Darkness and the White Ceiling – 2
October 2?, 1989
(Probably five days to a week after the accident)
I wake up.
Unlike before, I wake up feeling relatively clear-headed. The tubes have been removed from my mouth and nose, and I can speak now.
A nurse asks me, “Do you want to call home?” I give her the phone number. She holds the receiver to my face, and I hear the dial tone. My grandmother answers. I don’t even know if I’m okay myself, but I tell her that I’m fine. It sounds like she’s crying. She tells me, through her tears, that she’s making a painting for me. A large painting, size 50. I was raised as a “grandma’s boy,” so the hardest thing for me is making my grandmother cry.
Next, I call my girlfriend. She, too, sounds worried and is crying. Even though I don’t really understand what’s happening, I tell her that I’m okay.
The nurse comes every two hours to change my position. My body doesn’t move, and something metallic is inserted into my head, fixing my body and head in place. Once I’m turned to the left, I stay facing left. Once I’m turned to the right, I stay facing right. My world is limited to what I can see by moving my eyes.
When the nurse comes, I ask her why I can’t move on my own. She hesitates with her words. After a while, the doctor comes. I ask the doctor why I can’t move. He tells me that I will never be able to walk on my own again. Strangely, I don’t feel shocked. I also ask about my sexual function. He says I can still get an erection, but ejaculation will be difficult. Then, he tells me I will undergo rehabilitation for a second chance at life.
Strangely, I don’t feel shocked about any of it. Perhaps it’s because I can’t fully grasp my situation at all.
**
Being in the emergency and critical care center drives me crazy. The nurses are always rushing around. The doctors are running around too. Several times a day, ambulances arrive right outside the hospital, sirens blaring. Every time an ambulance arrives, the atmosphere becomes tense. I hear the nurses shouting, “A patient is coming in, burned all over from inhaling paint thinner and then lighting a cigarette!” “Traffic accident, multiple injuries, internal organs may have ruptured!” I hear such announcements several times a day.
I’ve seen many people brought here by ambulance and soon after, carried away with a cloth over their faces. Even if I can’t see it directly, I can immediately tell. The air changes. From the way the doctors and nurses behave, from the cries of the family called in, I can immediately understand—oh, they didn’t make it.
Most of them were probably fine just an hour ago. Most of them probably never imagined they would end up here. And yet, sometimes they die so suddenly…
The middle-aged man who was in the bed next to me suddenly takes a turn for the worse. His family is called in, and they cry and scream.
I see life and death with my own eyes. I don’t feel the reality of being alive. My hands and feet don’t move. I can’t move my body at all—I just lie here. I don’t feel glad to be alive. But at the same time, I don’t feel any fear of death either.
My condition seems to have improved a little, and a nursing assistant takes me outside in my bed. The sunlight is still bright and warm. I ask her what time it is now. I’ve had no sense of time or date since the accident. What day did the accident happen? How many days have passed since then?
The nursing assistant distracts me with small talk. I spend some time gazing up at the sky.
My mother comes to visit me. She looks at me with a smile. I feel a little relieved, but visits in the emergency center are limited to just a few minutes. Barely five minutes. I don’t remember what words we exchanged. She just smiled at me.
In the brightly lit room, there is no morning, noon, or night, even in the middle of the night. The machines make their constant beeping, ticking, and whirring noises, and they never stop. I hear the voices of doctors and nurses, and the sounds of them moving around. People crying, people screaming.
During the day, I’m distracted by constant tests. I get wheeled out into the hallway for X-rays or CT scans and taken to other rooms. But at night, I start to lose my mind because of the relentless sounds of the machines repeating over and over.