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