Writing By Laura

Today my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) turns 8 years old.

It was September 15, 2016 when I was in a near fatal car accident that gave me a severe Traumatic Brain Injury and coma, shattered my pelvis, broke my femur and injured my neck. My accident took so much from me: most of normal hearing and my ability to understand and listen to music; my independence (I now live with my parents), my career (I’m on disability) and my confidence in the world being a just and safe place (2016 was really just the tip of the iceberg when you consider all the damage the pandemic did in regards to this).

Today, in recognition of the anniversary of my accident, I would like to connect something I had never connected until recently and reflect on its significance.

This week I was organizing my closet and declutterring and came across a short essay I wrote during my senior year of college in April of 2001. It was for an Advanced Composition class and it is called “Safe Zone.” It’s a short bit of nonfiction that is about the summer before I went to college. During that summer my only uncle became incredibly sick and was in the hospital Intensive Care Unit for several months in a medically induced coma. In the essay I write about how I refused to pack a black dress to go visit my uncle (in case I needed it for his funeral since his mysterious illness was getting worse). I write about how his near death changed me. Before his illness absolutely nothing bad had happened to me or my loved ones. I had walked through life living a pretty charmed existence with the sheen of innocence and privilege adding a glow to my youthful complexion. Then in the summer of 1997 my one and only uncle became mysteriously sick. His organs were shutting down and he had swollen to twice his normal size. Then suddenly, just as mysteriously as he got sick, he also mysteriously got well right before I went to college (perhaps because I refused to pack a black dress to prepare for a funeral that I didn’t want to go to)!

Oddly I have never really thought about or connected that two people in my family have been in comas (me AND my uncle). That has to be less common of an experience for two family members to have experienced comas. (I don’t want to know the statistics behind that… let’s hope it’s unique.)

To honor the anniversary of my coma and to remember my uncle’s experience as well, I have decided to excerpt a few parts of that essay from 2001 and write new bits inspired by the fact that 15 years after writing of one coma I would experience my own.

Excerpts from “Safe Zone” (by me, April, 2001)

“We had the type of relationship that when you think of it just lights a little fire inside your heart. Not a romantic fire, mind you, but the fuzzy warm embers that make you feel safe. Safe—my uncle was my safe zone.”

“In the midst of the summer confusion before my first year of college my uncle started to experience health problems. The sparkle faded from his eyes, his chuckle disappeared and was replaced by a meek smile, and we didn’t know what was wrong. Almost every other day my aunt took him into the emergency room begging and pleading with the doctors to tell her what was the matter with her husband. The doctors were just as perplexed as the rest of us and I felt my safe zone closing in on me…”

“Before I knew it I was crying over a man who used to make me laugh until I thought my lungs were going to cave in on me, and praying to anyone who was listening. He was bloated to about twice his normal size and completely comatose (in a medically induced coma in the hospital ICU).”

“…In middle of my mindless packing (for college, my Dad and I had arrived home in Iowa to prepare for my college move) the news came that Dad and I should rush back to North Dakota because it wasn’t looking good at all. It hadn’t been looking good for ages it seemed. My safe zone was completely obliterated and I knew I would never have the same peace of mind that I used to. I had changed in a way that I hadn’t wanted to. My view of the world used to be full of laughter and adventure and now I was jaded to the point where I didn’t recognize myself. The night before Dad and I were to leave to go back to North Dakota my Mom called, “Pack your black dress,” is all I remember her saying. For these past couple months my voice had changed to be low, unattached and unemotional. Now, after hearing that my partner in practical jokes was possibly saying good-bye to the world, I changed once again. “No,” I said with a sudden rush of energy and emotion that immediately encompassed me. My parents tried to reason with me but I refused to listen. If I brought a black dress along it was as if I was giving in. After months of morphing into an unemotional, cynical head case I no longer felt disconnected with the world.”

“Dad and I drove the 8-hour trip in near silence, both of us consumed with our thoughts. The night before, after my black dress rebellion, I had gone into my room and thrown some things in a suitcase. I left my bedroom to grab something from the basement and during that time Dad tip-toed into my room, stole a black dress out of my closet and stuffed it in the bottom of his suitcase.”

“After hours of sitting near his side praying and crying, something worked. Whether it was God who answered our prayers or just the sheer stubbornness of my uncle we will never know. The desperation that we all felt as we held my uncle’s yellow, puffy hands must have seeped into his unconsciousness and grabbed a hold of his stubbornness.”

“As soon as I could I held his hand and felt the life soaring back into it. After this terrible ordeal that he now refers to as his “adventure”, my uncle re-entered life with a new awareness for the little things.”

The Irony of a Second Coma

“Look, Unc is doing it too,” my Aunt Kay said pointing as my Uncle John did the gentle foot exercises that my physical therapist was having me do in the hospital transitional care facility months after my near fatal car accident and 3-week coma. My Aunt and Uncle were visiting me and staying with my parents in my apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota. I wasn’t supposed to be here… in the hospital… I was only 37, I was supposed to be out in the world living my life… Yet, I almost wasn’t able to do that… live. In a flash of what I imagine (I don’t have a memory of the accident) was loud crashing sounds and crushing metal, my life almost ended in a car accident. Oddly 19 years after my uncle had been in a coma fighting for his life in 1997 when he was in his early 40s, his niece was in a coma in 2016 in her late 30s fighting for her own life. And how much do you want to bet that Uncle John also didn’t pack a black dress when he rushed from North Dakota to Iowa to see me in the ICU?

Reflecting on 2 Comas

It really is odd that I never stopped to think and compare my Uncle’s coma with my own. Not until I saw that dusty old college essay and then I couldn’t help but think that Uncle John and I have always been connected (freckles, bad vision, and our love of Minnesota lakes, and our fierce love of dogs). Well, I guess we need T-shirts now that say “coma buddies.” My Dad and my Uncle (they are brothers-in-law, my uncle is my Mom’s brother) have had a special “handshake” that they do where they shake hands and touch the bottoms of their shoes to each other and say “sole brothers!” Maybe my Uncle and I can gently knock our heads together and say “coma buddies!” *gosh, that’s classy*

I will say that on this 8 year anniversary of my accident and coma that it’s oddly comforting to realize that I have had a coma buddy this whole time!

A Selby Sweetie Conclusion