"I
guess we all have it inside of our selves -- that little inner
light -- so if you have it, you always know you're going to
hold on. And when things seem tough, there might be four people
who say "no, it can't be done" for every one who
will say "yes, you can do it" -- that little "yes,"
that comes from our inner light, is the one I go for."
Nicole
clung to any "yes" with hope for recovery attached.
She used this knowledge to bring herself through a period
of what turned into one bad episode after another, "I
knew inside of me I was a happy person. I love nature and
I love people and even though at times I just wanted to give
up, I knew that I had something to offer the world. I just
had to hold on to that possibility.
"
It had been a long time since she had skied. She went from
wheelchairs for two or three months to crutches for six or
eight months, then back to surgery. That's how her life was
for the next twenty years.
All along,
through all her surgeries, she would put on a long skirt (to
cover her knee in a cast), and work at managing nightclubs
or restaurants. Finally she opened her own restaurant and
nightclub with an accompanying ski school,
King and Queen of
Sweden at the Lake Placid Olympics
During
that time she catered to the King and Queen of Sweden, to
the Royal Family of Monte Carlo, and to parties of up to five
thousand people -- including serving the Gold Metal Winners
at the Winter Olympics of 1981. Even with all the pain, Nicole
felt encouraged about life.
But that
was just a temporary feeling. Things would get better, then
they'd get worse. Coming out of surgery number seven her doctor
informed her that she would have to move away from the ski
resort to a warmer climate for her health. That was a devastating
concept because it meant giving up her Four Star restaurant,
a good income, and all the rest of it. Little did she know
that not long after that she would have to give it all up
anyway. The pain was so bad after surgery number eight, that
she became too drug-dependent to handle any of it any more.
Besides helping to relieve the physical pain, the drugs were
taking away the buried emotional pain of her sexual assaults
which she had never told anyone about.
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