September 12th, 2005, revisited

This is the anniversary of the beginning of my sequential memory. There are a few memories from the previous few days, some may even be from as early as the 5^th, but I don’t know for sure. There was my wife telling me that I had been unconscious for 6½ weeks and that New Orleans was gone. There were also some times when I was trying to communicate. I couldn’t even try to talk because of the trach, so my wife tried everything she could. A Scrabble board with words and letters arranged alphabetically – but when I tried to point to letters I couldn’t control my hand. I’d try to spell out words but I kept pointing at the same spot. I couldn’t write so all I could do was scribble on the whiteboard that she brought. And when I did try to make a sound, I was so fixated on what I wanted to say I wouldn’t try simpler words, but since nothing much came out it didn’t make a big difference.

My wife wrote words on a page but I couldn’t manage to point to the right word. I also didn’t understand what was going on, I apparently thought that the only thing wrong with me was that I was stuck in that bed with tubes coming out of me from so many places: I couldn’t talk, or move, or control my own body, I didn’t know what was happening, and I was frustrated and upset. My wife is an angel. She understood how I felt and did everything to help me.

My wife was really good at reading my mind, so she knew what I wanted and needed. Which was a good thing because I couldn’t make myself understood.

When they first woke me up, apparently the big thing was for the nurses to ask me to move so they could tell if I was all right: trying to see if I could understand and respond and still move. Someone, some doctors or nurses, kept scaring my wife for no reason, saying that I wasn’t waking up fast enough or responding right so there might be serious brain damage. Assholes. I was just having a hard time getting out of the sedatives. Some nurses did mention that, saying that some people take days or weeks to come out of it after being under for so long.

There was one time when my wife was there and everyone was asking me to wiggle my toes. I didn’t respond. Everyone thought that that was a bad sign. A friend was with my wife and said that I was probably just sick of doing it and was teasing them. I heard that and I smiled. Apparently that’s what I was doing. All I could do was wiggle my toes and they kept asking me and I got tired of it – I don’t remember, but it sounds like something that I would do.

I was frustrated. I didn’t know what was happening to me or why I had to prove that I could breathe on my own. I didn’t know that I had almost died; I just wanted the trach out. I wanted more control of myself.

What I remember from the 12^th, I think, was a nurse asking me if I knew where I was. Now, I had heard someone say that I had been transferred, but I thought I had heard California or Kentucky and I decided that wasn’t right. But I didn’t know what hospital I was in even though I did know that I was in a hospital. But I couldn’t see any signs, or even a laundry mark on the linen, and the nurse’s ID badge was turned around. I didn’t know I was in the ICU but I knew that I was in a hospital. So I told the nurse, who looked around and at their badge and realized that, no, there was no way to know where I was exactly. The important thing was that I knew that I was in a hospital.

That was the beginning of me getting out of the ICU. Well, maybe not that moment, but once I was more or less out of the sedation, and could interact, and could start working at improving, then I could start to get better.