My Struggle to Wake Up

I open my eyes just enough to see a brilliant, blinding light. It feels like I am staring at the sun, or is it Heaven? I hear people speaking with muffled, familiar voices. I try to piece together who is around me and where I am. Purgatory? It is too straining. I am exhausted. Then, silence and darkness again. Back into this vivid reoccurring dream that I am handcuffed to a bed at the bottom of a damp, rusty cargo ship. Repeat... again and again, until.... Mom? Dad? Kass? Why do I hear their voices? They are in New Hampshire... I am just sleeping really hard in Washington State right now. I find the strength to open my eyes into a squint again. This time I see the beautiful, inviting face of my girlfriend Kass. It had been months since I was able to touch her and kiss her. Let me just sit up and kiss her. Just... kiss....her... Well, that didn’t work... why can’t I lift my head? My eyes look down, why are my arms strapped to my bed? I am exhausted. Back to my bed at the bottom of the cargo ship.

The cargo ship dream was my drug induced minds way of dealing with the trauma of getting a slug of jagged brass shot through my throat and into my spine. I was chained to a steel bed frame surrounded by Somali pirates. Some real Captain Philips shit, ya know? My dad entered the ship wielding a broadsword like Mel Gibson from Braveheart and saved me. It was insanely vivid and graphic. I still remember every detail and every time I see my dad I can see him hacking up some pirates to save his son. Pretty bad ass if you ask me. 

In reality, I was laying in a hospital bed in the intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s hospital in Tacoma, Washington. I was sleeping (more of a fentanyl and opioid induced coma) with a bandaged bullet hole next to my Adam’s Apple, and a massive surgical slice starting at the base of my throat and moving into my clavicle to my chest. This slice was stapled shut so it could heal. My neck looked like the stitching on an old baseball after it gets the cover knocked loose from a monster home run. I had been intubated so that a machine could do my breathing while I was in my small coma. The breathing tube was removed and in its place came a tracheotomy tube which meant another slice into my throat. Every once in a while I could feel a thick, cold liquid going through my sinuses and down my battered throat. That was my feeding tube. It turns out that the reason that I was strapped to the bed was because I was trying to rip the son-of-a-bitch out of my nose. What was the point of all of this? 

Well I think that the bullet hole should be self explanatory. The long surgical slice next to it was from a life saving operation done by an E.R. surgeon who was in the right place at the right time for me. Another person at a different time and my outcome could have been much grimmer. This slice was made so the surgeon could get into my throat and repair my carotid artery which was severed and bleeding profusely. She said “screw it, not today kid” and opened my whole neck up to fix me. Not that I heard her... I just assume this was said by the size of my scar. My pulse had stopped for the second time that night and I died on the operating table. The joke is on you guys though, I’m too stubborn to die. Just add her to the list of people that I owe my life to. My right vertebral artery was severed as well but it was ruled out because the left vertebral artery does the same thing. Mine just has to pick up some extra slack now. The breathing tube, which evolved into the tracheotomy tube was the only way that I could breathe. I needed the trach tube because I couldn’t breathe on my own and it was going to be more permanent than the breathing tube. Forget about talking or kissing (Kass and I found a way anyway 😘), I needed to breathe and the only way that could happen was with the help of a machine which connected to my throat. 

I continued to wake up at random, short intervals during my stint in the ICU. Everytime that I found consciousness I would be retold what had happened to me until I started to come off some of the stronger drugs. I had a lot of visitors come in and out. Most of them I didn’t even know had come at all but I owe them a lot of praise. It did me a lot of good to see everyone rally for me but it helped my family and loved ones more than I can ever put into words. 

When I would wake up, I would breathe at the same pace as the respirator machine. I realized that this machine was filling my lungs for me, but I also realized that the more that I let it, the more I would rely on it. I couldn’t control what happened when my brain clicked off but if I could breathe on my own while I was awake then that was what I was going to do.

 To add insult to injury, I had no more voice. So not only could I no longer move, but I had to sit there and continuously go through a frenzy of emotions with little ways to convey my thoughts. My parents made a letter chart which got me through the interim but spelling out simple messages was frustrating and slow. That seems to be the theme here. Paralysis is frustrating and slow. 

That being said, my biggest problems became smaller problems, which continue to become smaller and smaller. This is a marathon, not a sprint...

Now, what the hell happened to me? 

Next Monday I will take you all back to February 11th, 2017 and everything that led up to the moment that my life changed forever.