That afternoon, she was taken down to surgery to repair the injuries on her lower extremities, and six hours later she returned. They successfully repaired her broken femur fairly quickly, but her pelvis was more challenging. It was broken in the front and badly shattered in the rear along with ligament tears and other debris in the joint. Still, our doctor was pleased with how it came together. Tomorrow they plan to do an MRI on her spine, just to make sure there isn’t any other damage they missed. On Wednesday, they’ll do more surgery on her broken arms and right foot. And the Achilles tendon is torn, so they’ll have to reattach that. I know, the list is daunting.
So here we are, seven days after the accident, if you can believe it. This morning feels like a week ago; last Tuesday, months; and our dinner the Saturday before that, out with friends, laughing with what was, in retrospect, not a care in the world…a lifetime ago. For Susan, I hope this week becomes a faint blur. For us, it’s been interminable, and of course so hard to see her this way. So keep the picture in your minds of that smiling, shining Susan. We’ll get her back, but for all of us who know that smile, we also know how hard it is to go one day without it.
Until then, tomorrow morning I’ll begin our “Groundhog Day” the exact same way, telling her that she was in an accident, that the kids are okay, etc., until hopefully very soon, she’ll respond to me by saying, “I know, sweetheart. Do you have to keep reminding me?”
so what the hell happened?
Initially, there were many conflicting theories about how the accident occurred. Anyone seeing images of the scene couldn’t comprehend how a city bus was in the curb lane after smashing head-on into a passenger car. Most assumed that the car had somehow incorrectly turned into oncoming traffic. For some covering the story on the news, it even took them a minute to realize, “Hey, wait a minute. The car isn’t in opposing traffic…the bus is on the wrong side of the street!”
While it would take me over a year to start to get the real picture of what had happened (which is a whole story in itself), the true events are so random and outlandish that if I had invented them from my imagination, I don’t know whether I would have written them into an action script for fear that they would have come off as too far-fetched. Truth really is stranger than fiction.
The short version is this:
Along Hollywood Boulevard, there is a series of side streets that run perpendicular to it. On one of these hilly streets, just north of Sunset, a dump truck driver parked his truck in front of the construction site where he was working. When he got out of his truck, however, he didn’t place a wedge against his wheels, and while he was in the house, the truck started to slide/roll down the street. He ran out just as the driverless truck headed into traffic on Hollywood Boulevard.
As the truck drifted into traffic, a city bus (heading westbound) swerved to avoid the suddenly appearing truck, which then clipped the side of the bus. The bus driver lost control and crossed over the center divider just as Susan and Alyce were headed eastbound. Upon seeing the oncoming bus, Susan managed to turn the wheel just enough so that Alyce was spared the brunt of the impact, but the bus, still out of control, struck them head-on, pushing them back an entire block before coming to a stop in the curb lane on the wrong side of the street.
Perfect—or absolutely imperfect—timing, depending on how you look at it. One second earlier from the truck, and the bus might have been able to stop. One second earlier from the bus, and it might have been able to brake instead of swerve. One second earlier from Susan, and she might have missed the whole thing.
If only.
We can’t go back in time; thus “Why?” and “If only” become futile exercises.
That said, timing really is everything.
day 9: halloween
Trick or treat?
I’d say a bit of both. A great big cruel trick put us where we are; but how many treats have followed. The biggest, that Susan is still with us eight days later. Another is Alyce, able to laugh with her girlfriends, excitedly dress up in costume and put on makeup before venturing out for one of her favorite holidays. And, finally, Michael, who continues to rise to unexpected challenges, facing them like a strong, young man.
As for me…well, I got the largest plastic pumpkin I could find, but it wasn’t big enough to hold all the sweet treats of love and support given to me by others.
Susan’s Halloween was spent going into surgery at around 11:30 this morning. Two surgeons worked on her arms and a third on her foot. Her main orthopedic surgeon oversaw the entire mad-science experiment, ventilators hissing, and computer monitors beeping. Six hours later, when the steam cleared and they stepped back from the table to admire their accomplishments, it was done. Titanium rods now replace bones, metal plates are screwed and bolted, tendons reattached, incisions stitched up. She was finished, and she was magnificent! She’s now back in her room, out like a light, and certainly seeing her returned safely from surgery was another treat for me.
So, thankfully, it was a rather happy Halloween. Michael went as a troll, Alyce as a zombie gymnast. And Susan went as herself, a combination of Superwoman and Wonder Woman—with a new, little bit of Bride of Frankenstein thrown in for good measure.
the unposted: part 1
Not to paint myself as an unreliable narrator, but oftentimes certain details were omitted from these publicly shared updates. Either they didn’t pertain to Susan’s condition, or in some cases, I was protecting a modicum of privacy.
One of the earliest of these unpublished accounts came on Halloween. What my entry of that day didn’t include was actually how very difficult Halloween had been for Alyce. Halloween was her favorite holiday, if you can call it a holiday, and had been a mother/daughter tradition ever since she was a toddler. For months in advance, she’d plan out her costume with Susan. They’d discuss it, then change their minds, then change them again and again, until the actual day, when the decision about a costume and character was finally settled. Then came the actual dressing and makeup, all of it an intimate time for them. They’d talk about what was going on with Alyce’s friends, and Susan would share stories about her childhood friends, early boyfriends, life lessons. For Alyce, Halloween was much more than wearing a costume. It had become a rite of passage, and this year she didn’t have her mom to share it with.
For the entire week, we had been living not knowing whether Susan was going to survive the accident, and though none of us wanted to face what life would be like without her, when it came time to get dressed for trick or treating, Alyce couldn’t help but suddenly feel it in a very real way. I could tell she was upset about something, and when I asked her, she started to lightly cry. It wasn’t until she uttered the words “I miss Mommy” that she erupted in sobs. It wasn’t so much about Susan not being there for Halloween; Alyce was confronted with what life would be like without her. Like some holidays or sounds or smells can be, Halloween was her trigger.
Without her mom on this Halloween, Alyce experienced a different rite of passage, and like many of us do every day, she covered up her pain with makeup and a mask in order to get by.
day 10
As expected, it was a quiet day for Susan in the ICU following yesterday’s surgery. Quiet, that is, except for her very swollen limbs…oh, and the ice bath she needed in order to bring her fever down…and, yeah, the hourly tube that goes down the tube that’s already down her throat to suck out her chest excretions…plus waking every thirty seconds and rolling her shoulders to try to relieve the discomfort. So quiet, in fact, that by the end of the day, I had asked for a second bed to be delivered with my own Propofol drip, leaving instructions to bring me back to consciousness in two weeks when this stage would hopefully be over.
Which brings us to the little pool that I know is going on among you—you know, the one that predicts when I’m going to completely lose it, go right off the edge? For those of you who had money on today and attempted to orchestrate its success, I must confess you did an admirable job—sta
rting with the recorded message I received at 10 p.m. last night from the orthodontist reminding of an appointment Michael had first thing this morning. But that little setback was child’s play.
I do have to commend, though, whoever whispered in Alyce’s ear that it would be a good idea to douse herself in glitter makeup for last night’s trick or treating and then have her run into every room in the house so that I would wake up this morning to my own precious wonderland, dusted with sparkles like a sweet little fairy had puked everywhere. Clever.
But nothing compared to whoever skillfully got me to take my cell phone out of my pocket, turn off the ringer, and then hide it in some totally obscure place in the house—in this case, on the piano bench, forcing me to walk around for fifteen minutes dialing from the home phone and listening intently for a faint buzz. And special points for preying on my sanity by choosing the cell phone, knowing I would be convinced that in those frantic fifteen minutes, the hospital would be trying to reach me. Good stuff, I have to admit, but not quite enough to send me over the edge.
And then there were those of you who attempted a very different but extremely effective tack to get me to lose it: sending just the sweetest, most thoughtful texts and emails to both me and Susan, which one by one immediately caused my eyes to flood. These messages were capped by a delicious meal that was delivered to us by another angel, allowing me the grateful gift of sitting and having dinner with my children like everything was almost the way it used to be, none of us saying that it’s just so very far from that.
Still, through it all, it’s the end of Thursday, and my kids are still here and I’m still here and Susan’s still here.
So there…we win.
day 11: friday
Shabbat shalom.
Peace and rest…in Hebrew, that’s what it means.
As much as I want Susan to have both of those right now, neither is coming particularly easily. All day long she’s fought a fever, tucked not so snugly under an ice blanket to cool her body, while taking a broad-spectrum antibiotic to fight whatever the infection or bacteria might be. One possibility is the IV line she’s had in for a week, so they changed that out for a PICC, which is less likely to be a bacteria breeder. But then her ventilator tube could also be the culprit, or the laceration in her foot, or the pneumonia she’s fighting, or myriad other causes. The team is doing its best to try to narrow it down and attack it with a more specific antibiotic. Hopefully, they’ll have a better idea tomorrow.
Susan still opens her eyes far more frequently than anyone on that amount of sedation should, looking around for a moment, seemingly trying to make sense of where she is and what’s happened to her. I try to tell her to rest and sleep, but no such luck. She continues to jerk her arm into the air, so it’s now held in place by a light restraint and placed in a protective sleeve to prevent her from rebreaking it. And she constantly clenches and gnashes down on the bite guard that’s been put in place so that she doesn’t chomp through her air tube. Peace and rest…hardly.
And that’s why I was conflicted about leaving her hospital bedside to go to a Shabbat dinner with the kids. It had been put on the calendar before the accident, and I know she would want me to be surrounded by friends (largely made by her) and their support and love. Upon arriving, our friend John, seeing my fragile state, said, “Come to papa,” and he took me into his arms where I collapsed in sobs against his chest.
The dinner gave me an opportunity to stop, get a little rest, and try to find some peace. It was a lovely evening, but throughout the night, it was easy to see the distress and confusion on many of our friends’ faces as they, like me, grappled with and tried to understand that big unanswerable question: Why? Why Susan? Why did this have to happen? And as impossible the task of ever finding that answer is, we still try to process it, to somehow make sense of it, and hope that exploration finds us peace.
Although I remain far from convinced that this happened because I was meant to learn something from it, I still am quite aware that I am learning. Looking at Susan’s injuries and the recovery she’s facing, I think about the small steps we’ve already taken, and how slow and difficult those future steps are going to be.
It reminds me of a major peeve Susan has had with me in the past. It’s when we’re out, whether to dinner or the supermarket, and I haven’t waited for her. I’ve walked off, leaving her a few steps behind. “Could you please wait for me?!” she’d complain. And, yes, when she called me on it, I do confess to thinking, My God, could you possibly move any slower?! Now, looking back on those moments, I can see that her complaint wasn’t that she thought I was being rude by not waiting for her; she was hurt. She wanted me to wait for her because she simply wanted to take those steps with me, by my side, her arm linked in mine. Little steps through our life. It didn’t matter where or how fast we got there, as long as we were together.
So, sweetheart, on this day and from this day forward, I am waiting. Go as slowly as you’d like, as slowly as you need, we’ll take those steps, side by side, your arm linked in mine.
And that has brought me a little Shabbat shalom.
the unposted: part 2
I honestly don’t know why people say some of the things they say.
I remember when we were having our first baby, and various people who already had children would impart their infinite wisdom on us neophytes. “Your life is never going to be the same,” they’d say. Given what we were about to embark on, we were surprised when this statement didn’t come from a place of enthusiasm but rather from one of doom, turning this life-changing miracle into a condemnation of something horrible and irrevocable. According to them, our marriage, as we knew it, as well as everything we did together as a couple, was suddenly going to go completely out the window. Perhaps it was a way for them to express their own frustrations or unhappiness, initiating another member into their misery-loves-company club. Whatever the reasons, Susan and I never subscribed to that glass-half-empty line of thought, and from the moments of Michael’s and Alyce’s births, we knew those people had been absolutely correct. Our lives were never the same. They were richer, fuller, and filled with more love than we could imagine.
That’s why it was difficult when, at this stage of Susan’s injuries, some people would say to me, “Oh, your life is never going to be the same.” Granted, I knew I wasn’t facing the same promise and excitement that comes with raising a child, but did I really need to hear things like, “You’re going to need to buy a transport van.” “You’ll need to ramp your entire house and equip it with handicap facilities.” “You’ll need to hire a caregiver.” “How are you going to afford all of this?” And on and on.
It’s not that I was avoiding thoughts of these possibilities; I just didn’t see them as real…yet. Susan hadn’t had her neck surgery, but she was still responsive, so why was she necessarily going to come out of this paralyzed? I don’t credit myself with seeing the situation with a half-glass-full attitude or being intent on visualizing a positive outcome, and I’m sure that my dismissive attitude toward some of these comments was considered ignorant or naive by those who were just trying to prepare me for the reality of my future. I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was only thinking about her surviving. If she could simply live, then we’d see how the rest developed. We’d get to the learning to walk again; we’d see the extent of any brain damage; we’d tackle everything that needed to be tackled.
So yes, from the first sound of the birth of this event, the crunching metal and shattering glass, our lives would never again be the same, but there’s also such a thing as “awfulizing” or assuming the worst possible outcome. And when I think about it, any and every experience in life, large or small, can forever change what’s to come. It’s a delicate pendulum, and I had to hold on to the belief that while it was entirely possible it would tip and land badly, it didn’t necessarily have to.
day 14
I apologize for not being in touch over the past couple of days. I know that i
n these tenuous times, silence can be anxiety provoking. For now, Susan is doing as well as can be hoped. She’s still pretty out of it, and other than an occasional squeeze of my fingers, it’s hard to tell what she’s really aware of. But she’s still fighting. I can see it on her face, battling it out with some sedative-induced demon who has no clue who it has entered the ring with. Seeing her restlessness, the doctors doubled her sedatives in an effort to get her to sleep. Finally, worn out after twelve rounds, she succumbed and is peacefully resting, the demon back in its corner and Susan in hers until another day.
Her temperature was also still high despite the cooling blanket that covered her, so they decided to attack her fever more aggressively. A few hours into the morning, they wheeled in a large piece of equipment and hooked her up—basically what one friend coined “a personal HVAC system,” with hoses hooked to material that encircles her thighs and pumps cool air, reducing her core temperature more effectively. It worked, and now she’s a climate-controlled thirty-seven degrees Celsius. Tylenol left the room shamed.
I look at Susan in her bed, her hand tied to the frame so that she doesn’t whack it, and just as her hand is tied, so are ours. We all want to do something, but there’s so little we can do really, which is maddeningly frustrating. So we stay focused on what we can do: care, hope, pray, talk, laugh, share, love. If we could take all of her pain and divide it up among us, I know each of you would take a small piece. And simply knowing that is doing so much, more than you can ever realize.
The other news of the day included a tracheostomy, which, to my amazement and slight horror, was performed bedside. The decision to do this now was twofold: Susan’s had a breathing tube in for two weeks now, and they really don’t like to leave that in for more than ten days, as it can cause infection. And with her neck surgery tomorrow (for which the anxiety and anticipation is hard to mask), it’s important to have an airway available if she were to go into respiratory failure during the surgery. I had to weigh the permanent scars that will likely cause, but given the options, it seemed like the best choice. So the tube was removed from down her throat, and hopefully now she can breathe a little easier.
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