Comfortably Numb
Back in the abandoned hospital, trapped on my back.
I try and fail to sit up – again, and again, and again.
I can see and hear an infomercial on an old tv.
The host is laughing, as he introduces the brand-new video collection.
On the screen, trying to get up and failing over and over, is me.
The studio audience laughs and laughs and laughs.
I am on sale like a Snuggie, or a set of Ginsu steak knives.
All I could think about was the shame my boys were going to feel.
“Andrew is sick. Very sick.”
These were the words of the Sunnybrook trauma doctors.
It was true, I was. It was a violent crash at the left-front of my bike, pinning my left leg between the car and the bike and driving the front assembly and gas tank back into my body – essentially dividing me lengthwise. This was later referred to as the ‘wishbone effect’.
And there were a few other injuries…
- Concussion/traumatic brain injury (extent unknown at the time)
- Left femoral artery severed, causing considerable blood loss
- Stroke – during surgery
- Kidney failure – 4 months of dialysis
- Spleen rupture and removal
- Loss of sight in one eye
- Nerve damage – loss of use, feeling, temperature sensation, drop foot, etc.
- Approximately 45 fractures:
- Hips shattered
- Pelvis shattered
- Multiple ribs
- Multiple vertebrae
- Left leg and foot crushed
- Right leg fractures
- Both arms – 14 fractures in hands, wrists, forearms
- Left elbow – now titanium
- Both shoulders dislocated – right reconstructed
- And of course, the various knock-on mental health effects – seriously? trauma induced narcolepsy?…
And nothing on that list was their chief concern.
My shattered left leg had ‘turned’, sepsis was ravaging my body and without intervention would cause irreparable damage if not death. There are three stages – sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock. According to my records, I rounded all three bases and was headed for home – I was already on constant dialysis due to kidney failure. ‘Andrew is sick’ indeed.
There was a choice to be made and Lesley would have to make it.
I have met a few people who had their leg ‘saved’. For some, this was successful. Others felt the leg never worked right again, despite the best efforts of gifted surgeons and tireless physiotherapists. A few described their ongoing pain as ‘unmanageable’ and ‘life altering’, suggesting they may have been better off not saving it.
Leg or Life.
That was it, simple as that. Lesley maintains that she didn’t really have a choice, but she still had to make it. She still had to approve a procedure that would change the rest of my life. She signed off, and they amputated my leg about 9 inches above the knee.
This is the third reason I am alive.
She let them take my leg, and I am forever grateful to her for making that decision, for everything.
And it worked. I remained in a coma, but I was stable. The doctors and nurses in ICU encouraged family and friends to talk to me, all working from the same script:
- You have been in an accident a catastrophe.
- Everyone else is ok.
- You are badly hurt.
- You lost your leg, but you are going to live.
August 19th, I woke up. It had been 21 days. 3 weeks. A very long nap. The script was effective, there was no great shock when I realized my left leg was gone – as though I knew before I knew.
There were concerns all along about my head injury – how damaged was I? The nurses started asking me coma scale questions – what is your name? where are you? what day is it? I knew I was in Sunnybrook. I knew I was in a collision and had lost my leg. I knew what day it was, and I knew who I was.
I just didn’t know who anyone else was.
The transition from comatose to awake is not like it’s depicted in tv or movies. No switch is pulled, no light comes on. Yes, you wake up, but the reality in which you have been living in your dream state leaks into your waking state, or at least that is how it played out for me. I was still convinced that I was being held against my will, and that only I knew what was really going on – everyone else was oblivious – or in on it…
There was a soundtrack playing over the intercom system, obviously used for mind control. There was a pattern, it was like I was hearing the matrix – a bang, a scuff on the floor in the hall, some murmuring, then a circulation fan would grunt to life – that was where the loop was. I could hear it, why didn’t anyone else?
I recognized doctors and nurses by their uniform, or by what they said when they spoke, but aside from that I knew no one. There were visitors, they acted familiar, too familiar. They made jokes that would only be appropriate if we were friends – and we were not. I asked them to help me escape, and when they wouldn’t I grew frustrated, and angry. I even threatened to get out of bed and start kicking ass – what a sight that would have been…
There was also a woman. She was there a lot and she talked to me a lot. Actually, she just talked a lot – period – and I loved it. She was friendly, close, affectionate – I’d get butterflies in my stomach when she turned her attention to me. Though I hadn’t a clue who she was, Lesley has never been more spectacular.
Nevertheless, I was being held against my will. I’d seen The Great Escape enough times to understand what my duty was.
I was The Cooler King.
I was confident in my plan.
I was already gone, in the wind.
I just needed to wait until ‘lights out’…
To be continued.
Submitted by Andrew Lawlor
Andrew Lawlor is a motorcycle crash survivor. Since July, 2018 he has drawn on the love and support of his family and his community, working to repair body, mind and soul. Andrew knows everyone’s journey is unique, and hopes that fellow survivors might find a new perspective, or encouragement in the stories he tells. The Crash Support Network is thrilled to announce a collaboration with Andrew as he shares his journey through ongoing contributions to our Crash Survivor Blog.
