The Accident

Friday afternoon traffic was heading to the bridge. A car was stopped dead in the fast lane and there was no time to react. He tried to brake, went into a skid. My beloved had to figure out in one split second how not to die.

The helmet went through the back windshield first. The driver of the car screamed. His leg broke on the rear quarter panel and the middle of his body hit hard. He bounced off and ended up in the roadway. There were bones sticking through the skin, excruciating pain and blood. The indignities began when the paramedics sliced off his clothing while people, even several people we knew, went whizzing by in the rain. He never lost consciousness and even had the wherewithal to have someone call me. The man said he’d been in an accident and was badly hurt.

I couldn’t move or think. I called my daughter and she appeared. She drove and did my thinking for me. Another call came, more reassuring. He was conscious, joking but his leg was broken. I said to tell him I loved him and I was mad at him for messing up our vacation. I began to breathe again. We stopped by the site of the accident to pick up his wallet. They gave us a bag of bloody clothing, helmet and gloves and we saw the damage to the car and the motorcycle. The accident had backed up traffic and it was so hard getting to him. Everything was in slow motion.

Friday evening in the emergency room was so scary. I couldn’t think about how hospitals have always made me sick and anxious. There was only him. He was alive and I was so relieved and grateful that it was just a broken leg, no head injury. Then they did the abdominal CT scan and everything changed. The mean sounding words and phrases began. They continued for many weeks, aggressive and unwelcome. Emergency surgery, rupture, peritonitis, extreme measures, transfusions. We kept talking about not being out of the woods yet. Just how big were these woods? As my brother pointed out, who would have thought that the broken leg, a compound fracture requiring orthopedic surgery and a titanium rod, would seem so insignificant compared to the internal injuries?

The trauma team did a beautiful job but there were the post operative pains and frustrations: IV’s and wound care and enough medications to slay an elephant, even Thorazine for hiccups. He sold the motorcycle from his hospital bed, never wanted to see it again. No food by mouth until the bowels began to move. The bowels, which had ruptured and been sewn back together, were expected to get back in working order within a week. They did. Then they sent him home and I became nurse 24/7.

An open incision slashed his belly like a canyon and couldn’t be sewn closed due to danger of infection. It needed dressing twice a day. He couldn’t walk, could barely sit up and couldn’t get to the bathroom. A friend noted he had the stamina of an eighty-five year old. He needed me with him constantly so he wouldn’t get discouraged and give up. I was hesitant to leave him at all, so afraid something bad would happen again. I’ve been waiting for this, since my beloved brother was hit by a car and killed when we were small. I knew that if I found real love, and I let myself succumb to it, it would be taken away.

We had the best time we could under the circumstances. He was brave and wonderful, thanked me for everything. We took naps and played cards. When he was able to get around I took him places. I tried to tempt him with food because he’d lost over thirty pounds. We got so much support from calls and emails and visits. We planned a wedding. The cancelled vacation would be the honeymoon.

Complications ensued. We knew something was wrong but kept pretending otherwise. There were fevers and night sweats and finally a CT scan confirmed the infection. There were trips back to the hospital to install the drain. I learned about a medical discipline which was previously unknown to me; interventional radiology. I told friends in an email that changing dressings had become so routine, now I’d added measuring pus output to the daily regimen.

Weeks passed and I drove to the hospital fifteen times. It was so heart wrenching to keep going back there, passing the scene of the accident each time. Tuesday was convict day. They came in for tests in their orange sweat suits, handcuffed to the guards. Soulless creatures lurked the halls. Discarded human beings were scattered about in the lobby. One day there was a man out in front of the hospital who had the shaved, zipper head from recent brain surgery. He sat by himself asleep in a wheel chair in the freezing cold.

It all started to get to me. The patient, as I called him, began to get better. I struggled to keep my composure, going from ecstatic gratitude about his survival to sadness and resentment about my loss. I became uncharacteristically emotional and cried at stupid things. I got tired of hearing the accident story. Friends kept exhorting me to take care of myself but I couldn’t figure out how.

The patient survived. I had to regroup and let go. It became time for him to go back to work even though he was weak and sore. I told him I felt like I was taking him to his first day of school and he wanted to know whether he’d be able to stay home if he cried and clung to my leg. No, he had to go back into the world and so did I.