This post is a continuation from Part 4.
The next 72 hours were tough – some of the hardest of my life.
The curtains were drawn in the ICU room. Everything was dark and my vision blurry.
I felt like I got run over by a truck.
My stomach was so swollen it felt like a balloon about to pop.
I could barely feel my legs. I looked down at my toes and wiggled them a little, just to make sure they were still working.
I couldn’t drink water let alone eat anything. My throat had swollen shut after enveloping the intubation tube for 7 hours.
The pain I felt right after the car accident was severe and extreme, to be sure. But I went into shock so quickly that it numbed everything somehow. The pain after the surgery was a bone-deep teeth-chattering type of pain. I was on the extreme edge of physical suffering.
I had a morphine pump that allowed me to press a button and ‘take a hit’ once every 8 minutes. My mom had warned me that it was important to keep the morphine flowing during the first few days. The idea was to try not to have too many gaps between the 8 minute intervals. “You don’t want to get behind the pain,” she said.
She slept by my bedside on a cot to make sure I didn’t get behind. Even when she would doze off, she’d wake up and squeeze my right hand reminding me to press the button. Or she’d do it herself if I was in a half-coma.
She also had a bowl of ice chips that she kept nearby at all times. Ice chips were the only thing I could swallow.
I’ll never forget the amazing sensation of letting those ice chips melt in my mouth and then swallowing a precious few drops of water to clear my throat. It’s amazing how much we appreciate the ‘little things’ when we lose them.
In those few days, I learned the true definition of a mother’s love. My mom was either sitting next to me or sleeping on that cot for 72 hours straight. She got me through the tunnel. She cared for me like a momma bear taking care of her wounded cub.
She taught me what it’s like to be there for someone when they’re at their lowest point – a lesson that would boomerang around between us many years later.
After about three days, I woke up and reentered the realm of human consciousness. A nurse came to relieve my mom, who was in desperate need of a shower and proper night’s sleep. The nurse asked me to try to take a sip of water. I took a small sip and swallowed. Relief. She brought in some mashed potatoes and a spoon. I took a few bites and was able to get them down. Nourishment. Relief. My body’s primal functions started switching back on.
A wave of hunger overcame me. I asked for a tray of food. The nurse cautioned me to take it slow, and she was right. I felt like I was swallowing handfuls of nails, but I plowed through a few bites to feed my starvation. I ate as much as I could and pushed the tray away from me, reclining back in the hospital bed.
I stared at the ceiling and tried to get comfortable.
After a few minutes, I looked down at my body and saw that my belly had expanded at least six inches all the way around. My midsection looked like a stretched inner-tube, circling my body. It was a surreal sight and gave me an out of body feeling. I floated above the hospital bed for a few minutes in my mind, looking down on myself.
Then, a sudden thought: Holy shit, I wonder what the scar looks like.
I gently slid my gown to the side. There was a wide sheet of gauze, layered 5-6 times, draped across my entire midsection and taped down at the edges.
I lifted up the tape on the upper left corner and peaked underneath.
On the left side of my body, a few inches above my left hip bone, I could see sliced-up skin held together by heavy metal staples. It was bloody and sticky. The staples kept going one by one, down along my hip line and all the way across my stomach.
As I stared at the incision, I could feel the staples digging into my skin, pulsing while they held my gut together. This strange sensation rushed into me at once.
I carefully taped the gauze back and reclined back into the bed.
The room was quiet. I was alone with my thoughts for a while. I soaked in the magnitude of my situation. I thought about the long and sure-to-be-painful days ahead.
But something was different about my internal dialogue. My thought patterns had changed.
That night, I started a new phase in my life. My predicament reframed itself as my life’s biggest test. A new challenge. A chance for conquest.
The morphine pump beeped, snapping me back to the present moment. I pressed the button and took a hit.
When I closed my eyes, a mantra returned.
Breathe. Relax. Rest… Breathe. Relax. Rest.
(AutoBio Aug-2002) The Car Crash That Saved My Life Series: