Discovery

Once I saw myself laying dead in the car below, I realized that my time had come. It was hard to grasp in my "earthly" head that the forces from which I had come from were ready to reclaim the energy that once filled my body. It was time to re-join and become one again and there seemed no way to break loose from it. I panicked and began to cry and scream out, "I can't go.....Not yet!" I look below and everything is turning dark. The further I ascend the darker it gets below until finally I scream, " MOM......NO NOT YET" and almost instantly, I fall back into my body and my eyes open and I take in a deep breath. There was a man was standing outside the car with his hand on my shoulder telling me that I was going to be okay and then, I lost consciousness.

When I came to, I saw lights but these were much different from the light before. This time, red flashing lights from emergency vehicles, spotlights that were set up by rescue crew and sparks by the machines that the crews were using to break me free from the mangled wreckage. I try to move and an EMT tells me to be still because they are working on cutting the metal from around me but I panic and try to break free but the pain from my legs is so horrible. I start to fade out and I can hear the EMT that's holding my hand and the oxygen over my face saying, "Stay with me....come on STAY WITH ME", and then just as quickly as I came to, I was gone again.

Waking up in an ambulance is not something I would recommend to anyone. It's cold and if you're claustrophobic then you'll never make it out alive. As my eyes opened, there were two EMT's performing different procedures. I remember one doing compressions on my chest as the other starts sticking me with needles. A mask on my face feeds me oxygen and all different kinds of wires are hooked up to all kinds of gadgets that I can't make heads or tails of but all I want to do is talk to these guys. I try, but I can't get any words out. I can hear the words in my head, but they don't seem to be making it to my mouth. It's like being in a dream where you try to run but you can't seem to get your legs up and moving. The EMT's worked frantically to keep me in this world, they were talking to me and telling me "don't close your eyes.....try to stay awake" but yet again, as I hear one tell the other, "WE'RE LOSING HIM AGAIN" , I go under.

The next time I awoke, I am on a gurney being rolled down the hallway of the hospital, the lights above pass over me quickly. There are about 5 people around me as we are rushing down the hall and I can hear them all talking to each other and I remember that it sounded like a symphony of sorts. Information was being passed to and from everyone around me and I just wanted to say something but still, I could not get the words out of my mouth. Then, I hear a familiar voice coming from somewhere behind me, it's my mother. "Is he going to be ok?" she cries. I hear the doctors telling her, "we need to stabilize him before we will know anything". She just cried and I wanted so hard to reach out to her and just tell her that I was fine and that I loved her, but I just couldn't.

As we reached the operating room I remember being prepped for surgery but before they could do anything they had to clean all of the fresh as well as the dried blood off of my face and legs. They stripped me down to my underwear(actually I'm sure it was down to nothing) and tossed my clothes in a paper bag. They started to examine my body to make sure that I didn't have any other cuts or broken bones. It was so cold in the room and sensation slowly began to make its return back into my limbs and before I knew it I was in PAIN! As they were cleaning me off there were other nurses and technicians doing their thing, hooking me up to machines and such. The "cleaning crew" were not my favorite of people at that point because as they were cleaning the blood off of my forehead with sponges, all of the tiny pieces of glass that were in my head were catching on the sponges!

I had never experienced so much physical pain my life (or so I thought) and all I wanted was to be back in all of the wonderful light and warmth that had surrounded me when I was still stuck in the car but that time had come and gone. Even though I had people all around me, I was alone. After the brutal cleaning and all of the prep, a nurse places a mask over my nose and mouth and says, "I want you to start counting backward from ten". So I counted, "10...9....8...7....6" and just like that, I'm under.

When I awake, I remember feeling as if someone had glued my eyes shut. It was so hard to open my eyes, its what I believe it feels like to open your eyes for the first time in your life. Finally my eyes open and to my left is my mother, holding my hand asking me how I was, to my right, either an attendant or nurse checking my vital signs and asking how I'm doing. I can feel my face, swollen and in pain. My mouth felt as if I had been punched repeatedly and my legs, I could not move. Once I got my bearings I started to look myself up and down trying to gauge how bad my injuries were. I touched my face and could feel the swelling and the torn flesh on my forehead as well as around my mouth, I had to see it.

I asked my mother for a mirror so that I could see for myself what had become of my face(remember.....gay and 18) and she didn't want to give me one. I insisted but she again would not and as I grew more agitated with the situation the doctor gives her the okay to give me the mirror. As I held it up in front of my face, I was horrified. The patch of hair that was ripped from the front of my head had been replaced with what I can only describe as ground beef. My entire forehead had slammed into the windshield, shredding my skin as if my face had been dragged across the pavement. On the way to the windshield my mouth slammed into the steering wheel and shards of plastic were embedded in my gums above my two front teeth. My lips were so swollen it looked like collagen on steroids. I could barely speak at all but the horror and shock was so devastating, I passed out.

The next time my eyes opened there was a woman sitting next to my bed reading the bible and praying and when she noticed that I was awake, began praying over me and thanking God that I was alive. "Who is this woman?", I thought to myself. She continued on telling me, "It was death that came to take you but God didn't let him. God k new you weren't ready to go and now you will be safe until its his time"......BLAH BLAH BLAH! "Who is this insane woman??" I kept thinking to myself and finally my mother walks in holding a cup of coffee and can clearly see that I am uncomfortable and irritated and comes to me and asks me what is wrong? I ask her who this woman is and why is she preaching to me about God? My mother looks at me with the most puzzled look on her face, a look so empty and one that I had never seen on her face and then she said to me, " That's your Grandmother". I had never seen this woman in my life and the thought of her being my grandmother made me think that I would have to remember cousins and aunts and uncles but i just couldn't and then it hit me......the damage was far worse than I could have imagined, I've lost some of my memory.

To be continued.......(I'm getting to a point I PROMISE!)