nov. 24, 2011. thanksgiving day. south lake tahoe, ca.
it is because i have so much to be thankful for that i find myself trying not to break down in at a starbucks coffee table. it is because i have such a wonderful, supportive family and a life that is amazing beyond words that i can't get the tears to stay in my eyes. there is no way to describe the pain and struggle of the past year, only i will ever be able to reflect on the things that happened and remember the momentous feat i had to battle and still heal from to this moment. i know my soul will be forever changed, and i have still a long way to go.. but the gratitude that i have amounted throughout the past months is so immense that it is taking my entire being to keep from crying hysterically from happiness.. from love... from loss and pain and challenge.. from fighting for my life and my own destruction.. my demons and disappointment.. from growth and learning..
i find it hard to believe that it has been a year.. a complete 365 days of what i can only know as torture.. but what do i know? ... that the hardest thing to learn and accept is just when things seem as though they cannot be worse that they, will indeed, get worse? reassuring in a way because it means you can only continue to get stronger... laying in the hospital bed looking at a leg held together in pieces- how would i know i would be experiencing more pain than i could imagine at that point? How was i to know that the heart break of driving to that airport to leave jackson.. the love of my life... would be more painful than having each stitch slowly pulled out of my shin? that after laying attached to that torture device every day in physical therapy that i would still grimace every time i walk... but with every ounce of pain i am thankful with my entire soul that i am above ground to feel it... because i would rather feel it than nothing at all.. my body laying beneath this earth instead of struggling above it. i should have died.. my body underneath the tires of the truck that never knew i fell. and i will admit that there were days that i prayed they would have hit me because it would have been a hell of a lot easier than trying and failing at life... days when i would be sitting in la mesa California, the farthest from home.. and too far from jackson, holding my heart and my leg in pieces unable to understand why they let me stay... jobless, broke, separated from my family... and even harder, my brother... separated from the world because no one understood what i was fighting, what i was trying so hard to do and pretend it was what i wanted... but no one can relate when they have not had to fight so hard. not sean.. not mom or dad.. not jim.. not adam, not jake and no one else i tried to find fake love in. the loneliness that led to my body's suicidal actions, the unhappiness i tried to kill by destroying myself with more pain. it is all part of healing.
chapter one.
dear 2011,
f you.
with all of my heart.
how ignorant was i to think that the accident would be the hardest part. how would i know that still, to this day, 365 days later i would still be fighting the battles begun the night my world was to be forever changed. how was i to know it would be my last night on earth as i knew it. that after that week of hell i would learn that hell has many doorways of which to offer and i would be testing out more than a few. how was i to know that jackson was going to drastically change my life in more ways than i could fathom. i couldn't. there are no preparations for these things. the mountains did not appear any more majestic than usual, the sunshine no brighter, the air no sweeter. the chill of winter bore a haunting 22 degrees as the last golden rays of twilight melted behind the icy peaks of the tetons. the stars had already begun to glitter, the same diamonds i watched appear every evening... the same stunning rainbow of crystals that kept me holding my breath after every sunset. i was home. my soul's home. the first place i experienced true, boundless love for the incredible world that displayed itself limitless before me and before the range of mountains that will forever burn longing in my heart. i had finally come home to stay. i had no idea how quick of a stay it was going to be.
the same night i called my parents at 11pm from the emergency room in the jackson hole hospital. i was unable to continue speaking past the sound of my mother's voice, handing the phone to dish who was the only one left with me from the ride in. It was the day after thanksgiving and everyone was at the shaws. it was 2am in their time and i had no idea how to explain what had just taken place. not that it mattered because i no longer had the strength to hold myself together at this point, relying on dish to provide the details. the pain was intolerable by the time there were enough nurses to cut my pants off and insert an IV. to this day i do not know why i was excused from going into shock, the pain making my vision blurry and so sick to my stomach i was convulsing as my body tried to keep from hyperventilating. the x-ray showed my shin bone snapped in half. a "simple" break that would require a "simple" surgery. simple... simple to me meant i would recover in a few days and return to work and life at Dornans. simple meant staying in jackson. simple is everything that would never be again.
my simple break turned into a complex, compound fracture over night. a full MRI told us the following morning when sean, dish and tyler brought me flowers and coffee i was not allowed to drink. it had been the most miserable night of my life so far. rejecting the pain medicine, i was unable to take anything.. my body exhausted from attempting to stabilize my shattered being, fighting the inability to sleep with the over whelming amount of pain i had no choice but to endure. the nurse had come in at 430 am to give me my first shot in the stomach... a routine that would ensue for the next three months. i cannot describe much of that first day in the hospital... i was in truth, in shock.. but completely awake, induced on a drug-high that did everything but take the pain away. my leg was the size of a basketball and wrapped heavily in bandages. i could not move, i could not eat, i could not believe that i was alive. the snowmobile i had been riding was fine, the truck doing no damage when it crashed into it's back wheels. when the ground hit me however, my femur came down on my tibia with enough force to snap it in half and shatter the "plateau" of my shin bone right below the knee cap. i was awaiting surgery because it was still thanksgiving break and the doctors were out of town. i don't remember much of that saturday.. the realization of what happened had not yet hit me. the depths of the situation i was in, completely foreign.
**
the ocean would have run out of sand before that night sky could have run out of stars. to this day i cannot remember a time where the sky has been that breathtaking... standing knee deep in the snow at the base of shadow... watching the angels throwing glitter in the absence of clouds. it would be the last time i was to stand for 6 months.
**
when i landed i saw the tires coming at my face. it was at the moment i accepted death and clearly remember thinking "thanks for one hell of a ride"... metaphorically of course, only later realizing the pun i had clearly not intended. my "ride" lasted an intense 45 seconds. on top of a 15000$ snow mobile, riding on the top of a sled bed attached to a lifted GMC pick up truck speeding backwards now unstuck from the snow pile we had driven into an hour before. helplessly i watched as the bindings holding the sled in place begin to loosen.. i did not even attempt to scream. hopeless... silent to everything except the angels. Tyler never heard, nor saw until the truck struck the snowmobile where it landed.
the surgeons returned on sunday. my procedure lasted one hour. 60 minutes to re-construct my shards of bone together with 21 pieces of titanium. it was a successful surgery only taking from me six months of sacrificed sleep. and everything else i would suffer to lose.
when i think of that week i remember the first day i was completely alone.. and then i remember the pain. it was a monday when everyone left to go back to life, and the reality of my body finally hit. it was the first time i laid in the hospital without holding sean's hand. the first night i spent in ICU, the first time i experienced pain so excruciating that i wished for death. the medicine did nothing to my body that was refusing it and the oxygen they strapped me to instead only caused me to hyperventilate. i have never felt so helpless in my entire life. my physical body unable to move, unable to help itself, too hysterical to cry, too exasperated to do anything but tremble and endure.
i began to stop breathing. my lungs physically unable to continue functioning. it was the most wonderful feeling i had experienced since the accident and i was dying. slowly i slipped into a quiet blackness, i FELT my body sinking, not breathing, and i welcomed it like sleep... like paradise. it took the nurses two days to realize they forgot to put blood back in my body after the surgery, thus explaining my unconscious behavior. i was infused with 'Morman Montanan' blood... ironic for i was about to leave the mountains i loved more than anything in life, behind... in the same, quiet slumber of snow they would remain.
the day after surgery the therapist arrived with a walker. it was also the same day my brother arrived to stay with me in the hospital. infuriated with the therapist i fought hard not to lose control of myself. he was beautiful, tall and blonde.. i was probably his first patient upon graduating from training and i was furious.. or at least as close to the emotion i could gather enough strength to portray. laying there, broken, dirty and with a mat of hair that hadn't been touched since friday morning , bloody, swollen, disgusting, tear stained and red eyed from my inability to stop crying.. the only thing i COULD do.. and here was gorgeous ken, perfect and stunning at my bedside with a stroller. he wanted me to walk. i wanted to punch him in the face.
the next day they took off my bandages. i could not look at my leg. when i did, my mind would not accept that it was indeed "mine". they had cut open both sides. along the top of my knee was an incision 9 inches long, the one on my left side about 7, both sewed together from the inside, a plastic surgery technique that is no longer used. (i would find out why much later, and with more pain than i thought possible.). the swelling had gone down to a large softball, having to wear a stocking on each leg to keep the circulation of my blood flowing. i was on regular doses of morphine, still unable to take pain medicine, and if i was able to drink a whole bottle of ensure, and keep it down, it was a lucky day.
**
it had been my first day of work. the day after thanksgiving. a beautiful, snowy friday full of promise because the slopes would be opening and we would be busy. it was the most beautiful place i have worked, second only to the ranch north of shadow mountain i had worked for that summer - the reason for my initial move to jackson hole.. the best thing that had happened to me in this life. Dornan's was 15 minutes down the highway towards town, the halfway stop for groceries and gasoline and placed perfectly at the gates to the grand teton national park. waitressing in the restaurant i was front row to the incredible peaks, glorious in their brilliant decorations of white. the sky crystal and as limitless as the snowflakes that fell from it daily. i could not have been more excited for winter. it was already a record breaking accumulation for the season and for the first time in a long time, after many strenuous months of traveling and uprooting and confusion... i felt content. **
at night i would plead for anesthesia, or death ... anything to make the pain stop. the nurse told me to shut up - that she had made it through 4 back surgeries and my case was nothing.
each morning i was greeted with a needle, my stomach began to look like a dart board where each insert left bruises.
during the day i texted sean. each message cherished for the temporary relief it brought.
i don't remember anyone visiting me. only sean's parents on the third day of hell. they had allowed jim to stay with them so he did not have to sleep in the hospital. it was during this time i realized how much i missed sean... incredible what one near death experience will do to your attractions. i wrote him every moment i had a clear enough head to think, and even when i didn't - always he responded instantly, making the pain and experience almost bearable. it was also the day he told me he would be driving home that weekend to get me from the hospital. 6 hours from school in laramie and all he wanted to do was take care of me. this would be the reason i extended my plane ticket home until sunday - the last day i would be able to see him.
on the fourth day they took out my catheter and let me shower. i have never felt a more amazing shower in my entire life. i could not stand, or really sit.. my leg could not bend, but i was happy to do whatever possible to feel the water clean my whole body. it was the first time i remember smiling, and the first of many times i would painfully have to put those damn stockings back on.
**
the plan had been to drive out to shadow mountain that night to have a fire.. drink a few... watch the stars and celebrate before life began. we never made it to the mountain.
**
on the fifth day ken arrived to walk me, perfect and punctual. it was the day i walked the farthest, to take flowers to my co-worker at the other end of the hospital who apparently broke his leg right after i did. luckily - if you can call it that - he only broke the front part of the tibia, requiring a boot to stand, allowing him to keep his job and stay in jackson.
**
it had been one week since Tyler drove us to the hospital. Sean had sat in the backseat holding me tight in front the entire time we tried to maneuver back to the highway without getting stuck a second time. the night had been dark as emptiness and there was no road to get out. everything had iced in the chill of 22 below and speeding on the make-shift trail we were blazing was not an option. i refused to watch out of the window, not wanting to know how much distance remained between me and the hospital. i sat, cradling my leg that felt to the touch like a million floating pieces without bonds. clutching my eyelids shut as if to block out the reality, praying it was not my femur that the pain was coming from. we hadn't made it a mile before we saw head lights. To this day i am not sure why someone driving a truck, hauling a horse trailer was driving through 2 feet of snow in the absolute middle of no where at 1030 at night, but as for most things we do not understand there is no way to see the bigger picture to explain it. therefor, explanation or not, i could only feel my heart dropping into my stomach as we began to slowly back up. why the hell were we backing up? the complete opposite direction of the hospital. since there was no way for us to pass or for him to reverse, we managed to retreat all the way back to the crash site allowing him through. hospital emergency trip, take two. and losing consciousness was not an option. **
the morning i was scheduled to leave the hospital i treated myself to a delicious breakfast. scrambled eggs, buttered toast, cooofffeeeee....... 30 minutes later i was in the wheel chair throwing it up.
it is amazing to me that even after the accident, and a week in hell number one, that i still attempted to look pretty that day arriving at sean's parent's house. he would be coming home that evening to stay with jim and i and i could not contain my excitement. I'm not sure if what i "tried" worked at all because i was without a doubt a total wreck - it is only the frugal attempting that i remember... and it not mattering at all. Sean did not leave the couch i was laying on the entire 2 days we had together. granting me one more reason to cry all the way to the airport.
**
at some point in the trip, once we had made it, miraculously, to the highway i began to tire from trying to fight the pain. it was unbearable... combined with the stressful thoughts that we would never make it to the hospital and the sanity questioning why i was still conscious, it finally became too much. i was still the captain commanding the ship, conducting phone calls to work, and roommates, my boss and the ER, trying to make sure i didn't die, with a leg i had no idea the condition of. It took close to an hour. it was the longest hour of my life.
**
at sean's house i quickly fell in love. with his mom. because he and jim spent the day packing my things from Dornan's - moving me out and buying my prescriptions, i spent all of my time with Deb. we listened to mumford and son's and kept each other company. she would share with me family pictures, and stories while cleaning the house and watching the snow. how much i prayed that it would snow too much for us to fly home. how much those prayers went un-answered. it was sean's dad that administered my morning shots and the first time sean and i had coffee together. that night he slept with me on the couch, waking up consecutively to make sure i was still breathing and as comfortable as possible. we left the fire place on and he would get me snow from outside to numb the searing pains in my leg. it was that night i realized how much this connection meant... i had no idea to the extent it would go, nor the drug it would soon become, the only pain medicine that would ever work.
that same night my mom called from a Steele Wheels concert at home. our song was being played and had been dedicated to me. she sang the entire lyrics through the phone as they played it live and on one foot and a walker i stood crying in sean's kitchen.
Chapter 2
the hell in the hospital has a close cousin named United Airlines. there will never be enough Vicodin or Oxycontin to make 3 flights across the united states, in the middle isle with a leg that cannot be bent, bearable. However these are the times in life where you do not have an option and you endure for as long as you have to. I would not have made it without Jim, and in the teary blur of miserable-ness between wheel chairs and crutching across Atlanta i focused my thoughts on how grateful i was that he was there.
i was certain that by the time we reached Roanoke airport, finally at 9pm (having left jackson at 6am), my ability to cry would be completely disabled. however, once again, i was proven very wrong. when we pulled around the corner of the terminal, jim pushing me in a wheel chair, holding the three things i decided to bring home (still convinced i would be returning to wyoming within days), i watched my mom begin to cry. only then did i realize the utter, raw reality of how my life was about to completely change.
sean texted me between every flight and all the way home to make sure i was alright...
i cried in the back seat, alone, the entire way. i continued until morning.
at some point during that first night, my pillows soaked, my leg excruciating, i became numb. my heart had completed breaking and i began my 6 month tour through an experience i had never known and would never wish upon anyone in life. i know now the reasons for which i had to come home, but at this point, this night, i was the most scared, most lonely and most depressed that i can ever remember being. i did not sleep, only dreamed... in the dark, hauntings of a familiar room and foreign hurt.
i texted sean every other minute, messaging online in between. he was in school, completing college in laramie and i clung to him like a life support. to me he was my jackson, my tetons, my medecine, my release, my positive energy that kept me sane and fighting back. he was my hope... my proof that life in wyoming still existed and would remain until i could come back. he was everything to me that gave me faith... my edge off the pain, my reason to continue... he became my world because he had been there... he had held me broken and carried me through the hospital. he had seen the same stars that night and not once let go of my hand. he was the only one that could understand... and i missed his compassion like the mountains i cherished so dearly.
**
if you ever need a reason to be anti social, shatter your leg.
it is a hard thing to do when you are in that much pain, and anguish, to be physic... therefore i was not. but, if i was, i would be able to see that everything would eventually work out, i would be walking and healthy again at some future point in my life. then maybe i would have been much nicer and accepting to the many people that came to visit bringing thoughtful presents and get well cards. but when you are lying in bed, unable to move -( let alone dress yourself), it is very hard to on the happy receiving end of so much attention. i admit that i was not pleasurable, nor happy, (something i want to apologize profusely for now), but i was grateful and appreciated the massive amounts of love that arrived in my bedroom daily. thinking of those precious visits and caring thoughts, i know for certain it is what healed me. i was blessed to have such a place to come home to with amazing friends and family. it would only take me some time to reflect and understand. a cherished blessing, another lesson to learn.
the universe has incredible ways of granting wishes. when you pray for balance, it will not hesitate to bring you "back to earth" - just make sure you are not on top of a moving snow mobile.
sometimes you are given a break from life to heal. when you ignore the signs of spiritual damage, you will be granted a reason to stay put. physical damage is much harder to ignore.
... and some times all you need is your mother.
i would not be the human being i am today without my mother. in every definition of the statement. i cannot imagine going through what i did without the constant love and support of my parents. the accident had taken me back to the age at which you need the most help. my mom not only helped me dress, to bathe, to cope, she also woke up early to "shoot" me in the stomach, to ready my medications, to make me laugh as she was stabbing me, to sing beautiful songs and read to me wonderful healing stories, she made me every meal and even washed my feet that had become unbelievably calloused from life in wyoming. she was strong when i was not, gave me hope when i was crying for jackson, and kept me smiling asking about sean... (who i constantly talked to). this was how my first days were spent, in between trent songs and crutching to the bathroom, watching the frosty, virginia, white outside.
there was no sleeping. it was as if it was not even an option. my nights consisted of watching the stars appear, wishing on each one, and praying to be back in wyoming. the pain was unimaginable, and ten times worse at night when i tried to ignore it the most. i did not sleep for the next 92 days.
mumford and sons became my religion. and by day number two i had mastered one-legged pushups in bed.
sean continued to be the highlight of my day. if i was not talking to him, i was thinking about him, and if i was not thinking about him i was thinking about jackson... and how close he would be.
it was a thursday, as always, when my life changed again. i had been home for a week when we scheduled our first visit to the doctor's office in Roanoke, and our first visit with hell number three. apparently stitches that are criss-crossed underneath your skin, interlacing your tissues are NOT self-dissolving. no matter what they say. they are to come out - when they are ready, and that thursday was perfect timing. there was no anesthesia, no warning, ... simply pulling. if i tried to explain how much this process hurt, i would only be no where close. it was as if threads of muscle where being removed like spaghetti through tiny holes at different spots in the incisions. if the surgeon in jackson would have told me in the hospital that i would be experiencing more pain than i had already, i would have laughed. and if the doctor's assistant pulling out my stitches would have said the same thing, i still would not have believed him... and it is probably a good thing.
Chapter 3
broken. defeated. hurt. frustration bore bitter tears that stung my cheeks as i stared out of the icy window pulling out of the doctors office that lucky thursday. crying this much made me sick and i remember thinking how much i wished it would stop so mom would not have to see... but this attempt was frugal and i once again succumbed powerless to the insane amount of pain i could not deter my thoughts away from. only when i began recounting the event to sean did the morphine of his sweet compassion begin to numb the physical shock. he was my only outlet and i surrendered to it with everything i had.
that night he told me he was planning to come see me. i had never been so ecstatically happy. pure hope flooded through me as we exchanged ideas and plane tickets to make it work. i no longer thought of stitches, the pain for earlier drowned with hope. he had a christmas break from school starting dec. 17th and wanted to spend chrsitmas with me in virginia... to take care of me and be beside me through therapy and life no matter what the cost. i could not believe what was happening. never in my life had a boy so much as talked about caring this much, let alone "doing" it. i told him i would do whatever it took and would pay for whatever i could afford to get him here... as visions of him holding me in bed, singing silly songs to make me laugh, spending the days together watching the snow and dreaming of our futures in jackson, captured my thoughts and i lay smiling, just imaging the happiness that could be. i would do anything i promised myself, anything was worth it... as love always is.
joy pulsed through my veins... and almost did the tears of a different emotion begin to fall when i received his final message.
"savanah, youre the only one that can make me stop thinking about my girlfriend"
i lost it.
when i finally stopped crying, i wrote in my diary for the first time since the accident.
( " today they took out my stitches... and i lost sean. i do not know which hurt more" )
3 days later we noticed the infection for the first time.
when they had taken my stitches out, they also removed the band-aid-like strips of material that covered the incisions like staples. With these gone we could see perfectly the cutting lines and the places where the stitches were removed. the scars were slick and clammy like skin that had been soaking in a puss-like substance for weeks. where the pieces of skin came together there was a smooth, clean line where the scalpel was drawn, except for one entire side. on the incision that covered the face of one plate screwed into my tibia (on the left side of my knee cap) was a series of craters that leaked with a white-ish blood serum, strung in a line like a diseased constellation. at first, we reasoned that it was because of the stress of pulling the stitches out that the incision was infected. two days passed and the pin-sized craters had grown to bullet holes and with them began two new inflamed areas. one above the same plate, and one on the bottom of the scar on top of my knee. the holes leaked blood and puss constantly and would seep through the bandages and my stockings we were constantly replacing. this soon became a much bigger worry to everyone, except for me. i know i should have cared, but i didn't. everything, after i stopped talking to sean, just became another exercise of pain and tolerance. i still could not take medicine for the pain and incredibly became accustomed to the blunt searing that continued relentlessly through my entire body. i had lost all motivation... the infections just another side effect.
a close friend of our family, a licensed physician, made a house call to inspect my wounds. he assured us that this was normal after an intense surgery and should clear up in a few days. we remained, patient.
long, excruciating days later the bullet holes had increased twice their size. we got into the truck (still a very difficult move to make with one leg in an avalanche), and headed back to the roanoke office. they diagnosed me with an extreme infection and immediately put me on antibiotics to clear them up.
eating became torture because the new medications would make me unbelievably sick.
i would battle bulimia for the next 8 months.
No comments:
Post a Comment