2: Accident 2.0

 Almost anyone who knows my family knows that we are a family of humor. Most people who know us also know that almost 10 years ago now my mom had a craniotomy in order to remove a benign brain tumor. But just because it was cancer free, didn't mean that the surgery wasn't going to be dangerous. Many different doctors spelled out the specific dangers involved, all very professional, all very stoic, and how did we respond? With humor, of course! When they told us the tumor was growing in a barbell shape, they had barely shown us the images before I said, "It looks like a butt." My dad immediately responded with, "She's a butthead! I always knew it!" And later, when the doctors were explaining how they would have to basically peel my mom's face down to access her skull and therefore the tumor, my dad is reported to have said, "When you put her face back, can you make her look like Cheryl Tiegs?"

After the initial trauma, we responded to my accident in the same way. One of the first things I actually remember was a doctor explaining (probably again, since I woke up every day for a while not remembering any of the previous time spent in the hospital) the severity of my injury, and how it had left me paralyzed. My mom was with me, and throughout the doctor's spiel we were making snide comments, cracking jokes, and just more or less making fools of ourselves as usual. At some point I remember the doctor looking at me with some concern, and saying, "I'm worried that you don't grasp the severity of the situation." And I said, "Doctor, I'm paralyzed, I can't grasp anything!"

But just because my family turns serious situations into comical ones, doesn't mean that we don't "grasp the severity." It's just always been how we deal. And I'm proud to say that is still the case, and that joking in front of the doctor (and the many that came after!) was one of my first real memories after the accident.

But just because it was one of my first real memories, certainly doesn't mean nothing happened between the time of the accident and my recollecting anything. For instance, I don't remember my choir teacher coming and petting my head while I was still unconscious, but it happened. I don't remember when a good friend came and brushed my hair and read me Harry Potter, but it happened. I don't remember when my advisor came and brought me a stuffed animal that would help me later in my recovery, but it happened. So many things happened, mostly involving other people, that I can't recall.

Like most of my last blog, much of what I will now relate I heard secondhand, because I wasn't really aware enough to hear it first hand! But it all happened.

My dad was the first to find out something wasn't right. He was at work here in Austin on Camp Mabry (he is a general in the National Guard, and Texas headquarters are here in Austin), when he got a strange phone call from USAA. He picked up the phone. "Gen. Nichols, how can I help you?" And the man on the other end of the line proceeded to tell him that he was calling because my insurance card had been pulled. At first, dad was confused: did they mean that my health insurance was canceled, or something? But no, the man told him that the insurance card had been pulled by a hospital, because the vehicle had been involved in an accident.

Dad immediately wondered why I wasn't calling him. I had wrecked a car once before (thankfully, no one was hurt that time!), and the first thing I did then was call him. So around this time, while the insurance agent was speaking to him on the other end of the line, dad was sitting in his office running through the worst possible scenarios in his head. Why hasn't she called?

The insurance agent gave him the number of a social worker at the hospital. When he called that number, the social worker asked if he was in San Antonio. When dad told her no, he was in Austin, there was a pause. Pauses in traumatic situations are almost always very heavy. The fist that had already been wrapped around dad's heart tightened. The social worker asked how soon dad could get here, and when he told her probably two hours there was another pause, before she said you need to get here as soon as possible.

Pretty heavy, right? Though I have struggled with this situation over the past two years, I have never had to respond to an event like this. My family and my friends, however, had to.

Because I was an adult, and because of the HIPPA laws of confidentiality, dad couldn't find out what condition I was in. He was again redirected, this time to the ER nurse on my floor. The phone line was busy. He called again. Busy. By this time dad was rushing out of the office to get to his car and get to San Antonio. He was afraid to call mom without any definitive news, but knew he couldn't put it off any longer. So he called her.

For my mom, just like my dad, that day had started off as normal as possible. She was teaching English out at a satellite campus in New Braunfels, when she got a call from my dad. Our family's standard procedure with calls when you're in class or in a meeting is to ignore them. If you get a second call, it is probably an emergency. My mom got a second call.

As she took a minute to answer my dad, the classroom started buzzing around her. When my dad gave her the news, and she asked, "Is she alive?" the classroom went deathly still. Perfect metaphor, don't you think?

Dad said he didn't know, and mom told her class she had to leave and headed toward the hospital. Just as she started driving, just as she started crying, it began to pour. She had to gather herself together, because crying and driving in the rain don't mix very well. What she was afraid of was something that had happened to her earlier that year.

On Valentine's Day in 2014, my mom had gotten a phone call saying that her mom was in the hospital in critical condition. She had to badger the hospital staff to get the truth.  It took several calls, and she finally told one of the staff members, "Look, I have a long drive and I will be bringing my daughter:  I need to know what I am walking into."  She was finally told that her mom had passed away while in the ambulance. She was terrified, on the day of my accident, that again the hospital wasn't telling her (or dad) everything.  She was afraid that I was already dead.

Dad finally badgered the people at the hospital into telling him that I was alive, but in critical condition.  As he sped--literally--to the hospital, he got a phone call from his best friend, Joe (also in the Guard).  Joe was calling to give his support, as he had found out about the accident (the Guard is a surprisingly small community of hundreds of thousands of people).  They both broke up a little, but then my dad, like my mom, had to gather himself because it was pouring. I think I can paraphrase Men in Black II here, in saying that "you don't cry because it rains. It rains because you cry."

My parents raced separately to the hospital, and got there within minutes of each other. Mom had called several people to let them know what was going on, including one of my best friends, Rachel, who informed my other best friends: Sarah, Elise, and Myrna. When my dad arrived at the hospital, they were clustered around my mom, and everyone was crying. He hugged all of them and then was able to have a private moment with my mom.

People started trickling in, many from the music department at school: my teachers, my fellow students, my friends, and more. All of mom's friends (they are my friends, as well!) showed up, too. And then they played to the waiting game.

Finally a surgeon came out to talk to my parents. He apparently called me his miracle patient, because my heart had restarted against the odds and he said it had all been me, not him. He still wasn't very hopeful, however, because he didn't know why it did stopped in the first place (they didn't know about my spinal cord injury, yet). He didn't know if I would wake up, or if I did, what condition I would be in. My brain had been without oxygen for quite a while; long enough that no doctor really expected me to wake up, or to ever be cognitive again, ever be me again.

My parents took this news out into the packed waiting room, where there was quite a bit of distress. After several more hours, my parents decided to run home so that my mom could pack things as quickly as possible to be able to stay at the hospital for several days. She remembers one of those movie moments where someone is just throwing random things in a bag as they try to get out before the cops get there, or something. She barely realized what she packed, and then mom rushed back to the hospital, and dad stayed home to take care of the farm--he would come the next morning.

Mom wasn't able to see me at first, as I was apparently getting an MRI or CAT scan of my neck and head. When she was finally allowed into my room, she was overwhelmed by the many monitors flashing in the dark, all of the tubes going into me, especially the intubation tubes going down my throat, and the overall fragile look about me. And let me tell you, I don't remember ever looking fragile in my entire life, and would still like to pretend that that is the case! I am way too cool to be fragile!

More of my friends showed up after visiting hours and were allowed to see me, but I'll definitely get more into that later on. This is about my mom and dad. Mom bedded down on a window seat, in preparation for a long night. She didn't actually spend much time in the there, but instead sat by my side.

Nurses were in and out all night checking monitors, adjusting medications, doing things that mom didn't really understand at the time or worry about. She sat by me, with her hand on my hand, and talked to me. The clock ticked on until finally it was the early hours of September 5th, my mom's birthday. As she was talking to me she saw my eyes open, slide to the side, look at her,  and recognize her… and then I was gone again.

Altogether, I feel like this blog was pretty heavy, and I'm sorry for that. It's easy enough to put humor into something later on, when the initial trauma has passed. For my family and friends, this was still very much a time of the initial trauma. But that doesn't mean everything was humorless…

I've been told many times that most of the people who came to see me were rather ridiculous in the waiting room. I can't say that for everybody, but I know that because of some of my friends, the whole group was often laughing and talking loudly, listening to bad jokes, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Can you imagine? Knowing these people, I certainly can.

I'd like to tell you more about their responses on the first day, next time, be they funny, sad, heartening, or heartbreaking. I promise we'll get to a point where there is a little bit more humor; realize that, whether I've written about it or not, there was humor and laughter every day, as there is (or at least should be) in every day of everyone's lives. I'll see you all next week!

And so we go!

1: From Humble Beginnings…

I've decided to write a blog; I've also decided that it's rather difficult. Of all the many things I could write about, nothing seems to come to mind in this particular moment.  I mean, I don't want to be one of those people that writes about their trip to the grocery store (unless something amazing happened) or the wonderful bowel movement they just had (even if something amazing happened, I think I'd skip that!). So instead, I guess I should just start from the beginning.

My name is Alexa and I'm a quadriplegic. Man, it sounds like I'm at an AA meeting! But really, I'm paralyzed from the neck down and I breathe using a ventilator. Two years ago last September I was in a car accident: he crossed three lanes of traffic to hit me head-on, and I wasn't wearing my seatbelt, so between the two it was a pretty bad accident for me. I could be the poster child for kids needing to wear their seat belts!

In the accident I sustained some relatively minor injuries, and then one very major one: my spinal cord was damaged at C1, so right at the base of my brain. It's the highest place someone can get a spinal cord injury (SCI). Well, I never did anything unless it was 100%! So my spinal cord wasn't completely severed, but it's considered a "complete" injury to the cord because the chances of getting better on my own are extremely unlikely. Definitely still dealing with that idea two years later.

But I don't actually want this blog to be all maudlin and depressing; if I want it to be enlightening and  enjoyable, overall. I want to tell everyone about "The Quad Squad," which consists of me (obviously), as well as my family, my friends, my nurses, and my many pets! Sometimes I'll be giving you info about my day-to-day life as a quadriplegic – which often is pretty boring, so I may skip a lot! – and others I will recount what I think to be interesting/funny/thought-provoking/anything else you can think of experiences. For those curious, I guess  some of this first blog will  be more serious, as I'll tell you about my accident.

I was on my way to school on September 4, 2014, when, as I mentioned, I was in a head-on collision. At that point, almost the entire week previous and the following 2 1/2 weeks I do not remember, so I can only truly relate what happened based on what other people have told me. I technically did not come out of that collision alive: the shock to my spinal cord when my neck snapped was so sharp that my heart immediately stopped, having gotten the signal from my spine that, "Oh hey, I think we are dead now! Better stop!" I was incredibly lucky to have an EMT team that had mad skills; I've actually had other EMTs say that they would not have been able to bring me back. But these guys did: they got my heart to start beating again, and rushed me to the hospital.

Apparently, upon arriving at the trauma hospital, my heart stopped again, and the doctors performed an emergency thoracotomy: they literally stuck their fingers between my ribs and massaged my heart until it restarted! I know, crazy cool, right? By this point my brain had been without oxygen for several minutes, especially right after the crash. While they weren't thinking about it just then, the doctors would later assume it likely that I would have no brain function if I woke up, if I woke up at all. I went immediately in for some exploratory and other surgeries, to find out why my heart had stopped. They actually wouldn't find out for a little while, as there were no indicators of spinal cord damage other than a cracked vertebrae, which happens all the time without people sustaining SCIs as well.

I am mostly going to do this first blog from my point of view (kind of, since I don't remember much!). I only mean that I will get into the rest of The Quad Squad's experiences with this at another time. In the meantime, I left off where I was on the operating table. Well, they got me stable, though still classified as critical, and told my parents that if worst came to worst I would never wake up again as I was in a coma. My mom refused to believe them, and that night sometime after midnight, when it was officially September 5, which is coincidentally my mom's birthday, I apparently opened my eyes. My mom was the only one there, and while I couldn't say anything for the tubes stuck down my throat, she swears she saw recognition in my eyes. She told the doctors this, but they had a hard time believing her, not seeing it for themselves. It was only after a few days, when the expression on my face showed that I was apparently exceedingly angry that they were ignoring me, as far as I was concerned, that they realized I was actually aware of my surroundings. From then on, they included me in their medical conversations.

What else can I say? I got a fusion surgery, from the base of my skull to my C2 vertebrae, a tracheostomy, where they put a tube down my throat for me to breathe with permanently, so they don't have to be in my mouth where I can't talk, and they gave me my prognosis. While I did stay in the trauma hospital for three weeks, I'll get into that later. The next time you'll hear from me, the blog will be about my parents and friends during this trying time, and how for the most part they were all a bunch of bad-asses. Crying bad-asses, but bad-asses nonetheless.

Until our next meeting! And in the words of one of my favorite fictional characters, "And so we go!"