web site they created, www.thebookofivy.com.

Despite what lies ahead, the family is optimistic that Ivy's situation will continue to improve.

"She's a fighter," Michael Kensinger said. "She fights for others as well as herself. ... She's a very strong-willed person."

Contact staff writer Jose Carvajal at (951) 676-4315, Ext .2624, or jcarvajal@californian.com.