Battle stations! I got a call at work that my wife had been in a terrible accident. I told my staff I was headed to the hospital. They were good people and would move heaven and earth to help me. I told them I would call them from the hospital. Please let my fears be unfounded.
The hospital was the typical scene: seemingly designed to prolong and exacerbate the suffering of family waiting on any sort of word at all: even a confirmation that the hospital had called the correct people; and that it truly was my dear wife, Addie, they had admitted.
After what seemed decades, a nurse and a doctor in training came to speak to me. Unfortunately, their patient was my Addie. She had various contusions and had sloshed her organs around pretty good, though they hadn't spotted any internal bleeding. Her legs were broken and apparently badly. Yes, they thought she would walk again, but rehab would be extensive. The nurse kindly asked if Addie was an athlete because it appeared she "had", past tense, lovely legs. Good heavens, I wondered if they were trained at all in speaking to family members. She added that the scaring would be extensive, adding they could fix much of that later. The shape and tone of the musculature would be affected, however.
I answered that Addie was a dancer, professionally for a short while in her youth, and kept up with her exercises.
The nurse allowed an "ah ha!" to register across her face then explained, "I thought so. If all goes well, she will do well in rehab as she's used to a grueling regimen. However, she probably took great pride in her legs so the scaring and atrophy may affect her psychologically. You will be the one to keep her propped up emotionally. You need to reassure her that we can make the skin look better than it will first look. If she keeps up with rehab the muscle tone should come back as well. But she'll likely have lessened abilities with those legs. You need to know what she will be dealing with."
Wow, the nurse had given me a job to channel my energies at the same time allaying many of my fears while prepping me to be the best caregiver for my wife. What do you know? She WAS trained in the interpersonal stuff.
Proving the point, she'd actually taken the edge off my considerable anxiety. By painting a picture of the future, she subtly told me there would be a future after all. Everything else could be handled. It was deftly done. They set me up perfectly for dropping the bomb.
The car's air bag deployed in the accident keeping Addie from other apparent injury, but she was in a coma with brain swelling. And that was going to be touch and go, they had actually removed a small section of her skull to relieve the pressure caused by the swelling. They told me if the swelling subsided soon enough, they could replace the same section they had excised, if not they would merely put in a plate later. They sounded nonchalant about the procedure but said the degree of swelling worried them. Damn, they were devastating with that one-two combination.
They continued that it wasn't like they hadn't seen this degree of brain swell before, but it had always been touch and go, and things didn't always work out happily. I got on my knees and told them they could have my vital organs if that's what it took to keep her alive and make her well; just let my Addie survive!
Pulling me back to my seat, they assured me they were very good at what they did and were doing everything they could, but conditions like this were out of their hands, everything that could be done would be, which sounded like a great cover-your-ass statement. Then they let me stew for a couple more hours.
The nurse came back later to talk to me some more. She told me she saw both great concern from families and lack there-of every day, so she could tell I really loved my wife. I told her I was serious that I would trade my life for Addie's and would sign any form they needed in order to do so. She smiled and put her hand on mine telling me that was sweet, but things just didn't work that way. She said she was letting me know that they really did have an excellent handle on my wife's condition.
I called my in-laws and broke the news. Then I did the same with my folks. I asked them if they could start calling a list of family and friends that they were familiar with. I called one of Addies good friends, Carol, and filled her in, turning her loose on the phones to tell others, which led to a strange exchange.
Carol asked me if Addie was alone when she crashed and where Addie's accident took place. There seemed to be some meaning she could glean when she asked what time the accident occurred. I just told her Addie was in a coma and may die, what did that matter? It was a matter I should have given more attention.
The police finally came, they asked me questions such as if Addie normally traveled the route where she had the accident. Now I really didn't know what to make of Carol's questions about where Addie was and if she was alone. I blurted that out to the cops. One asked about my wife being alone, "Should she have been?"
I answered trying to be as helpful as I could, "Well yes and no. She wasn't scheduled to be with anyone, yet it wouldn't have been unusual if she had a friend going with her, no matter where she was going."
"Exactly where was she going?" the policeman asked.
I tried not to sound flustered, "I have no idea officers. There's nothing we frequent on that side of town. Perhaps a new lunch place or coffee shop?" I offered a solution that sounded reasonable though my stomach began to ache.
Seemingly satisfied, the police started to share some information with me. The long and short of things was that Addie wasn't paying attention and ran an intersection ending up partially under a dump truck. She broke her legs as the front end of her car collapsed. Her body nose-dived and was met in the forehead by the deploying air bag. The docs think that might be the reason for her concussion and the brain stem swelling. They verified Addie was alone in her car. I felt a bit of relief.
Then they told me she was on Highway 8. Previously I had only known the side of town where the accident occurred, not the road. 8? That was on the far side of town and not someplace we normally went. Confusingly there's no easy exit for a coffee shop or such off 8. It's only convenient to apartments and houses.
The police saw my consternation. I explained I had no earthly idea why she would be there. I offered that perhaps she was going to pick up a friend. I said I'd ask one of my wife's friends, specifically Carol, who had asked where Addie had been. I wanted to know if the location meant anything to her.
When Carol arrived at the hospital, I asked her straight off. She turned ashen. What the hell was that?
"I need you to come clean, Carol."
She answered with sentences right out of a crime movie, "I will, Jim, I promise, but not here. You must understand I'm not your enemy, in fact I am your ally. I'm trying to take care of you, not her, right now. Addie might have been in a terrible accident, be in a coma, with broken legs, but she has an entire army to help her. You need someone to watch over you."
I wasn't sure what to make of that either. Carol was a quiet person not a cryptic one.
"Carol, I'm going to put my faith in what the doc told me initially: that Addie should be good except for possibly her legs. Addie may lose the looks of her pretty legs, but not the use. The plastic surgeons may be able to make them sightly again, but not like before, which doesn't matter. I'll stay with her. I love her. I'll get her through this."
I couldn't help but sigh at the accidental irony, "Yeah, if only Addie could be like before."
"Yeah before," Carol chimed in absent mindedly.
A few nights later I was in Addie's hospital room, I'd taken to sleeping there in the other bed in case she regained consciousness. The nurses frequently pulled the little curtain around my bed if they were working on my wife. Perhaps cleaning lines and catheters seemed cruel or insensitive in front of her husband, perhaps they didn't want to wake me. Anyway, I would wake up and find the curtain pulled. One of these late nights well after the nurses had done their pulling the curtain act a man came in the room. There were male nurses and attendants so that was not unusual. I didn't let on that I was awake, not wanting to scare or intimidate anyone who was just trying to do their job. The guy didn't see me at all. That's part of how I knew this was so genuinely awful.
