Part 2.... Chapter 3.... 2007

A surgeon who took an oath to save lives, walked in to my room unexpectedly today. I finally got to meet the man who saved my bacon. The one who retrieved me from my death. He introduced himself politely, almost in a whisper, then briefly without me really understanding much of what he was saying at the time, explained the mess I was in when admitted to Morriston Hospital on the 16th July 2007.
He finished off by saying, “It was a miracle you survived Amanda. Even more of a miracle that you survived with no brain damage”.
He didn’t really say much more, possibly because my daughter was with me, and he knew she had been through enough already.
 
He had to make the decision to act quickly, and he put me into an induced coma.
There was no family contact information available at that time. So it was all on him and his team collectively. There is such a huge thank you in my heart to all of them for doing what they did. Trusting each other’s knowledge and fast decision making. But in my head right now I don’t thank them. I don’t want to be here. My life, what life…. I don’t know what my life is now apart from fucked and taken away from me without even knowing how…. I don’t fucking know why…. Arrrggghhh!!!.... ;-( 
 
Now I’m going to try my best and get a bit savvy with the medical terms the Consultants are throwing at me, regarding my injuries. So here goes….
 
I had a very serious head injury, called “Diffuse axonal injury”. Meaning a traumatic brain injury from a force that occurs when the head has rapidly accelerated or decelerated. Causing the disruption of neurons and not allowing them to communicate with one another. A high percentage of people with this type of head injury never regain consciousness and those that do have a high chance of permanent brain damage. I was in that category.
 
On my head I had two scalp lacerations. One at the back not far from my ear on the left side, and the other on the top right just off centre. My whole head and face were so swollen it was as round and as big as the moon, my daughter tells me. She said she couldn’t make out if it was me....
It was at this point the Surgeon told her and her Dad that I could possibly have brain damage as the injury and swelling on the brain was causing blood to travel down towards the brainstem that connects to the spinal cord. Sending all the information into mayhem.
 
Trying to write this right now isn’t easy. Tears are falling onto the page while I’m thinking of what my daughter was seeing and going through…. To be told that her mother was in a critical condition and could die, or if she survives could have severe brain damage as well as paralyses. Well, I can’t even begin to imagine how my daughter was feeling and thinking.
 
On the left side of my face my cheekbone was shattered with my eyeball inside the skull, so a “Zygomatic complex ORIF”, was done under general anaesthetic on that side. Which basically means they put my eye back into its socket and rebuilt my cheekbone and eye socket with tiny screws and stainless steel or titanium I can’t remember.
 
The head injury was bad enough, but my spinal cord had been severed in enough places with a lot of fractures. I was paralysed from T10-L1, meaning paralysed and totally fucked from just above the waist all the way to the toes.  The “T” stands for the Thoracic Vertebrae and the “L” stands for the Lumbar Vertebrae. To stabilise the L1 fracture they put in a “Hartshill Rectangle”, which is a stainless steel rod that is attached to the lumbar area of the spine, by stainless steel wires called the ATLAS cable system to help the bones fuse together.
I was in a coma in the ICU for quite some time, needing prolonged ventilation, and to be fed a tracheostomy was preformed to enable weaning….
 
I’m still not feeling 100% ok. I keep trying to mentally feel that my legs are still connected to me, but as much as they are visually, they are not cognitively. Being here in a room and not on the ward is giving me private time. Time to focus, on what I have yet to find out.
 
Outside my window, there is a little enclosed court yard with a bit of grass, a few trees and some scattered bushes. I have a bush outside my window and it’s the home of god knows how many little birds. I think they are Finches, I don’t really know, but every morning at precisely 4.40am they are my alarm call.
I’m stretched out flat on my back, in the same position I was in the night before, and the day before that, and that, and every fucking day and night since I opened my eyes to find myself in this hell. This is not me....

I’m so still and silent with body and mind, inside and out. All I feel are my tears rolling down my face slowly, then they up a gear, running so fast I can’t stop them and I don’t try.
I make no sound with my crying. Tears, they just fall as I watch the birds and feel the sun warming up my face through the window. I have no order in my day, apart from watching the little birds and feeling the morning sun remind me that I am still here. As quickly as the birds have woken up and my tears have poured, it is all over. The birds have left for the day and my tears have dried up before anyone sees me….
My mind is empty, truly empty, very morning when I watch those little buddle’s of energy flapping their wings, darting in and out of the bush, rustling the leaves, chirping, cheeping, singing out to each other their order of the day.
 
I don’t know why or what has brought my attention to these little creatures every morning for the past week and more, but it does feel like an escape before I start my day. An escape from my own fear? Maybe…. The fear of what’s to come….