I hate hospitals. I really don't have a problem with them in general. But when you live in a hospital waiting room for as long as I did, you are first oblivious of them; then comfortable with them; then familiar with them; then very familiar (like second home familiar), then you just move on to plain hate them. A variety of people come and go from them. Where we resided, you would usually see people for a short time. Our family was there far longer. We had many, many visitors. Because we were there for so long, the generosity of our visitors was overwhelming. They brought pop, food, blankets, reading material, puzzles, games, cards, etc. They were things to help while away the day.
And it was the longest day. Through the night it was the original surgery to repair the brain and depressed skull fracture, then through the day it was repair the thoracic aorta, broken pelvis and femoral head fracture, tibia fracture, smashed and fractured knee and ankle and assorted broken ribs. A tracheostomy was performed; a gastric feeding tube and IVC filter was also inserted. Actually it was over several days that all these surgeries took place. But for me it blurred into one very long day. We were in that waiting room day and night. We moved from chair to couch, sometimes changing sections of the room. We even rearranged furniture. We ate, talked, slept and wept and even got silly at times. We all gathered and endured; my kids, family, extended family and friends. We all did what we needed to do to pass the time and keep our sanity.
Several weeks passed and my husband was still in a coma. He was repaired (just short of being the bionic man) but he just couldn't wake up. He truly suffered and we all tried to bear the brunt of it for him, although we could not. My family and I waited for the pressure in his brain to go down, he spiked a fever, he had several blood clots, pneumonia and was a mess. But for those of you who like spoilers, I’ll cut to the chase, he survived! He still had not regained consciousness, but he was alive. One morning the rehab unit’s doctor appeared. He felt that there was hope for him to eventually be moved to the rehabilitation unit, but first he needed some additional time to heal and be able to breathe on his own. So they would move him to another unit in the hospital to give him this time and once this was accomplished, we would then help him regain his life.
You see, it is not like in the movies. Welcome to reality! People just don’t suffer a horrendous accident and then poof, instantly wake up and off they go, back home to the suburbs. It is a long, long process. You fix all the body parts and then you have to make them work again. But you don’t know if they will work again until the main frame reboots. And you don’t know if that is happening until the person wakes up. It’s a viscous circle. We all did our best to try to wake him and one day it happened, sort of. I always describe it as “eyes open but nobody home.” Good enough for the doctors though, so they moved him out of SICU to the respiratory unit, where he endured a new form of recuperation. We all got to experience a new waiting room.
It was all very different on this unit. Visitors were very limited. A person who has suffered a traumatic brain injury like my husband could not tolerate over stimulation. I always was there from early morning until late at night. I encouraged my kids to try to get back to their lives, school and a sense of normalcy. I do not know how they did it, but they are extraordinary kids. Perhaps someday they might want to share their stories.
But now that everyone was gone, a realization of how alone I was set in. The support group that surrounded me previously had dwindled. It was now just immediate family and even they had to resume their normal lives. Here in this hospital remained this poor man who had no clue where he was, why he was there, he couldn’t talk, walk or function and by golly I was not going to let him down. I had taken a leave from work to remain as near him as possible. But I still needed to take care of our household. I just had to do it alone. This is when I discovered the usefulness of the computer. From this moment on, I learned to depend on it for just about everything, (short of making dinner). Hospitals did not have WiFi at this time which did not matter because I did not own a laptop. But I searched down every available computer in that hospital, from the pediatric unit to the doctor’s lounge. If my husband slept, I slipped off with my briefcase in tow to take care of paying bills. The cafeteria staff was so used to seeing me by this time that I suddenly started receiving an employee discount. I settled into this new routine and surprisingly discovered that I was becoming a much different person. I was making every necessary decision alone. I had to and I had to think about what was going to happen next once my husband was able to be moved to the rehab unit. The once aforementioned “we” would never be again and that it was just going to have to be “me”.
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