Once her lungs are stronger, we’ll then reassess the neck surgery. Until then, she is scheduled to have more surgery tomorrow morning in order to begin repairing the rest of her injuries, but given today’s situation, I’m not sure that will be happening.
Here’s the full scope of her injuries:
From the impact, she had a traumatic brain injury, which resulted in some bleeding in her brain. That has been monitored and does not appear to have worsened. We’re hoping that it won’t affect any of her neurological functions, but it’s too early to tell for sure. However, she does respond to commands, was very vocal when she entered the trauma room (as you can imagine knowing Susan), can squeeze my hand, open her eyes briefly, etc.
As mentioned above, she broke the C2 vertebra of her neck. She has a broken scapula, which will heal on its own, her upper right arm is broken, and both forearms are broken. She has a crushed pelvis (which initially was the life-threatening injury because that ruptured blood vessels), a dislocated leg from the hip injury, a broken thigh, a broken foot, a severed Achilles tendon, and a deep laceration on her ankle.
On a more positive and significant note, she did not sustain any internal injuries, and her vitals are strong. Her beautiful face was also not damaged other than some minor burns and lacerations. All in all, miraculous, considering the impact. So there it is, and as always, your concern and love is so appreciated. But, as I’ve been told, and as I’m sure you can gather, this is going to be a very long haul—kind of like a triple marathon without the benefit of advance training.
Susan and I are so grateful to have such a strong support group. Her doctors have been amazing, and so, with continued luck and a lot of hard work, we’ll get there.
With much love,
Doug
p.s. Here is a photo of Susan in her halo.
and what a village we had
From those first hours in the emergency room to the days that followed, the outpouring of love and support was phenomenal. The meal train that had been set up, asking friends to provide dinners for the next two months, filled up within minutes. A small core group continued to gather in the hospital waiting area to support me and to be there for Susan. Even though no one was allowed in her room, they still wanted to be there to send love and strength to her. I was still taking Michael to his bus in the morning before heading off to the hospital for the day. Another friend, who was a single, very hardworking mother with a child of her own, got up early and went miles out of her way to take Alyce to school, while another friend gave her a ride home. Yet another drove Susan’s mother to the hospital every morning a few hours after I got there. (She had arrived that first night and spent most of her days bedside in Susan’s room, watching over her little girl.) My sister had also flown in, from Boston, for much-needed moral support and to be with the kids at night, along with Susan’s mother. And then there were the emails, the texts, the cards, the endless prayers…without having to utter a word, so many people were there for us.
Susan has never had a shortage of friends. She loves to engage people wherever she goes—on vacation, in our children’s playgroups, the couple at the table next to us at a restaurant. Wherever we go, she gathers friends and has carried them through our lives. She jokes that “she makes the friends and I keep them,” but I know that without her, my life would be far emptier. And while our “village” hails from many corners, a large part comes from our temple community.
How did we come to be part of this amazing community? If you had asked me prior to this whole event, I would have attributed it largely to something we just fell into, but again, are there really any accidents?
I was raised Jew…ish, the ellipses there to indicate my “proximity” to the religion. As a child, I went to Hebrew school and Sunday school, passed through the teen ritual of a bar mitzvah, and went to High Holy Day services with my family, but after heading off to college, I hadn’t had much ongoing connection with that part of my life. As a kid, I absolutely loathed Hebrew school and Sunday school. In fact, a few years ago I was looking through some childhood memorabilia with the kids and came across my old Hebrew school report cards. They were embarrassingly awful, full of Fs, with comments detailing how I didn’t apply myself or even bother showing up sometimes. Somehow the school knew that on occasion, after being dropped off for the day, my brother and I would walk in so that our mother saw us entering, but then, as soon as she drove off, turn right back around, leave, and spend the entire class time walking around town before reentering the building just in time for pickup. Yes, I was a terrific Jewish role model.
That was pretty much the extent of my Jewish identity—mainly a series of religious obligations rather than gleaning anything spiritually rewarding from the experiences. In addition, there wasn’t a whole lot of pressure from my parents to keep up any sort of practice of Judaism or to procreate within the religion. In high school and college I never dated Jewish girls; I was mostly attracted to the features of pretty WASPs and Catholics. I grew up in a fairly affluent suburb of Boston and attended private schools, so that’s what I knew.
Then I met Susan, my first-ever Jewish girlfriend and the girl I would marry. And I confess, having that commonality was a nice perk. Because her parents were still alive and more connected to temple life, so was Susan. Not that her Hebrew and Sunday school experiences were so reverent. She spent most of those years making out in the coat closet, letting pimply prepubescent “nice Jewish boys” feel up her large-for-her-age boobs.
So, given our collective religious backgrounds, it was a little surprising that when it came to the accident, a big part of our supportive village was from the temple we belong to.
When we moved to Los Angeles, we weren’t really looking to become members of a temple. (Neither of us had belonged to one when we lived in New York.) We were looking for a nursery school for Michael, who was two at the time. For the previous six months, he had been going to a Montessori school on Saturdays, and we figured he would continue on there for nursery school. When we found out, much to our dismay, that there wasn’t room for him, we panicked. This was a crisis of biblical proportions. If you listened to some of the more hysterical parents, if our son didn’t get into a good nursery school, he wouldn’t be getting into a good college. After some research, we called up the nursery school at Temple Israel of Hollywood (TIOH), which also happened to be right around the corner from where we lived. We had heard really good things about the school and asked if they had any space available. Fortunately they did, and we breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Meanwhile, never in a million years would I have thought I’d be sending my kids to a Jewish day school. It’s not like I had anything against it, but because religion had played such a small role in my adult life, I just hadn’t considered having a strong Jewish influence in my kids’ lives, especially at school. Susan was more supportive of the idea and remarked that I wouldn’t even notice it. It was a nursery school, after all. How different could it be? And for the most part, it had a lot in common with a secular education…except for the occasional children’s songs that would be rewritten to commemorate a Jewish holiday, like the Passover example (sung to the tune of “Old MacDonald”): “Miriam and Moses had a Seder plate, eey eye eey eye oh. And on that Seder plate they had a…shank bone! Eey eye eey eye oh.”
Following nursery school, the kids entered the temple’s day school, where the Jewish influence was more prevalent. Many of their classes had projects that involved the Old Testament or various Jewish holiday customs and traditions, and they also began learning Hebrew in kindergarten. And while I loved the idea of them studying a foreign language as early as kindergarten, I couldn’t help wishing it was one that was a little more practical than Hebrew.
Despite all of this, I did value that the kids were getting a Jewish education and identity, and if we didn’t do it here, then where? Send them to Hebrew school and Sunday school? Based on my experiences as a kid, I didn’t know if I’d be able to do that. Most impo
rtantly, TIOH was a really sweet school with a great group of kids and parents—even though it was a little short on diversity, as expected, the most diverse kids being ones who had one parent who wasn’t Jewish. Oooh. Not exactly a melting pot.
All in all, though, I don’t regret it for a second. The kids got a great education in a wonderfully nurturing environment, and Susan and I became friends with many truly special people, who remain our dearest friends to this day. In retrospect, how lucky it was that the Montessori school didn’t have space for us, and that the temple was in such close proximity to our house and had room for Michael. How fortunate we are that we “accidentally” became part of this community on which we would so heavily rely.
Things that at the time might seem like crises or aggravations can often reveal themselves later as blessings. But that perspective, unfortunately, comes only from the vantage point of looking at the events through a rearview mirror. Oftentimes, when it’s happening and you’re right there in it, the only thing you can see is the hell.
day 4
As much as we can try to anticipate and plan for the day ahead, sometimes life has other ideas.
That is certainly true when looking at the larger scale of events, like the day of the accident, which was supposed to go a whole lot differently than it did. But it can also be true for the smaller day-today moments of life. Turn the corner and an unexpected obstacle can disrupt the best-laid plans.
I’m currently feeling it on both levels, attempting to navigate an intricate route through a sea of chaos.
Once again, Susan was scheduled for surgery this morning to address some of her broken bones, but once again the team decided to postpone that surgery. The change of plan is indicative of the roller-coaster ride we’re all on. We steel and prepare ourselves for events that don’t come to pass and instead find that we have to deal with whatever today decides is on the menu in its place.
The decision was based strictly on precaution. Because of yesterday’s respiratory problems, the team felt that having a couple of more days for her lungs to strengthen would be more beneficial than detrimental. I don’t know that come Monday her condition will have improved so much more that the surgery will be possible exactly the way they would like, but the odds are better, and that’s the gambling table we’re playing at right now. As I’m quickly learning, it’s best not to anticipate, but rather live in the moment to moment to moment.
Michael and Alyce are wonderful. Michael, while caring deeply about what is going on with his mom, also has a curiosity about what is going on medically with her. Maybe this is just his way of being able to process and deal with it, emotionally detaching somewhat like a doctor does.
Alyce, like her mom, tells it exactly like it is. Simple and straightforward. “I hate this.”
Amen to that.
day 5
Today’s miracles…
Susan squeezed my hand when I told her I loved her. I watched Alyce play in her soccer game.
That’s enough.
day 6
There was an old Warner Bros. cartoon about an incredible singing frog that was found by a magician. However, whenever the magician wanted the frog to perform for others so they could marvel at this unbelievable talent, the frog would simply sit there and ribbit. Then, of course, as soon as the crowd turned away, disbelieving and mocking the magician, the frog would come to life again, “Hello, my baby, hello, my honey, hello my ragtime gal….”
Today, Susan has been that frog. Between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. every day, the nurses reduce Susan’s pain medication so that the neuro team can do an assessment of her cognitive and extremity functions. So, naturally, when I’m in there, she’s moving about, squeezing my hand, kicking her legs. And then the neuro team arrives to do the assessment, and I’m praying she’ll show her stuff and get through the test quickly so that they can please increase her meds again! And what does Susan do? Ribbit.
I can’t imagine the amount of focus it must take to hear anything through the pain and actually follow a command, and Susan is generally not defiant. With the extent of her injuries, I wouldn’t want to move my toes either. I’d want to just lie there and hope that all these people making me confront my pain would please go away. But they won’t. Not until I wiggle my damn toes.
And when she doesn’t wiggle them for the doctors, I have to remind myself that this is not indicative of a bigger problem. It doesn’t mean anything. Nothing means anything until I’m told it does.
Speculation leads to fear; expectation leads to disappointment.
Here’s what I do know. She is moving, her eyes open but don’t necessarily see, and whether she understands what’s happened to her or not, I’m not sure. But I do believe she hears. A doctor friend of ours told me that she probably doesn’t remember how or why she’s here, so I keep telling her, over and over again. “You’ve been in an accident. You’re in the hospital. The kids are all fine. I’m going to take care of you. You’re going to get well. And you are surrounded by so much love.”
Hopefully, she hears that…and tomorrow she’ll wiggle those poor swollen toes.
finding our footing
Less than a week into this whole thing, I could already feel a shift in how I was approaching the updates. I was having a hard time confining them to simply keeping people informed about Susan’s condition. There was so much else going on—specifically how it all affected my thoughts and outlook on life. Susan was fighting for her life. Me? I was trying to understand how and why we were suddenly engaged in that fight, and much of this struggle was constantly swirling around in my head.
Life at home had settled into a semblance of routine, albeit for me it was a bit of a balancing act. I generally camped out in the hospital all day, returned home for dinner, and once the kids were in bed for the night, I’d head back to the hospital. The kids were still unable to visit Susan in the hospital because of the age restrictions in the ICU building, but the truth was, they didn’t need to, nor particularly want to, see their mother in the condition she was in.
Thanks to the meal train that had been set up, we had more food than we could deal with, even with Susan’s mom and my sister staying with us. After a week, my sister returned home and my mother joined Susan’s mom to help with the kids. Michael and Alyce continued to go to school uninterrupted, with friends and their respective schedules welcome distractions. In fact, the day of the accident, Alyce told me she still wanted to go to school the following day. I had warned her that she might wake up sore and need to stay home, but to my amazement she didn’t, although she did insist on taking an alternate route to avoid being driven by the scene. I think she was also receiving a bit of celebrity attention from the accident because friends had seen images of the destroyed car and heard how she got out of the car and had the presence of mind to call me, which was amazing. If that excitement allowed her distraction from what was going on at the hospital and Susan’s tenuous condition, I was happy to let her have it. I knew it would wear off quickly, and the reality of the situation would soon set in. After a day in that spotlight, it did.
Michael, on the other hand, was pretty reserved that first week, quieter than usual. I actually think that maybe he felt a little left out, a bit on the outside. After all, Susan, Alyce, and I were all receiving a lot of attention for various reasons, and he was quietly going about his business. Whenever I checked in with him, he said he was fine, so I didn’t push it. Most importantly, he seemed to be able to focus on what he needed to.
In contrast to me.
The accident was all-consuming for me. While at the hospital, when I sat down to try to do work, I just couldn’t focus. The only thing I found that I could write were the updates, and this was quickly becoming an indispensable cathartic release—and, most importantly, a way for me to connect and receive love and support from those who were on this journey with us.
Essentially, they kept me from being alone.
day 7
Where we last left off in our Super
-Heroine serial was, “Did she wiggle her toes?” And the answer is…oh, yes. Not only did she wiggle those toes, she was flailing that right leg around, rolling her shoulders and trying to lift her body. I think instinctively she was trying to get up and get the hell out of there.
But the other big news was that when she looked at me this morning, for the first time I think she really saw me, was able to focus so much more than before. She immediately clenched her right hand around my fingers and squeezed. I again told her she’d been in a car accident, and this time her eyes went wide, a combination of alarm and realization. I told her that the kids were fine, and a sense of some calm came over her. I also told her that it wasn’t her fault, and for those of you who are familiar with Susan’s driving skills, you’ll understand that that news also came as comfort and relief. I told her that she couldn’t move her head because they were protecting her neck, but that she could still move her arms and legs, and that it was going to take some time, but she was going to get better. She just had to hang in there, fight, and let her body heal itself.
I asked her to squeeze my hand if she understood, and she did. And then I let her go back to sleep because she more than earned it. I stayed for a while longer, letting her hold my hand and sleep, which she often does when we had the privilege of doing so in our bed.
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