In earlier posts I wrote about the fall off the horse, the diagnosis of a ruptured spleen, the transfer to the big hospital for likely surgery, the good 1st night with the spleen holding up. Now, it is the day after the accident (Thursday) and I was waiting to hear what they found, fearing the worst.
When I woke from my nap and saw all the commotion, I was gripped by panic. I was telling myself: "Here it is; I am about to hear I'm dying." I had played this movie in my head many times. The story of my end has different versions, but they all go like this; a bad diagnosis, no cure, intolerable suffering and premature death. Just horrible.
The head of the ICU came in together with the surgeon looking man. One on each side of my bed. My heart was pounding really hard. The head of ICU finally spoke. The spleen was fine; but, vertebrae L1 was fractured; it was an unstable fracture; a broken back; so they needed to do immediate surgery; the surgery was scheduled for Friday. He kept talking and then introduced the surgeon looking man as the one who'd perform my surgery.
But, I was no longer listening. I was trying to process what I just heard. First, relief. Yes, relief. For the first few seconds, I felt weirdly elated; "yey, I just had broken bones, I'm not dying." A little moment of happiness.
Then: "What? WHAT? Nothing wrong with my spleen? So, this awful nose tube had not been necessary?" Anger was boiling up in me. "So, the angst of the ambulance and the whole night in the ICU was all for nothing. These guys are idiots; total morons. Get me the hell out of here." I thought. How was it possible to miss a diagnosis of a broken back?
The surgeon did not help matters either. He told me (with a smirk on his face) that this fracture was quite something; he needed to pull the vertebrae apart or something because the L1 vertebrae was crushed. He said he had done many back surgeries, but this one was definitely not routine, he was proudly announcing that mine would be very difficult. I was getting more and more worked up; like that was what I wanted to hear; that my back was some great challenge. He literally said that my procedure would be a lot more difficult than heart surgery. Really, unbelievable. I hated him, he was everything I despise in people with power; arrogant, self important, narcissistic, with no capacity to empathize. What the hell did he expect; that I felt special to be his challenging case? And grateful for his greatness? So, I told him "NO, absolutely no way, you are NOT touching me". No one in this stupid place was going to touch me again, I decided.
I was fuming and tears were streaming down my face. The head of the ICU tried to calm me down and explain to me that I had no option. It was an unstable fracture, which meant that any movement could result in paralysis, so no plane would take me home, not even an ambulance flight. I didn't want to hear this. I wanted to get out of there, it was all so infuriating. But, it was also so pointless. The head of the ICU felt really really bad. He apologized profusely for the misdiagnosis and understood my reaction. He showed real empathy. I didn't feel like yelling at him. But I was not giving up without a fight. So, I held out on signing the papers. I was not authorizing the surgery. Yet. I wanted to talk to David first.
I was crying hard and could barely talk when I spoke to David. I was so angry and frustrated. Typical David, though, he calmed me down by just focusing on facts; Could surgery be done there? When? What exactly would they do? Was the prognosis good, etc? David did not want to get into how stupid and incompetent everyone was and he convinced me not to get too dramatic; "it is what it is, think ahead". We had important decisions to make. We decided that I needed to sign the papers. We would both be in surgery on Friday.
We then focused on the girls. I was not getting out of this hospital for at least a week. David would not be released out of his hospital until Sunday (it was only Thursday). So, who was going to stay with the girls, take them to school on Monday, etc.? I insisted that David be with the girls after his release on Sunday. But, what to do between now and Sunday? I didn't know how, but I could not imagine the girls without at least one of us. Or leaving the island without us. They needed us now more than ever. They must have been so freaked. And poor Renee, she was so scared of flying. David needed to be there for them, because I couldn't.
David explained that the girls were going to be picked up. There was no other option. The girls would leave and David would stay with me. I was fighting him on this. I did not need David. I was in the ICU; there is no place in the world where you get more attention than here. I wanted him to be there for the girls.
But that was not the biggest issue. It was not known yet who would be flying to Mallorca. My younger sister Christina was the most logical choice. But, she couldn't walk. She had ruptured her calf the week before. And my older sister, Geertje, was also incapacitated with broken ribs suffered from a fall down the stairs a couple weeks before. My mother was out, she was not mobile. So who then? My niece or my brother in law, perhaps our US family? Certain was that the girls would fly home on Friday; the day David and I were in surgery.
Then David told me that the girls were at the Rancho. The owners had picked the girls up in the morning. They would spend the whole day with horses. I was not liking that either, I thought it was insane to let them go back there. David was more rational; he looked at it as a really nice thing; they would keep the girls entertained and preoccupied. The girls still loved horses and they were really excited to go.
What an absolute mess. I felt a combination of anger, frustration, fear, terror, powerlessness, and an intense longing for the girls. But, I also realized that I was no longer making the decisions. David was; well actually my younger sister, Christina was. She was talking to my family, informing them and finding a solution for the girls. She was the liaison between Sos International and David. She made it all happen. She rocked!!
So, I had no control over anything anymore. And to my surprise and quite suddenly, the negative feelings stopped. Realizing that I had no control was somehow a weight off my shoulders; an overwhelming feeling of calm followed, which was unexpected, and so welcome: I resigned myself to the status quo. It may sound weird, but I was and still am so grateful for knowing that in the midst of such a crisis there was this calm. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I describe this ordeal as "it wasn't as bad as you think." When I resigned myself and let go of the control, there was this sense of peace. There was peace even though I was alone in a hospital where no one spoke English, without loved ones near. Such a comforting thought.
Maybe the pill they had given me had something to do with it. Either way, though, after they'd taken out that miserable nose tube, I was relaxed and fell asleep. A very deep sleep.
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