1 - A waking nightmare

"Miracles do exist"

You may think that a conflicting title for a blog. Whether your conflict is theologically religious or for some other personal reason, I would not presume to guess but for me, I can only speak from my experience. I must say from the beginning that I am not a religious man, my allegiences are very passive, but I have been able to survive a most horrific situation and I would hope that through my narration on my story over many chapter posts that some people experiencing the same as I have would be able to connect with it, draw from it and learn from it. Therefore, I would like to share my story with you, for whoever is interested to listen.

It had started off as an ordinary day.

"I got in my car as usual.."

After the long hour and half drive to work, a drive I used to take day in and day out, there and back, I carried on with my daily activities and prepared for the following days activities. Little did I know, that that evening, this day was going to be so drastically different from all the others that had preceeded it.

The day drew to a close, I got in my car as usual for the steady hour and a half return home.

I never made it.

What was left of my car

At this moment I had little idea of the passage of time. A complete total blackness had enveloped me; without time, without substance, without feeling. There are many stories out there about talking to your relative because they may be able to hear you, or, "I saw a blinding white light and a tunnel and felt I had to walk toward it". That never happened to me. I could neither hear, nor see any ethereal interaction. Coma is like suspended animation, no interaction, no sounds, no dreams. Conciousness becomes dreamlike as the coma receeds but there is little else. My apologies to some that hope that beyond concioussness is a glittery shower of calm, a safe and warm environment that you wouldn't want to return from, and it might be different for others but for me, only from my experience, coma was nothing like the movies.

My next memory was like a distorted dream, a barely lucid vision of a distant relative I hadn't seen in almost a year through in a haze of a pain numbed, drug induced, blur and helpless anxiety and delerium that clouded my thoughts and screamed into my very soul.

I remember at this moment I blacked out again. I had no idea where I was, why I was here and what had placed me into this total nightmare. To make matters even more worse, I was unable to move or speak. Oh, I could blink and move my tongue, but the rest of my body was as unable to move as a rock in a field. The cause of my lack of any kind of vocal sound was due to the invasive tracheotomy. During some moments of incoherent consciousness, this was made all the more disturbing when I could hear that my breathing descended into difficulty with fluid on my lungs that required evacuation by a tube being inserted into my tracheotomy wound and the fluid being 'evacuated' to a laboured cough.

"..imagine the horror you would find yourself in.."

Try to imagine the horror you would find yourself in if you were suddenly unable to move or speak, that your concious being was plagued with inexplicable pain that you had no comprehension of. Imagine the panic that would consume your thoughts when faced with the enormous mental and physical stress of a situation such as this, waking up inexplicably after a month and a half, that is suddenly rendered upon you.

As my waking concioussness began to resolve into a more continuous, memorable progression, my beautiful beloved wife, whom had been at my bedside since the beginning of this terrible ordeal, began to try to communicate with me. Due to my lack of speech, she managed to innovate in this department and produce a 'letter board' for me. The idea being that she would point to a letter in turn and for me to make a visual affirmation of the chosen letter via blinking or a deep breath. 

"Critical Care was my location"

It was at this time, I managed to mentally discern my location as a hospital environment. Not being able to raise my head, the electric bed back was raised up slightly and I was able to take in my surroundings. Critical Care was my location. Intelligence gained from my wife, and the Professor that was overseeing my care, told me that I had been in a severe, near fatal, car accident.

What I heard next would shock me; the overall list of my subsequent injuries.