What Happened, part two
0written on 10/1/19 as part of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). It's long - the assignment was to write down every detail: what I saw, what I smelled, what I heard, what happened then, what happened later. Every. God. Damned. Thing. I was instructed to be as detailed as possible. I took a break half way through so that I could hit the mountain bike trails (which turned out to be a massive mistake - more on that later as I recount my time in CPT). This is the second part.
They unloaded me and the ER staff take over. In goes the IV, and they take blood and give me morphine. I feel better, and start joking around - the nurses want to cut my clothes off, but I show them a neat trick with my sports bra. Dean leaves, embarrassed, to answer questions. The paramedics stop back in to check on me. They were nice.
The nurse tells me they are going to take me in for a CT Scan to make sure that I don't have internal bleeding. If I do, then they have to transport me to Cincinnati, because they are not qualified for a trauma surgery. I'm really nervous at that point - I didn't think about soft tissue injuries.
The nurse tells me they are going to take me in for a CT Scan to make sure that I don't have internal bleeding. If I do, then they have to transport me to Cincinnati, because they are not qualified for a trauma surgery. I'm really nervous at that point - I didn't think about soft tissue injuries.
I'm also adamant that Nathan is called. When Dean gets a hold of him, he gets choked up immediately and can't talk after he says, "Nathan, I've got bad news."
So, I have to get Dean to give me that phone, and tell Nathan that I'm fine, but I also start crying, and he's obviously shook, so I tell him to call Lucas. I felt like I had to be the adult and make god damned decisions so he can drive from Lafayette to Crittendon, or Cincinnati, and bail me out of jail. I am just annoyed at myself, although I realize now that certainly was not the case.
So, I have to get Dean to give me that phone, and tell Nathan that I'm fine, but I also start crying, and he's obviously shook, so I tell him to call Lucas. I felt like I had to be the adult and make god damned decisions so he can drive from Lafayette to Crittendon, or Cincinnati, and bail me out of jail. I am just annoyed at myself, although I realize now that certainly was not the case.
The Emergency Room sounds like work - people talking, machines buzzing, and it's kind of calming. A social worker comes in to talk insurance. She confuses Dean and I with the talk about Kentucky Laws - it almost sounds like I am potentially liable for all of this? Now I'm angry - I'm furious. She can't answer my questions.
I am taken to the CT for a contrast study, and the iodine injection makes me have to urinate so badly. For the first time all day, actually. The gantry moves over my head and I'm panicking a little, but I don't understand why. So I just close my eyes and try to focus on quieting my breathing.
I am taken to the CT for a contrast study, and the iodine injection makes me have to urinate so badly. For the first time all day, actually. The gantry moves over my head and I'm panicking a little, but I don't understand why. So I just close my eyes and try to focus on quieting my breathing.
I insist that I need to go to the bathroom right now, but the rad tech is truly nervous about letting me use the toilet, thinking that I can't stand and sit. She won't leave me alone, but I pee anyway. Probably the first time in my whole life I've peed in front of anyone, other than when I was a child.
I am so cold back in the ER Bay. I am redosed and I think I fell asleep... no, wait. At points throughout my work up and while waiting on the doctor, Dean grabs my hands, standing next to the bed. He starts crying. "I thought you were dead. Oh, Molly, I thought you were dead. I'd give anything that it were me instead of you." And it was moments like that, and the paramedics joking with me, that made me make jokes, because it made Dean, and I, and other people, feel better. At one point, he was on the phone with Kay or Curt, and told them that I was apologizing to everyone and making jokes, so he thought perhaps that was a good sign.
But we both knew it wasn't fucking okay.
I am so cold back in the ER Bay. I am redosed and I think I fell asleep... no, wait. At points throughout my work up and while waiting on the doctor, Dean grabs my hands, standing next to the bed. He starts crying. "I thought you were dead. Oh, Molly, I thought you were dead. I'd give anything that it were me instead of you." And it was moments like that, and the paramedics joking with me, that made me make jokes, because it made Dean, and I, and other people, feel better. At one point, he was on the phone with Kay or Curt, and told them that I was apologizing to everyone and making jokes, so he thought perhaps that was a good sign.
But we both knew it wasn't fucking okay.
Because even though the morphine was on board, my middle back felt like a board, and I was so, so tired. And cold. I just wanted to sleep forever.
So, the doctor comes in, right? And he's super casual, "Not a big deal, you go lucky." I'm like, "WTF, dude..." and he continues, "Yeah, not internal damage! Your organs are good. All you have is a 10% compression fracture in your lumbar vertebra."
I felt some relief. And then, a slow onset of horror. I repeated myself, "Wait, what?" And he repeated himself. I said, "Show me, I need to see it, I don't believe you."
And then there was my body - a laid out in black and white and gray. My little IUD chilling in my cervix, just lit was supposed to. Belly fat, spleen. Liver. The doctor scrolls through the axial slices of my body, and then shows me the obvious. It hits me like the lightening strike - the stair step compression in the cranial aspect of my lumbar one and two vertebra. I can see crumbles hanging off of the main vertebral body. I am no longer putting on a brave face, am no longer in denial, nothing is a joke. Now, I just feel empty.
"But... I have bike races in June. When can I bike again?"
He is so flippant. Like this isn't a big deal. Isn't it? "Uhm, not sure, you need to see a specialist to be sure. But I wouldn't count on it."
Not to worry! You don't need surgery! You'll be fine in six weeks!
Yeah, right, six weeks my ass. I feel devastated, because I guess I expected something else. Broken hip? I expected. But my back? I was so, so upset about the bike bike races, but then I realized that I wouldn't be able to do my job. What the hell?
I called Nathan to let him know, and I tried to keep my voice steady. But it wasn't, really. After I get off of the phone with Nathan, I'm crying, and I tell Dean that Nathan and I had been thinking about trying for a baby, but it was always something else, something else, that I needed to do. And if I had just quit trying to do everything, then I never would have been out on that road. Dean said, "No, you'd have been out there. If not here, then somewhere else."
I didn't know if that were true. Now I'm upset and I'm in pain. I am redosed with morphine, and I just fall asleep, drift off, my eyes leaking tears without any effort. I wake up a couple of times, and once, I catch Dean on the hone. He's crying.
"Sandy," he chokes out, "I thought she was dead. I thought she was dead."
I would have given anything. Anything. to not have heard that. To have been on that fucking road. I drift off again.
When I wake up, it's shift change, and my nice nurse is replaced with a bitch. You know? The kind that looks like she's from Ross-tucky, with the inbred pointing nose, pinched eyes. She's young, but has so much makeup on her face. She looks like a real bitch. She is.
I beg for an hour to get Dean some food and water - it has been hours since I was hit, and he's not eaten anything. We rode a hundred miles, for fuck's sake. She finally brings us some food. Dean perks up. I start getting nauseated. But she marches in and says, "Okay, you have to get up and walk, and if you can, then we will discharge you."
I protest, "But my husband isn't even here yet!" She ignores me. Dean looked pissed and protests, but she ignores him, too. She makes him stand on my left, and she on my right. I make some progress down the hallway, but then I am sick to my stomach again. Only I haven't eaten anything, either, so I can't throw up. I just dry heave into a plastic bad. She comes back with discharge papers, and my clothes in a plastic bag. Next thing I know, because I don't remember much, I'm sitting in a wheel chair in a hospital gown, with no bra or underwear on. I'm dry heaving into the plastic bag, and Dean is sleeping on a plastic couch next to me. My phone is dying, and I text the facts to my boss. He texts back, asking if he can tell the team. Of course I say yes, and then they are blowing up my pone with thoughts and prayers.
I feel guilty. I feel numb. I am so cold.
Nathan and Kay arrive. Dean changes clothes and arranges with Kay to get our bikes from the first responder's house - great guy. Nathan helps me change, but I'm pissed off because he brought this bra with an underwire in it and it's so uncomfortable, like pushing my tits up to my chin. I'm already uncomfortable. Whatever. Fuck.
I let everyone make decisions for me at that point. Nathan loads me in Kay's van, and asks the receptionist if they need to give him anything. They just ignore him, and I guess he threw the wheelchair into the wall.
We have to drive back to Crittendon, and then the first responder's house. He helps them load the bikes in the back, and he checks on me. I'm half asleep. Then Kay has to drive to Louisville to get the pickup. Kay and Dean drive me home, and Nathan drives home in the truck. I have to hold my arms on the rests as a brace to try to keep upright because otherwise everything hurts.
I fall asleep and wake up and fall asleep, in this cycle. I'm just glad we are going home, because then I can sleep for fucking ever.
We get back to Laffy after midnight. It is Easter. I sleep until noon and Nathan gets Panera and tells me everything. The dog is with the Lucas. He and Caroline will keep her until I'm ready. My parents and sister are in Savannah, and they know, but they want to talk to me. His parents and sisters know, too. Then the cycling club gets word about it, probably through the Slackers, and that's fine. And obviously work knows.
... I guess, then I have three months of doctor appointments, radiographs, physical therapy and recovery. I bury my grief. I vent my anger, but then I start burying that, too. I bury my fear, but I am so, so scared.
I felt some relief. And then, a slow onset of horror. I repeated myself, "Wait, what?" And he repeated himself. I said, "Show me, I need to see it, I don't believe you."
And then there was my body - a laid out in black and white and gray. My little IUD chilling in my cervix, just lit was supposed to. Belly fat, spleen. Liver. The doctor scrolls through the axial slices of my body, and then shows me the obvious. It hits me like the lightening strike - the stair step compression in the cranial aspect of my lumbar one and two vertebra. I can see crumbles hanging off of the main vertebral body. I am no longer putting on a brave face, am no longer in denial, nothing is a joke. Now, I just feel empty.
"But... I have bike races in June. When can I bike again?"
He is so flippant. Like this isn't a big deal. Isn't it? "Uhm, not sure, you need to see a specialist to be sure. But I wouldn't count on it."
Not to worry! You don't need surgery! You'll be fine in six weeks!
Yeah, right, six weeks my ass. I feel devastated, because I guess I expected something else. Broken hip? I expected. But my back? I was so, so upset about the bike bike races, but then I realized that I wouldn't be able to do my job. What the hell?
I called Nathan to let him know, and I tried to keep my voice steady. But it wasn't, really. After I get off of the phone with Nathan, I'm crying, and I tell Dean that Nathan and I had been thinking about trying for a baby, but it was always something else, something else, that I needed to do. And if I had just quit trying to do everything, then I never would have been out on that road. Dean said, "No, you'd have been out there. If not here, then somewhere else."
I didn't know if that were true. Now I'm upset and I'm in pain. I am redosed with morphine, and I just fall asleep, drift off, my eyes leaking tears without any effort. I wake up a couple of times, and once, I catch Dean on the hone. He's crying.
"Sandy," he chokes out, "I thought she was dead. I thought she was dead."
I would have given anything. Anything. to not have heard that. To have been on that fucking road. I drift off again.
When I wake up, it's shift change, and my nice nurse is replaced with a bitch. You know? The kind that looks like she's from Ross-tucky, with the inbred pointing nose, pinched eyes. She's young, but has so much makeup on her face. She looks like a real bitch. She is.
I beg for an hour to get Dean some food and water - it has been hours since I was hit, and he's not eaten anything. We rode a hundred miles, for fuck's sake. She finally brings us some food. Dean perks up. I start getting nauseated. But she marches in and says, "Okay, you have to get up and walk, and if you can, then we will discharge you."
I protest, "But my husband isn't even here yet!" She ignores me. Dean looked pissed and protests, but she ignores him, too. She makes him stand on my left, and she on my right. I make some progress down the hallway, but then I am sick to my stomach again. Only I haven't eaten anything, either, so I can't throw up. I just dry heave into a plastic bad. She comes back with discharge papers, and my clothes in a plastic bag. Next thing I know, because I don't remember much, I'm sitting in a wheel chair in a hospital gown, with no bra or underwear on. I'm dry heaving into the plastic bag, and Dean is sleeping on a plastic couch next to me. My phone is dying, and I text the facts to my boss. He texts back, asking if he can tell the team. Of course I say yes, and then they are blowing up my pone with thoughts and prayers.
I feel guilty. I feel numb. I am so cold.
Nathan and Kay arrive. Dean changes clothes and arranges with Kay to get our bikes from the first responder's house - great guy. Nathan helps me change, but I'm pissed off because he brought this bra with an underwire in it and it's so uncomfortable, like pushing my tits up to my chin. I'm already uncomfortable. Whatever. Fuck.
I let everyone make decisions for me at that point. Nathan loads me in Kay's van, and asks the receptionist if they need to give him anything. They just ignore him, and I guess he threw the wheelchair into the wall.
We have to drive back to Crittendon, and then the first responder's house. He helps them load the bikes in the back, and he checks on me. I'm half asleep. Then Kay has to drive to Louisville to get the pickup. Kay and Dean drive me home, and Nathan drives home in the truck. I have to hold my arms on the rests as a brace to try to keep upright because otherwise everything hurts.
I fall asleep and wake up and fall asleep, in this cycle. I'm just glad we are going home, because then I can sleep for fucking ever.
We get back to Laffy after midnight. It is Easter. I sleep until noon and Nathan gets Panera and tells me everything. The dog is with the Lucas. He and Caroline will keep her until I'm ready. My parents and sister are in Savannah, and they know, but they want to talk to me. His parents and sisters know, too. Then the cycling club gets word about it, probably through the Slackers, and that's fine. And obviously work knows.
... I guess, then I have three months of doctor appointments, radiographs, physical therapy and recovery. I bury my grief. I vent my anger, but then I start burying that, too. I bury my fear, but I am so, so scared.
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