TL;DR—bad car accident, i'm all existential & weird about it but i will be okay
not one of my favorite 28 hours but! i was finally discharged from the hospital and i'm home and i'm not dead. but i feel like... idk what specifically a "near-death experience" is defined as but here are the main diagnoses i got:
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aortic wall stranding but no dissection or extravasation
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right lumbar 5 transverse process fracture/left lumbar 1 transverse process fracture
so basically, um. my heart is a little swollen and there's tiny fractures that heal on their own in my spine. this is good, all things considered. but like, i injured my heart and spine. an EMT said i was "extremely lucky" i'm not even more fucked up
i'm feeling very strange about it all. my memory of the actual event hasn't fully come back yet. it might not at all, i'm not sure. right now, all i got is snippets. i was listening to the Cubs game on my phone in the back passenger-side seat of the Lyft i was in. i was literally one minute from my house when all of a sudden the whole world snaps into a single blur of colors. like an unsettling Rothko, evil grey and vivid crimson. i feel like i'm floating and i can't hear anything, save for a loud high-pitched ringing. not only am i not breathing directly after the initial impact but i don't... i wasn't there. i just straight up wasn't there for... i dunno, a second. i have this sickening pit-in-my-stomach feeling that i wasn't there. idk how else to describe it. not death, different from the slight memory loss—i was just gone for a bit
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suddenly, i'm yelling on the ground and some people run over, one says they're a nurse and the others are here to help. i'm spitting out bits of teeth and glass. i ask "where's my girlfriend, she should be here by now". no one knows what i'm talking about at first because i'm incoherent but word does quickly get to her at our house a block up the street. also god i wish i remembered what happened to the Lyft driver, i want to get in touch with him to see if he's okay. i will deal with whoever t-boned us at a later date
and suddenly i'm in the ambulance, getting fentanyl and cracking jokes with the EMT about getting the hot new drug because becoming a comedian is my coping mechanism for shit like this. it's annoying to me after the fact but hopefully not so much for everyone else. she laughed at least
my memory is fairly clear from then on. but i'm missing the most interesting and terrifying part of the whole thing! the crash!! ugh i hope someone got that shit on video i bet it looked SICK. no see i'm being a fucking comedian again. i feel silly about being traumatized by this? and then i feel silly for feeling silly about that. so i crack jokes to like, distance myself from the feelings. i don't really get how my brain works. but i know the part of my brain that feels gratitude and thankfulness is working overtime. i'm so thankful to whoever those angels on the street were before paramedics arrived. i'm thankful for the ambulance managing to find an ER staffed only with people who were extremely kind & the not usual shitty doctors i've had. i'm thankful for my girlfriend. i'm thankful to everyone who has sent me get-better messages and the like. everyone is so kind. there is so much kindness. i am so happy to be alive right now
