Days of Cory #20. I can remember Cory by myself, but it's even better to share it with someone. Here goes:
Woke up the other night struck with the memory of Cory, age six, getting her tongue stuck to a metal railing by the back door of our house in the dead of winter. Who should come to her rescue, but my new husband, who had previously had no dealings with young children whatsoever.
I was not there to see him in action, but I could picture it then, and can picture it now- Cory in distress, making as much noise as one can possibly make with their tongue immobile, and Tim, frustrated and panicked, asking her over and over what on earth would possess her to do such a thing, even as he ran the warm water from inside the house, where she couldn't possibly hear him, let alone respond.
When I asked Tim about it in the morning, he just smiled, "That girl..."
Yep, that girl.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Someone Else's Shoes
So around the same time I was asking lots of questions about why Cory was not given CPR, Jake caught me off guard with his own question on the subject. He said he'd seen something on tv where someone was hurt, but the ambulance guys were able to save their life. "Did they try to save Cory with the paddles?" he wanted to know.
I sat down right where I was, which happened to be the toilet as I had wandered into the bathroom for a tissue.
I called him over to sit on the edge of the tub, and regarded his so young, but so old face. Silence spun out as I tried to decide what to say. I couldn't just snap back, "No, they didn't, those good for nothing assholes!". This was a child I was about to address. He still believed (at least I think he does), that the world is mostly a good place, and that people are good for the most part. Could I destroy that innocence and optimism with my own bitter resentments? When children become jaded, something has gone terribly wrong.
Instead of bashing Lifecare, I asked him a question of my own.
"Jacob, do you know what Cory's injuries were?"
Solemn shaking of his head back and forth. No. I guess he wouldn't. I had knelt before him on the dining room floor, took his face between my hands, and said, "Your sister got hit by a car. She didn't make it."
"Do you want to know?" I asked him.
"Yes." he said immediately, his little face set and watchful.
So I told him, as gently as I could. The litany of multiple skull fractures(front and back), broken neck, broken arm, and two broken hips flows out of my mouth, but burns my heart every time I say it. And I explained that although the responders wanted to help, Cory was hurt too badly for the paddles to work. I didn't give details because I honestly didn't know them at that time. My revelation after talking to Angie was a few days off at that point.
Here's what happened after that conversation, though.
Jacob nodded solemnly, and accepted this statement- something I've struggled to do since day one.
I left the room, and started to think about the responders on the scene in a slightly different way. It wasn't likely that people in those professions do not want to help whenever possible, or that they are lazy or incompetent. Maybe, just maybe, the lingering and lolly-gagging I saw that day from my point of view was something different entirely.
Maybe they knew from the second they saw her, that nothing could be done. Maybe all those lumbering errands back and forth with no real action were just protocol being followed as they did their job. Maybe the hesitation to tell me she was dead, that nothing could be done or why nothing could be done was their horror and reluctance to change my world forever. I can't imagine giving that news is an easy thing to do.
Just for a moment, I put myself in their shoes, and tried to see things from someone else's point of view. I think putting myself behind the wheel of the driver's vehicle will be even harder, but it will have to be done if I am ever to have any peace in this world.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Flirting at the Vascular Doctor's
Days of Cory #19-
I remember Cory by telling silly stories about my day that I can no longer share with her. I can see her face and hear her laugh.
Learning my lesson from my ill-fated visit to the podiatrist to reveal a truly wooly-mammoth type leg, I did indeed shave and moisturize my legs before going to the vascular doctor I was referred to for my mysteriously ailing toe. I was fully expecting a doddering old coot, and sat up a little straighter when a dark-eyed man five years or so my junior with a foreign accent entered the room.
You know that spark when two people find themselves attracted to each other? Yep, there was said spark. It lasted even as I relayed my medical history and gave him the detailed saga of my put-upon toe. I somehow managed to give him my best bedroom eyes, even while describing how my toe peels like a banana every three months or so. He did not miss a beat. Our eyes held, and all that sexual tension was fairly palpable right up until he asked me to place my foot in his gloved hand.
That moment when you place your foot in a guy's hand should be unforgettable, something you can call up in your memory once you've reached your sunrise years, and find yourself cold and alone at night.
Yeah, well...
Ashamed, feeling hideous and disfigured, I gingerly placed my foot in his gloved hand and watched all his impure thoughts about me disappear as he gazed upon my diseased toe. There was no longer a valid need to have a nurse in the room; nothing was happening here.
The spell was broken. Like Cinderella in reverse, he did not ask for my digits or proceed to sweep me off said foot. Instead, he told me in his delightfully hard to decipher accent that I had a rare syndrome that caused failing circulation in one toe or one finger. He urged me to take baby aspirin daily- "which you should be doing anyways since you are_", he stopped to glance down at my file, "yes, you are forty."
Well, twist the knife, why don't you?
A torrid affair with my dark eyed, wildly intelligent vascular surgeon off the table, I resigned myself to practical boots in extreme cold and keeping my toe warm "at all costs."
Head down, I accepted my instructions. The magic was over.
Or was it?
My recheck is in four to six weeks...plenty of time for a girl to get a deluxe pedi and slather on some self tanner. When he asks me to put my foot in his hand, I'll just hike that baby up on his shoulder, and see what happens.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
The Missing Cory Days
Yep, I was not able to accomplish my goal. I was not able to frame my grief into a positive remembrance for 30 days in a row.
Truth is, the days leading up to what should be my baby's girl's 21st birthday have been weary. I am tired. I am bitter.
I miss her every moment. Sometimes remembering her is not a conscious act, it's just what I do as I open my eyes each day and walk around the world without her.
Here's some more ways I've found myself remembering Cory:
15) I wear her scent.
16) I remember silly things out of nowhere- like the week or so Cory and I spent trying to convince her father that Shell gas station's roof housed a real live owl, not just the decoy they had posted up there to scare away pests. How badly she wanted him to play that game with us!
17) Timmy the squirrel. When Cory was seven or so, she named one of the plump little squirrels who lived in the tree outside our kitchen window. In the years to follow, every subsequent squirrel was Timmy. Timmy developed pretend friendships with our pets. We'd talk about Timmy playing the lottery and the status of his relationships. As Jake grew up, Cory involved him in her make believe stories. The other night, I handed Jake my sketchbook to see if he'd volunteer something for my art journal. He handed it back later with a sketch of Thomas the kitten and Timmy the squirrel in their basement man cave with a big screen tv, watching football and gorging on snacks.
18) Every time a Menard's commercial comes on tv, I remember when Cory was little and she'd sing the jingle, "Save big money at Benard's!" To this day, Tim refers to Menard's as Benard's. Her mispronunciation as a little girl couldn't have been any more charming.
19) Journaling. It was something I instilled in Cory- buying her journal after journal, encouraging her love of the written word, urging her to document her life's experiences. I have her journals, and don't take them out too often yet, but they are there on my dresser and my shelf- a lot of them filled with scary experiences, but also soooo much love. When I journal, I think of Cory, and how much she'd love art journaling with me out in the studio- just bursting with ideas, poring over pages, putting life into a book, something someone will hold long after you are gone.
Truth is, the days leading up to what should be my baby's girl's 21st birthday have been weary. I am tired. I am bitter.
I miss her every moment. Sometimes remembering her is not a conscious act, it's just what I do as I open my eyes each day and walk around the world without her.
Here's some more ways I've found myself remembering Cory:
15) I wear her scent.
16) I remember silly things out of nowhere- like the week or so Cory and I spent trying to convince her father that Shell gas station's roof housed a real live owl, not just the decoy they had posted up there to scare away pests. How badly she wanted him to play that game with us!
17) Timmy the squirrel. When Cory was seven or so, she named one of the plump little squirrels who lived in the tree outside our kitchen window. In the years to follow, every subsequent squirrel was Timmy. Timmy developed pretend friendships with our pets. We'd talk about Timmy playing the lottery and the status of his relationships. As Jake grew up, Cory involved him in her make believe stories. The other night, I handed Jake my sketchbook to see if he'd volunteer something for my art journal. He handed it back later with a sketch of Thomas the kitten and Timmy the squirrel in their basement man cave with a big screen tv, watching football and gorging on snacks.
18) Every time a Menard's commercial comes on tv, I remember when Cory was little and she'd sing the jingle, "Save big money at Benard's!" To this day, Tim refers to Menard's as Benard's. Her mispronunciation as a little girl couldn't have been any more charming.
19) Journaling. It was something I instilled in Cory- buying her journal after journal, encouraging her love of the written word, urging her to document her life's experiences. I have her journals, and don't take them out too often yet, but they are there on my dresser and my shelf- a lot of them filled with scary experiences, but also soooo much love. When I journal, I think of Cory, and how much she'd love art journaling with me out in the studio- just bursting with ideas, poring over pages, putting life into a book, something someone will hold long after you are gone.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Processing Part 2
Those two weeks of processing that Cory was not given CPR because it could not work caused the sort of bizarre thought patterns that made me fear I was going crazy.
Somehow I had gotten it into my head that it only made sense that she couldn't be revived if her head was physically separate from her body. How weird is that?
I knew Cory had not been decapitated during the accident, but every time I tried to think about the logistics of vertebrae, spinal cords, spinal shock, electrical activity, and the like, my brain got tired, overwhelmed, and just generalized the whole thing into this: Cory couldn't have survived with her head in one place and her body in another, so that must have been what happened.
Where in world did this come from?
I have a few thoughts.
First, the brain experiencing trauma doesn't line up its sensory experiences in straight little lines. I saw some horrible things on that road. I did not see Cory's head unattached from her body, of course, but I saw plenty of other unnatural and disturbing images. They made absolutely no sense to me at the time.
Secondly, my brain following that traumatic experience was as literal as it wanted to be. When the funeral director cautioned my family and I that there could be no "jostling of the body"...that Cory was "extremely fragile" and "could not be handled roughly"...I took him at his word...and then some. I'm not sure what kind-hearted Mark had in mind when he gave us this cautious speech before I saw my daughter for the first time since the road. I'm not sure what he thought I had in mind. I had no intention of handling her roughly, whatever that might mean. God knows what funeral home directors may see from grief stricken loved ones, as logic clearly departs. I know for my part, I immediately pictured Cory's head being held onto her shoulders by about three loopy stitches, and silently gave up my most fervent desire of just climbing right into her casket beside her, as if it were a hospital bed.
To this day, I deeply regret not asking to spend the night sleeping on the floor of the funeral home beside her, and wonder if I had begged hard enough or offered to pay extra, if I would have been granted the opportunity to spend a little more time with my girl before she was taken away from me forever. Would that have made me feel better, you ask? Yes, yes, it would've. I am absolutely certain.
The whole necklace business at the end of her service sealed my madness. When I gave the kind woman my dragonfly pendant to be put on Cory's neck, it was a put up job of all put up jobs. My beautiful, real, and recently living and breathing child and friend was reduced to mannequin status as the necklace was set on her collarbones and the ends tucked gingerly behind her shoulders, without being latched. What in the hell was that about? My survival state brain pumping adrenaline and high alert chemicals through my body twenty four hours a day went absolutely ballistic with this proof of Cory's new fragility: OH MY GOD! They are afraid to lift her head LEST IT FALL RIGHT OFF!
Obviously, I have reasoned with myself on this matter some in the past year or so, but as I worked through the details of her injuries this last couple of months, all those crazy thoughts came back with a vengeance.
I try not to think of Cory at night before I go to sleep. The road is always too close. One look out my window, or a few steps into my darkened living room, and I am literally right there. Once asleep, it's out of my control. This whole decapitated thing ran rampant in my dreams, and I woke up sweaty and confused night after night after night.
I've tried to find a way to resolve this for myself, and all I've been able to come up with is this:
my brain couldn't process an injury it couldn't see, and didn't take in as a viable image. I couldn't see the particular severed vertebrae that meant my girl couldn't be given CPR, couldn't have her blood circulated to her organs until professional help arrived. There weren't, in my memory, shards of bone or strands of fibrous tissue trailing out of her neck to remind me. I would always see her in my memories of that day as broken, bloody, wrong...but in pieces that were generally still attached, in one place. So if she looked somewhat still together, why couldn't she be saved?
My subconscious stepped right in, agreeing that was absolute hogwash. If Cory's brain could no longer send messages to her body, they must be ex-communicated. Just like that, my bizarre thought patterns and grisly nightmares were born.
How do I stop them?
Hell, if I know.
What I do know is that I've started looking at people and their bodies differently. Part of it may be obsession with drawing people, and faces in particular. Having a good idea of the bone structure that lies underneath helps your drawings and paintings to be more dimensional. But more than that, when I see Jake sleeping with his head on the pillow, and a small hand on one cheek, I'm looking at his face, his bones underneath, and marveling at the fragileness and beauty of human beings. These days, I have a conversation with Tim about paying a bill, and catch myself looking at his neck and wondering just where that magical vertebrae resides, that holds so much responsibility and so much power over human life.
We are so fragile.
I had a series of nightmares directly following the accident: Tim stabbed at the C-store, Tim and Jake run over by a Fed-Ex truck in our driveway, my parents dying within days of each other. This is common after a traumatic event. Once your safe circle has been put on hit, you realize those horrible things really can happen to people like you, and you start to see danger lurking everywhere.
Right after I lost Cory, I spent nights and nights sitting up in the glow of a nightlight, absolutely terrified. It took weeks before I stopped feeling like I was being chased by someone who wanted me dead.
We are so fragile.
How do I process the fact that Cory, who to me was a supernatural being of sorts -someone so big, so important, so central to my identity that she blocked out the sun- she became my sun- was really only made of flesh and bones, after all?
Cory's stunted development, interrupted with schizoaffective disorder, held her fast to me, postponing the natural break of a teenager her age from her mother. We were enmeshed in so many ways. She had become the biggest focus of my waking hours and more important to me than food or sleep. How do you make someone like that mortal in your mind? How can you be at peace with the end of that sort of influence on your life? She made me a better person. Her very existence and the struggles we faced together defined me, and certainly the loss of her would define me, as well. How could it not? We are the sum of our influences, and our experiences.
I guess I'll tackle it in my art journal, like everything else. If you follow me on facebook, and patiently endure my daily doodles, you might start to notice a lot of bones...some skeletal work under my people. That's me, trying to find peace in the fact that the love of my life was a girl...the best girl I've ever known...but a girl made of flesh and bones, like the rest of us. She was fragile. Someone wasn't watching where they were going, and they broke her.
And she just couldn't be put back together again.
Somehow I had gotten it into my head that it only made sense that she couldn't be revived if her head was physically separate from her body. How weird is that?
I knew Cory had not been decapitated during the accident, but every time I tried to think about the logistics of vertebrae, spinal cords, spinal shock, electrical activity, and the like, my brain got tired, overwhelmed, and just generalized the whole thing into this: Cory couldn't have survived with her head in one place and her body in another, so that must have been what happened.
Where in world did this come from?
I have a few thoughts.
First, the brain experiencing trauma doesn't line up its sensory experiences in straight little lines. I saw some horrible things on that road. I did not see Cory's head unattached from her body, of course, but I saw plenty of other unnatural and disturbing images. They made absolutely no sense to me at the time.
Secondly, my brain following that traumatic experience was as literal as it wanted to be. When the funeral director cautioned my family and I that there could be no "jostling of the body"...that Cory was "extremely fragile" and "could not be handled roughly"...I took him at his word...and then some. I'm not sure what kind-hearted Mark had in mind when he gave us this cautious speech before I saw my daughter for the first time since the road. I'm not sure what he thought I had in mind. I had no intention of handling her roughly, whatever that might mean. God knows what funeral home directors may see from grief stricken loved ones, as logic clearly departs. I know for my part, I immediately pictured Cory's head being held onto her shoulders by about three loopy stitches, and silently gave up my most fervent desire of just climbing right into her casket beside her, as if it were a hospital bed.
To this day, I deeply regret not asking to spend the night sleeping on the floor of the funeral home beside her, and wonder if I had begged hard enough or offered to pay extra, if I would have been granted the opportunity to spend a little more time with my girl before she was taken away from me forever. Would that have made me feel better, you ask? Yes, yes, it would've. I am absolutely certain.
The whole necklace business at the end of her service sealed my madness. When I gave the kind woman my dragonfly pendant to be put on Cory's neck, it was a put up job of all put up jobs. My beautiful, real, and recently living and breathing child and friend was reduced to mannequin status as the necklace was set on her collarbones and the ends tucked gingerly behind her shoulders, without being latched. What in the hell was that about? My survival state brain pumping adrenaline and high alert chemicals through my body twenty four hours a day went absolutely ballistic with this proof of Cory's new fragility: OH MY GOD! They are afraid to lift her head LEST IT FALL RIGHT OFF!
Obviously, I have reasoned with myself on this matter some in the past year or so, but as I worked through the details of her injuries this last couple of months, all those crazy thoughts came back with a vengeance.
I try not to think of Cory at night before I go to sleep. The road is always too close. One look out my window, or a few steps into my darkened living room, and I am literally right there. Once asleep, it's out of my control. This whole decapitated thing ran rampant in my dreams, and I woke up sweaty and confused night after night after night.
I've tried to find a way to resolve this for myself, and all I've been able to come up with is this:
my brain couldn't process an injury it couldn't see, and didn't take in as a viable image. I couldn't see the particular severed vertebrae that meant my girl couldn't be given CPR, couldn't have her blood circulated to her organs until professional help arrived. There weren't, in my memory, shards of bone or strands of fibrous tissue trailing out of her neck to remind me. I would always see her in my memories of that day as broken, bloody, wrong...but in pieces that were generally still attached, in one place. So if she looked somewhat still together, why couldn't she be saved?
My subconscious stepped right in, agreeing that was absolute hogwash. If Cory's brain could no longer send messages to her body, they must be ex-communicated. Just like that, my bizarre thought patterns and grisly nightmares were born.
How do I stop them?
Hell, if I know.
What I do know is that I've started looking at people and their bodies differently. Part of it may be obsession with drawing people, and faces in particular. Having a good idea of the bone structure that lies underneath helps your drawings and paintings to be more dimensional. But more than that, when I see Jake sleeping with his head on the pillow, and a small hand on one cheek, I'm looking at his face, his bones underneath, and marveling at the fragileness and beauty of human beings. These days, I have a conversation with Tim about paying a bill, and catch myself looking at his neck and wondering just where that magical vertebrae resides, that holds so much responsibility and so much power over human life.
We are so fragile.
I had a series of nightmares directly following the accident: Tim stabbed at the C-store, Tim and Jake run over by a Fed-Ex truck in our driveway, my parents dying within days of each other. This is common after a traumatic event. Once your safe circle has been put on hit, you realize those horrible things really can happen to people like you, and you start to see danger lurking everywhere.
Right after I lost Cory, I spent nights and nights sitting up in the glow of a nightlight, absolutely terrified. It took weeks before I stopped feeling like I was being chased by someone who wanted me dead.
We are so fragile.
How do I process the fact that Cory, who to me was a supernatural being of sorts -someone so big, so important, so central to my identity that she blocked out the sun- she became my sun- was really only made of flesh and bones, after all?
Cory's stunted development, interrupted with schizoaffective disorder, held her fast to me, postponing the natural break of a teenager her age from her mother. We were enmeshed in so many ways. She had become the biggest focus of my waking hours and more important to me than food or sleep. How do you make someone like that mortal in your mind? How can you be at peace with the end of that sort of influence on your life? She made me a better person. Her very existence and the struggles we faced together defined me, and certainly the loss of her would define me, as well. How could it not? We are the sum of our influences, and our experiences.
I guess I'll tackle it in my art journal, like everything else. If you follow me on facebook, and patiently endure my daily doodles, you might start to notice a lot of bones...some skeletal work under my people. That's me, trying to find peace in the fact that the love of my life was a girl...the best girl I've ever known...but a girl made of flesh and bones, like the rest of us. She was fragile. Someone wasn't watching where they were going, and they broke her.
And she just couldn't be put back together again.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Processing
I've been putting this one off for about three weeks. Hanging onto it has accomplished nothing but a perpetual stomachache, so here goes:
If you want an honest answer to a hard question, ask my friend, Angie. She will measure you with her direct gaze, and ask if you are sure you'd like her input, and then she'll give it, full bore.
About three weeks ago, I gathered my courage- which you'd need if you ever entered a heated debate with this short little Minnie Mouse-voiced creature- and asked her opinion on my idea to get more information from Life Care about the decision to withhold resuscitation attempts. Would this be going forward towards acceptance or backwards, staying stuck in the world of we-may-never-know?
Angie lifted one eyebrow, and answered easily, "I'm not sure, Nicole. It depends on what you are hunting for. What is really bothering you?"
What was bothering me? That was easy. Why was my girl denied the paddles? Why no rescue breathing? Why did no one do anything? Plenty of people are clinically dead, but attempts to save them are made. I was told, "There was nothing I could do for your daughter."
What exactly did that mean?
Without specific information, my mind was wild with ideas: did they think she'd have been a paraplegic? Did they think she'd have come back only to remain in a coma until a difficult decision of whether or not to remove life support was harnessed onto my shoulders?
I shared these ponderings with Angie, who looked at me curiously. I looked back steadily.
"Nicole, is that what you really think?"
"I don't know what to think! They didn't give me any details!" I returned, arms waving in exasperation.
Angie paused. "Okay, now you remember that Cory broke her neck in the accident, right?"
"Yes." I allowed. "So what? Lots of people with broken necks still live."
"Yes, yes, they do. Do you remember what the funeral director said about how Cory died?" she asked.
"Yes, yes." I answered impatiently. "He said he thought she went on impact. I get it. But why didn't they try to bring her back?"
Angie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Nicole, I don't think that was a possibility. She had no heartbeat. She had stopped breathing."
At this, I felt like punching a wall, but merely bunched up a fist and spat out, "Isn't that what CPR is fricking FOR?"
"But--" she began.
"I GOOGLED IT!" I cried irrationally.
God save us if Google becomes the defense of every emotionally based argument.
Angie hid a grin behind her hand and carried on, non-plussed. "And what did Google tell you, Miss Nicole?"
"It said that refusal to resuscitate is done when either there are multi-system lethal injuries or irreparable harm to the brain is visible by external observation." I recited by rote...words I had been seeing in my dreams of late.
"Okay, and what did you get out of that?" she pressed.
"Well, no one told me any of that. It's not like they said she had a big giant hole in her head and her brains were falling out, and I can't remember!" And this point, my shaky hand came to rest near my cheek and the tears started up, Old Faithful present and accounted for. "I don't remember that part, just what her face looked like, and her arm... and lots of blood...lots and lots of blood."
Angie handed me a box of tissues. "It's okay that you don't remember, Nicole."
"But it's not! Cause I don't know why the decision was made by that ER doctor not to even TRY to save her! What did the EMT say to that doctor? What did they SAY?" I wailed.
Angie said, "Nicole, they probably told them about her broken neck. Do you remember what we talked about last time...about how whether or not a broken neck is fatal or not depends on which vertebrae are broken and how badly?"
Damn Angie and her EMT ex-husband. Yes, I remembered. Sort of.
Angie handed me another Kleenex and said, "Miss Nicole, you can request reports from Life Care, but I think you already have the answers you're looking for...I think you just don't like them."
I stared at her, this dear friend, who had listened to more than her share of my blabbering, and hated her just a little for denying me this wholly comforting delusion. "I don't have them! I don't!" I insisted.
I imagine my forty year old tear streaked face looked like the child who was denied another piece of cake lest she get sick, another half hour past bedtime lest she be a complete monster the next day, another glass of pop lest she rot her teeth.
And maybe, maybe I really didn't.
Because t still didn't make sense to me.
I took the conversation home with me and took it for a two week walk. Many afternoons later, I grabbed a minute with Angie, and told her I had a question.
"Sure." she said.
"Okay, just don't answer me until I get all done, okay?" I asked.
"Okay." she agreed.
I put one hand up to block out her face and averted my gaze to the left, completely refusing eye contact of any sort, and blurted out this:
"When you said it wasn't possible for the EMTs to revive Cory because of her injuries...did you mean because her neck broke at or above the 5th vertebrae that it severed her spinal cord? which meant that the signal between her brain and her body was broken? so if the bystander said she was still breathing before the ambulance got there it was because right before the car hit her, her brain had already sent the signal for her to breathe, and her body was just catching up? That even if they gave her CPR, her brain could no longer communicate with her lungs and heart for her to breathe and be alive? Like... like a chicken whose head has been cut off, but still moves around a little afterwards?" My heart just burned during this entire wavering speech. " Is that what you mean?"
I stopped here, and finally met her eyes.
"Yes! Yes, Miss Nicole! That is what I mean!"
"Okay." I said, and just put my head down and sobbed.
---To Be Continued
If you want an honest answer to a hard question, ask my friend, Angie. She will measure you with her direct gaze, and ask if you are sure you'd like her input, and then she'll give it, full bore.
About three weeks ago, I gathered my courage- which you'd need if you ever entered a heated debate with this short little Minnie Mouse-voiced creature- and asked her opinion on my idea to get more information from Life Care about the decision to withhold resuscitation attempts. Would this be going forward towards acceptance or backwards, staying stuck in the world of we-may-never-know?
Angie lifted one eyebrow, and answered easily, "I'm not sure, Nicole. It depends on what you are hunting for. What is really bothering you?"
What was bothering me? That was easy. Why was my girl denied the paddles? Why no rescue breathing? Why did no one do anything? Plenty of people are clinically dead, but attempts to save them are made. I was told, "There was nothing I could do for your daughter."
What exactly did that mean?
Without specific information, my mind was wild with ideas: did they think she'd have been a paraplegic? Did they think she'd have come back only to remain in a coma until a difficult decision of whether or not to remove life support was harnessed onto my shoulders?
I shared these ponderings with Angie, who looked at me curiously. I looked back steadily.
"Nicole, is that what you really think?"
"I don't know what to think! They didn't give me any details!" I returned, arms waving in exasperation.
Angie paused. "Okay, now you remember that Cory broke her neck in the accident, right?"
"Yes." I allowed. "So what? Lots of people with broken necks still live."
"Yes, yes, they do. Do you remember what the funeral director said about how Cory died?" she asked.
"Yes, yes." I answered impatiently. "He said he thought she went on impact. I get it. But why didn't they try to bring her back?"
Angie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Nicole, I don't think that was a possibility. She had no heartbeat. She had stopped breathing."
At this, I felt like punching a wall, but merely bunched up a fist and spat out, "Isn't that what CPR is fricking FOR?"
"But--" she began.
"I GOOGLED IT!" I cried irrationally.
God save us if Google becomes the defense of every emotionally based argument.
Angie hid a grin behind her hand and carried on, non-plussed. "And what did Google tell you, Miss Nicole?"
"It said that refusal to resuscitate is done when either there are multi-system lethal injuries or irreparable harm to the brain is visible by external observation." I recited by rote...words I had been seeing in my dreams of late.
"Okay, and what did you get out of that?" she pressed.
"Well, no one told me any of that. It's not like they said she had a big giant hole in her head and her brains were falling out, and I can't remember!" And this point, my shaky hand came to rest near my cheek and the tears started up, Old Faithful present and accounted for. "I don't remember that part, just what her face looked like, and her arm... and lots of blood...lots and lots of blood."
Angie handed me a box of tissues. "It's okay that you don't remember, Nicole."
"But it's not! Cause I don't know why the decision was made by that ER doctor not to even TRY to save her! What did the EMT say to that doctor? What did they SAY?" I wailed.
Angie said, "Nicole, they probably told them about her broken neck. Do you remember what we talked about last time...about how whether or not a broken neck is fatal or not depends on which vertebrae are broken and how badly?"
Damn Angie and her EMT ex-husband. Yes, I remembered. Sort of.
Angie handed me another Kleenex and said, "Miss Nicole, you can request reports from Life Care, but I think you already have the answers you're looking for...I think you just don't like them."
I stared at her, this dear friend, who had listened to more than her share of my blabbering, and hated her just a little for denying me this wholly comforting delusion. "I don't have them! I don't!" I insisted.
I imagine my forty year old tear streaked face looked like the child who was denied another piece of cake lest she get sick, another half hour past bedtime lest she be a complete monster the next day, another glass of pop lest she rot her teeth.
And maybe, maybe I really didn't.
Because t still didn't make sense to me.
I took the conversation home with me and took it for a two week walk. Many afternoons later, I grabbed a minute with Angie, and told her I had a question.
"Sure." she said.
"Okay, just don't answer me until I get all done, okay?" I asked.
"Okay." she agreed.
I put one hand up to block out her face and averted my gaze to the left, completely refusing eye contact of any sort, and blurted out this:
"When you said it wasn't possible for the EMTs to revive Cory because of her injuries...did you mean because her neck broke at or above the 5th vertebrae that it severed her spinal cord? which meant that the signal between her brain and her body was broken? so if the bystander said she was still breathing before the ambulance got there it was because right before the car hit her, her brain had already sent the signal for her to breathe, and her body was just catching up? That even if they gave her CPR, her brain could no longer communicate with her lungs and heart for her to breathe and be alive? Like... like a chicken whose head has been cut off, but still moves around a little afterwards?" My heart just burned during this entire wavering speech. " Is that what you mean?"
I stopped here, and finally met her eyes.
"Yes! Yes, Miss Nicole! That is what I mean!"
"Okay." I said, and just put my head down and sobbed.
---To Be Continued
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Pulling the Grief Trigger
Cory Days- #14
What do you do in the middle of the night when you can't sleep and you are missing your girl like crazy?
Well, if you're me, you tiptoe through the mostly dark house into the dining room, and kneel down in front of the wooden bench by the entry way. On top of the bench, some seventeen months in counting, sits Cory's bright pink purse.
I moved Cory's shoes from their spot by the back door when I took them to Italy, but her purse is still where she last set it. I didn't approach it earlier to move it, but just to touch it, maybe look inside, which is something I've done only a time or two since placing her broken phone case inside it carefully, and walking away.
Once, since the last book we'd been reading together was The Things They Carried, I set out to make a list of all the things she'd had in her purse, but I gave up pretty quickly, finding that it was too painful to go through the things she considered important enough to lug around on her person most days.
A little while ago, I knelt in the silent house, a cat rubbing up against my cold legs now and again, and just took a peek inside. There was the bird zip pouch I'd gotten her on our last Christmas together. Think my hand trembled a little as I unzipped it? It did. I looked inside to find an emergency pad, her house key on a key ring of baubles including a rabbit's foot, and her EOS lip balm.
Nope, nope, nope. Still too soon.
Hurriedly, as if I'd been caught pilfering through my mom's vanity as a little girl, I zipped it up, tucked it back inside next to the broken cellphone case, and backed away.
What is nineteen months to your heart? Not a damn thing, people. Nothing.
I remembered her as I touched her things; I did. She could have been in the bathroom, towel drying her hair. I wanted to grab her by the hand in her pajamas, and make a crazy midnight run to Family Fare so we could make a cheesecake we just happened to have a hankering for after too many episodes of Frazier on dvd, as we often did on the weekend or a holiday break.
I'd grab my purse, and she'd grab hers. And we'd just go. Partners in crime.
What do you do in the middle of the night when you can't sleep and you are missing your girl like crazy?
Well, if you're me, you tiptoe through the mostly dark house into the dining room, and kneel down in front of the wooden bench by the entry way. On top of the bench, some seventeen months in counting, sits Cory's bright pink purse.
I moved Cory's shoes from their spot by the back door when I took them to Italy, but her purse is still where she last set it. I didn't approach it earlier to move it, but just to touch it, maybe look inside, which is something I've done only a time or two since placing her broken phone case inside it carefully, and walking away.
Once, since the last book we'd been reading together was The Things They Carried, I set out to make a list of all the things she'd had in her purse, but I gave up pretty quickly, finding that it was too painful to go through the things she considered important enough to lug around on her person most days.
A little while ago, I knelt in the silent house, a cat rubbing up against my cold legs now and again, and just took a peek inside. There was the bird zip pouch I'd gotten her on our last Christmas together. Think my hand trembled a little as I unzipped it? It did. I looked inside to find an emergency pad, her house key on a key ring of baubles including a rabbit's foot, and her EOS lip balm.
Nope, nope, nope. Still too soon.
Hurriedly, as if I'd been caught pilfering through my mom's vanity as a little girl, I zipped it up, tucked it back inside next to the broken cellphone case, and backed away.
What is nineteen months to your heart? Not a damn thing, people. Nothing.
I remembered her as I touched her things; I did. She could have been in the bathroom, towel drying her hair. I wanted to grab her by the hand in her pajamas, and make a crazy midnight run to Family Fare so we could make a cheesecake we just happened to have a hankering for after too many episodes of Frazier on dvd, as we often did on the weekend or a holiday break.
I'd grab my purse, and she'd grab hers. And we'd just go. Partners in crime.
Hoping
Cory Days # 13
I remembered Cory today by looking at her artwork up on the wall in my office. And yesterday, on my way out to a meeting, I took a second to touch one of her paintings. She had used her fingers to paint this particular canvas, and I could follow her fingers with mine through the open frame. Just a minute to be with my girl, and remember how much she loved helping people, helping them even when she didn't realize that she was...just by the example that she set. She took her pain, and she made it into something beautiful.
I found one of her journals in Jacob's top bunk after the accident. She'd written about how the voices had been bothering her so much, and she just didn't know if she could handle getting sick again. She wrote about how much she worried for her future- graduating, going to college, finding a job- wanting it to be something that mattered- trying to help people like others had helped her.
I hope she knows how many lives she has touched. I hope.
I remembered Cory today by looking at her artwork up on the wall in my office. And yesterday, on my way out to a meeting, I took a second to touch one of her paintings. She had used her fingers to paint this particular canvas, and I could follow her fingers with mine through the open frame. Just a minute to be with my girl, and remember how much she loved helping people, helping them even when she didn't realize that she was...just by the example that she set. She took her pain, and she made it into something beautiful.
I found one of her journals in Jacob's top bunk after the accident. She'd written about how the voices had been bothering her so much, and she just didn't know if she could handle getting sick again. She wrote about how much she worried for her future- graduating, going to college, finding a job- wanting it to be something that mattered- trying to help people like others had helped her.
I hope she knows how many lives she has touched. I hope.
.
Monday, February 3, 2014
How EveryDay Objects are Made Sacred
Cory Days #11 & 12
I remembered Cory by wearing my Venice earrings today. I still remember going into the little shop with my mom and admiring all the little trinkets on display. Most of all, I remember that day when the night train arrived in Venice at sunrise, I stepped off of it, and took what seemed like the first deep breath since the day Cory died. I remember my chest feeling full, but light...for once, not crushed under the weight of so much pain. I remember looking at everything around in me wonder, smiling and laughing with my mother, and realizing for just a moment that the world could still be beautiful. Sometimes, I take these earrings out, and wear them, remembering that feeling and knowing it is just what my Cory-Girl would want for me.
And, I remembered Cory tonight with Jacob. He clamored to taste test the sauce I'd made. Although a spoon might have been more practical, I handed him Cory's special fork, which he took reverently. "Perfect." Taste tester duty has been lovingly passed down from Cory to Jake, and I know she'd have it no other way.
I remembered Cory by wearing my Venice earrings today. I still remember going into the little shop with my mom and admiring all the little trinkets on display. Most of all, I remember that day when the night train arrived in Venice at sunrise, I stepped off of it, and took what seemed like the first deep breath since the day Cory died. I remember my chest feeling full, but light...for once, not crushed under the weight of so much pain. I remember looking at everything around in me wonder, smiling and laughing with my mother, and realizing for just a moment that the world could still be beautiful. Sometimes, I take these earrings out, and wear them, remembering that feeling and knowing it is just what my Cory-Girl would want for me.
And, I remembered Cory tonight with Jacob. He clamored to taste test the sauce I'd made. Although a spoon might have been more practical, I handed him Cory's special fork, which he took reverently. "Perfect." Taste tester duty has been lovingly passed down from Cory to Jake, and I know she'd have it no other way.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
W-H Questions Part II
I don't want her to be dead.
See how Acceptance does me? The jerk promises to stay with me forever, and then just blows town in the middle of the night for parts unknown. I should have known. Wasn't there that little bit of mistrust all along? This is not the guy that's gonna stay and raise a family with you. This is the guy who will float in and out of your life on a whim.
You cannot accomplish these stupid stages and be done with them. You simply move in and out them...forever.
Something else I've discovered- that are many facets to Acceptance.
Just because you have one down, doesn't mean you have them all. Most days, I know Cory is gone and isn't coming back. You'd think I've mastered Acceptance. But not only do you have to make peace with the fact that your child is dead, you have to accept how she died, what was or was not done to save her, her mutilitated body. At some point, you'll have to accept the answers you get and the ones you'll never have no matter how much you pursue them.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Birthday Plans
30 Days of Cory- #10
Remembering Cory today started with a conversation with Tim. He told me he got February 23rd off from work to be with me on Cory's birthday, and thought we should do something to honor her. I was surprised to hear this, but pleased. His suggestion was to go to a favorite restaurant of hers with Jake, and have a birthday dinner.
This seems like a perfectly reasonable, and lovely idea. Naturally, I feel completely opposed to the idea. While he planned his surf and turf order out loud, I inwardly recoiled. Would this become just another dinner out without her, where the boys had a great time and I couldn't swallow? Do I really want to make such a public recognition of her absence?
Somewhere, my closest friends roll their eyes. Yes, I am that difficult. Yes, I get that it is a nice idea from Tim, who wouldn't even talk about Cory three months ago, let alone try to plan a freaking ritual to honor her life. So what is my problem? What?
Don't slap me. I don't want her to be dead.
Remembering Cory today started with a conversation with Tim. He told me he got February 23rd off from work to be with me on Cory's birthday, and thought we should do something to honor her. I was surprised to hear this, but pleased. His suggestion was to go to a favorite restaurant of hers with Jake, and have a birthday dinner.
This seems like a perfectly reasonable, and lovely idea. Naturally, I feel completely opposed to the idea. While he planned his surf and turf order out loud, I inwardly recoiled. Would this become just another dinner out without her, where the boys had a great time and I couldn't swallow? Do I really want to make such a public recognition of her absence?
Somewhere, my closest friends roll their eyes. Yes, I am that difficult. Yes, I get that it is a nice idea from Tim, who wouldn't even talk about Cory three months ago, let alone try to plan a freaking ritual to honor her life. So what is my problem? What?
Don't slap me. I don't want her to be dead.
W-H Questions
I caught the questions bug right before the holiday season. In my spare time, I was stuck on researching pedestrian right of way laws, injury correlation to driving speeds, and the logic behind withholding resuscitation attempts.
I had the worst urge to step out for a gallon of milk, and just show up at the driver's door, unannounced and full of questions...what? how? when? why?
The research happened; the impromptu home visit to the driver who struck and killed my daughter did not. A friend of mine reasoned that if I ever wanted any truth from this woman, I wasn't likely to get it catching her off-guard and on the defensive.
Still, the urge remains.
Another friend asked me if I would feel better or worse to have some answers. Ironically, that's a question I can't really answer, can I? I only know that the wanting to know eats at me, and there's not much of me that I can afford to give away.
As the holidays came to a close, my anxiety quieted down some, and with it, my desperate investigations sort of dried up. I'm sure they're not gone for good, just resting somewhere behind the base of my spine, an active and harmful virus, lurking in wait for my next particularly vulnerable time.
Do they sound like shingles, these questions that keep me up at night? Pretty much the same thing. You learn to live with them until they recede.
---to be continued
I had the worst urge to step out for a gallon of milk, and just show up at the driver's door, unannounced and full of questions...what? how? when? why?
The research happened; the impromptu home visit to the driver who struck and killed my daughter did not. A friend of mine reasoned that if I ever wanted any truth from this woman, I wasn't likely to get it catching her off-guard and on the defensive.
Still, the urge remains.
Another friend asked me if I would feel better or worse to have some answers. Ironically, that's a question I can't really answer, can I? I only know that the wanting to know eats at me, and there's not much of me that I can afford to give away.
As the holidays came to a close, my anxiety quieted down some, and with it, my desperate investigations sort of dried up. I'm sure they're not gone for good, just resting somewhere behind the base of my spine, an active and harmful virus, lurking in wait for my next particularly vulnerable time.
Do they sound like shingles, these questions that keep me up at night? Pretty much the same thing. You learn to live with them until they recede.
---to be continued
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