My Long Sleep (part 2)
Forgive me if
this seems disjointed. These memories
are all a jumble in my head. I have tried to sort them into when they probably
occurred by comparing them to what I know, my husband and daughter’s notes,
what other people have said, etc.
The first day I
really remember after Easter is April 17.
I’m glad I remember that day. I’m
sure I was on some wonderful drugs—Provigil, for one, to help restart my brain,
since it didn’t seem to want to wake up from the coma I was in. I was also on some medications that the
doctors told my family would make me not remember much of what I went
through. I was also on some medications
I would not have let them give me had I been conscious, so I apologize for what
I did or said while on those medications…
On April 17, I
have a memory of Alex DePue’s silhouette (and if you have ever seen his hair,
you would know you CAN actually recognize him by his silhouette) and Miguel’s
guitar and silhouette, and “Classical Gas”, one of my favorite songs. I don’t know why I remember them in
silhouette, other than I have very little visual memory of events, almost like
my sound recorder was working but not my visual one. This is a little taste of what Alex and
Miguel sound like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pycdoWOUrO0 I couldn’t find a recording of them playing Classical
Gas, but here is Mason Williams playing it (he wrote it). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEzyrpfrPEI Note:
Mason has a whole lot of strings with him, but Alex is his own
orchestra!! Except for the horns, it
pretty much sounded like this.
What a
wonderful thing to be the first thing you wake up to! I remember bits and pieces of other
things. I remember being sung to. I remember waking up with a song in my heart,
a song we sing from church. I know that
Francine must have come and sung it to me, but I remember waking up trying to
sing it. “You dance over me, while I am
unaware….” You can listen to it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qVkzdK6N20
. This is the song I woke up
singing.
When I finally
did come to, I had such a sense of being loved, like I have never had before,
and an absolute loss of fear. I didn’t
know where I was, when it was, who I was, or that I was even sick. I didn’t even really know I couldn’t
move. But I had a lack of fear like I
have never known. I wasn’t conscious of
time or family or work or home. I had no
thought of things I wasn’t getting done.
I didn’t know I had children. I
didn’t KNOW anything. Most of all, I
knew no fear—and I have thought over these past weeks how to describe that to
you, but I’m not sure I ever will be able to.
I had no fear of failure, no fear of what other people would think. It was like being a young child, crawling
into your parent’s lap and having them hold you tight and say, “it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” And you totally believe them, because they
are grown-up and can do anything and know everything. It was a peace like I have never known, a
peace I want to hang onto, a peace that I don’t have to DO anything or BE
anything—that I’m okay, that it’s all okay—and there was such a joy that came
with that.
And my mind
started to look for the familiar. I had a
nurse who looked like my cousin Julie, and she was so kind, and she ended all
of her sentences with ‘eh?’. I looked
for my friends’ daughters, I looked for my cousins, I looked for people from
church. I looked, I called. I needed familiar. Nothing was familiar. I’m not even sure I was remembering things
from day to day or from hour to hour. I think the nurses had to keep telling me
their names over and over and I think I probably said the same things to them
over and over, “You look like Julie,” or
“You look like Sarah.” I thought of my
dog. I needed to see my dog. During this time, my dog ran away from home
and he made his way to the pool…not the same pool I had gone to, but I’m sure
it smelled the same. I think he was
looking for me too.
I was so glad
to see people I really did know, Mike Tucker and Marvie and Merle Tish. Gary, Keary and Laura came nearly every day
and they felt like I recognized them. (Gary said I smiled when I
saw them so he was pretty sure I could see, even though I don’t remember seeing
much.) Linda came…I know for a while, it
seemed like a pretty steady flow of people, and please forgive me for not
remembering who…it’s all very fuzzy—I blame the drugs.
I’m sure I
didn’t start talking until they took me off the ventilator, on the 15th. I do remember trying really hard to ask for
things like orange juice and applesauce.
I think they probably fed me thickened orange juice with a spoon. I have a very vague memory of icy orange
juice, like slushy almost. And I
remember trying really hard to say “orange juice” and how hard that was and how
I sounded like a drunk when I said it.
And I think they fed me applesauce and I tried so hard to say applesauce. And it all tasted so good and I was so
thirsty and my tongue was so sore (and is STILL sore) from the
defibrillator. I remember trying to talk
even when people weren’t around. I
remember someone asked me if I had children and I didn’t know. But something in my brain started dredging up
memories…I didn’t know who I was really, but I remembered I had a daughter—and
I recognized her when I saw her—and I remembered I had a son, and I knew him
when I saw him too. And even if my mind
would not have remembered them, all my emotions did, because I remember the joy
at seeing them—how beautiful they were/are and how happy it made me to see
them. And I remember saying, even if
there was no one around to hear, over and over and over, so I would never forget
again, “I have a daughter Laura. She’s
beautiful. And I have a son,
Keary.” I know someone must have heard
me at least once because someone asked, “That’s an interesting name. How do you spell that?” I didn’t remember that Gary couldn’t drive. I didn’t remember that we didn’t own a
car. I didn’t remember a lot of things
about my life, about me. Funny how we
still are ourselves, even when we don’t know who we are….Gary said I still had
my sense of humor. It was one of the
first things to come back.
Someone asked
how long Gary and I had been married and I couldn’t remember and couldn’t
figure it out, so I told them what Gary always says when he can’t remember,
“Not nearly long enough.” So Gary became known to some
of the staff as Mr. Not-Nearly-Long-Enough.
I remember
getting a little physical therapy at RiverBend.
I knew I needed to get up. I
wanted to move. I remember trying to get
up in the night, but my legs would not move well and the best I could do was to
bend them up on the bed and my foot would step on the catheter hose and it
would pull and hurt, so I would try the other foot. I think I probably went back and forth with my
feet all night, first trying one then the other. When they had moved me out of ICU I was awake
and aware enough that I wanted to go home, I wanted my dog and I wanted OUT of
that place. It was so cold and dark and
lonely and I wanted familiar. The ceiling looked weird and far away, like
things do when you are drugged. I felt
like I needed to go to the bathroom and I could see a little light on the wall
that I thought was a switch for the bathroom and I was grabbing for things that
weren’t tied down and trying to throw them at the light on the wall to turn the
light on so I could see where I was, so I could get up and go to the
bathroom. Long, long hours awake in the
dark (I don’t know if it was really dark or if I just couldn’t see…). I know there was something on my left but I couldn’t
see it. I tried to reach for it, but
there was nothing that wasn’t attached and it felt wet—I don’t know if I
spilled water or pudding or what have you…I could not see to the left at all. I
remember someone coming in and saying, “Oh my” but nothing more. I couldn’t get up and I couldn’t figure out why
and my chest hurt when I tried to and I didn’t know why things weren’t
working…I didn’t know I was sick, I
didn’t know I was paralyzed. I didn’t
know I was tied down. But I was sure
kicking my legs a lot that night.
They would come
in every day and ask me if I knew what day it was and where I was. Then they would tell me. It’s April 18 and you are at RiverBend in Springfield . I remember telling them, “It’s my brother’s birthday,
I need to call my brother.” But I didn’t know his number and even if I did, I sure
could not work the stupid phone (I think you need a PhD for that). When I would look out the window it was all white,
bright and sunny, glaringly white, and so I would tell them I was in Hawaii . That kind of became my go-to lline. “It’s April something and I’m in Hawaii .” Finally, one nurse got really irritated at me
and said, “you know, you won’t get to go home until you answer correctly.” Then one day I could actually see the cars driving
on the road outside and I asked a nurse, “What road is that?” (All this time it
had just looked like ocean or white sand to me) and she said, “That’s Pioneer Parkway.”
And then it clicked, I wasn’t at RiverBend in Hawaii , I was at RiverBend in Springfield/Eugene. Something familiar. Something I knew. “Hey, the best nurse ever is on the
orthopedic floor, Parma . You should go meet him. Tell him I said hi.” And at some point I remember Parma sticking his head in. “I heard you were here, just wanted to check
on you.”
I kept telling
them I needed to get up and walk. I kept
telling them I needed physical therapy. Finally,
a few days later, they did get me up. They
had me stand by this machine and they strapped me in and told me to walk, to “drive
it like you stole it” and I was happy and I walked, all the way to the end of
the hall and back and it felt so good, and I was so tired by the end. And then they let me use a machine to stand
up and they would wheel me to the toilet
and let me go…and wheel me back. ….
After two weeks in bed, it was all I could do to stand, but my desire
was stronger than my legs were weak, and my will was stronger than my chest was
sore. I got
so frustrated with them, though because if I was lucky, I got to get up once per
day….if I was lucky. Sometimes not even
that. I started protesting and getting depressed,
refusing to eat. So they decided to put
me in rehab. None too soon and good
riddance RiverBend!!!
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