Chapter 5 – Recovery
A few days after the Dr. came in with the news, the nurses started to mess with my breathing machine. I found out that with my jaw broken, they decided the best way to get me air was to cut a hole in my neck and put a tube in there, a tracheostomy.
I found out quickly something else that would be changing, and I do mean changing….. I was in diapers!!! Because of the injury to my back, I would have no feeling from my chest down. This meant that I would have no control over when I had to go to the bathroom. Let alone be able to move or feel my legs. This depressed me very much. I don’t know if the not being able to walk again depressed me more, or the having to wear diapers for the rest of my life.
See, I was a bedwetter till about 13, and I hid the shame of having to wear diapers at night. I hated wearing them then, and that was only for night time…. Now I was stuck in them ALL THE TIME!!
At least 4 times a day a nurse would come in and unhook the hose from the machine, suction out the hole in my neck and try to let me breath. All while keeping a close eye on me…… This was also the times, that they choose to change my diapers. I felt so helpless. Still not being able to talk other than mumbles, all I could do was listen to my inner voice and cry quietly.
The first several days, I did not last long off the vent, but as the weeks went by, I got up to 1 hour or more, finally one day, about a month after my accident they removed the vent and I lasted the whole day.
Eventually they changed the tube to something that could be capped off, and would be used just to get oxygen if I needed it, and I could breathe on my own, I could even mumble words through my teeth.
I was being fed through a feeding tube in my stomach, they must have put it in while I was sedated.
I still had oxygen going into my trach most of the day, cause it is a little hard to get all the air you need just through your nose and not your mouth
The first thing I asked when I could talk was “where is Sam?”
My mom broke down in tears…….
She did not have to say it, I knew then, Sam did not make it. With the disheartening news that my best friend had died during the crash, it was worse that I could not say goodbye to my best friend since childhood. Sam was the only one I ever let stay over at the house, or who’s house I stayed the night at due to my bed wetting; he swore he would never tell another soul, and I am sure he never did. I had always thought that we both would be grilling steaks with our wives when we were 30 and talking about the best way to do this or that. Now that will never happen, everything that I had planned out for my life has changed, and will never be the same.
I sank further deeper into depression about my situation. I think at some point for a week or two I just kinda gave up on living, I just did not care what happened anymore. I requested pain meds constantly, just so that I could be out of it long enough to forget my situation; but it always came back to home. I would come out of the fog and there I would be, in the hospital, tubes, wires, hoses and diapered.
It seemed as soon as I woke up in the morning, a nurse and an assistant were in my room changing my diapers. They would take the tapes off the front, then roll me over like a log. Get the old one out from under me, and then stuff the new one under me; then roll me back flat, then roll me the other way. This embarrassing task was done 4 to 6 times a day. Well at least they were just wet, and not messy often.
About 6 weeks after the accident the doctor came in with some new X-Rays and said my neck was better, and so was my jaw. They wanted to wait for another month (UGH!!) before they scheduled surgery to remove the halo and my jaw wires.
I kept track of the days and hounded the doctors to check my neck and jaw again, finally 3 weeks later they took an X-Ray and scheduled the surgery for the next week
Once again, I awoke groggy, little bit of pain, and still can’t move. I still had something on my neck but not as annoying as that dang halo, my mouth was so so sore. I could not open it up much, it felt very stiff. I was still on the feeding tube since I had not been able to eat anything by mouth. Slowly I was able to begin opening and closing my mouth.
As the days turned into weeks, things seemed to come along better, I had sat up the first time in 3 months. I Did not get to sit up much, still very painful, and the first few times I actually passed out from the blood moving from my head down to my feet. I began to be able to eat normal food again slowly. But this too brought its own problems.
I had been on liquid formula for about 3 months, so I rarely had a bowel movement, and when I did it was small and liquidy. Now, I was eating real meats and vegetables, which meant more solid bowel movements.