LJ Idol - Week 1: I need the struggle to feel alive
This is an entry for the therealljidol. If you'd like to read any of the other entries or vote for mine, you can do so here: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/953518.html
Also, please note this is a work of fiction. While I did lose somebody, I am not the main character of the story.
I spend six months in and out of hospital after the crash, most of it in.
My mother and brother died on impact. I come out of it with multiple broken bones, contusions, a concussion, internal bleeding from a punctured lung, other assorted and associated ills.
The crash was not my fault, I am aware.
It doesn't matter. What matters is that I spend a long time in the same set of rooms, getting to know what the nurses called the "other frequent flyers".
There's a set of rooms at St James' for people like me in the trauma ward, away from the ER.
People who need intense care on multiple occasions despite having come out of the hospital recently for something. Usually something different.
I go absailing, deep sea diving and kayaking with a healing lung puncture and fragile bones. In another country. A tropical one. My dad worries a lot, but can't actually stop me.
The thing that gets me back into hospital care is simply existing on the plane home. A bubble in my veins means there's an ambulance waiting before we even land. Lucky me.
Day 3 of this stint, I get sent to therapy.
My therapist believes in letting his clients express themselves, but also in reading out medical histories.
Dr Flint talks a lot, the first few times, then shuts up until I describe the accident.
People keep telling me the crash wasn't my fault. I know that. The fault belongs to black ice patches and lorries with too much stuff in the back going over the speed limit.
My mother and brother died on impact. The lorry hit the driver's side first, from skidding. I have been assured that their deaths were pain-free, immediate. I just got everything except that.
The third time I'm back in Trauma, I meet John.
The nurse rolls her eyes before she's even done settling me into my bed, puts up a finger to pre-empt him from talking.
"No. I'm off in less than an hour, and I don't want to have to stay longer because I punched you in the face."
John grins wider, winks at me, then yells after her, "But Liz, what about our undying love?"
John is an adrenaline junkie.
He's in his mid-forties, and he started going out and doing, in his words, "stupid, young-person shit" after his benign brain tumour was removed, about six years ago.
He initially came in after jumping off a waterfall and landing badly, but the adrenalin rush of the flying and the falling, coupled afterwards with the pain is the greatest high, apparently. So he chases that high all over the world, doing things that are dangerous or stupid, sometimes both.
Flirting with Liz counts as both, apparently.
Dr Flint is glad I've found a kindred spirit. My father just worries more.
Nurse Liz pats me on the arm and tells me that I'm not stupid enough to be dragged into the adrenaline chase.
I go zip-lining over the canyons over spring break.
John organises a hiking trip to the Alberto de Agostini national park in the south of Chile while his arm mends, for after he's done the minimum required rehab for it once the cast comes off.
I'm invited too, after he hears about my stunt with the zip lines.
My dad comes with us. He and John get along like a house on fire, which I hadn't expected. Dr Flint nods, says I'm cleared to fly, and asks me how I'm dealing with college.
The plane ride down to Chile is long and boring, but I can't sleep. John and the junkies chartered the plane, because he and his buddies are mostly rich Silicone Valley types and it will take us closer to where we want to go, so it's just us.
John is towards the front of the plane, drumming along to a song on his phone with pencils.
My dad's asleep, blanket pulled up over one shoulder, frown lines still evident even if the frown is gone. I put my work away.
John pulls his headphones out when I sit down opposite him, still drumming gently, jerks his head towards the sleeping figure of my father.
"He cares about you a lot."
"I know. He worries. I'm the only one he has left."
"No, he cares anyway."
His headphones are still going, moving into a song I recognise. My leg jerks with the rhythm.
"Why do you worry him?" he asks, just like that.
"I don't want to. It's not about him."
John nods. It makes sense to him. We've been in the same trauma recovery wards.
"Do you know why I chase the high?"
"Why?"
"When they told me there was a tumour in my brain I thought that was going to be it. My sister had cancer that metastasized to the brain, that's how she died. No matter the cancer, once it's in your brain, you're dead."
He sits back in his seat, fiddles with the headphones.
"Mine was not cancer. They got it out, I live fine. No more headaches, no more blurred vision, no more aches and pains. I do however get to live with the constant threat of seizures, which is less great."
I get to live with eternal, chronic pain, and the constant threat of painkiller addiction.
"And I was past 40, so I thought, hey, I've worked so hard, I never had any fun, why should I stay in my neat office with my employees when I could go out and do something completely different?"
"You chase the high because you never did drugs in college?"
"I chased the first high because I had never done anything crazy. So I jumped off a hundred-foot cliff into a lake. That rush - I believe that it what feeling truly alive is like."
He looks up, and it feels like I'm being studied.
"Why do you chase the high?"
I shrug.
He lets me be after that. He's loud, but he knows when to be quiet.
As we carefully climb down a cliff, my dad looks over and can't contain it.
"You don't look happy here. I thought you would."
I did too.
I grunt and drop the last ten metres. I hit the ground with a solid thump, really trying to feel the dirt under the feet.
Above me, John screams as he runs off the top of the cliff, letting the rope stop him at the fifty metre mark.
As his body jerks, and he roars, I hear tires and thuds and ringing in my ears.
I call Dr Flint, like I promised I would when things in my head make it difficult to breathe, and he takes me through a few exercises.
Tells me to come in when I get back.
We spend a week hiking. We climb trees, and cliffs, and each other.
I watch my dad jump off a waterfall and laugh when he swims out to me, eyes bright and face relaxed for the first time since before the crash.
John tells me he's going to ask Nurse Liz out for real when we get back, if he hasn't broken anything. He thinks she needs to see him out of context to really understand him. Dad wishes him luck, but raises both eyebrows at me.
We get back on a Tuesday. John and I are both back in on the Wednesday, for follow-up appointment with our various doctors.
Liz says yes, but on the condition that he actually finishes this round of rehab.
It's a hard bargain, but he complies.
Dr Flint tells me I have survivor's guilt.
I knew that.
John tells me my dad does too. He tells me that I chase highs to punish myself, because everything hurts, all the movement, and the adrenaline reminds me of being in the car for the hour it took for the ambulance to arrive, and that doing stupid, crazy things won't soothe that ache forever, but if it helps he's going paragliding in October and I can go too.
I go back to college, make up my missing credits, and see a therapist Flint recommends. She's nice.
It's a lot smoother going than with Flint, which she says is normal. A lot of the time, girls find it easier to open up to female therapists, but she also says it's because Flint and I had already done a lot of the heavy lifting, emotionally speaking.
I tell her about finishing my mother's knitting project, because I'm going to give it to my dad for Christmas.
She talks me into donating all of my brother's stuff, and I end up helping out at the shelter where we took it all to and seeing his old toys being used. It feels good, instead of punching me in the solar plexus.
She says that chasing the high can be a good thing instead of a tool to punish myself, and that I should follow my rehab programs, and drink more water.
For my dad's 60th birthday, we go cliff jumping at Crater Lake. We spend a week in a lodge, like we did when I was a kid, and half the time just exploring and eating fish. It's nice.
When my dad tells me we can jump off the higher ledges if I want, I tell him it's ok. We can just enjoy the view.
He smiles. There aren't any frown lines any more.