Read Online Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found by Rebecca Alexander, Sascha Alper - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rebecca Alexander, Sascha Alper
Ads: Link
home from a very late shift, heard me. He ran across the street to look over the wall behind our house and then raced to me. How my mother heard me I still don’t know, but with the keen sense that only a mother has, she instantly woke up and came into my room. When she didn’t see me she raced frantically through the house, trying to follow my voice, and then ran back to my room in frustration, and this time noticed the gently blowing curtain and the wide-open window. She looked out and saw me splayed across the flagstones. By the time she got to me our neighbor was there, making sure to keep my neck and head still, the ambulance on its way.
When the EMTs and police got there they were sure that I must have jumped or that my mother had pushed me. I wanted to explain, but my voice wasn’t working, and my body was in total shock. But I knew what they must have been thinking. How on earth could someone fall out a window?
I still couldn’t feel anything below my neck, but that would come soon enough, an unimaginable pain, every inch of me burning like it was on fire. I was rushed to the trauma center at Highland Hospital in Oakland, which was generally reserved for gunshot wounds from drive-by shootings. I lay on the gurney, croaking out profuse apologies and attempting to assure anyone who would listen that I was sorry to have caused them so much trouble, that I was really okay. They looked at me as though I was insane, because I was not remotely okay. Every limb on my body was broken in some form: My entire left foot was completely shattered, as were my left hand and wrist; my right hand was broken; and one of my vertebrae was fractured and compressed.Ultimately, the only thing left without a cast would be my right leg and foot.
A nurse came over and introduced herself, explaining that she was clipping off my ring because my body was swelling up so fast. Cody had given it to me, and I was devastated, tears coming for the first time and streaming down my cheeks. I hadn’t yet comprehended what devastating shape I was really in; all I could focus on was that ring, and I was heartbroken.
Is Cody still mad at me?
I wondered, with the idiocy that only a teenage girl could possess.
They transferred me as quickly as they could to Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley, the same hospital where I had been born, where I would spend the next month.
The first operation I would have would be reconstructive surgery on my shattered left foot and hand, but it had to wait at least a week, to give the massive swelling time to go down. Those days passed in a miserable opiate haze, the pain so excruciating that when I came up from it even a little I was instantly given more morphine, and it took weeks to wean me from it. The nurses had given me a clicker so that I could administer my own morphine when I felt I needed more. It looked like something you might see on
Jeopardy!
for contestants to click as soon as they have an answer for Alex Trebek, and I was convinced that it was some kind of psychological prop that they used to keep the patients from screaming at them for more meds, because I would click that button with my thumb over and over again to no avail and have to call them anyway. I guess I was one of the ones in bad enough shape that they always came running when I needed them, which I’m sure was often, as I have been told many times by my mother that the morphine made me behave like a total maniac and rendered me completely incapable of reason or grace.
I was also unable to move in my hospital bed without the help of several nurses. Since I was completely immobile they would come in every few hours to adjust my body so that I wouldn’t get bedsores, which was a nearly impossible job for them. They couldn’t actually pick me up or move my limbs because of the severity of my injuries, so they had various methods of moving me with the use of pillows. Even the tiniest of movements would make me scream in pain, and the catheter that I
When the EMTs and police got there they were sure that I must have jumped or that my mother had pushed me. I wanted to explain, but my voice wasn’t working, and my body was in total shock. But I knew what they must have been thinking. How on earth could someone fall out a window?
I still couldn’t feel anything below my neck, but that would come soon enough, an unimaginable pain, every inch of me burning like it was on fire. I was rushed to the trauma center at Highland Hospital in Oakland, which was generally reserved for gunshot wounds from drive-by shootings. I lay on the gurney, croaking out profuse apologies and attempting to assure anyone who would listen that I was sorry to have caused them so much trouble, that I was really okay. They looked at me as though I was insane, because I was not remotely okay. Every limb on my body was broken in some form: My entire left foot was completely shattered, as were my left hand and wrist; my right hand was broken; and one of my vertebrae was fractured and compressed.Ultimately, the only thing left without a cast would be my right leg and foot.
A nurse came over and introduced herself, explaining that she was clipping off my ring because my body was swelling up so fast. Cody had given it to me, and I was devastated, tears coming for the first time and streaming down my cheeks. I hadn’t yet comprehended what devastating shape I was really in; all I could focus on was that ring, and I was heartbroken.
Is Cody still mad at me?
I wondered, with the idiocy that only a teenage girl could possess.
They transferred me as quickly as they could to Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley, the same hospital where I had been born, where I would spend the next month.
The first operation I would have would be reconstructive surgery on my shattered left foot and hand, but it had to wait at least a week, to give the massive swelling time to go down. Those days passed in a miserable opiate haze, the pain so excruciating that when I came up from it even a little I was instantly given more morphine, and it took weeks to wean me from it. The nurses had given me a clicker so that I could administer my own morphine when I felt I needed more. It looked like something you might see on
Jeopardy!
for contestants to click as soon as they have an answer for Alex Trebek, and I was convinced that it was some kind of psychological prop that they used to keep the patients from screaming at them for more meds, because I would click that button with my thumb over and over again to no avail and have to call them anyway. I guess I was one of the ones in bad enough shape that they always came running when I needed them, which I’m sure was often, as I have been told many times by my mother that the morphine made me behave like a total maniac and rendered me completely incapable of reason or grace.
I was also unable to move in my hospital bed without the help of several nurses. Since I was completely immobile they would come in every few hours to adjust my body so that I wouldn’t get bedsores, which was a nearly impossible job for them. They couldn’t actually pick me up or move my limbs because of the severity of my injuries, so they had various methods of moving me with the use of pillows. Even the tiniest of movements would make me scream in pain, and the catheter that I
Similar Books
