I am sorry it has taken a while to write about the last few weeks, but I am struggling with what to write. It is hard when you just don't remember anything and have no answers to what happened. So my thought is that I will put down what I remember in parts and see if I can piece something together at the end. So please bear with me.
Saturday evening August 5th at 11:45pm or so, I was found in a pool of blood on one of the local side streets in our small town. I was transported to a local trauma center where it was determined that I had three fractured vertebra and a cracked skull. To add to it the right side of my face was smashed and most of the right side of my body was covered in road rash.
The first thing I remember is that I was unable to breathe and was being held down. People were trying to communicate with me, but I don’t remember what was being said there were just too many people talking. Finally, all the “talking” stopped and one voice said that they were going to remove the breathing tube. I followed that voice and the tube was removed and I could breathe again. That was after 4pm the following day.
I spent the next day or so in ICU and then was transferred to my own room where I spent the rest of my time. In total I was in the hospital eight days. My right left eye socket has some damage to it, but the doctors feel it will heal. The right side of my face and right eye socket needed to be rebuilt. I have had two surgeries on that side five titanium plates put in. I will still need at least one more surgery on that side of my face, if not two. Right now I can see out of that eye, but it does not line up with my left eye so I see double of everything.
I am now at home, slowly recovering, but still left wondering what happened. I am also back to where I was when I came home from the hospital after having my stomach removed. I am on a soft diet and have been loosing weight. Before the accident my weight had stabilized to around 189-190 pounds. This morning I weighed 173 pounds. The lowest I have ever weighed, even with the strictures, is 169 pounds.
I have some important appointments coming up on September 14th.
First is with the neurology team to talk about my back. I am in a neck brace that restricts my head and neck movements. I have to wear it 24/7, even in the shower. There is talk about me having to have this on for three months. I am hoping that timeline changes on the 14th.
The second is with the plastic surgeon. They are using a 3D printer to reconstruct my right eye socket. Once done they will look at creating a custom plate that will help hold my right eye in place and fix the double vision. Both of these need to go my way in order to get back to some sort of "normal" life.
There is one thing I have learned over this little life event that kind of concerns me. With all of the little (and not so little) medical wonder trips I have taken you would think that there would be a complete record of it somewhere. I mean when I showed up in the ICU they should have been able to punch my name and birthdate into a computer and get my whole medical life story. The good, the bad and the ugly. They should have been able to read about everything I have been through, but they can't. The only thing they have access to is what has been done in that hospital's system and since I was unconscious and my wife wasn't there yet, it was all that they had to go on and that scares me.
My wife and I spent so much time telling people that I could not have this medicine or that medicine. Spending time explaining why I had my stomach removed and my limitations around that. I had to explain to doctors that I had a CDH1 genetic mutation and what it was and what it could cause.
I get data ownership. I worked long enough in the data industry to understand wanting to keep control of the data you collect. However, this is my medical history and when I showed up in the emergency room there should be a way for them to have all of this information at their fingertips. They shouldn't have had to wait for my wife and I to fill them in.
I suspect I died in some cosmic shipwreck
With all hands spread all over the deck
What the heck
Then some kind of obscene and unscrupulous mind
Began to pick up what he could find
Added ice, shook me twice, rolled the dice
(School Boy Heart Jimmy Buffett)
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