From the edge of death to running marathons: Oklahoma chef shares her experience through food

Just months after a scooter accident left Rachel Foster in a coma for 10 days, she ran a marathon.

Then she ran another a few weeks later. Now, with her accident eight months in the rearview, she's returned to the kitchen at Moni's Pasta and Pizza, 17200 N May Ave, Suite 700, in Edmond, which she co-owns with her husband, John. The duo is hosting a dinner to tell their story in detail and inviting guests to join them.

The accident and the days that followed

What started as a date night riding their electric scooters on Nov. 9 unexpectedly turned tragic for the Fosters.

"I remember the date night very well and I wasn't feeling sick, we weren't drinking, there was nothing weird going on. I didn't feel poor; I felt totally normal. We were just having a great night," Rachel said. "But the actual accident itself I remember nothing of."

Like his wife, John Foster has no explanation for the accident, but he is able to fill in some gaps about what happened.

"Rachel lost consciousness while riding on a standup scooter, hit the pavement at full speed, and was pretty much gone," John said.

Rushed to the hospital, intubated in the ambulance and diagnosed with severe swelling of her brain and more than 30 breaks to various bones in her body, John watched as doctors tried to save his wife's life.

She would not regain consciousness for 10 days. During that time, Rachel was ranked a three on the Glasgow Coma Scale.

More: How an Edmond chef's recovery from a brain injury is being called 'a straight-up miracle'

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, "a GCS score of 3 is the lowest possible score and is associated with an extremely high mortality rate, with some researchers suggesting that there is no chance of survival," while the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology states that "the majority of the survivors do so with permanent disorders of consciousness or severe disabilities."

"She was in a brain dead coma for 10 days, the lowest possible rating you can get from a human being as far as brain activity," John said. "Everything just kept getting worse and worse, surgeries were not successful, medication wasn't successful and it came down to if she lives it's going to be a vegetative state for the rest of her life — pouring milkshakes through a feeding tube directly into her stomach and a ventilator breathing for her."

Knowing that would not be a life his wife would want, John began having hard conversations and making arrangements for donation of her organs — the typical and logical next steps.

"Everything was set up. Organs were tested and matched with recipients," John said.

Some friends already had said their goodbyes, and John was planning how he would tell the staff at their restaurant that their beloved chef and friend had died.

What would come next defied logic and was proof that Rachel is anything but typical.

"About 22 hours before the plug was pulled, she had an inexplicable full recovery — in an instant, to full consciousness — full memories, full everything," Foster said, remembering the moment his wife came to.

Doctors rushed in and began talking to her immediately. She responded and began to communicate through gestures. A squeeze of the hand and wiggling her toes soon led to the realization that she had nearly full control of her body.

"My first memory is having lights shining in my eyes in the hospital bed and being 100% confused," Rachel said.

The doctor told her he was going to turn off the ventilator, saying "Rachel, breathe," as he flipped the switch.

'A miraculous recovery,' a tenacious spirit

For the first time in 10 days, Rachel was breathing on her own. Days later, she would begin singing and dancing in her hospital bed. In her charts, the same doctor who had once told John his wife as he knew her was gone, wrote that it was "a miraculous recovery."

That recovery would stretch on, with Rachel and John traveling to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, a leading brain and spinal cord injury hospital, for more extensive rehabilitation.

John went from husband to full-time caregiver overnight, and with that came a learning curve. Rachel's quick healing sometimes meant a need to make swift adjustments to the caregiving routine.

"It's been extremely difficult because I decided early on that we were going to be side by side and do whatever the future held for us, and it was a lot early on when she was recovering, when she couldn't do anything by herself," John said. "The most difficult part for me has been being there ready and doing all those things and then as she's healed so fast figuring out, 'Oh now I'm just a hover husband,' and trying not to frustrate her, really."

Rachel always has been immensely independent and has willpower and determination in spades, her husband said. Perhaps that's why after a final surgery in January to place an implant replacing the section of skull removed while she was in the coma, she was walking again within days.

"The reality is, it's been very hard trying to not be overprotective," John said. "The way that she's been coming back is just kind of unheard of for the severity of the brain injury that she had."

With just a few months of inpatient and outpatient therapy and a lot of hard work, Rachel was medically cleared to return home — just five months after her accident.

"A lot of people see a lot of coincidences in the story. We never felt that way, we felt like there was an invisible thread. We felt like there was a presence there with us, we felt like God was there with us, we felt like Jesus was answering our prayers," John said.

On April 17, Rachel ran and completed the Boston Marathon. Six weeks later, unhappy with her race time in Boston, John drove his wife to another race in Texas. She completed that race, too, shaving over an hour and a half off her pace, finishing ninth overall, and third among female participants.

But what about the task of returning to the kitchen at her beloved Moni's?

Sharing the story of 'Rachel, Breathe' over dinner

May 10, six months and one day after the accident, Rachel returned to the restaurant, stepping back into the kitchen at Moni's for the first time.

"It feels pretty natural," Rachel said. "I honestly kind of just swung right back into it."

The Fosters know their story has been told by news outlets across the nation, but they wanted a format that allowed them to tell it themselves — from the beginning, uncensored, with details no one else can share.

That's how "Rachel, Breathe," a six-course dinner experience began. The Fosters are closing Moni’s on Tuesdays for several weeks to allow guests to experience the story of Rachel Foster's accident and recovery through exclusive behind the scenes storytelling, videos, photos and medical records.

"Life is hard, but there is a reason to push on. There is a reason, there is an end to the hardness, and I just want to encourage people and love people who are going through hard things," Rachel said.

John said the dinner experience provides a safe space for people to ask the questions about the accident, Rachel's recovery and her condition now that are too hard to answer in a 15-second conversation, tableside, during a busy dinner service.

"We wanted to do something where we could answer the questions that we get on a daily basis," John said. "The other part was just trying to see if we could come up with a way to tell her story that gave people hope."

Rachel has stepped back into the kitchen and role of chef and personally leads the preparation of the meal for "Rachel, Breathe." She has crafted simple, flavorful courses — and taken an opportunity to try out some new creations not currently on the Moni's menu — to punctuate John's narrating of the experience.

"Just to share her story in a way that we know how. I can do a PowerPoint, Rachel can do a meal and it's kind of a beautiful marriage of those things," he said. "Then when Rachel comes out and entertains everybody at the end with me and shares the story; it's really fun. It's really neat. It kind of gives everybody permission to be happy again and breathe and feel the goodness of the story."

When the Fosters finish the weekly "Rachel, Breathe" experience, they don't anticipate that it will go away for good. It may become a seasonal offering, or evolve otherwise depending on the demand and interest. The Fosters also have several other ideas of how to spread the story, including possible public speaking opportunities for Rachel, a book and future events and partnerships.

"We still have medical debt and things, and we're trying to make sure Moni's is nice and healthy and everything," John said. "Once we're able to kind of get our finances under control and stuff and if people are still being inspired, it might be fun to have a nonprofit or partner with a nonprofit that already does it very well."

For now, the Fosters are just focused on the day-to-day and excited to continue bringing the "Rachel, Breathe" experience to guests on Tuesday nights through Aug. 8. Tickets are $70 and can be purchased at https://rachelbreathe.com/.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Edmond chef returns to Moni's Pasta and Pizza after miraculous recovery