“HELLO, MRS. GARRISON, how are you feeling today?”
It’s a quick, dutiful pleasantry. You can tell instantly that the judge—a tall fellow with piercing eyes and rimless spectacles—doesn’t really care how you feel. But you figure you should answer anyway.
“I feel very spastic, but that’s because I’m nervous. The five-hour ride here wasn’t easy for me either.”
“Do you feel well enough to answer a few questions?”
“Yes.”
“When did you know that it was the medication you took that caused your stroke?”
“I didn’t know for sure until September 11, 2001, when I met with my neurologist, after he reviewed the research. I’m certain of the date because everyone in America remembers that day.”
“The defense believes that you knew it was the medication—or should have known—the first day you went to the hospital.”
You’re stunned. You can’t comprehend what he’s saying or what he’s driving at. But you’re supposed to say something.
“Huh?”
It’s not a great response, but it’s all you’ve got.
“How could I possibly have known about it the day I went to the hospital? I was having a stroke. The best doctors in the world didn’t know at that point—the study hadn’t even been released yet. Anyway, what difference would it make?”
“It makes a difference because the defense believes the statute of limitations is up. They say it’s too late for you to prosecute.”
You can feel yourself getting hot. You start to feel under attack.
The judge continues his pointed questions in a robotic fashion. He says he’s concerned that you may not be able to endure a trial.
“If I can endure a massive hemorrhagic stroke,” you say carefully, “I assure you I can endure a trial. The pharmaceutical company knew it was using something dangerous, but it was too cheap to change it. They need to be held accountable.”
“Mrs. Garrison,” he says matter-of-factly, “it has nothing to do with you or the merits of your case; it’s based on the law. The statute of limitations period started ticking when you entered the hospital.”
“Even though no doctor in the country knew that this cold medication was a problem at that time?”
“Yes,” he says.
“Isn’t that kind of a Christmas present for the pharmaceutical company?” He scowls at you.
Why are you being held accountable to a higher standard than the pharmaceutical company? They weren’t required to remove the products from the market until the study was revealed—even though they suspected a problem and initiated the study.
A FEW DAYS LATER you receive formal notification that your suit against the pharmaceutical company that produced the medication will not go forward.
Your case has been dismissed without prejudice in the New Jersey court. Not because you didn’t suffer injury as a result of this drug, but because the pharmaceutical company has unlimited funds to pay a vast number of lawyers who could knock you out on a technicality. Justice for sale.
One more complicated system you are no longer innocent enough to believe in.
You want this chapter of your quest for truth and justice behind you—but your brother John sees a chance to prevail. The New Jersey dismissal allowed a stipulation that you could refile your case in Massachusetts—where the statute of limitation laws are more lenient.
Massachusetts. Bring it on.
Promises
YOU DROPPED RORY off at school today without having to promise anything. A major victory.
RORY WAS SO YOUNG when your stroke occurred. He couldn’t express his feelings until he could vocalize and verbalize. He was terrified, but he didn’t have the ability to express how he felt.
So by seven and a half he had become extremely phobic, fearful of extraordinary things that don’t happen to children, like, for instance, a heart attack or brain hemorrhage. Separations were a major challenge.
You would drop him off at school, and he would say, “Something bad will happen to me before I see you again. I know it.”
You would drop him off to play with friends, and he would say, “Promise me nothing is going to hurt you today.”
You would be getting him on to the school bus, and he would say, “Promise me Daddy won’t get hit by a car today.”
At first, you say, “Don’t worry, nothing bad is going to happen, I promise.”
But soon, you and Jim realize, he is relying on this promise of yours in order to start his day.
It’s a big, fat lie. You know now that no one can predict what fate has in store for you.
It becomes very stressful for everyone. He’s terrified that something violent or painful or life changing will happen to him, to you, or to Daddy every time you separate, whether it’s going to bed, going to school, whatever.
One day, you’re both in the car, and he asks you to promise that you won’t die while he’s away at school. You take a deep breath.
“Rory,” you say calmly, “I can’t promise you anything like that, because I don’t know what’s going to happen today.”
It’s the first time you’ve actually said it out loud to him—or, you realize, to yourself. You don’t have control over the future, only your own choices. You don’t know what’s going to happen. None of us do.
“So,” you continue, “I can’t make that promise. Anything can happen. I wish I could change that for you, but I can’t. Nobody can. But here’s a promise I can make you. I promise that you’ll have a great day if you have an open mind and a positive attitude. Your day will be much better if you do that than if you don’t.”
“MOM, I HATE BEING THIS WAY. I don’t want to be scared all the time.”
Rory says it flatly on the way to school. It breaks your heart; you know you need some help.
You decide to take him to your friend Janie’s house—she has a lot of experience with children who’ve gone through trauma. But when the moment comes, Rory won’t get out of the car. He cries and says he doesn’t want you to leave him.
You walk him to the front door. He’s still crying.
Janie, bubbly, answers the door and takes his hand.
“You know what we’re going to do today, Rory?”
He shrugs.
“We’re going to bake chocolate chip cookies together.”
This distracts him enough for you to be able to slip away.
You return an hour later. Janie has made great progress. She has learned (while keeping him busy baking) that he doesn’t want you or Jim to say good-bye or good night because he believes he won’t see you again.
You agree to say “See you later” or “See you in the morning” instead.
AT EACH SEPARATION you’ve been walking him—and yourself—through the painful fact that you can’t ever promise someone that nothing terrible will happen. Bad things do happen. It’s how we react to them that determines our situation.
Today you dropped him off at a birthday party, and you heard him say, with your own ears, “Okay. The party’s supposed to be over at four. See you then, Mom.”
And you watch him hop out of the car and bounce up the stairs with his gold paper–wrapped present in his hand and a smile on his face.
part FIVE
A Stroke of Luck
MEMORIES ARE my most treasured possession. Memories can soothe you or they can cripple you. This book has been about memories.
Although I have had to summon the past, and shape it, for this book, I try not to remain in it; I work only in the present. And even though I know I have a long, possibly difficult journey ahead of me, trying to improve more each day, pursuing my legal case as well, I try not to live for the future, either. I believe each moment we experience really should be our most important moment. That’s a hard standard to meet, but it’s a bad one to ignore.
In hindsight, I’ve been able to review my choices, not always the best ones, but I’ve tried to take the lesson from the aftermath and grow. It is hard to believe
that simply trying to relieve common cold symptoms would have changed my life forever. It proves that every choice one makes, no matter how benign it may appear, has a consequence. I have come to accept that things happen for reasons, and it is the Plan.
For every action, there is a reaction.
Since that first homage to my hemorrhage party, I have continued to celebrate the anniversary. Celebrating something absurd is a great decision, a way to take control of life. That’s the key, not just living life passively but making decisions and choosing to grow.
People tell you, “Look at the glass as though it’s half full, not half empty.” Actually, I always want to look at the glass as half full—and. As in, the glass is half full, and where is the pitcher to fill the rest of it? I always want more, especially when I’m celebrating. It’s important to never pass up an opportunity for the bubbly! I’m satisfied with the things that I have, but want to keep growing: spiritually, physically, in my family life, everything. Okay, not everything. When I say physically, I don’t mean getting larger, I mean getting stronger. It reminds me of when I made my yearly visit to my grandparents in Pennsylvania. My grandmother would pick me up at the airport and squeal, “My, Julia, you’ve grown so big!”
I didn’t accept it as a compliment. “Grandma, that’s fine if you’re talking to a toddler, but I’m twenty-two years old.” She would make this same remark every year.
All my life, my glass has overflowed; it just happened to get knocked over when “the incident” occurred. Now, P.S., it’s a matter of righting the glass and refilling it, but this time with a different and more meaningful substance.
MY STROKE WAS a devastating injury, one that didn’t happen only to me, but also to my husband, my son, my parents, my siblings, and my friends. Yet in a way that is hard for an outsider to understand, my injury was also a great gift. I say that because I didn’t recognize all the blessings I had before my stroke. I thought I did, but I know now that I didn’t. Back then, I was only looking at the obvious blessings: home, family, and job. Now I know, as I never knew before, what a gift from God it is to sit up, to walk, to eat, to drive, to have family time, to be independent, and to share this life with someone who, you know with absolute certainty, truly loves you. The material things we give become obsolete, but to give of oneself—an act of kindness, for example—lasts a lifetime and beyond. To choose to share time with someone you love, knowing full well that your time on earth is limited, is a moment in time that is precious and will never come again.
These lessons are miracles, and I am grateful for them. In some ways (not, perhaps, in the ways I expected), I have to admit that my whole life after my injury turned into a miracle—however skeptical I may have been about such matters at various points in my recovery. I should not be here, but I am.
I once said to my dear Dr. Neuro, “I owe a lot to God for how far I’ve come.”
He said, “Give yourself some credit, too. God could have told you to get out of the wheelchair, but you could have said no.”
This may be true on the surface, but I know in my heart that it is equally true that God gave me the will, the spirit, and the sense of humor—and the optimism—to overcome this devastating injury. Now most people think I’m in recovery from a car accident. That might not seem like a victory, but consider that the right side of my brain consists mostly of dead tissue and contains a sizable hole. Yet the rest of my brain took over enough to allow me to function capably, if not perfectly, in an able-bodied world.
When I hear the words “stroke victim” I cringe. We’re only victims if we choose to let ourselves be consumed by something. I’m a survivor who continues to thrive.
My real purpose in life—my new life, not the one I had before—started, unbeknownst to me, right after my stroke. Initially, when I was in the critical care hospital, people looked at me—paralyzed, fighting to live. I could see in their faces the sadness and fear of how things can happen to human beings without warning. Nurses, doctors, and visitors all commented on how young I was to be so injured. This sort of thing was only supposed to happen to older people.
Life was supposed to make sense.
Wings and Ladders
JIM AND I WERE DRIVING home late one night when we got a flat on the highway. We could hear the tire shredding. Jim had no choice but to pull over onto the shoulder. Not only was it a dangerous area, but it was pitch-black and pouring rain. With no flashlight, Jim struggled to locate the jack and tire iron buried in the trunk. It was pretty bleak, but then a nondescript delivery truck pulled over. A man got out and, without saying a word, went to work getting out the tools and changing the tire. He did this in complete darkness and there was not one word of conversation. Once he completed the task he ran back to the truck and drove off. I never saw his face and he didn’t speak. We tried to give him money but he was gone. I didn’t see any wings, but I honestly think he was an angel. I think he was setting an example for us.
Initially, my goal was to become who I was before the stroke. I was really in search of my full-functioning body. I remember shopping with my mother. I was in a wheelchair purchasing clothes for Rory. A young woman was in the same area of the store. As I stared at her (though she was oblivious of me), I thought, “I used to be just like her.” At the time, it upset me that I was not like her. What I now realize is that I didn’t even know her. I was looking at the outer appearance. This realization magnified the fact that I didn’t really know me. But I have begun, I think, the process of knowing myself through the process of recovery. And yes, that entire process has been a gift from God.
I used to make deals with God. When I first found myself in a hospital bed, paralyzed, I asked God to let me feed myself and become independent. Once that was achieved, I prayed that I would be able to pick up my toddler and be able to put my arms around my husband again. As God answered my prayers, I continued to ask for more while expressing gratitude for what I had received. This has helped me come to terms with the fact that none of us ever really knows what is around the corner on our life’s paths.
I thought my life path was to be a woman climbing the corporate ladder while maintaining a family life with a husband and two children. Instead, I got to climb a different ladder and learn that the ladder to God is a choice and that we can choose which rung we want to claim in our relationship with God. I thought I was a good person before this injury, but what I’ve learned is that I have to give something of myself in order to help others get through whatever may have them trapped.
When I awoke from surgery, I felt sure that I had a mission, a purpose in life. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to know what it was. Now, I know that I have the privilege to be here, to share life with others, to find ways to give back to people who need something. I like to think that this book has been part of that mission, and that this story will help people overcome some of the all-too-easy “certainties” that they imagine define their lives.
“Young people aren’t supposed to have strokes.”
Aren’t they?
“You have your whole life ahead of you.”
Do I?
These are assumptions most people make in order to get through the day. I used to make them, too. Replacing them took a lot of work. To reach a point where you can really, honestly accept an event like a massive cerebral hemorrhage as part of God’s plan requires not only your own willingness to take the next step on the ladder, but also, perhaps, the act of opening yourself to the possibility of receiving assistance from someone with wings.
Nowadays, my recovery lets me see the expression of relief on people’s faces. It lets me see them acknowledge my progress, but also in that misleading “certainty” that bad things only happen to people who have lived for a long time—or to people who “deserve it.” Or, the “certainty” that our mortality is a far-off reality, if it is a reality at all.
I try to correct them, but not like I would have corrected someone at work before my stroke. I try to tell them what I’ve learn
ed: “Love your family, go home and kiss your spouse and kids. It’s always best to have the warmth of love, even when you’re apart from the person you love.”
I don’t know whether I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning. Nobody does. But I know I don’t know that, and a lot of people imagine that they can be certain about tomorrow morning.
I truly feel like my stroke has made me a better person. It has given me the insight to see that there’s more than meets the eye in any moment, any situation. My spirituality has evolved. I know I am here, for a while, in this body, because I made a choice and because God made a choice. While I’m here, I’m completely comfortable in my own skin. What a sense of freedom.
I believe that although I was a good person before the stroke, I was only tapping into a single facet of the diamond in the rough that we all are. Hopefully, by the time I complete my mission here on earth, I’ll have become a multifaceted jewel. Every day I have a chance to add a new facet. I love diamonds.
I have angels around me all the time; they tell me things. For instance, there was a day when I was driving alone with Rory for the first time since my stroke. He was only three and I was nervous because my body was not in good shape. I was dragging my left side around. I decided that I was going to take him to a local park. On my way there—it is less than ten minutes from my house—I had a vision of Rory running, and in my vision he fell down. When he got up, there was blood all around his mouth and coming out of his nose.
It was a terrifying image. I panicked for a second and was about to turn around because of this vision, but instead I said a prayer to let me carry on; I needed to do this trip for my independence and to reclaim my role as a mother. I needed to do it for my son while keeping him from harm. I said a little prayer (it was more like a chat with God) and I continued on my way to the park.
The park has a couple of benches around the play area, which is one big sandbox that contains jungle gyms, tire swings, and forts and ladders. It is really a great place for kids. I had to sit at the bench farthest away. The other ones were full because there were many children playing. Two women came over and sat next to me on the bench. We talked a little bit. I had brought a book, but was too nervous to read, so I just watched my boy have fun; it made me smile.
Don't Leave Me This Way: Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry Page 24