“Did I call you?” I asked my son, unaware of whether I was awake or dreaming.
“You
did.” My son, home from college, spoke
in a voice firm but gentle.
“That
was smart of me.” My voice felt wistful,
barely audible, yet demanded much strength.
“It
was very smart of you.”
Seeming
to open my eyes that were likely already open, I found myself lying on
a wheeled bed-cot in a clinical room with my son sitting in a chair next to
me. A steel rail guard to my side, as
high as my upper arm, separated me from him.
To find my way between its beams to reach for his hand would require an
energy I lacked. Saddened, I looked down
to my hands instead and saw them limp, dirty, and injured. I realized I could not move either hand
anyway.
The
Emergency Room. Clarity was dawning,
but I wondered if I was dreaming. Hoping
so, I mustered the energy to speak. “I
dreamed that I fell from the play gym.”
“You
may have dreamed it, but you also did it.”
My son’s voice was quiet and caring.
“I
must have been sleepwalking,” I said, wistful.
“Maybe.”
“Did
I call you?”
“You
did.”
“That
was smart me.”
“It
was very smart of you.”
I didn’t know it
yet, but an hour and a half had passed from my call to my son to that moment in
the ER. I remembered my activity before
the fall, the call to my son, and very little else, but wondered whether all of it had been a dream. My son was entering his senior year of
college and home for the summer. We had
a swing set and play gym in our backyard that he and my daughter, about to be
head off to college, no longer needed, and I had a friend had shown interested
in it. “I’ll cut off the branches from
the tree and then you can come see it,” I texted her. If she and her family would dismantle and
take it away, they could have it for free.
But I, at least, needed to make it accessible by cutting off the
branches from the nearby tree that were now enveloping the play gym.
I
began the project on the ground, beneath our gorgeous but looming maple tree,
and I clipped many branches from there. But
with my limited tools, other branches could be accessed only by climbing up
onto the play gym itself. Many more I clipped
by standing on the wooden structure, beginning with those to the side and then
to those in front, some of which were further out, but still very much in the
way. The play gym had not been used in a
long time and had weathered many of our region’s harsh winters. I should have checked the stability of the
wooden 2 x 4 beam, nailed into the wooden beams to my side, before I leaned
against it to cut these further out branches.
The wooden beam gave way. “I’m
going to fall,” I thought. “It’s okay.
I’ve dreamed many falls.” I
entered the dream state and let go, then fell six feet.
My
next memory has me lying flat, face up, on the grass in our backyard. I remembered that my son was home and my
daughter was at work, so I screamed his name, and kept screaming, but neither
he nor any of neighbors heard me. “Do I
have my phone?” I wondered. Reaching for
it in my back pocket was a strain, but it was there! With much strength, I pulled it out and
clicked Contacts. “Thank goodness he’s
an ‘A,’” I thought as I scrolled for my son’s name and clicked the call button.
After
that, including the call itself, I remember very little until I found myself in
the ER. My other clear memory of events
was seeing my daughter next to me, driving our car. My son was in the back seat. In that brief moment, I knew she was driving
us – me -- to the hospital.
The following morning,
back at home with both of my hands and arms bandaged (later to receive
orthopedic casts), my son told me why I knew: he had told me many times his
sister was coming home, “and then we’re taking you to the hospital.” She was at work and had the car. He had called her to come home and informed
me of this. He also told me what else he
had done: how he had lifted me up at my armpits from my fallen state, walked me
to our patio swing, got me some pillows and water, brought me inside to my own
bed, propped me up there, and kept talking to me. Once my daughter was home, they both helped
me to the car, and my son buckled me in while saying, “We’re taking you to the
hospital.”
I didn’t remember
any of these events, and I thanked him for handling my rescue and my care so well. I also told him I was astonished by the text
thread on my phone, used by him to share
the news of my fall and give updates to his dad (my recent former husband), my
mom, and my two best friends. My phone
recorded details of what had transpired, complete with time stamps: my entrance
into the ER, my tetanus shot, the doctors’ concerns, my CT scan, my x-rays, the
report of my CT scan as normal, and my responses along the way. “I don’t remember any of that until I was
wheeled in for x-rays,” I told my son, shaking my head. Then I smiled. “I most remember learning the good news that my CT scan came out normal.”
I then shared with
him the misty memories I had just after the fall, not only calling him, but
also the interaction about it -- that I had asked him if I had called him, that
he said I did, that I said that was smart of me, and that he replied it was
very smart of me. My son laughed and
said that interaction was “a broken record,” something I had asked many times,
always the same way, always with the same replies from him, and always with the
same reply from me, something he now found charming and amusing.
I
chuckled. “I really thought I was
dreaming.”
“I
know,” he interrupted with another chuckle.
“You kept saying, ‘I dreamed . . .’ and I kept saying, ‘You might have
dreamed it, but you also did it.’”
“Another
broken record,” he said, laughing. I
joined him in laughter and praised him. Had
he complained that my repetitive question had already been answered, he might
have thrown out me of a state of mind that was protecting me.
“It
seemed to calm you,” he replied, “so I kept doing what seemed to be working.” He said he didn’t mind my repetitions as long
as I was speaking and awake, but it was worrisome, and the doctors were
concerned about a brain injury. My own
sense was a very dim perception of a possible concussion overlaid with the
continued sense that I was dreaming.
Although I lost memory of most of the actual events, I shared with my
son what I remember of my thoughts, that part that thought I was dreaming. What I call my “whispers of mystery” were
coaching me. You’ve injured
yourself. Stay alert. Keep talking. Talking took enormous energy, and I was too
delirious to say anything. My whispers
kept encouraging me. Keep talking.
What do you remember? My strength
was waning, but I continued to comply, succeeding only in a couple of broken
records. But importantly, with my son’s
loving replies, I succeeded in what most mattered: staying enough awake to maintain
consciousness.
It
wasn’t until I was informed of the good news from the CT scan that my thoughts
became clear. By that time, my daughter
was with me in the ER. Due to COVID
protocols, the hospital permitted only one guest in the patient’s room. One of my dim memories in the ER was asking
the nurse if my daughter could come in too and hearing her apologize that only
one guest was allowed. I understood, but
was sad. Then I heard my daughter on the
other side of the wall say, “But I can hear you, Mom.” That comforted me; I told her I love her, and
heard her say the same to me. I could
breathe better having heard her.
Then,
while I was away for the CT scan and the x-rays, my kids switched places. When I was wheeled back into my room, I saw
my daughter sitting there, another moment I remember, still with dim
dreaminess. I was happy to see her. I don’t recall what she and I talked about, nor
how long we waited for the health care workers.
But I do remember the moment the nurse shared the news that no damage to
my head was shown on my CT scan. My
whispers returned. You can relax now.
The nurse checked my vitals, left the room, and I took in a very deep
breath of relief. “I can relax
now.”
“Did they tell you
that?” my daughter asked. I knew my
daughter’s pronoun “they” referred not to my whispers, but to the health care
workers. How could I respond? The doctor then arrived. “Maybe he can tell us." The doctor reported the test results: I had
shown symptoms of a concussion, but the CT scan showed no physical evidence of
one. “But you broke both of your wrists.” I wasn’t yet ready to take in what that might
mean and thought, “At least I still have my head.”
We didn’t ask him
whether I could now relax, but I knew I could.
Ironically, that was also the moment when my need to strive so hard ceased.
I found myself awake, no longer in the
dream-state. Maybe I needed to hear that
my head was fine before I could fully wake up.
The dream state protected
me in ways that chill me to consider. I
had fallen six feet. I broke both of my
wrists and injured my right hand, but I broke nothing in my legs, nor my feet,
nor my back, nor my neck, nor my head. Miraculously, I walked in and out of the
hospital, never needing a wheel chair. I
had limped my body into a dream state, lightening the force of my fall.
In dream mode, I had
let go. I was in a season of letting go:
letting go of my husband through the official end of our marriage four and a
half months earlier, letting go of my kids off to college, letting go of my
teaching career through early retirement the prior year. Now, instantly, I would be called upon to let
go of much more. I was entering a time
in my life without the use of my two hands, about to learn what it literally
means to “let go.”
Continue to Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands
