Life-Changing Events
Thursday, April 17th, 2008So it’s been a while….thoughts have come and gone, many never to return I’m sure.
I recently went through a serious neck injury. It happened in an inflatable obstacle course during a teambuilding even at work. We were all supposed to take turns racing through the obstacle course in a relay race - where the total time for each team would be used to determine the winning team. The beginning of the course is a wall with a hole in it. The person before me sprinted at the wall and dove through the hole - and then returned a minute or two later to tag me to go. I ran at it as he did, dove through the hole, tucked to roll, and WHOOMP! I went clean past the second obstacle and crashed into a wall. It forced my head down harder and farther than you can imagine - chin to chest - and then some. It was a horrible sensation, and every now and then I have a vivid recollection of it happening - something like a flashback where I can feel the immediate pain and tension.
I felt a pop. I remember thinking “Oh sh*t, did I just pull a Christopher Reeve” and I froze. My arms were buzzing, tingling, prickling all over as if they were plugged into sockets. I made sure to stay completely still - not wanting to move, afraid I might actually paralyze or kill myself. I thought to wiggle my toes, and they WORKED! I tell people that was the happiest moment of my life outside of my son being born. I could still feel my legs and my feet.. I then remember thinking to myself, literally, “As long as I don’t f*** it up, and as long as the paramedics don’t f*** it up, I’ll be OK… they can fix this”….Just had to make sure there wouldn’t be any further nerve damage.
The buzzing subsided - still felt weird… pain in my neck, back, and arms started setting in. People kept pushing up against the inflatable course, which I was still lying on, to see what happened - inadvertently bouncing me around… I had to keep yelling to tell everyone to stay off…. I yelled for ice - to put an ice pack on the back of my neck to stop the swelling….it was very cold, but felt very good. I wanted to minimize swelling to prevent any pressure on my spinal cord or nerves - just in case.
Face down on the vinyl/plastic surface - unable to move…skin on my cheek sticking to the weird material - and spit from my mouth smearing around…I was happy to stay put. Happy to know that my spinal cord wasn’t severed - yet very scared not knowing what happened to me.. Did I break something? Were there bone fragments from my spine floating around? What would happen when I was moved?
Paramedics arrived - seemed like forever for them to get there… I’m thinking 20 minutes, but like one can tell in that position…. I’m sure I lost any real sense of time. Man did they do a great job - I was in pain, but they were still able to get me onto a board - secure me, and lift me out into the ambulance without any sharp or scary pains… What a relief it was after I was moved and secured.
I still couldn’t relax though - I was kind of sideways on the board, not quite centered… my body wanted to slump off to the left, I think it was. My head was secured firmly though, so if I were to relax my body would have moved relative to my head - not good… I had to hold myself in position - one hand gripping the other to make sure I stayed completely fixed…
That’s all I can write now - will finish the story later….need to get up early for work, but it does feel good to write this down…. I want to get to the main point about how something like this changes you - your perspective - immediately - harshly- without hesistation…With an abruptness achieved in no other way than by something like this - something sudden, tragic, demanding immediate reflection, something you cannot turn away from because you have no other choice. This is what happened to me. Will write more soon.