paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- playground accident I almost died when I was eight. I remember vividly watching my body from someplace that seemed far, far away. My grandmother came in the room, gasped, felt for my pulse. �Lena, I can�t feel her pulse. We need to get her to the hospital now.� I remember my grandmother calling my name over and over. Asking that I stay with them. Telling me that everything would be all right. This part of my memory is surprisingly like the movies. I am not certain whether I have filled it in from the movies, whether the movies tell the truth of human instinct in this instance, or whether the movies taught my grandmother what to do. I remember feeling really resistant to her, not wanting to listen, that I was finally feeling really good after being in horrible pain for three days, with blood gushing everywhere, not clotting, my mother afraid to take me to the hospital. At the hospital I was still watching from some distant place � the bright lights, the strained voices, strangers moving quickly around me. I remember my little body, my skin with a blue hue, my little fingernails a deeper blue. Doctors, nurses, working to stabilize me. My mother, in some sort of shock, kept her hands on her face, watching from between her fingers. Her sweater was untied and the ties dragged on the floor. She did not even tie her shoes. And the doctors kept approaching her, talking to her, and she became weaker and weaker looking. We have never spoken about this. But I know it happened because I remember the accident, the delay in treatment, the long and painful aftermath of recovery. I was playing on top of the tall slide at after-school-care, when the school-yard bully came up and started picking on me. This is the same kid who kicked me in the eye wearing cowboy boots. If he is still alive, I bet he lives in prison somewhere. He was evil and rotten � everyone once in a while people are just born bad, I think. He pushed me off of the side rail of the tall slide and I landed on an uncovered screw, straddling one of the support braces. The uncovered screw gave me a nasty puncture wound. If this had been a puncture wound in any other place, I would have probably received stitches immediately. Because I was a tough kid, I got up and tried to act unhurt. But blood gushed everywhere. I went up to the child care worker and asked to use the bathroom. As I walked away from them I heard one of them say �isn�t she too young for that?� and they snickered. I kept walking with all of my pride in tact. But as soon as I got in the bathroom and got my pants down I started screaming. The director picked me up and laid me on the nurses table. She ordered someone to call my mother. To tell my mother I needed emergency medical care. That she needed to get here right away. She held me. She cried. She tried putting pressure on the puncture wound. She wiped my tears and asked me to try to be calm, even though I was scared. That I needed to try to relax because screaming was not helping me feel better. But that it was fine to scream if I couldn�t get it under control. That I was not bad if screaming was all I could do. I calmed down. I could do anything for Mrs. Greene. When my mother arrived, she gasped and turned away. Mrs. Greene told her that she thought I needed to go to the emergency room for some stitches from a pediatric surgeon. I remember her telling my mother that this would be covered by the school�s insurance, that it was not a matter of finances. But my mother wanted to see whether I would stop bleeding first. Because the gushing had slowed down. Mrs. Greene said it was probably a puncture wound and that those do not heal in the same way as cuts. Home we went. We were supposed to go to my grandmother�s that evening for the weekend, but, in lieu of my accident, they came to us. I laid in bed for days, getting weaker and weaker. In quite a lot of pain and discomfort, horribly embarrassed. I heard my grandmother, when she arrived and they were talking about the accident say �where?� really loudly, �oh no.� Soon the television shows I watched began running together. I began saying strange things. Dead relatives started visiting me and talking to me in a language only I could hear. Other dead people and spirits started visiting me in sort of an extended waking dream. I did not sleep. I was not awake. I quit eating and drinking, started feeling really numb and tingly everywhere. I woke up from all of this haze in the hospital, in a recovery room. Everyone looking down at me, with expressions of great relief. My aunt was sitting next to me on the hospital bed, stroking my curly blonde hair, whispering to me about how I was going to be ok. That her cherub was going to be ok. I reached out to my mother who took my hand and looked at me with a look of great pain and self-punishment. This look is so familiar to me, because my poor mother never really took to parenthood. We both know it. I remember when I was nine and asked her if she was going to have children with her husband she said �One child is more than I can handle � I have no business having any others.� 10:46 p.m. - 2002-09-01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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