^damn straight. keep it going ghost. and i am intrigued about everything you have to say
Glad to hear things are going well, man. Hope you keep on gettin’ better.
So I guess I stick out in public. I’m 6’2", I was using a walker (now a cane,) I have a piece of black plastic clipped over one lens of my glasses, and I have a beard that is six months long now. People look at handicapped people, and they are really looking at me. Look…look away. Stare when they think you’re not looking. Maybe the eyepatch contributes. I guess wondering if there is an eye under there makes you stare. I can assure everyone that both of my eyes are just fine, and a patch over glasses doesn’t hide much. Kids commenting to their parents is great. “He looks scary.” “He looks funny.” “He looks like a pirate.” I suppose the huge beard and the eyepatch look more like a Halloween costume. Hilarious. On average it’s the younger kids and the older people that seem to have the best reaction to it. Everyone else seems hung-up on their personal views. I’m sure I was before too. The really young kids haven’t been corrupted yet, and the older people (70s, 80s) learned that it doesn’t matter. Now I just see everyone as who they are. (The glowing spirit in the head/shoulders area…Just ask Don Juan.)
Some people cut in front of me and get in the way. Some people stop and let me go first. It’s very interesting to see different people’s reactions. A couple months ago I was coming out of a movie theater, and a kid (about 10) opened the door for me. He was looking at me…puzzled. He said, “What happened to your eye?” I took off the patch and told him that the eyes are fine, but I have double-vision. He just said, “OK,” and the the puzzled look disappeared from his face. That’s how everyone should be.
I went to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago with my girlfriend a month or so ago. About two weeks later I was at a grocery store with my Dad. (The aquarium and the grocery store are 60 miles apart. The grocery store is in my area…I was just visiting the aquarium.) This guy walks past me and says, “Didn’t I see you at the Shedd Aquarium?” I didn’t remember seeing him, so I asked, “A couple weeks ago?” He said yes. I said, “Yeah, I was there a couple weeks ago. Cool.” It’s weird that he remembers seeing me 60 miles away two weeks before. I guess I do stick out. Maybe he just remembers a hot girl with some handicapped guy…probably his nurse. 
(Really odd for us both to be in two completely different places at the same time as the other.)
hey ghost … i read your posts for the first time now
here’s to the healing power of music and to YOU
Much like the last poster, this is the first time I’ve read any of this thread. Holy crap, this is some good stuff. I mostly amazed at you not remembering any of it for three weeks. I had a friend who was hit by a van while getting his mail and he says he doesn’t remember any of it either though neighbors claim they saw him staggering around on his front lawn. It’s amazing how these things work and I have a feeling that it’s your brain censoring this stuff for your own good.
Your story of rehab is fascinating. It’s great that you don’t appear to have any major paralysis. Keep on keeping on, man.
Stevo
I still have no memories of the initial three weeks after the accident. I woke up at about 7 that morning. I started work at 8. I didn’t fall until about 10:00. The last thing I remember is going to sleep the night before. I think your body/mind puts all energy into a healing type of mode. Storing memories is way down the list. I was awake and reactive for those three weeks, but I just don’t remember. I responded to people talking to me. I could follow directions…squeeze fingers and stuff. I wrote a couple sentences about how much some of the hospital staff sucked. Once the tubes were removed from my throat I talked a little. I don’t remember any of that. I think I was always in my body…memories were just not a priority. I didn’t have any visions of a light or floating above the room or anything. I had dreams that I remember. When I described the dreams to my sister she said that the people in my dreams were just like the various nurses and doctors and people at the hospital. So none of the people entered my memory, but they were in my dreams. I can’t begin to explain how that works. I also dreampt about being tied to the bed, and I actually had restraints on my wrists to keep me from pulling out my tubes. The only vague shadow of a memory I do have is the nurse shaving my face. They needed a smooth surface for parts of the tubes to stick to. I remember pain and the sound of a razor scraping across my face. If I only recall the pain of being shaved through this whole experience, it must have hurt. I don’t like shaving anyway.
i’m taking a class on existentialism this term, and this morning we were talking about some of the common aspects of the philosophy. one of them was that in order to exist, you have to be conscious of your being. its very interesting to think that you dont really exist if you dont think or dont know that you are aware of yourself. just something to think about…
Poor Pablo
That’s three people having basically the same experience (falling headfirst onto a hard surface.) Three different outcomes. Who knows all the contributing factors and etc, etc. Let me tell you, it’s all quite an experience. (Except for Pablo…that’s the end of an experience.) I’m just glad that I didn’t die…and that the president didn’t call me.
I think that praying for someone is not the way to go about it. You should just focus on that person and send good vibes and good thoughts to them. There is no need to direct that to a “god” (to the clouds where he sits on a throne with the Care Bears, to another plane, to another dimension, etc.) If there is a “god”, I don’t think that he/she/it needs some human to alert him/her/it to another human in trouble. It all seems crazy. Just send good thoughts directly to the person. I know lots of people were thinking about me/praying for me. I’d like to think that it helped.
dude, how was your beard affected by this accident? it would be a shame to wreck something so awesome.
The beard started growing after the accident. The nurses shaved me in the hospital a couple times. Once I was “awake” and conscious of what was going on I certainly did not want to shave. I still don’t want to shave.
In other words, if we chose not to be aware of yem, then he won’t exist anymore?
8 months. Coming right along. It gets better everyday. I think it will be a full 2 years before I’m back to normal. Activities like ice skating will be beyond that. I just have to relearn everything.
Here is a cat scan from when I first got to the hospital on September 8th. A ventilator tube down my throat doing all the breathing. Some staples across my scalp from closing the laceration up initially. A creepy picture. Traumatic injury. I was very close to being physically dead. When I first arrived at the hospital they just followed procedure and notified the organ donor department. “Sorry, folks…I still need these organs.”
This is the initial operating room report.
This is the scar on my head now. Most of it is under my hairline.
huh… I always thought beards were catscannable.
anyways good to see you are better.
so hre’s a question. do you siwtch what eye the patch is on? doesnt the eye patch prevent you from recovering your double vision? i had convergence and tracking problems with my eyes for hte longest time. my eyes would split regularly. i went to like 2 years of vision therapy for it and now am kinda better. my eyes still drift eveyr once in a while though.
holy shit…i knew you fell…had no idea of the laceration and jackson-pratt drains and whatnot…
good god, man…i fell off a roof onto my back and i thought that i was injured bad…damn, eli…
just…just…damn.
^^ Famusmockingbird, I do switch the eyepatch. Usually every week or so. I just like to give both eyes a chance to see. Sometimes I don’t wear the eyepatch at all. It’s just confusing. PM me and tell me more about your experiences with eye therapy. My double vision hasn’t changed at all in almost 11 months. Surgery is an option in the future, but I hate to have someone cutting on my eye muscles.
^Yeah, Neck…this was all pretty fucked up. Damn is right.
I hate to be a whiner, but it’s great to have the Oh Kee Pa and this thread to talk about my whole experience. It means a lot to me that I sorta have a place here.
I wore this for about two months after I first “woke up.” It was to support my upper body and keep me from aggravating my fractured vertebrae and slightly cracked sternum. Anytime I wasn’t in bed I was wearing this. Even in the shower. I was so glad to finally be free of it.
My Dad put up another handrail so I could hold on tight going up and down the stairs. I still do need to hold on…at least one hand.
My Dad also put up bars for me to hold onto in the shower.
For about the first seven months I had to shower sitting down. Even now standing on one foot requires leaning against the wall, but the shower seat has been banished to the basement. Yes!
The walkers have also found a new home in the basement. I had one for downstairs and outside and one for upstairs.
I walk around the house without anything, but I use a cane when I go out somewhere. This cane had been hanging on the backporch at my grandparents’ house long before I was ever around. No one can remember where it came from. No one remembers ever using it. It is the perfect height for me. So weird.
What an intense experience. We’re all glad you’re doing better!!
ghost, ive worked for the past three summers at a managed care organization. im basically just an intern. but i get to see all these worker’s comp files about all these people who have had these terrible accidents at work. im just curious, and you certaintly dont have to share it, but did you have to go through the whole workers comp thing??? im just curious, because i have no idea how long that process is or how difficult it might be for someone who actually had to go through it.