Love can dig a shallow grave, baby

I knew I had survived where others thought I would be dead. "Strong will to live" and "Couldn't kill you even if they had tried harder" were statements I frequently heard. Whatever the reasons for my miraculous recovery from the coma, the love and friendship that had cocooned me continued during the difficult weeks. You really do find out who your friends are during a crisis. They are the ones that bring food and comfort to your family, offer to take of neglected pets, household chores and yards. They are the ones that stand beside you as you take those first steps on the parallel bars; walking behind as you learn to use the walker and chant with you, "step, step, walker, stomp, stomp!" They let you know they love you with countless cards, letters and flowers. They laugh with you, gently poke fun at you, and make you glad that you're alive.

There is the other kind of friend. The one you thought you knew after 15 years of friendship. In the past, I'd overlooked past acts of shallowness, inventing excuses where none were offered. I told myself he loved me, had always been this way, and that he would be there if I needed him. He disappeared. Not right away and still not completely. He didn't return phone calls for weeks, leaving messages with the explanation that,"he was busy, the stock market was crazy, his dog was acting up or he'd been trying to get the house ready to sell." He would even roll all the excuses together if it had been a particularly long time between phone calls. If I was lucky enough to actually speak to him, he was watching a movie or in a bar trying to pick up some bimbo, "tell her I'm not a bad guy, Jess", promising me he would call me back, and he might, but more often he wouldn't. I loved him as a friend. My girlfriends and I will tell stories about stuff he's done and break out in hysterical laughter, even though we've told the same story over and over again. We've even named a bodily stance after him.

I've cut him out of my life. Holding onto the friendship is a waste of time and energy. It's like trying to breathe life into a relationship that's been dead for a long time but neither person wants to be the one to end it. I don't even think he's noticed.

Let the Freak Show Begin!!

I woke up. Family around me, smiles and tears. I looked around the room and noticed machines, LOTS of machines, and all of them hooked up to me. Bags of fluids in different shapes and sizes, all jockeying for position on the I.V. poles. Heart monitor blipping away, the sound blending with the whirring noise coming from a large machine ( I later find out that's for my dialysis). I can only whisper, my voice a combination of Demi Moore and Regan from The Exorcist. Mom asks me if I want to write and holds a pad for me. I think I'm writing all these questions until I look down to see what I've written. It's all gobblygook - like I've fingerpainted using blue ink. I try calling as many of my friends as I can but no one is able to understand or hear me very well. I find out later that one of my girlfriends had sent an email out to our group of friends telling them I might try calling and that it wasn't some masher breathing heavy into the phone.

Doctors would come into my room. I didn't recognize most of them but I recognized that fake jovial tone. "So, you're finally awake! How are you feeling?" They're not really paying attention, they're busy looking at charts, machine printouts and the plastic bags hanging from my I.V. poles. I whisper at them in my sexyscary voice, "I'm thirsty. When can I go home?" No liquids for me, I can only be "daubed" with this thing that looks like a toothbrush with a sponge on the tip...and only my lips can be daubed, no sucking down the miniscule amount of water in the sponge (yup, I tried!). "We'll talk about going home later." I realized that I was in some weird bed that felt as if it were made of swimming pool floats. I had tubes in my nose, in my hands and coming out of a bag wrapped around my left foot. I couldn't make sense of anything. Everything blended. I asked the same questions, sometimes within minutes of each other.

My sister tells me she knew I was going to be fine when she saw something I did a few days before. Some nurses were in my room talking about how I might need a tracheotomy because the breathing tube needed to be removed. I responded, even from the depths of my coma, with the classic flip-off - using the middle fingers from both of my hands. I woke up two days later.

I remember almost crying when the night nurse let me brush my teeth, as long as I promised not to swallow the water. She had to help me hold the toothbrush because I didn't have the strength to do it myself.

I remember the sticky water. I didn't know what it was and I didn't care because they let me drink it in small amounts. The non-water was thick, sweet and cool. After not being able to drink for four weeks, it felt wonderful sliding down my sore throat.

I don't remember telling my ten year old nephew that he should get me a diet soda because, "the doctor said it was okay". My family tells me I was incredibly sneaky in my attempts to get that soda. My "meals" were pumped into my body and I wanted something to chew. I failed my first swallow test. Chew a cracker and then swallow some applesauce. I thought I could fake my way through the second swallow test, couldn't get that damn applesauce down. The aroma of food sent me into a frenzy. I wanted to know what my family had eaten; if the scent lingered in their clothes or on their breath, I needed to inhale that wonderful smell. When I finally passed the swallow test, I lay in my bed in anticipation of the food cart. Here it was, my first meal after four weeks of liquid food. I was so excited. And then I smelled it - a fishy, earthy scent. My father removed the cover. Creamed cod and peas. I didn't want it - creamed cod and peas. My first meal? Sugar free jello and that damn applesauce.

From two feet to a wheelchair

I missed New Year's 2006. Not by choice, though. I was in the hospital, in a medically induced coma. I was admitted into the hospital for spinal surgery, repair work from an operation I had when I was 13.

I did all the right things prior to surgery. Had all the tests, met with the multitudes of doctors, followed their instructions, took the medications I was told to take. But you can't plan for human error and the landslide that happens from a single mistake...and that's how it all started.

I went in for surgery the morning of December 27, 2005. I woke up on January 19, 2006. The last thing I remember is being taken by gurney towards the surgical room. It was a moment out of any cheesey Lifetime movie. My family looking worried and scared. Me, smiling from the gurney and assuring them all would be fine. I remember being lifted onto the operating table and feeling the cold table, the whole room was cold. A nurse introduced herself and the team. It's sad that I am able to recall that detail, while somehow my memories from December 22nd and on are lost.

While I was in the coma, I dreamt I was a secret agent on a mission in Florida. I remember vivid blue oceans, white sand, and pomegranate juice - a rich, ruby red. I remember that J.T., my brother-in-law, came to save a group of us on the mission. There wasn't enough room for me on the helicopter and as J.T. was lifted away from me on the rope ladder, he shouted that he would be back for me. He didn't come back and I remind him of that every chance I get.

I remember the catheter. Oh how I hated the catheter. I can still hear that voice telling me to relax and not fight, that I was making it more difficult. I remember someone holding me down while the catheter was introduced to my body. A few weeks after I woke up, I told my mother the catheter experience made me feel like the two dollar pony ride at the carnival and that I was the pony everyone wanted to ride.

I don't think I had any spiritual epiphanies. I can recall that the walls of my hospital room (and don't ask me how I knew it was a hospital room) were covered in millions of black spiders, a constantly moving mass of ick. I didn't like spiders and I was surrounded by them. Sometimes the spiders moved in a slow spider hula, sometimes they moved in a spider mosh pit of frenetic energy. Those spiders stayed with me until I moved out of the ICU and onto the 7th floor, where one lone spider would move lazily up and down beside the door of my room. I still don't care for spiders, only now I don't have the immediate urge to pulverize one when it crosses my path. I'd like to think I've become very Zen because of this whole experience but truth be told, it's kinda hard to pound something into the ground when it moves faster then you can move your wheelchair or walker.

So, that's how I ended up in a wheelchair. I spend most of my day in the wheelchair or in bed. I am able to walk a short distance using a walker. I'm lucky that I can stand and move my legs. Somedays it's hard to accept that this happened to me. I went from an independent woman to someone who needs constant assistance. I'll write more about my hospital experience later. For now, thanks for reading!

Jess