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Nearly a month after shattering her leg in a jungle in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ashley Judd has far from recovered.
The Double Jeopardy actress (52) says she’s been trying to make sense of the events that led to the “catastrophic” incident.
"I’m only at the beginning, and the combination of drowning in trauma and addressing the physical body is a lot.”
The actress broke her leg in four places and sustained nerve damage after tripping over a fallen tree over in the pre-dawn dark.
The star has been making regular trips to the Central African nation to study bonobos, an endangered ape species, as well as working on women’s rights projects.
After a harrowing 55-hour journey, she was airlifted to Sunninghill Hospital in Johannesburg where surgeons managed to save her leg. When she eventually arrived at the hospital it was touch and go and medics couldn’t find a pulse in her leg.
The actress, who’s back in the US, has a long road ahead of her but is determined to stay optimistic.
"I don’t understand why what has happened has happened," she told her 497 000 Instagram followers. "I do understand I’ve been loved and helped enormously. I understand nights are a savage agony."
She thanked the team of physicians who have taken over her care at a clinic in Columbus, Georgia, "for seven hours of intensive, brilliant, inspired surgical work on my bones and nerves”.
"It took stamina, focus, and humility to consult with experts around the country, whom I also deeply thank.
"Now, I’m in the bosom of a stream of friends and family, too numerous to mention, who have caught me in their prodigious arms from this precipitous fall," she continued.
"They do for me what I cannot do for myself”.
One of the people Ashley has called on to assist with daily activities is her older sister, country singer Wynonna Judd.
Wynonna told Page Six she had to look up "how to wash hair for someone who's lying down in bed" after the actress texted her, "Can you wash my hair?"
"Therein lies the job of a big sister right there," she joked.
Wynonna added that her sister's recovery is a miracle, and said she cried the first time she saw her in hospital.
What Ashley had been through, she said, was nothing short of horrific.
Sources: dailymail.co.uk, pagesix.com, people.com, today.com, etonline.com
