My story
Right before the accident happened I remember waking up. It was about 5:30 a.m. and I was carpooling to work with my neighbors, sitting in the passenger seat of their Mazda pickup truck. I looked out the window and, boy, was it raining hard. I looked at the speedometer but don't remember what it read. I clung to my jacket on my lap and watched as we passed a truck loaded with wooden pallets. As I laid my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes, wanting to go back to sleep and wake up at work, I heard a man's voice say, "SHIT".
My eyes did not open but I knew what was happening. I tried to pull my jacket over my head to protect it, but for some reason, my arms were not moving, so I remember thinking, "I'd better give up and relax my body." I read that somewhere, I think. When my eyes did open, I was looking down at the floorboard. I could see my feet, my jacket was still lying across my legs and I had my seat belt on. I didn't feel any pain, so I tried to look around. I noticed there was blood running down my shoulders and onto my jacket. I sure hoped it would not leave a stain. I had finally found a jacket that I liked and it fit me perfectly. I heard someone screaming "She's not all right." Then I heard a man's voice say, "Shut up." I heard a different voice asking me the phone number where I work, then my phone number at home. I could see a man had stopped on the other side of the highway. "How nice," I thought, "I hope I remember to thank him." He was going to call work and my house.
I wake up again and it is not raining as hard as it was the first time I woke up. I can see the drops of water, it looks like it's raining in the cab and I wondered why I don't feel cold. Maybe I am in shock. But I feel fine and I can see and hear what's going on all around me.
I wish I could get out of the car because I am in the middle of the road. In fact, the truck is blocking the fast lane. I can see to my right. I see a little white car. It's going to hit the truck that I am in. "Oh shit, I made it through the accident, but now I am going to get hit by this little white car!" I wonder how hard it will hit and what it will do to me? I can see the driver. He finally sees me sitting in this pickup in the middle of his lane. I remember how scared I was that he was not going to be able to stop in time, but all I could do was stare at his face. I was not the only one who was scared. I will never forget the look on that poor man's face as he swerved and hit the K-rail that divides the four-lane highway. I hope he's not hurt.
I must have passed out again. When my eyes opened, I heard another strange voice asking me my name and where I live. If I give him the wrong answer, how will he know? Again my eyes open and the strange voice is telling me that they have to put a tarp over me so they can cut away the door of the pickup and get me out. If the pickup is in that bad of shape, why is it I don't feel any pain at all in my body. I hear the motor of the jaws of life. I remember seeing it on the television series "Cops" and it sure seems loud.
I must have passed out again because when my eyes opened up they were pulling me out of the mangled truck and onto a stretcher and there was an ambulance close by. I don't remember being loaded in the ambulance, but by the sounds I heard around me, I must have been in a helicopter.
I hear those questions again that really annoys me, but never stop. "What is your name?" "What year is it?" I can hear a familiar voice and it dawns on me that my neighbor is also in the helicopter. She had been on the jump seat in the pickup. She was screaming something, but I was fading out again.
My eyes opened and I saw a bunch of people running around so I assumed I was at the hospital and no longer in the helicopter. Out again.
My eyes opened but everything is foggy. It looks like I'm being wheeled down a long hallway. I can make out what looks like ceiling lights passing as I'm going to what I will find out later to be my new room for the next three-and-a-half months.
On both sides of the hall, I can make out silhouettes of people. As I slow down, I hear a familiar voice say, "Hi, Tammie", but I can't place it. Again I wake up to those familiar questions: "What is your name?" and "Where do you live?" and few new ones, "Where are you?" "What year is it?" and "Who is the President?" Still not sure what happened, I just wanted to get some rest and go home.
I woke up a few times startled, not knowing where I was, but then I remembered I was in a hospital. What had happened to land me there was still not very clear. I tried to remember exactly what happened, but my mind was too foggy. Oh well, I'll think about it later.
I'll never forget that bed they put me in as long as I live. It was called a rotary bed and was worse than any drug they could have given me. It constantly rotated so I could not be in one position for any amount of time because of possibly getting bedsores. So, with the never-ending moving bed and the bowed mirror on the ceiling above my head, hallucinations were worse than I could have ever imagined. My head was stuck in this vice-like thing. It's really annoying not to be able to hear anything. After a few days of the vice, I had a halo put on me, they actually bolted it to my skull with four long screws. I don't know which was worse.
Along with the halo came a tube in my nose. I later learned that it took six hours to insert it and they almost gave up and didn't insert it. At the last minute, they finally got it into place, just another irritating and uncomfortable situation for me.
I started trying to think about what had happened to me. Everybody who came to visit me looked so sad. How strange I didn't feel sore or anything. If I was hurt as bad as everyone's eyes told me I was, I should be in pain, or at least sore. After a few days I started wondering why, if I was hurt, nobody from my work came to visit me. I have visited a few of my friends when they were in the hospital but I haven't seen anybody except my close family. The thought crossed my mind that maybe everyone was told that I had passed away. Do you know how rumors get started at work? I noticed that the patients around me have a lot of company, even phone calls. Funny my phone never even rings.
I will find out much later after I am released from the hospital, that my phone was unplugged and the staff was told that I was to receive no visitors or phone calls. Only the immediate family. My boyfriend thought that would be the best thing for me - sure, he didn't have to lie there day after day wondering what happened and what will happen to him. At least if I had company it would have taken my mind off things, if only temporarily.
Ever try to get some rest in a hospital? Every two hours someone awakens you. A UV technician comes into cath you, help you urinate, something I will never be able to do on my own again. Then here comes the Respiratory Therapist to make you breathe into the machine for fifteen minutes, it sure seemed like it took a lot longer and whatever they put in this machine tasted awful. This is only temporary and I will be able to breathe on my own, I am very thankful for this. It's funny the things we are thankful for after having a major accident that we took for granted before. Now that I have time to think about it, I remember when I was a senior in high school I was driving with my friends back from Santa Cruz and the jeep I was in spun and rolled and landed on top of me. I was in the hospital for a month and had multiple injuries. The seat belt in the jeep was broken and I just rolled around inside and ended up underneath the jeep. I was very lucky with that accident now that I have time to lay here and compare the two.
Here comes a nurse to ask me those familiar questions, take my blood pressure and my temperature, if I fail anything do I still get to eat?
Something I do seem to have a lot of is "time," so much that I can't even sleep. My family is with me most of the day but by nighttime, when I know it's about time for them to leave, I begin to panic, knowing that I will not be able to sleep and that my mind will be filled with unanswered questions. Why can't I move? Will I ever be able to move again? I think about what I was able to do so easily before and might never be able to do it again. There is so much I haven't done yet, so much I want to do. Worse than the silence at night was the crying you could hear. I guess the other patients thought if they cried at night nobody would hear them - that's what I thought, too. I could never describe the feeling of lying there hearing other people cry all night. There was no question in my mind what they were crying about. As I lie there and think about it, I notice all of a sudden, that I am crying too.
I stop and wonder if anyone can hear me? I couldn't even turn my head and cry in my pillow to muffle it. The tears trickled down my cheeks and there was nothing I could do about it, which made me cry even harder. I am surprisingly happy to see the hospital staff come in, it means company, if only for a short time.
The nurses in ICU were all very nice and came to talk to me on their breaks and lunch. I felt very honored by this at the time. They always took extra care to make sure I was comfortable. Now that I think about it, they were too protective. They kept me in ICU a lot longer than I should have stayed, but I had to have oxygen all the time - that's how they justified it. It only hindered my rehabilitation because as long as I was in ICU I could not go to occupational and physical therapy.
I also got a lot of attention from the parents and friends of the other patients. Since none of my friends or coworkers visited me, this was a real treat. They would always stop by and say "hi" and let me know how my roommates were doing. I found myself getting really close to my roommates, telling them things so personal I surprised even myself sometimes. I guess when someone sees you at your worst, and naked, what have you got to lose?
When I finally did get out of ICU and into a regular room I found out why I never got visitors, cards or flowers. My boyfriend, at the time, thought it would be the best thing for me if I didn't hear anything that would upset me. I wondered why even the doctors went outside and talked after they examined me - hey it's my life, I have a right to know! In my semi-private room, I started getting flowers, cards, and visitors. It sure was nice to see everyone. I was so lonely and I missed my friends.
I couldn't talk because of the tube in my nose. It got clogged a lot and had to be suctioned out. This was worse than being clogged. They stuck a smaller tube in it to clean out the line. It was impossible to breathe and seemed like they did it in slow motion. Most of the time it didn't clean it out but I didn't want to go through it again. My throat was constantly sore, my nose hurt from the tubes, and my bed never stopped rotating. I just want to go home.
When my friends came to visit, they had to walk around the bed from side to side, because they wanted me to feel comfortable, it was so touching. It didn't matter how much the nurses reassured me that I couldn't fall off the bed, I never felt secure. I could see the beds that the other patients were in and if mine was anything like that, I couldn't fall out if I tried, maybe it was just the drugs. When I finally got my halo on I didn't have to be in that rotary bed anymore. Even though I had to be turned every three hours, it was much better and I felt more secure.
I still remember my first time sitting up in a chair after the accident. The fact that it was a wheelchair really bothered me. I was really dizzy and scared. They gave me a schedule and made me start going to Spinal Cord Injury Management classes, Physical Therapy classes, and Occupational Therapy classes. All I wanted to do was go back to bed.
They also encouraged me to go out to dinner, the park and, get this, shopping. The park was okay, but the last thing I wanted to do was go to a grocery store, on Friday night, the first of the month, at 5:00 PM. The therapists thought that this was the perfect time to "get out and get used to people again". I also remember my first experience of eating by myself. It was in the day room at the hospital and there were nurses, other patients, and their families in there. I was so humiliated sitting there trying to maneuver the fork into my mouth, not to mention the mess I was making. I felt as though everyone in the room was watching me. I didn't eat much that day and went outside afterward and cried. I didn't think my first eating experience needed to be where everyone could watch me. When my boyfriend, at that time, caught me crying outside he stormed back in and chewed out the occupational therapist.
After that, I ate alone in my room, which was much more comfortable for me. I learned to hate my occupational therapist very much. She always made me do things for myself. I bet every patient who had her hated too, I remember seeing her in the hallway one time and thinking to myself, "I don't have to talk to you now, I'm not in class". By the look on her face, I may as well have said it out loud. She had a forced smile and a kind of embarrassed look. It struck me at that moment how human she really was, I never expected that. She drove me about 180 miles to and from my house to do a home evaluation, to suggest improvements we needed to make on our home to make it wheelchair accessible. After that, I had a new respect for her. I would hate to have her job, wanting to help people adjust to a new way of life and having them hate you in return. I wonder if in her job training she had any idea it would be like that?
I changed rooms and roommates several times after that. I remember one lady that was really bitter about her accident. I often saw her in the gym, the day room or in the hallway and I always smiled and said "hi" but she never smiled back. She had three small children and probably wondered how she was going to care for them when she got out and went back home. They moved me into her room one night and I was scared to death that she would be so angry that she might try to hurt me while I slept. I told one of the UV Technicians my fears and she had the nurses move me immediately back to my semi-private room. One of the nurses came in later and told me that the lady asked her if I moved out of the room because I didn't like her. I felt really bad at the time but I was glad to be back with friendly faces once again.
Before I knew it three months were over and I was going home for a month with my halo on, I couldn't do any more rehabilitation until it was taken off. That was probably the worst day of my life. I had to leave the security of the hospital where I had a full staff to care for me, to go home to just my boyfriend to rely on. I could just imagine all the neighbors that I used to chat with peeking out there windows wondering what a quadriplegic looks like and watching me be unloaded from the car into my new wheelchair. I figured by now everyone knew what had happened and would be afraid to talk to me. I was sick for about a week before I went home, just thinking about it.
To my surprise, the neighbors came over with balloons and a welcome home banner. It was so sweet and made me feel real like I was finally home. My doctor in the hospital told me that people would stare at me and be afraid to talk to me and that I just needed to get used to it. This was not the case at all. My neighbors were talking to me just like they did before. Except, of course, the neighbors who I was commuting with. They were packing up a huge moving van. They didn't even come over to say good-bye, the next day they were gone. Maybe they had to move because having to look at me every day made them feel bad. I guess I'm glad they moved because having to look at them every day would have probably made me angry.
The month I was home went by fast. I had more family and friends visit me in that one month than I did in my entire three-month stay at the hospital. I dreaded going back but I was looking forward to getting the halo off. It was June and the temperature was over 100 in Los Banos.
Besides the bolts screwed in my skull, the halo had a medal vest that covered my chest, underneath that was sheepskin. It was so hot at times I felt like I was suffocating and there wasn't anything anybody could do to help me. I learned in the hospital to just close my eyes and try to put myself somewhere else. My complaining didn't do anyone any good and I felt like I was whining all the time. It's funny I never was a complainer and I always hated people who did it.
I didn't recognize any of the patients when I returned to the hospital. They had all gone home and even though we promised to keep in touch, I haven't heard from any of them, not have I tried to contact any of them. I guess we all got so busy trying to readjust to our new life. I wonder if they're okay and if they ever think of me. Getting the halo off was a big relief, like a big weight lifted off of my shoulders. They gave me some exercises to do to keep my neck strong so the weight of my head wouldn't be so heavy on it. Why not, I figured, I am just laying here I might as well do them. Thank goodness I did them.
I was out of the hospital and back home in record time. My hospital bed was in the living room and my boyfriend slept on the couch. He refused to sleep in the bedroom in case I needed him in the night. I did feel more comfortable but I hated to see him sleep on that small couch. It had to be very uncomfortable. We started interviewing people to find help take care of me, my boyfriend had to work and I couldn't be left alone. We got very lucky and found a retired nurse who lived on a farm and hired her the next day. She instantly became my best friend and helped me more than I could have ever imagined. She came over every day to take care of me and keep me company while my boyfriend worked.
We also had to find someone to live in our home because of the long hours my boyfriend had to work to make ends meet. Our first experience with a live-in was not very good. She was an eighteen-year-old girl who we found out later was kicked out of her family home. She was with us for about three months. She stayed in her room all the time and talked on the phone. She played her music so loud that if I was in trouble or needed her for something she wouldn't have heard me anyway. I never complained though because I had to rely on her when no one else was around and I didn't want to make her mad. She became pregnant and had to leave. After she was gone we noticed a lot of our stuff missing. Large amounts of money, jewelry, clothes, personal stereo's everything she saw and wanted for herself she took. She left on such short notice and took everything in large black garbage bags so we couldn't tell what she was leaving with. She had a friend help her move and said she would be back for another load of stuff, we never saw her again.
After that, I was afraid to look again. It scared me to have to rely so much on someone who was just looking for a roof over their head and didn't really care what it meant to be responsible. After interviewing a couple more x-cons, drug users and just plain losers, we got lucky again. A lady who recently got a divorce needed a place to stay applied for the job. She had been taking care of her mother, who had cancer and had passed away. I liked her immediately and we hit it off great.
She moved in and we became fast friends. She worked at a local high school as an aide for the opportunity kids, kids who had been thrown out of school or couldn't keep out of trouble. She was a genuinely sweet girl. She really cared and did anything in her power to make me happy and feel good. I will never find a better friend as long as I live. She liked doing things for people just to see the surprised and happy look on their faces. The littlest things made her happy.
My boyfriend got a great opportunity to move to another state and she was going to move with us. I was nervous but as long as she was going with us I felt better about it. As it got closer to the moving day my boyfriend was getting sick. Working hard and worrying about everything it caught up to him. He decided that he wasn't going to be able to take care of me anymore and asked me to move in with my parents. I asked my new friend to move with me but she decided it would be better for her to stay there.
I moved in with my parents and they remodeled their house to accommodate my wheelchair and me. It has been a year now and I am glad I'm here. I am closer to my friends and relatives now than I ever have been. I am getting out more and I opened up two chat rooms on the computer (AOL) to help other SCI (Spinal Cord Injury) victims and their friends and families. I am peer support for the SCI support group at the hospital where I did my rehabilitation, They meet once a week and I love helping people. I hope to go to college and maybe someday become a counselor to help others with Spinal Cord Injuries.
