Awakening In the Deepend Ch 2

Chapter 2
My little hospital visit

From what I’m told for the next six weeks, I was between a coma and drug induced trance in the intensive care unit at Bay-Front Medical Center. After I was transferred to the chopper on the night of the accident November 26, 2005 until January 1, 2006 I only have vague, strange hallucinogenic memories. One of which my wife was standing there teary eyed as a woman whom I believe was a nurse kept asking me “Mr. Main, Do you know where you are? Mr. Main you were in a terrible car accident. Move your finger if you can hear me” She then told my wife: “I don’t think he is going to make it and if he does I don’t know what he’ll be like mentally”. The memory of the despondent look on my dear wife’s face will be with me for life. I remember screaming out that I was ok. Apparently I didn’t make a sound because they didn’t hear me. I heard my wife moan and watched her helplessly as she walked away.

Due to a crushed airway the doctors say I flat lined at least 6 or 7 times over the course of the next 30 days and was revived by the skilled staff at Bay-front Medical Center ICU. By the grace of God I am here to share a small part of my life with you.

I have since spoken with several doctors involved with my care and I have come to realize the scope of my injuries. The doctors told me that my body tried very hard to die on them. The fact is; my face was ripped in half and crushed starting below the lower jaw at the neck and airway up to my eyes. My Airway was damaged so severely that every time I attempted to take a breath it collapsed. My face looked as if someone took an axe and smashed it down the middle from my jaw up.

As a result of my injuries I was suffering from a condition called trachealmalacia. If I survived at all, the doctors and the medical staff concurred that I would spend the rest of my life on oxygen and a ventilator and were mentally preparing my wife for my life hooked to a ventilator.

According to all of the medical books there is no cure for adult trachealmalacia as severe as mine because cartilage doesn’t heal. They we preparing to ship me to Boston to keep me alive on a machine long enough to get a surgery that may have held my airway open to keep me alive.
My next actual memory after getting on the helicopter was my brother’s voice trying to talk me out of my coma. One week later January 1st 2006. I woke up. When I came out of the coma my arms were strapped to the bed. Apparently while I was in the coma I pulled several breathing tubes out of my neck and I ended up flat lining so the staff had to restrain my hands and feet.

My wife came in during one of these episodes and saw me laying on my bed, my body blue from lack of oxygen and several of the nurses working very hard to revive me. That scene of me dying and many others she witnessed during my stay haunt her memory to this day.

I was finally somewhat awake and coherent. The first thing that happened was my mind began replaying the accident. I couldn’t move my neck due to it being in a brace as a result of that brace I couldn’t look down at the rest of my body. So, judging from the pain and lack of motion in my leg I thought I lost it from the knee down.

I could not get the crushing pain, sights or sounds of that night out of my head. I remembered very little from that evening up until I began driving but the memories from the accident itself and the half hour or so until I was loaded onto the chopper is unbelievably vivid. I wish to this day that I could make the memories go away.

The thought in my mind repeated over and over: “what are my three young children who mean the world to me going think, when they see daddy now.” I missed Christmas and had not seen my babies’ smiles in over a month. I hope and pray they don’t forget me and forgive me for missing Christmas. I couldn’t grasp the idea that my entire future would be different. I thought a full recovery would happen right away but my doctors immediately began letting me down lightly by telling me that I will be in the hospital for at least the next year being put back together and rehabilitated. I guess they didn’t know me at all.

My wife was invaluable in keeping the face of my children in front of me. While in the coma she kept pictures of my babies up on the glass wall next to my bed. After I awoke from the coma, when the nurses rolled me over on my left side I was able to see my babies’ pictures. To this day I believe had my wife not placed those pictures I would have had a very hard time not giving up.

My wife and mother visited me almost every day and made it very clear to me and all the staff at the hospital that I was loved. One instance in particular was told to me when I was still in ICU one of the nurses was very lax in her duties when it came to caring for me. My mom and wife walked in while I was still in a coma and noticed that this particular nurse had left me in a shambles. My sheet was completely of my body leaving me exposed, the Johnny I was wearing was disheveled, I had drool and mucous running down to my chest and had positioned my body to the point that I was almost through the bars and falling out of the bed. My mom’s blood boiled. She was furious at that nurse and immediately contacted my doctor and then went to the charge nurse and laid into her. The nurse was immediately removed from the floor and never allowed in the entire ward as long as I was a patient. My mom turned out to be the embodiment of my guardian angel.

In my life I am now at the point that the only thing that matters is how much love you have in your life.

I was not able to talk because of the damaged airway and trach tube they had in me but I would try to write. It went down on paper as nothing but scribbles. I was too shaky because of the morphine and other medications they had me on, so it was very difficult to communicate.

Every day was a struggle. I heard the bells, buzzers and beeps of the ICU all day and night. I could hear, feel and sense the death and struggle for life that was going on all around me in the ICU unit. I felt the sadness and pain when the nurses lost a patient and the grief of the families that came to visit their battered and sometimes brain dead loved ones, not knowing that I was full well expected to be one of them and was never expected to live to begin with.
I felt the stress when they got a workout by attempting to save someone. I could also sense the relief and joy in the nurses voices when someone survived and left ICU because they were getting better. These ICU nurses are some of the most devoted hard working people that I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. They are unsung heroes to the utmost degree. I don’t have a clue how they get the strength to go to work each day. I have met some of the wealthiest and hardworking people on earth and they don’t hold a candle to these men and women.

When the nurses came to my bedside to medicate me I began to refuse by shaking my head no. I only allowed them to give me my antibiotics. I was determined that despite the pain and surroundings I wanted to stay coherent. I also knew that I wanted to go home in a few weeks despite the fact that everyone including all my doctors expected me to be there for at least another year. If I stayed on the pain medicine than I would lose any progress that I was making. The drugs were very strong and they left me in a total haze. I didn’t want that.

On a funnier note, when I came out of the coma I still couldn't talk and there was a young yet very capable nurse that I believe was Japanese. She was also a Buddhist. I was tied to the bed and every time her shift would start she would take the remote control for the TV out of my hand and turn on this oriental music. You know what I'm referring to; the twang, twang of the mandolin that you hear in oriental restaurants.

I would have the TV channel on the Seinfeld show and be just dozing off when she would walk in, take the remote and say, "let’s put on some peaceful music so you can make Buddha happy". I couldn't talk or use my arms so I just laid there screaming in my head I'm not a Buddhist and this music is driving me nuts.

She was one of those nurses that every time you got comfortable and dozed off through the night she would come in and wake you up to take your sleeping medicine. She would do that just as I got comfortable and began falling asleep she would come in and roll me over into a new position so I had to try to get comfortable all over again.

I remember one day at around 6:50PM the day shift ended at 7pm. The nurse who was on duty taking care of me during the day had to give me a sponge bath due to the fact that the respiratory therapists came in moments earlier and gave me my daily ritual breathing treatment which consisted of them sticking a long, thin plastic shaft and saline solution into my trach-tube. This was a treatment that was designed to prevent pneumonia but it felt like he was scraping the inside walls of my lungs and airway. I don’t know who it is supposed to feel it was excruciatingly painful and every time respiratory gave me this breathing treatment I ended up vomiting.

As a result; the smell of vomit lingered on my felt lined neck brace despite the fact that the nurses washed and alternated two of them daily. This particular breathing treatment was really bad and I vomited all over myself and the bed. The nurse on duty had to stay past her shift and gave me a nice sponge bath and changed all my bedding. She was so nice. She kept checking to make sure I was comfortable during the bath and said it was horrible that I had to constantly go through that. She told me that in my condition it was one of the few ways they were able to stave off pneumonia.

After she finished the sponge bath she loosened my hand straps so I could move my hands a bit and gave me the TV remote. I put something funny on TV, got comfortable and fell asleep.

Three hours later after the shift change the Buddhist nurse came in, woke me up out of a dead sleep and said time for your sponge bath.

Keep in mind I had no way to communicate to her that I just had one so leave me the heck alone and let me sleep. I got another sponge bath. Then she took the remote away tightened my hand straps and put that twangy music back on and said her famous; "let’s put on some peaceful music and make Buddha happy". Like I said "She was the nurse that every hour through the night just as you get comfortable and doze off she would come to my bed, wake me up and say time to change positions and physically roll me over and raise the back of the bed so I'm sitting up further. I got no rest when she was there. She did keep me impeccably clean and well taken care of though. She was also the most thorough in her performance.

While I was lying in bed in ICU during the 2 weeks after I came out of the coma there wasn’t a whole lot to do, nor was I able to move very much. They kept me strapped to the bed because they feared me pulling out my trach tube again and my airway couldn’t handle that again. The room was bare and stark. It had glass walls with a curtain in the front that separated me from the constant buzz and activity indicative to a busy trauma ICU. That next week I did a whole lot of soul searching and praying. I also began to constantly visualize myself doing the things that I couldn’t currently do such as breathing on my own, eating, walking, running and sports. I believed in my heart that I would get to do all those again.

I knew that I was in pretty bad shape I just wasn’t aware nor did I know at the time what I looked like or how bad off things really were. I also realized at that point that I had to really look to God for the answers that I believe in time have already begun to become clear. I needed to make some drastic changes in my life.

Some of the changes came without choice due to my injuries. Other changes and limitations are more difficult. I also realize that I needed to put my life into written format, hence this book. I have never done anything like this. As a matter of fact every time I had to turn in a book report in school I would skip that class. I hate writing.

Going through all that I have been through and what I still have to deal with I guess is God’s way of getting my attention. I have come to realize that before all this happened I was suffering and didn’t know it. The way I see it is that I have shared my faith with very few over the past several years. I was found and didn’t know it.

Over the next several weeks in the hospital bed I began to do sit ups and leg lifts without the nurses catching me. The main problem with this is the fact that they had an IV in my arm and all the movement made it fall out. The nurses got so frustrated with me because it was difficult to reinsert one in my arm and there were only a couple of nurses able to find a decent vein with no joints nearby. I recall the nurses put 5 IV’s into my arms over a two day period before they put a line in my upper arm.

I recall the occupational therapist asking me to try to write just a few days out of the coma. She asked me what my goals were for my recovery over the next several months here in the hospital. To her surprise I wrote to her in my drug induced scribble that I wanted to walk out of the hospital on my own two feet with my own voice by January 23, 2006. She asked me why that date and I tried to the best of my ability to write that my mother in law who flew in from Maine to be with my wife and children was going to be leaving to go home soon and my wife needed me to be home so she wouldn’t be alone. The thought was there but the words went down on paper as complete scribbles.

Oddly enough, on January 11th 2006 I was moved out of ICU to a room up on the main floor.

The evening I was moved out of ICU my brothers Corey and Tobey came to visit me in the room and after 2 hours of being together and me typing on Tobey’s laptop to communicate; Tobey asked me: “Jeff, can you hum, try it?” I tried and pushed with everything I had and out gurgled a “hmmm”. We looked at each other in shear amazement my eyes began streaming tears. He then said “try saying hello” I pushed really hard again with my lungs and a raspy “hello” struggled out.

We immediately made 3 calls; one to my wife and Mother in Law who was staying with her at the house, the other to my mother and the other to my father. All I could say to each of them over and over again was “I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU” tears were streaming down my brothers and my face. I also heard them crying tearfully “I love you” back to me. I practiced speaking all night that night. I could barely sleep. The following morning my trauma surgeon entered the room and I Yelled out: “hey doc, what’s up?” He smiled in excitement and responded with: “oh my god, he’s got a voice.” With a little begging on my part he went ahead and ordered that the nurses to go ahead and figure out a way to give me a shower protecting my trach tube and he asked me if I would like to go home in two or three weeks. I was overjoyed with the idea.

Over the next several days I made every attempt at changing my own bandages and making sure I could show that I could care for myself. The physical therapists were concerned because I tried so hard that I attempted to move faster than I should have but I was determined to walk out of that hospital on my own two feet and was overjoyed that I was talking with my own voice.

One week later on January 18th 2006 I was sent home on my own two feet from the hospital. Due to hospital protocol I was wheeled out of the building. The remaining parts of my treatments were to be handled on an outpatient basis.

My respiratory surgeon said that in the 20 years she has been practicing she has never seen severe adult trachealmalacia heal in any adult especially in a person whose trach was crushed so severely. She then told me in no uncertain terms that mine healed. I now have no need for a breathing apparatus and I am able to breathe on my own and after 1 year I recently had my tracheotomy tube removed.

I was assigned in home nursing to help care for my trach and feeding tube. I also had a physical therapist that would see me several times a week to help me eventually walk without a walker. The most amazing thing is how fast I have been healing.