It’s funny how the brain handles trauma. Sometimes it blocks it out, sometimes it tries to fill in the gaps, but regardless, it sticks with you.
I didn’t remember a bit of the car wreck. I was alone and in the driver’s seat when it happened. I can remember listening to a podcast as I drove. It was one of those LSAT prep courses. I was on my way to becoming a lawyer, my dream even since I was a kid. Other children wanted to be astronauts, ballerinas, actors, but I always saw myself in the courtroom. A 12 year long fantasy just within reach now an unobtainable and painful thought.
I was finishing an episode and switching to the next when some asshole in front of me decided they’d had enough of their cheap sonic milkshake and tossed it out of the window. I swerved as it covered my windshield, knocking my phone off my lap in the process of steadying myself. It’s the most frustrating thing when your phone falls between the seats. It’s nearly impossible to reach. I was leaning over, squeezing my arm through the small crack when it happened.
All I saw was a yellow light and a car turning left, straight towards the driver’s side of my car, and then black.
The next thing I knew I was laying down. The beeping of heart monitors and various machinery filling my ears. I was in an unimaginable amount of pain, my whole body was sore. I went to open my eyes, but the world stayed black. I tried to reach my face, but my arms wouldn’t move. I attempted to wiggle my fingers, nothing happened. Oh dear god, I was paralyzed.
My brain raced, trying to put the pieces together. It took some very foggy and strained thinking to remember what happened. What had I done this morning? I woke up, got ready for work, grabbed some cheap gas station coffee, and got to work. Or had I gotten to work? I didn’t remember making it to the office. After a bit I came to the conclusion that I must have been in an accident and slowly, but surely, the memory came back to me.
Suddenly, I heard weeping. Then, a man’s voice.
“All that we can do at the moment is keep her comfortable. She has severe fracturing in her legs. We can perform a surgery to stabilize the bone fractures, but it won’t do much good to anything else.”
Then I heard my mother. Through harsh sobs, she spoke.
“Are you sure there’s, *hiccup* nothing else you can do?”
The man’s voice again, “I wish we could. Due to the trauma sustained to her brain stem in the crash, she is completely brain dead. We ran the scans. We’re sure. There’s no chance of recovery. We can keep her on life support here, it is completely your decision.”
“I want her to have the surgery. Even if she’s *hiccup* not in there,” My mother paused, “I want her to be comfortable.”
What? What were they talking about? The pain in my legs made more sense, but brain dead? I’m right here. I could hear them. They had to be wrong. I don’t care what tests they ran, they’re wrong. No. No, no, no, no no.
I heard two sets of footsteps, one moving away, one moving closer. There was suddenly a pressure on the side of my bed. I felt a tender hand touch my face.
“I’m not losing you, dear. I love you too much for that.” It was my mother, the pressure released from the bed and I heard her footsteps trail off.
What the hell was happening. I had to get someone’s attention. I had to. They have to know I’m in here. They have to fix this. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t speak. I was completely powerless. How could I tell them that I’m here?
I heard footsteps again. At least three sets. Then wheels. Suddenly there were hands all over me, lifting my body. I landed on another flat, cushiony surface and heard wheels again, and then I was moving, rolling away. I could hear people all around me, all in their own, fully conscious worlds, as I continued to get rolled down the hallway. I felt myself veer to the right and my cushioned bed hit a wall along with my right leg.
IAn explosion of firey pain ran through my bones. I wanted to scream, to cry, to let someone know somehow that they had just hurt me. Instead I did all I could do: absolutely nothing.
I continued rolling down the hall. The wheels stopped, I was lifted again from one flat surface to another. I could hear more doctors in the room, talking about fractures and bruising as they prepared me for surgery. I found comfort in the idea that a mask would soon go over my face. A rush of anesthetic would soon flood my lungs and I would get some sort of relief from this personal hell.
No relief came. No mask, no drugs, the doctors just continued shuffling around me.
I read once that a rare complication can happen under anesthesia. The drug doesn’t work correctly and you can feel everything happening. Fully aware, but fully paralyzed. People who have experienced it describe the sensation as being “locked in.”
That’s exactly what I was: locked in.
As the first incision came, I felt another blinding, white hot pain. This was a living nightmare, like some horror movie with some sick sadistic villain trying to inflict as much pain as possible. But this wasn’t a horror movie. This was real life. Was this really my new reality? These weren’t sadistic doctors, they were just people following my mother’s wishes. I mean, why waste anesthetic on a brain dead patient, right?
I could feel every cut, every movement the doctors made against my tattered legs. From what I could tell, they were essentially bags of flesh full of shattered bone. It was both excruciating and terrifying. It felt like it would never end.
I don’t know how much time passed, but it felt like an eternity before they were bandaging and casting my legs. I was wheeled back to my room. In my mind, I was inconsolable, but on the outside, I was still just a lifeless shell of a human being.
Over the next couple days, practically everyone I had ever met came to visit me. Distant relatives, childhood friends. Everyone crying over me. Over the fact that, to them, I am gone for good. My boyfriend would regularly visit, stroking my hair, holding back sobs. My mother would stay late into the night reading me stories from my childhood.
It was like experiencing my own funeral. I heard everyone lose me. Listened to everyone grieve. I wanted more than anything for them to know I heard them. That I felt them sitting on the edge of my bed. I would’ve given anything to just reach out and take their hands. I never could.
It’s been 5 years since anyone came to visit me. My family, friends, and boyfriend regularly came for a few months, but then they stopped. Life happens. I’m sure they moved on, made new friends, found new relationships. Their worlds continued as mine remained only a black pit that I could not escape.
My mom was the one who stayed the longest, but like the others, she stopped coming. Maybe it got too hard on her, maybe she passed. I have a feeling that I’ll never know.
The only interactions I have anymore are with nurses. They come and check my vitals, refill my feeding tube. They change my soiled clothing and occasionally I receive a sponge bath. The most I have to look forward to is being moved around to avoid bed sores.
I’ve long since realized there is no way for me to reach them. No way to communicate the endless hell I am living in. The nightmare that will continue forever as I rot in this bed. I can only pray that someday someone will end it. That someone will pull the plug. I know that they won’t. My mother’s words repeat over and over in my head: “I’m not losing you, dear. I love you too much for that.”
All that I can do is long for the day that I naturally pass. Decades from now, old and gray, when my body succumbs from age and I receive the sweet release of death. Until that day, I remain here, trapped inside my own head, unable to ever escape.