This generous community let me know, every day, that I wasn’t going through this alone, and I leaned on them for that. I tend to be a bit of a martyr and think, Oh, I can handle this on my own. I don’t need help. But I did. I remember one day being at Alyce’s school and running into the mom of one of Alyce’s friends, who politely asked me how I was doing. Whatever was going on that day was particularly difficult, and even without knowing this woman very well, I found myself sobbing into her comforting shoulder. Though I think she got a bit more than she bargained for when she asked her simple question, we are now forever bonded by that moment.
The third question people often asked me was what drugs I was taking to keep me calm or let me sleep at night. I wasn’t. I was soothed by the strength and love of others. I deeply appreciated how peopled showed up, in the very different but equally important ways they did. Sometimes in these times of crisis, the most important thing we can do is to remind one another that we are not alone. With or without a crisis or disaster, that’s what we can do for one another. I for one know, there’s nothing little about that at all.
It’s everything.
day 84
About three weeks into all of this, while Susan was still in the ICU, a friend of mine wrote, “I so look forward to these updates…and to the day you no longer need to write them.”
Now, eighty-four days after the first one, we have reached another milestone. Today was the day that Susan came home.
From the time she was first brought into the ER, through her battle, unconscious, in the ICU, the delusions that followed, and then all the days in rehab, her goal and desire has always been to get up and leave—to go home to be in her house, with her family, kissing her babies goodnight and lying beside me in our bed. And now, faster than so many believed possible, she has done that…well, except for the bed part. Currently she is set up downstairs in a hospital bed, but with her will, it won’t be long before she ascends those twenty-two stairs and joins me upstairs.
When we first entered the rehab program, her doctors recommended that we tape pictures of the family up on the wall of her room, as motivation for what she was working for. When she was in the ICU and her post-surgery hospital rooms, I had done this for different reasons. In rehab, I never did. She didn’t need it. That goal was so clear to her that it wasn’t necessary to see it on the wall. In fact, perhaps having only that stark whiteboard with her daily schedule provided more motivation. I didn’t bring in knickknacks or blankets and sheets to make it homier. It remained a hospital room, a place to want to leave. And leave, we have.
We know the journey is far from over. The road is long and there are huge challenges ahead. Hopefully, there will be no more uncertainty, no more setbacks, just steps forward. It’s already quite clear from our first day back that it will require a tremendous amount of work and an equal amount of patience…from all of us. But that’s the road we’re on, and again, it’s a thankful road we travel.
The halo will come off in a matter of weeks at most. When that happens, Susan will sit under the deliciousness of a hot shower and wash her hair probably several times over. Free of the halo’s additional weight, she will become more and more mobile. The wheelchair will soon give way to just the walker, which will give way to crutches, then to a cane—this steady evolution, finally, will take us back to where she was before all this craziness.
It all still seems so surreal. The amount of time that’s passed, nearly three months, simultaneously feels like years and like yesterday. Like life, full, and yet just a blip.
As I drove to the hospital this morning, knowing it was the last time I would be making the daily trip, all the excruciatingly painful details of where it began, the horrific images and events of that first day started to play in my memory. All in all, it was a terrible way to be reminded to be grateful—and an equally terrible way to be reminded how much you love someone.
Then my thoughts go to all of the incredible present and constant support, for which I am so, so appreciative. All the many prayers, here at home and as far reaching as around the world, always in spirit, the same, “Please, let her be well.”
What continues to astonish me, and what Susan has still yet to realize, is how this has touched so many and in such a profound way. Part of it is because of who she is as a person, so full of life and spirit, but it goes beyond that. Perhaps it’s also because of the randomness of the accident. She didn’t do anything to cause it; she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes things just happen, and when they happen to someone we know, when they hit, both literally and figuratively, so close to home, it takes us out of ourselves and elicits pure selflessness. It can also cause us to plunge into ourselves, forcing us to look, to question, to savor, to appreciate, to value, to apologize, to forgive.
Our final day at the hospital and first day home wasn’t marked by fanfare. I went to the hospital this morning like I have for the past so many weeks, but this time as I entered the parking lot, then the elevator, and then walking down the hall, I was truly relieved that it would be the last time. I found Susan in her room, in her wheelchair already dressed, ready to go. I packed up her clothes, our humidifier, creams, powders, and cleansers, placed them in plastic bags, filled out a little paperwork, and waited for her final discharge. A couple of her therapists, along with her lead rehab doctor, came in to say goodbye. There were smiles and hugs, but mostly just proud, proud eyes.
As a goodbye present, one of Susan’s occupational therapists who had worked so hard to bring back the mobility in Susan’s right hand, gave her a small steel mobile he’d made. It rests delicately on a fine point, precariously balanced, and so simply symbolizes a great deal: on a macro level, the delicate balance of that first day in the ER, the days following in the ICU, and then in the post-surgery ward. On another level, it represents the obvious delicate balance of our lives. The mobile will stay in our house always and serve as a constant visual reminder of that precariousness and fragility.
As we waited for our final escort down, Susan told me about the last therapy session she had, sort of a group exercise class with several other spinal injury patients. Each was supported by a walker and asked to sway back and forth, shifting weight from one leg to the other. Then suddenly in front of her, an older gentleman’s pants gave way, dropping to the floor and giving Susan a frighteningly clear shot of it all. Some of the other participants noticed as well, but clinging to their walkers for support, none of them, including Susan, was in any position to do anything about it. So Susan, consistent with the other military references that have occurred during her recovery—from the army soup to the submarine rescue of the marines—took command for one last time and loudly called out, “Pants down. We’ve got pants down.” Rescue came quickly and pants were restored, along with the gift of laughter that Susan brings wherever she goes.
When our nurse finally arrived, we happily left the room and the hospital floor behind. We wheeled ourselves to the parking lot and transferred easily into the car. We said goodbye to the nurse, put our parking ticket into the machine, the gate went up, and we were gone.
Driving away, she looked at me apprehensively and said, “Are we really going to be able to do this on our own?” With nothing but faith to go on, I told her we were going to be fine.
The rest of the ride home was fairly uneventful. Susan took in the sights like a tourist. I pulled into the garage and transferred her back into the wheelchair and then into our house.
She was very happy to be home.
An hour or so later, we had lunch and then spent the afternoon getting settled in. Our celebration that night was simply sitting around the kitchen table having dinner, all four of us, together again, the only difference being that Mom was in this weird contraption and pulled up to the table in a wheelchair.
Many have said to me that our lives have been forever changed by this event. But when I look at the fundamental aspects of our lives, they remain the same. We are all still here, still her
e for one another, and still gathered around the table for dinner and to share the events of our days. In that regard, our lives haven’t been completely changed by this, but they have been shaped by it.
Toward the end of her hospital stay, Susan knew I was writing these updates, but she hasn’t read any of them, nor has she seen any of the pictures of the accident or the news stories. Maybe in the future she will, reading about this character who isn’t quite her but to whom she can uniquely relate. She’s heard about the number of friends who have been traveling this journey with her, this tree of support that has branches we don’t even know about. This one grand book club.
Susan has a real book club, which she adores. She loves surrounding herself with smart, funny, strong women and exchanging ideas. And she loves her friends, spending many hours a day nurturing those relationships. This new, other “club” that has existed for the past few months is a little bigger, but I hope Susan will come to appreciate that, through this accident, people from all over have come together day after day, sharing in this common experience, collectively moved and inspired by her story. It is the story, after all, of an extraordinary woman, who through her spirit and will, fought and triumphed against all odds and expectations. This woman who is loved, admired, and respected, however, remains blind to this and to the impact she has had on so many.
It’s a miraculous story, one she probably would have loved reading. It just so happens that this one…is her story.
THE FOURTH PART: HOME AND BEYOND
the unposted: part 13
I had actually intended for that to be the last update, feeling that it wrapped up things nicely, but friends emailed me asking to please not stop. In an odd way, it was like their favorite TV series had suddenly been canceled without warning and before it had a chance to reach its finale. And so I continued to write to keep us all connected.
Though Susan had spoken to a lot of friends by now, she actually had seen relatively few. For the first several weeks in the ICU, visitors weren’t allowed at all. In recovery, she was still pretty out of it a good deal of the time, and so that period, too, wasn’t conducive to visits. (Except when she was in her “angry” stage, I would purposefully have select people visit because she was always happy to see them, and it became a sort of deflective tactic on my part.) In rehab, she was either so busy or exhausted that she didn’t really want to see anyone, and so now, arriving home, here was the chance for the visitor floodgates to open.
When people came to see her for the first time, they always entered the house a bit apprehensively, not knowing what to expect. The uneasiness of the “feeling out” period never lasted long, though, especially when Susan offered up her signature sense of humor. Comments like “I know…you probably expected to find me drooling in the corner” were frequently met with a relieved burst of “Oh, thank God, you’re still you!”
Because of the intensity of the event, I think a certain number of people did expect a change in her, not necessarily in personality but in her outlook on life. “How has this changed you?” they’d ask, like she now held the secret to the universe after being so close to death, or had been saved for some greater purpose. What she felt she was hearing from others was, “You’ve been given this great gift, this second chance. Now do something with it! Be better, be nicer, do more.” It was never overtly stated this way, but kind of implied, and that’s a tremendous amount of pressure to take on.
Yes, there are many out there who take out a new lease on life after having gone through a major ordeal, people who survive heart attacks or cancer or a plane crash, but I wonder if their new lease comes from confronting death with eyes wide open, staring it in the face. Susan thankfully doesn’t remember the accident, doesn’t remember the pain, doesn’t remember much about being in the hospital at all—just kind of waking up and thinking, “What the hell happened?” Telling her that she almost died is processed with a fair amount of distance, like this whole thing happened to someone else. Of course, intellectually she understands and is grateful for how lucky she is, but she doesn’t have the experiential memory to draw on, to give her that punch in the gut that oftentimes leads to these life epiphanies. It’s a strange place to be.
In fact, that’s one of the aspects of the accident that fascinates me. Susan lost about eight weeks of her life. She just doesn’t remember them. The last thing she remembers is being on the phone in our kitchen and hanging up because it was time to take Alyce to school. That’s it. None of the details about the accident at all. Alyce has little memory about it as well, though she does remember seeing the truck drift onto Hollywood Boulevard, the bus swerving as it approached it, and thinking, “This is not going to end well.” She thinks she blacked out at the moment of impact and came to a few seconds later.
The brain is an amazing thing, shutting itself down as a protective device, instinctively knowing, “You don’t have to experience this. I’m just gonna disconnect for a bit and I’ll reboot when I think everything’s clear again.” It makes me wonder if that, ultimately, was the cause of Susan’s delusions. When she was on pain meds, experiencing hallucinations made sense to me, but when she was off of them and was still having delusions, I wondered why. Could it be that in order to deal with all the pain and to focus entirely on her healing, her brain just disconnected? And was it that disconnect that led to the delusions? I don’t have any real scientific proof for any of this, but if some expert told me, “Yes, that is exactly what happens,” I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
What a crazy thing to have to deal with. One minute you’re sitting in your kitchen, and the next, you wake up in the hospital with so many broken bones and you have no idea what happened or how you got there. It began to make more sense when I think back to those early days in the ICU, when I would tell Susan what happened and her eyes would go wide. At the time, I interpreted her reaction as “Oh, my God, yes, I remember!” but really, I think it was “Holy shit, that’s how I got here?!”
Yes, that’s how she got here. And while she doesn’t remember fighting for her life or begging for a drink or sitting up in bed or transferring to a wheelchair, she did all of those things. Now here at home, on the next leg of this journey, how fortunate to have made it this far and to have everything reconnected.
days 85–91: week #1 at home
It’s a girl!
Leaving the hospital with Susan, though larger in size and with greater communication skills, was eerily similar to when we left with our newborns: excited and anxious about what lay ahead.
Unable to get up the stairs, Susan’s “bassinet” is a hospital bed set up in the living room, and even though she isn’t in her own bed, she’s happy—happy to be in the place she has been begging to return to for months.
And it’s great to have her home. The kids love it, seeing her face when they leave for school in the morning and when they return in the afternoon. Our dinners together feel like they always have, Michael and Alyce excitedly talking about their days and Susan drinking in every moment. For the kids, the halo and wheelchair and scars are all invisible. All they see is their mom. And sitting there, the simplicity of having our family together again, picking up where we left off three months ago…well, I do stop and just smile. There is no turkey or stuffing, but every one of these nights feels like Thanksgiving.
At night, I go up to our bedroom, leaving Susan in hers. The baby monitor we had when the kids were infants has been updated to walkie-talkies. After a kiss goodnight, I place one on a table by her bed downstairs and the other by our bed upstairs. I turn my phone off, free from any more calls from the hospital, and turn the walkie-talkie on. Then, every night, whether midnight, one, or two and sometimes every couple of hours, the walkie comes to life and I hear a little voice on the other end, not inconsolably crying but rather uttering, “Gotta pee.” Up I get, like I did with our babies, and go down to her.
In addition to bathroom needs, there are other middle-of-the-night calls. “Can you please get me some water?�
� “I can’t find my glasses.” “I dropped the remote.” “I dropped it again. I’m so sorry,” and so on. With each call, I can tell Susan doesn’t want to bother me and feels bad for calling. For me, just like with a baby you love who is helpless, when they cry and need something, you do it.
Then there are naturally other times when the bathroom need is more than just peeing. Between her broken arms, limited mobility and flexibility, she isn’t able to reach around and wipe herself, so that has become my job, too. Humility and self-consciousness tend to fly out the window pretty quickly in times like this. Like many other women, when Susan and I first met, she wouldn’t even fart in front of me, and now, twenty-five years later, here we are. Like the old Virginia Slims ads said, We’ve come a long way, baby. Again, we do what we need to do.
Before I’m nominated for any Mother Teresa award, you should know that I’m not a particularly happy nurse. I’ll take care of the essentials, but when it comes to fetching and fluffing, I get impatient and intolerant. “Can you please get…I need some…Will you rub…Ow, my head is killing me.” Each time I feel my patience wearing thin, I stop and look at her, screwed into that headpiece, scars running up and down every limb, and think about what she’s endured. Even still, I find myself grumbling.
While we are beyond happy to be entering into the next phase of this adventure, it hasn’t been without its own unexpected bumps in the adjustment road. For example: During the time Susan was in the hospital, the kids were forced to function more independently—bathing without being told to, cleaning their room, doing their homework without being prodded, all things that, previously, Susan primarily stayed on top of. In a lot of ways, their newfound self-reliance and independence was really healthy for them, even though it happened under the worst of circumstances. Now that Susan is back, she can’t help falling into the same role she occupied just a few months earlier, that of “the enforcer.” The kids not only don’t need this, they resent it; they feel perfectly capable of doing what they need to do without being nagged about it. So in some ways, I think Susan is a little lost, trying to figure out what her role is now.
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