One of the strange things about my accident is that I never lost consciousness. I was awake and able to answer questions seconds after I hit the ground. I responded every time a rescue worker asked me how I was doing, even as my blood pressure tanked. And I was able to tell the ER doctors every place on my body that was injured as I lay on the examination table, high as a kite on morphine and fentanyl.
But in some sense I feel like I’ve just started to regain my consciousness. Six weeks after the accident, I think I’m finally waking up. I’m sure it’s partly the drugs and partly the trauma, but this whole thing didn’t even begin to feel real until a few days ago. And I’m here to report that coming back to reality is a mixed bag.
On one hand, I can really feel the fact that I’m sitting in this bed, immobilized and not physically able to even leave the room on my own, when just a few weeks ago, I was climbing and feeling as strong as ever.
On the other hand, I can finally truly feel that my ability to truly feel was an unlikely outcome of such an event — if that accident had happened 100 times, I probably would have died, been paralyzed, or been much more badly injured in 98 of them.
But the phrases “brush with death” and “near-death experience” still don’t resonate with me. I expect someone who has almost died to come out the other side wiser, kinder, calmer, more giving, more caring, more enlightened, feeling victorious… or at least maybe they’d have a few profound things to say about life. I, on the other hand, feel oddly unfazed. This accident feels like a tiny blip on my life’s radar before I can get back to the business of climbing and van life. It’s oddly unsatisfying.
So one has to wonder… why? If I’m going to get all of the negatives of an accident like this, where’s my damn enlightenment? Shouldn’t my life be profoundly changed forever?
Ignore the ham leaning on the van. That’s a nice sunset at Lime Creek.
Maybe the story of enlightenment after a brush with death is largely a myth perpetuated by movies and TV. After all, basically every one of my prior preconceptions about major life events had been way off base. Real life college, adult life, love, and closure after loss have all defied the wisdom of the TV shows that raised me. So it shouldn’t be surprising when almost dying follows the same pattern.
More Lime Creek love
I’m sure there’s a spectrum of how we all cope with an experience like this. But maybe post-trauma enlightenment is most commonly a story of a life that has been lived largely unexamined. And of everything one could say about me, living an unexamined life isn’t one of them. Someone probably doesn’t end up living in a van while working a respectable full time job unless they’ve seriously questioned the status quo.
And the life I expect to go back to is pretty great. Sure, I don’t have running water, a kitchen table, or even insulation. But I spend much of my days with the person I love most (Jackie) doing the thing that I love most (climbing). At night, I come back to a comfortable bed (still with Jackie) in a van that is parked in a beautiful place… or at least in a parking lot close to work. I’m sure there will be revisions to this lifestyle in the future. But I think that my lack of enlightenment after a brush with death is just confirmation that this is a version of my life in which I could have died happy.
And that’s not such a bad thing to wake up to.
Week 6 Happenings:
Not much to report for the last few weeks. Just daily healing, visits from friends, a bit of in-home PT, and lots of media consumption.
This week, I did stop taking all pain meds except for gabapentin, which feels like a milestone. (Apparently, I damaged my sciatic nerve in the fall, so there is pain. But it’s very much controlled by gabapentin.)
Bills are starting to come in, but I think I’ll make a whole post about that in the future :)