This is a repost from a couple years ago when I first joined this forum. I'll warn you it's really REALLY long, but in a nutshell aside from reading a book this is everything there is to know about me up until 1996. I plan to hopefully continue this all the way up until current times. Enjoy.
Hello, nice to meet you. My name as of now is Brian. I was born October 2, 1988 in Heidelberg Germany, second son to my parents. My brother is 2 years 2 days older than I. I lived in many places in my young life due to the military and dad bouncing from job to job trying to support his family. I grew up young, full of energy and unknowing of what was to take place when I got older. I lived care free and die hard, always trying to out do my brother even at a young age. I wanted to be everything that he was a more. He was my roll model. He didn't know, but I gave him everything I had till one fateful day when I turned 6. I don't remember this event very well or even at all. Me telling you this is pretty much my minds attempt to fill in the blanks. I honestly don't know whats real and what is fiction during this time. My mother would tell you that I'm completely clueless as to what happened.
I was told over and over again not to ride up a hill that was next to our house and come speeding down like raging demons on drugs and launch ourselves off a ramp we made at the intersection. The hill was steep and very long, which meant for dare devils as myself, AWESOME!! We used to ride up the hill to the keyhole dead end at the top where some friends lived and we would take the literally 2 minute faster that light ride to the bottom without pressing the breaks once. We would then ramp off the natural made ramp at the end of the street and fly high as the birds in the sky before crashing down upon our faces with smiles bigger and brighter than the sun. Oh yeh, I used to stare at the sun like an idiot.
Well, one way or another, we would go up and down the hill without mother knowing but she'd find out when we came into the house all muddy and our bikes all in shambles. She would scold us and we wouldn't listen to a word of it. We would nod our heads and look at each other and then laugh. We had it good in those days. Dad's job gave us expensive remote control cars, roller blades, bikes, street hockey, football, and any other sport or activity we do outside. I didn't know at the time there was something called TV because we never owned one and honestly at the time even if we did, I wouldn't watch it. The outside world was my domain. We were the happiest kids when we went outside and ran around till we fell over, short of breath.
We did this same routine for a while if not a couple years until the one day I'll never remember or forget.
Mom was more worried than usual of us going up and down the hill due to recent influx of traffic in and out of our area. We, obviously not caring, would give her the nod and then up the hill we'd go. I had a blue bike and my brother had a red bike. My favorite color at the time was blue. We went up the hill and came racing down with our heads on fire, screaming like banshees the whole way down. We would stop at the intersection because we saw a car crossing and didn't want to get hit. We would then reset and go back up the hill. This last time going up the hill seemed more blood pumping than usual. Who knows what was going through my mind, but whatever it was, I didn't listen to it in the least.
I went to the top of the hill and this time got a pedaling head start on my brother. I wanted to make this the best run of my life, but it ended up being my last. I came down the hill, eyes squinted shut due to the wind hitting my face. I had a giant smile on my face and enjoyed the new speed I had achieved. Unbeknownst to be my brother behind me saw something I didn't. There was a red truck sitting at the stop sign and he was in my blind spot due to a large hedge that sat next to the stop sign. He was telling me to stop, but not yelling it out to me. He apparently thought I was psychic and I would hear his thoughts begging me to slow down. Well, I didn't slow one bit and didn't see him till he started to pull out from the stop sign.
The first thought in my mind was uh oh, not good. I tried to stop my bike and assumed I had enough time to stop. I could hear my tire squealing behind me as I came skidding down the hill at a high rate of speed. I didn't realize this at the time, but I wasn't slowing down. I heard a sudden higher pitched squeal and then a loud pop as my back tire exploded and my chain broke off my bike. After this I don't remember what happened at all. My brother said it was a meeting in the middle of the intersection and when the truck connected with me, I spiraled across the intersection like a football. He said I flew at least 20 feet before hitting the ground in a sprawl.
I asked if anything happened right as he hit me. He said before I was thrown, my head bounced off the hood of the truck and I was out like a light after that hit. I hit the ground head first and bounced like a ball, the truck screeching to a halt next to my body. My head came up and made contact with the license plate forehead first. I was still out like a burnt out light, but came to about 15 minutes later. I came to with an unfamiliar person looking down at me yelling something at me. I didn't know what was going on at the time, but apparently something not good. I couldn't feel anything at the time accept a serious headache and a burning sensation from the waist down. I came to my senses slightly and tried to get up. That would not happen. Nope not today.
I didn't know or realize till later, but my left heel was touching the back of my head, blood flowed from both ears, my nose, mouth, and my right eye. I had broken my left leg, my nose, and popped both ears from the sudden impact with the truck, ground, and his fender. What happens next was a shock to me. Something I didn't ever think was possible happened...
I felt weird all over. I felt like I dropped out of the sky and hit the ground...oh wait I just did. I looked around, still not really knowing what just happened to me. I still hadn't noticed my own left heel touching my head yet. I looked up to a man staring me in the face asking if I was alright. I didn't know how to answer the question so I stayed quiet. I kept looking around for my bike and my brother who by now had just reached the bottom of the hill, jumping off his bike yelling for mom to call 911. Dad came outside freaking out and mom stood in the doorway with the phone calm as a cucumber.
I started to gain my senses and looked down at the ground in front of me. I saw the large puddle of blood that was draining slowly into the sewer drain which was also in front of me. I felt a bit dizzy and lay back on the ground, my breath slowly getting softer and softer. I started to feel things I hadn't felt and some I had. I felt thirsty and asked for a cup of water, which my brother ran inside and quickly got. As he came running to my side, he slowly handed the cup to me and I slowly brought it up to my lips before a sudden gust took the cup out of my hands and into the grass behind me. I realized the gust was my moms hand hitting the cup out of my hands. Obviously I had no idea why she did that and I cried instantly. I had no idea what was going on at this point, but another feeling started to fill me up. The sudden urge to sleep came over me like clouds forming an overcast sky. Little did I know, falling asleep was not good.
My eyes slowly shut and my breath got evermore softer till it stopped. I hadn't realized anything accept I was apparently dreaming. The reality was that I had just stopped breathing and my heart slowly came to a halt and I lay motionless, lifeless on the ground laying in a giant pool of my own blood. I had the nicest dream, I guess, but I don't remember. I only remember coming to with the loud sound of sirens in my ears and people standing over me, at first with dismayed looks, but then big smiles emerged on their faces as my vision became more clear. I could hear voices all around and more sirens pulling near me. I was surprised at the number of people around me. It was kinda cool I guess, but I was still at this point clueless as to why they were here, but that reality would hit me soon enough.
I was still on my back and I felt a hand on the back of my head slowly lifting me up and I felt for the first time, pain. It wasn't a pain I was familiar with. It was more of a burning pain like someone had lit my inside on fire. I looked to my left to see them pulling my leg slowly back to where it should be. I watched wide eyed as I saw how big my leg was. I looked quickly over to my other leg and compared the sizes and saw my left leg was almost three times the size. I looked around and asked a lady standing next to me, putting all sorts of things on my chest, what was going on. She told me with a soft voice I had been hit by a truck and my left leg was broken. I looked back at my leg which was now somewhat straight and asked what was going to happen to me. The only response I got was, "Take a deep breath and breath out slowly. This may hurt a bit." I did as instructed and suddenly felt the worst pain ever surge through my body. I couldn't scream or breath at that point. All I could do was lay back and take it.
The pain causing action was them pulling my leg straight and aligning the bones before splinting my leg. Once they were done I felt my breath return to me. I looked back at the lady who smiled and told me I was a brave boy for not crying. Before they splinted my leg she pulled out a pair of scissors and began to cut my shirt and shorts off. I watched in horror as my favorite outfit had been cut to pieces. I saw the little patches she had put on my chest and saw there were cords of some kind coming out of each and were attached to a machine. I looked at the machine and saw a line sudden jump up every second or so. I was amazed by this machine and the lady saw my reaction to it. She said that line jumping up and down was my heart beating. The machine was used to bring me out of my sleep. I was told later that I wasn't actually sleeping. I had in fact died where I lay and was dead for almost thirty minutes. That machine brought me back to life.
The people around me including the lady splinted my leg and rolled me on my side before sliding a cold wooden board under me and rolled me onto it. I tried not to move around and they slowly took straps and strapped me to the board and then lifted me onto a stretcher. They placed a blanket over me to keep me warm and started sticking me with needles in each arm. Each needle had a tube attached to it and I tried to see what each tube went to. I couldn't see very well, but once again the nice lady next to me told me what was going on in a way that I could understand. The clear liquid on my left was for me feeling thirsty and the red liquid on my right was to replace the red stuff I lost all over the street. I asked if I was going to fall asleep again and she smiled and said no I would be fine, but they would put me in another kind of sleep till we got to the hospital to help with my recovery from the shock I was apparently feeling. That was the reason I never cried.
Before I was put into the ambulance they tried to put a neck brace on me, but none would fit. I was a medium size and they only had large and small. They decided to tape my head down to keep me from moving around too much. They placed a pad on each side of my head and used good ole duct tape to fasten me down and then I felt them lift me up and place me into the ambulance. They attached a couple more little sticking things with cords on them to my body and I heard the machine with my heart beat start to ping. I felt one more sharp prick in my right arm and saw them injecting me with something light bluish. I looked at the lady and she whispered into my ear to start counting from ten to zero. I did as she requested and before I knew it I was asleep once again.
I don't know how long I was actually asleep for, but I remember waking up and seeing a large glass interior of a building. I was guessing it was the hospital I was taken to. I looked around with only my eyes as my head was still taped to the stretcher. I could hear the wheels squeaking and peoples feet hitting the floor. I heard voices and a couple gasps here and there, but didn't know what they were for. I hadn't seen my clothes or my body in general. I looked like I had been attacked by a shark and the shark obviously won. I was covered from head to toe in blood. The blanket they used to cover me was soaked in it. I could see electric double doors opening and shutting as I was wheeled through the hallways. I was brought into a dark room with no one but me and a couple people in it. They turned the lights on and I squinted from the sudden brightness. As my vision came back I saw the weirdest looking man in my face.
"Hello son, my name is Dr. Dewey (Yes that's his actual name)
I just looked at him for a bit before closing my eyes. He snapped his fingers in my face and I opened my eyes again and he advised me not to sleep just yet. There were some thing that I needed to do. He took the blanket off and the others started to unstrap me from the back board. I could feel them lift me up and place me on a warm bed and they started to unplug the wires from the machine from the ambulance and plugged them into machines of the same type in the room I was in. Nurses came into the room with towels and more blankets and started to clean my body off and replace the pads on my chest with new ones. They kinda hurt coming off from the stickiness, but I didn't mind too much. What I wanted more in the world was the tape off my head. I hadn't noticed yet, but under the tape was a nice surprise on my forehead.
"Alright son, we are going to take this tape off. When I count to three I'm going to rip it off. Alright? Ready? One....Two...."and I felt the tape suddenly ripped off my face. I couldn't react since he took me off guard and I just looked at him. I was slightly agitated with him at this point. It wasn't very nice of him to trick me, but at least I didn't have to wait for three to come around. He looked at the tape and laughed a bit and showed it to me. I saw a lot of my hair on it and it didn't occur to me that he had just pulled out a good amount of my hairline. He looked at my head and I could feel his fingers running over my forehead and he looked puzzled. He looked at me and then laughed a bit. "What did you hit or what hit you." I looked at him and tried to give him the I don't know motion, but I couldn't. I was still too weak from the loss of blood and I was actually pretty dehydrated also.
He took out a Polaroid camera off the shelf and took a picture of my face and waited for the shot to come out. After about a minute he showed me and there were, imprinted upon my head, two letters and a number from the mans license plate. I, for the first time the whole day, manged to let out a laugh. The Dr smiled and when I was cleaned up, they took me into another room where my parents and more Drs were waiting. They took the splint off my left leg and began to slightly squeeze and press in different places. After a little bit I heard them tell my parents that I had broken my leg in two places. I had literally snapped my femur, the strongest bone in the body, into three distinct pieces. I didn't know what that really meant for me at the time, but it sounded interesting. The Dr came back and they began to pressure wrap my leg.
I could feel the intense pressure from the wrap being applied and once they were done, they placed my leg into traction via a two point sling and an intern fastened the contraption into place. Once that was said and done, I noticed pain started to flush throughout my body and I began to gasp and moan. The Drs rushed in and noticed that I had no been placed on any pain killers and immediately placed me on a morphine drip. After about five minutes of feeling like someone lit my whole body on fire, the pain subsided and I started to feel hungry. I asked for food and it was as if my parents knew I'd be hungry. They had already went out and bought KFC, chocolate chip cookies, soda, and candy. I was about to take a cookie when Dr Dewey said I couldn't eat just yet. I began to cry again and he said I would be able to eat in about an hour. I looked up and he smiled big and promised.
I lay on the bed with my parents and a couple Drs in the room for a while before I was moved into an elevator and we rose up a couple floors and I was wheeled into a mechanical looking room. There was a lot of metal around and no fabric at all. There was a machine that hung over a metal table. I looked around and then looked at it, wondering what it was used for. I was rolled to the side of the metal bed and was lifted from my comfortable warm bed to this cold metal surface. I was told that this machine was going to look into my leg and see exactly what kind of breaks I had in my bone. Depending on the breaks and their placement I would either have immediate surgery or I'd be fine for a day or two and I'd be able to eat. I passed out on the table and when I came to I was in a nice room with a big window. I looked up at the wall and there was a giant TV and there was a baseball game on.
I looked about the room and I was the only person in the room. I had my own room. I still felt hungry and right as I was about to call for my parents, they walked in with fresh food and said I could eat as much as I wanted. The Drs said I was ok to eat and I did just that. I ate until I couldn't eat anymore and I was smiling as if nothing had happened. A couple hours passed and Dr Dewey came into the room and showed my parents some strange looking black and white pictures. I saw some white objects on the film and they were cracked and broken. I asked what it was and they said that's what the inside of my leg looked like. I was really surprised and asked if that was right or not. They shook their heads and said it needs to be fixed. I was scheduled for surgery to fix the breaks the next day.
"You'll be normal in no time. Count on it." I smiled and shook my head before falling asleep once again.
I don't really know what time it was, but I woke up the night before my date with the Dr and noticed something was off, VERY off. I felt the same pain course through my body as when they straightened my leg.....same as when they wrapped it when I first got to the hospital...Something is VERY wrong. It was dark in the room and I noticed my dad was sleeping in one of the chairs next to my bed and I tried to wake him, but nothing came out of my mouth. I couldn't breath, let alone scream. I remembered right before I went to sleep the nurse told me that there was a button I could push if I needed help. She also told me that there was another button to push to force more morphine into the tube, thus forcing more into my body. I pressed that button like my life depended on it and saw that every time I pushed it a drop would go down the tube. I pressed it over and over again, watching the medication enter my body, but the pain didn't go away like it normally did. I didn't know what to do. I finally got up enough of a breath to scream out and I woke my dad up. I was so much pain I thought my leg was being ripped apart. I had no idea what was going on.
My dad jumped up from the chair and ran to my side asking me what was wrong. I felt like someone was forcing my mouth shut. I couldn't talk. My teeth were clamped together from the pain. All I could muster was a couple cries here and there while pressing the morphine drip button. It clicked then to press the nurse's button and I saw the light turn on. I felt safe after that, but after about 5 minutes no one came. I didn't think it would take this long for a nurse to come, but a thought came across that it was the middle of the night. I started to freak out and managed now to scream out that something was wrong with my leg. I screamed for hours and hours, my dad running up and down the hallways looking for a Dr or someone to come help me. It felt like an eternity passed before someone finally came running into the room after my dad. By this time almost 5 hours had passed and I was now giving into the pain, my body slowly going number from the shock, I started to see black as my eyes rolled into the back of my head.
I felt a smack on my left cheek as the Dr yelled to stay awake. I tried my best, but I had nothing left. I didn't even have the strength to push the morphine button. I just felt like this was it and I fell out of consciousness. I came too not very long after I had passed out to still feel the excruciating pain searing up and down my leg into the rest of my body. I looked around and there were more Drs and nurses around me telling me I would be ok and that there was a minor issue with my traction. I managed to prop myself up just enough to see that my leg was fully bent at the knee in a ninety degree angle. That was not supposed to happen. My leg should be straight right now. The intern who had done my traction hadn't fastened it correctly and cause my leg to slowly bend over time. This mistake could have cost me my leg and actually almost did later on.
"Hey son, you're alright now. Nothing to be worried about. Dr Dewey fixed you right up."
I saw my still frantic dad yelling at the Drs for the time it took them to respond to my cries for help and they apologized over and over again. Something had happened with another patient and there were also surgeries going on so the floor I was on was very short staffed. I was about to go back to sleep when the sudden urge to throw up consumed me and I began to vomit all over myself. I felt light headed and couldn't stop my body from doing this. The nurses next to me started to prop me up and put a pan under me to catch the vomit and hailed the Dr to come back. He rushed into the room and placed his hand on my head and I was as hot as a stove. I was sweating profusely and I had absolutely no strength left. They had to hold me upright so that I wouldn't fall back and run the risk of choking on my own vomit. I don't really remember what happened during that time, but I came to and I was told that the amount of morphine I had pumped into my body had made me sick. I was quite close to overdosing.
I didn't over dose, but I did become addicted unfortunately. As they tried their best to make my father happy, they had someone watch over me night and day. My surgery was moved to a week away due to my body having to flush out the medications and my heart rate and blood pressure had to fall back into normal levels. A couple days passed and I felt like I was invincible. No other issues arose and It was the day of my surgery. It was a nice morning and everyone was in my room ready to take me to surgery. Dr Dewey advised my parents of how the surgery was going to happen. They then told me that everything would fly by and before I knew it the surgery would be over. I shook my head and they placed a mask on me and told me to count down from ten slowly. I think I got to two before I fell asleep.
I woke up about two hours later and a nurse was looking over me. My parents weren't in the room and I felt something wrapped around my leg. The nurse saw me trying to look and raised the bed up into a sitting position so I could see what was going on. I saw that my leg was in a full cast and saw four metal rods and a big metal rod sticking out of my leg. I started to panic, but the nurse told me it was alright. This was my surgery that they had performed. She placed up another black and white picture looking thing on a light board and showed me what they did. I saw the picture where the insides of my leg were broken. I then saw this new picture of my insides being fixed. I saw the breaks were fixed and being held in place by these metal rods. I asked what the big one holding all four were for and she said its to keep pressure on the break to force my bones back together and keep them there. I didn't fully understand what she meant by that, but I'd find out soon enough.
A week had passed since my surgery in the hospital to repair my broken left leg. I had watched them day after day, every couple of hours, tending to the open wounds that I could see through the unwrapped part of my cast. There was an open space where I could actually see into my own leg through the holes made by the large metal screws. I always wondered what they were putting on the wounds to keep it from hurting. I only saw them wrap the screws in gauze that was covered in a dark brown, weird smelling, liquid. They would wrap it around the wounds and then measure the big bar that was attached to the smaller screws. I still hadn't really figured out what was going on until I decided to ask again, accept this time more clearly. The nurse told me that the bar was hydraulic and it was forcing the pins together closer and closer. The bones were being forcefully fused back together. I asked if the screws and everything would be taken out once I got better and she shook her head. I found myself somewhat pleased with the answer and closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
I woke up later that night feeling a bit woozy and the pain from a couple days ago was starting to sear through my body once again. I knew what the pain was from, but the wooziness was unfamiliar. I pressed the call button and a nurse came into the room and I told her how I felt. She left the room and came back with another Dr who looked at a file that was at the foot of my bed and he said I was about to go through withdrawal. I had no idea what that was, but he spelled it out for me in terms that I could understand. From the couple days that I had been taking morphine like it was water, my body had gotten addicted to it quite easily. The symptoms I was feeling was my body telling me it wanted more. I pressed the button next to me a couple times, but only saw one drop come down the line. I pressed it a couple more times and nothing happened. I looked at the Dr and he told me they had put a limit on how much I could use. No matter how many times I pressed the button only three extra drops would come down the tube.
I got scared and shook my head in dismay, looking over to my right at my sleeping father and tried to wake him up to convince the Dr to give me more. I didn't care about whatever he said about the addiction. I just wanted the pain to go away now. I didn't want to feel that pain anymore. My dad woke up and talked to the Dr and he left and came back with a tray that had a shot on it. He told me this shot would make me feel better. I shook my head fervently, wanting this new shot that would get rid of the pain I felt. He lifted up my arm and took the tube that was attached to the morphine and injected it straight into the line via an opening in the side of the tube. He told me to lay back, relax, close my eyes, and think about a dream I wanted to have. I did just that, anticipating this new feeling of no pain. I guess after this I fell asleep, I don't really know. I just woke up the next morning as if nothing had happened, but the feeling like I was going to vomit my lungs out was still there.
I pressed the call button once again. The nurse came in normally, but shot over to my side once she looked at my face. I hadn't noticed, but I was pale and sweating. I felt like I had been put in a freezer and begged her to turn up the heat. She said the heat was on, but I had a fever that was rising. I asked what was going to happen and she just kept reassuring me that everything would be OK and there was nothing to be afraid of. I believed her and tried my best to lay back and relax. I lay in my bed with her by my side for what seemed like an eternity before the feeling I hated took over. I launched myself up as fast as I could, placing both hands over my mouth. She got a pan from under the bed and placed it under my chin. I tried to hold it in, but she advised against it and told me to just try and relax and let it come. I began to cry as it came up and out of me. I felt like someone was trying to rip my back out from the sudden heaves. This went on for I think around 3 hours. By that time I didn't have anything else to vomit out. I passed out soon after.
I woke up again a couple hours later, feeling sick and tired. I looked at the window and noticed it was night time. I didn't even know what day it was. I had lost track of time completely. I only knew if it was day or night. I looked about the room and dad was still here and the nurse was also still here. She was checking my temperature, which was still high. She checked my blood pressure and heart rate. My heart rate was irregular, but my blood pressure was within the norms. I tried to focus on the TY which was on, but I couldn't. Everything was a blur. I told the nurse I couldn't see and she said I would be fine. I just needed to get some fluids in me and my sight would return. I asked if anything else was going to happen to me and she didn't answer. I assumed that by her reaction something else would happen, but I tried my best to cope and just not think about it. I closed my eyes, but this time I wouldn't wake up for a while.
The next time I woke up, it was already what looked to be mid afternoon. Dad was up and walking around and mom was here now. I asked dad what day it was and he told me that I had been put under for almost a week to let my body clear out the morphine. I noticed, when he said that, I wasn't feeling sick anymore. I was really happy. I told him I was hungry and he said food was on its way. I smiled and lay back down and turned on the TV and watched some cartoons for a bit before I heard footsteps into the room. I looked over and saw Dr Dewey standing in the doorway with a small carton of some sort in his hand. I got up slowly and looked a bit closer and saw that he had something nice and cold in his hand. He smiled and walked over, giving me the carton and whispered in my ear to keep it a secret from mom and dad. Desert before food was always a plus in my book. I opened the top and saw a mix of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. I dug into the coldness and realized it was ice cream that I was eating. The cool feel and the flavors on my tongue made me forget about everything that had happened in the past probably two weeks.
I don't really know how much there was, but I do know that was probably the first brain freeze I ever had. When I finished, Dr Dewey took the empty carton and dipped out of the room just in time because my parents walked in right after he left. I looked to see what was in their hands and I saw the best greasy food known to man, PIZZA!! It wasn't just any pizza either. It was Pizza Hut pizza. I had my own pan pizza sitting on my lap covered in every kind of meat you could imagine. I smiled really big, opened the box, took a piece and bit into it. I felt like I was in heaven and apparently my face showed it. My dad and mom both started to giggle at the faces I made as I ate. I felt like I hadn't had anything so good in my life. I ate it down like it was my last meal and told them both thank you. I didn't stop smiling for the better part of the day. Later, Dr Dewey came back and said he had a surprise for me. Since I was such a brave boy he was going to let me do something that most patients didn't get to do.
Some nurses came into the room with a wheel chair, lifted me from the bed into the chair and wheeled me down the hall to an elevator. We go into the elevator and I noticed we were going down. We went down a couple floors and then the elevator stopped. He pushed me out between the doors and I was pushed down a couple of hallways before ending up at an office. He told me this was his and he had something from home he wanted to show me. He wheeled me inside and I saw another TV and something sitting next to it. He rolled me over to it and let me look at it. I had never seen something like this and I asked what it was. He asked me if I had ever seen or played video games and I looked at him stupid. I hadn't a clue what a video game was. He turned on the TV and then turned on the little box next to the TV and I saw Spider Man pop up in the screen. I got excited since I had never seen anything like this before. He played it a little and let me watch, before giving me the controller and taught me how to play. Once I got the hang of it he left for a bit and came back with more ice cream and he let me play and eat as much as I wanted from then on.
-- Skipping ahead a bit --
After about a month in the hospital it was time to take my leave of the hospital. Throughout numerous family visits, friends, distant relatives, it seemed like everything was going to be perfectly fine, or so I thought at least. I was released from the hospital and sent home. I had a special wheel chair made for me to sleep in since I could not yet lay in my own bed. They had to take my old bed out and place a special one in the room. The reasoning behind this was to keep me from rolling over. They didn't want to run the chance of me rolling over and something happening to the bone sitting or me bending the screws. I think I slept in my special chair for about a week. I didn't mind honestly, it was padded and could recline all the way back and the headrest was a built in pillow. It was really cool if you ask me. The only major issue I had was....uh how the hell do I use the bathroom. It dawned on me that I was always getting help when in the hospital, but now that I'm home, what now. That was shortly answered as apparently there was a nice new contraption installed in the bathroom so I could shower and use the bathroom. I felt like everything was for me, which it was. I felt like nothing could go wrong with the rest of my time in the cast, but I was sorely wrong once again. It took some time to get used to rolling around our non wheel chair friendly house. Eventually I could only go into the kitchen, living room, or my room. The doorway had been forcefully widened to accommodate my chair and it was slightly annoying. Whenever we went places and I was in my chair we went out the side door and I had to be taken up and down stairs.
Well my chair had some other nice gadgets. To make going up and down stairs easy there were rollers on the back that would let me lean back and the handles had breaks on them. I guess they wanted to make sure I wouldn't try and run or something. Who knows for sure. Getting in and out of cars was a chore with a small backseat and I had to sit sideways. They had to drive slow and not hit any major bumps or it would feel like a jack hammer attacking my leg. I hated being out of the hospital after only being out for maybe a month. I couldn't take a shower like I wished and had to have sponge baths. Eventually I couldn't even get up to use the bathroom so they had to have help come from the hospital. I felt like a giant child again and I couldn't do anything for myself. I just wanted this all to end soon, very very soon. The sooner it ended the better off I would feel because I could then do things for myself and not have people looking after me almost twenty-four hours a day. They even had someone in my room with me while I slept on my new bed to keep me from rolling over. Did it stop me from rolling over? Not at all. I rather enjoyed the new found searing sensation that ran through my leg when I rolled over into the screws. I didn't realize it, but I was turning slowly into a masochist. I enjoyed inflicting pain on myself. It helped get my mind off the itching from under the bast too which I promptly solved later by using small nails. I would tap them through the cast and swirl them around to get at the itch that I could not otherwise reach.
As a couple more weeks went by things started to settle into a routine, where I pretty much didn't do anything myself accept sleep and eat. I couldn't dress myself, wash myself, go to the bathroom by myself or much else. I pretty much gave into the reality that right now I was completely helpless. It sucked royally, but then it got worse. It was time to start my weekly Dr visits for blood work, X rays, ct scans and other weird tests. They wanted to make sure I wasn't losing too much of the muscle in my legs from not being used much. They kept doing blood work and running tests to make sure I wouldn't develop a blood clot of any kind and a whole bunch of other weird crap that I didn't understand. I pretty much stopped caring after the first couple weeks of being poked, prodded, sucked dry from having vile after vile of blood taken from me. At one point things got so crazy that I got sick from being in bed so much due to the immobile state I was in. They had to cut the cast off because I was developing blisters under the cast from the nails that I had used to scratch the itches I had. Everything was, once again, going wrong in all the right ways. The only good event to come out of this was the fact that my second cast I got to choose the color instead of the stark white one that they gave me. I think I remember choosing silver cause it was the first color to catch my eye when they started to show me what kinds they had. After that as more weeks past and I got smaller and smaller I had a red cast, blue, orange, black, and I think yellow.
After a couple of months of the same thing over and over again it was finally time for the big surgery. It was time to take out the screws. I couldn't wait to get them out and originally they were going to take them out just like they put them in. They, no joke, used a power drill to get the screws into my leg. They were going to use the same method to get them out, or so I thought. From me rolling over in my sleep all the time I had unfortunately bent three out of the four screws and that meant there was going to be no surgery or at least no surgery without pain. Because they didn't know what kind of damage I may have done to my leg or the bone, they decided the only way was to take out the screws one at a time by hand. This meant that I was going to be wide away the whole time, no pain killers. You think a spinal tap hurts, screw that crap. I'd take one of those any day. The Dr in charge pulled out a hand crack and fastened it to the first screw. Another nurse used a spray bottle with soap and water and sprayed the area before he started to turn the crank. They had a Dr on each limb and my chest to make sure I didn't move around too much during the operation. My mother put her hands over my eyes so I couldn't see what was about to take place, but I already knew. I wasn't totally stupid. The Dr counted to three before he gave the crank its first turn. The pain was worse than anything I had felt previously. I wouldn't be able to describe this pain. All I can tell you is that the only sound I could make was a hissing sound like a pissed off cat.
With every turn I felt like I was going to die. I wished that my leg would just fall off already. Why did I have to go through more pain. This wasn't fair at all. He twisted and twisted the crank. He went slow and steady as to not make any sudden turns that may force me into a seizure like movement. I felt like it was going to take forever and this time I was right. It was an agonizing full hour just to get one of the screws out. When he had finally unscrewed the first and pulled it through the skin, I could actually feel the blood shooting out of the hole onto the floor. For some odd reason it felt nice and relaxing. I felt a little cold after a while. It was due to the blood loss. They placed a plaster patch over the hole after they had stopped the bleeding and put me on a blood transfusion to make sure I stayed conscious throughout the procedure. Hour after hour went by as each screw was taken out one at a time. It hurt so much that going numb I don't think was even possible. I felt every twist, every gut wrenching twist. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I wanted to cry, but I forgot how. All I could do was breath quickly and hiss over and over again, letting out a slight moan before they had finally taken the last screw out. The Dr showed them to my parents and then showed them to me and I saw why it took to long even for a hand crank. I had bent those screws really good from rolling over all the time at night. To a degree I still didn't care. I just wanted to go home and get out of this place.
After they had stopped the bleeding from all four holes, they placed more plaster patches over the holes to seal them up and finally gave me something for the pain. It wasn't morphine unfortunately. It was something else, but just as strong if not stronger. I lay on the table, still breathing heavily and the Dr grabbed my leg and lifted it up in the air. I hadn't a clue what he was doing and he suddenly bent my leg. Instinctively I screamed out, but it actually didn't hurt at all. I was really surprised, but that changed soon after he did that. My knee started to get stiff and my leg tensed up and the muscles started to spasm and the pain returned ten fold. They gave me more medication and told me that everything was good to go with my leg and knee. Everything seemed to heal up nice. I asked if I would be able to walk out of the hospital, but they said no. I would have to learn how to walk again. I had such bad muscle-dystrophy that I wouldn't even be able to stand up on my own. I sighed and started to feel like I wasn't going to get better, but that changed when the bright colors of plaster came out and he asked me what color I wanted my last cast to be. I asked if I could do two colors and they said I could do whatever I wanted. I looked at the selection they had and decided that I would have a green cast with purple stripes. That seemed to me the best decision I had made in a long time. It felt right and after they were done it was awesome.
