The final few weeks of this term allow little digression of thought.
With the headache inducing politics of the day becoming a determinant to peace of mind, I’ll stray from it, as even the anticipation of what presentation the media will choose to display on any given evening is enough to induce palpitations born of frustration.
For a short time it’s back to the day when knowing 1+1 = 2, and red was merely “not blue”, with no knowledge of states divided by ideological hue, was enough, an accomplishment even.
I’m catching up on a missed day, one night and one day lost is a lot to make up at the end of a term.
I spent last Thursday, shortly after midnight on until ten in the morning, at the hospital with Anna, my brother’s finance. In case you were one of the blogs I was scrolling through at the time you might have noticed someone resting on your blog for say…eight to ten hours…it was probably me. Yes you are good, but no one is that good.
It was horrible, not the ER visit so much, except for the fact that we were in the ER all night while they waited for a bed on the floor. This bed obtained not for 8 hours after we arrived.
Anna had her appendix out the next day, but was not seriously ill, just ill enough to keep her and do surgery the next day, and my brother arrived in time, so all was good. I missed a morning of school, had a few things to make up and remained less a nights sleep for a few days.
No, the horrible for me, both of us really, occurred when a hour and a half or so after we were settled into Anna’s ER birth they brought in the victim of an automobile accident. This hospital is not a trauma hospital, but if the trauma is bad enough, and the situation appears dire, the victim of the trauma is brought to the closest hospital and not flown to a certified trauma hospital. This was one of those situations, with the half room Anna was in only a few spaces from the room the trauma victim was admitted to.
We heard the noise, the soft rushing of feet among the staff as the patient was brought in, ( extremely quiet rushing considering the seriousness of the situation and the outcome) heard the calling of “Trauma Codes” to the ER — every individual known to possess an ounce of medical or surgical knowledge at that time called to this space, passing us by in a blur. It was only a brief period of time after the arrival of the victim, and the onslaught of medical professionals, that we heard screams coming from the area.
I have never heard such screams in my life, grief, disbelief, agony, all rolled into a few long piercing cries, echoing down the variety of ER corridors, as someone, we knew not who at the time, was screaming, “no, no, wake up, wake up” over, and over. Then silence.
We dared not ask really, though we did ask. We were told it was a car accident and eventually told the victim was young and died, which was pretty obvious from the screams anyway, but as is only right they wouldn’t tell us anything else, and only told us what they did because we were persistent, and obviously affected because we had heard the whole thing.
We sat there overwhelmed with the form of nausea one gets from these types of events. It may sound silly, but the sounds of the woman screaming the victim’s name, the grief stricken agony in her scream, and the knowledge of what that meant was rather jolting. I had never been that close to death of that kind before, nor had Anna.
It was not until the next morning, when I grabbed the local paper, I was able to find out the whole story. A young woman my age had a single car accident, and was, according to the paper, pronounced dead on arrival at the emergency room.
She wasn’t pronounced dead on arrival, of course – though probably the medical professionals knew she was going to be — they did try. I was there, they did what they call “a code” on her. and were calling for blood “stat”, and though I didn’t see it I know they tired to resuscitate her with CPR.
The paper said she only had one relative, her parents having died tragically in 2004, that being her sister who had just had her first child this past year. It must have been the sister screaming, I presumed, as I read the paper.
It just kind of made me stop, a slow rather ill feeling encompassing me again, feeling hollow for the moment while I thought about this girl, her death and the grief of her sister.
Happenstance. For having been at that place at that time, something having nothing directly to do with me will affect me in some way, no matter how small, for the rest of my life.
Good luck with the end of term.
Destiny no, happenstance yes.
That which occur out of nowhere can affect us forever. Funny how that goes.
That’s a terrible story. With so little family, though, there’s some comfort that she had an extra witness to connect to at the end. I hope Anna feels better.
She is fine.
They were able to remove it via a aproscope a day later after antibiotics, so it could not have been that bad, because my aunt says they can ‘t do that if the appendix is too inflamed of ruptured.
Not to be inappropriately lighthearted but the nesting of comments is nifty.
That does it then. It stays.
I like them too. Lots of scroll but it makes more sense.
I for instance, if I wanted to, could go under kait’s comment and make fun of her for her impatience.
I’m sorry Anna had surgery, more sorry this incident occurred.
Things happen all the time which affect us in bits and pieces.
Funny how that is.
I just did the gravatar thing and want to see if it works.
Not working yet.
It sure is working.
Great blog…you are an excellent writer. That’s a tough situation you experienced. I wish I could share some related experience, but I can’t. Just be thankful for the day you have.
It’s all a part of the grand total in the end I guess. Each piece makes us unique.
… and now it will always affect me, too, though in a lesser degree. It’s one small way in which she continues in this life.
It’s funny how there are so many ways to look at it.
I am speechless and teary eyed, holding back the actual crying… my brother died in a car accident, will be 21 years ago in November. He was 21 and would have turned 42 this past Sunday.
Time does not heal the wounds. You learn to live with it, to make the wounds numb, but when it all resurfaces the pain is worse than ever before and so my heart goes out to the sister. I can understand, and hear, her screams.
My heart goes out to you and Anna too… not the best energy to have thrown at you when dealing with your own worries in a hospital! Hope all turned out OK for Anna…
As for politics… oy! I hear ya! I am immersing myself in our local politics and trying to not be driven crazy by the national stage. An ex-neighbor of ours, an Iranian-American who was very sweet back in the day and still is, is running for Supervisor of his district so we went to his fundraiser and may throw him a house party to help raise funds for his campaign…
And we are going to Ross Mirkarimi’s fundraiser next Friday, he being my fave politico of SF, the one I once filmed and have seen and met with many times since, and may throw him a house party too. You’ like him… a very progressive guy with huge interest in women’s rights and an activist’s soul… fabulous on-the-spot speaker too and, this is what will win you over, an Obama supporter in spite of being a Green Party politico.
In San Francisco and the greater Bay Area we are facing this horrid, HORRID nightmare and most of the public knows nothing about it and the only local politicians doing something active against it are Ross and Carol Migden. I am going to this next Thursday.
I know I am rambling but I know if anyone cares about this stuff it’s you. Did you know that the pesticides and poison they plan to spray us with is the highest concentration of pesticides and poison in the history of the US?
*sigh* I hope to have some juicy footage, if they allow me to tape, on it all soon…
OK… I will give ya a break now! Besos and off I go to teach!
I am happy to see you active politically there, here we fight some stupid low lying “commissioner who wishes to make English the official language of the countyn and not translate documents into Spanish..long story.
I look forward to the footage, a vlogger you have become.
I think of you and your sadness on your brother mizzy B.
Thanks for the comment and thanks for scrolling through the blog…hopefully you see that it is about much more than sports (although I talk about it from time to time!)
I will come by when I can scroll further. I started to write a long comment on one of your earlier post. but as I didn’t have the time (homework) to make it what I wanted I left it for another time.
Having experienced a similar situation with family, I would not wish anyone to witness it under any circumstance. Losses after a long-term illness is one thing, but the sudden death of a young person due to traffic accident or trauma is quite another. There is no way to prepare for it and, as MizB rightly points out, time simply does not heal that hurt.
Speedy recovery to Anna.
I realize that I am very poor with things such as this. I can go fast down mountain on a board but death to not show yourself to me. This,had it been someone I knew, I just do not know how I would have handled it.
It’s so unreal when real stuff happens.
Riveting account, Cooper.
Sandra I’m glad to see you scrolling by.
I’ve accepted that life can devolve into serendipitous moments, both bad and good. If you think about it, any place coupled with any time is ripe to have something momentous happen. You can go out of your way to minimize risk and still get caught up in a twist of fate, just as you can go out of your way to put yourself out in the harsh and dangerous world, and never see a thing. It’s like winning the fortune or misfortune lottery.
It sure can and you obviously know it as we see from your writing.
hospitals are awful places just because of the emotional events that happen there. but it is part of life. I’ve got my 12 year old reading what it’s like to be a doctor — he’s expressed interest in being a surgeon and I want him to know what he could be getting into.… it most certainly would include ER and trauma. the only way to cope with that is to distance yourself from it. being in it is too painful.
You got lost among the shuffle in this new comment system toma babe.
I think it would be a hard life emotionally.I have a cousin and an uncle who are surgeons, and an aunt who is a psychiatrist — former dermatologist. I think the later is an easier time though it too has it’s difficulties.
I wonder how hard it is to distance yourself from it?
Cooper that was beautifully written. It will stay with you forever and sometimes it will anger you for it might be more real than the death of people you love for the rawness, randomness and sheer horror
I only bitched about my Technorati as I have been getting work and have to explain how it’s a meaningless non-indicator
pia: Really you shouldn’t have to explain anything. It is a shame that it is so.
You know, I’ve been reading blogs for…I dunno…four years? I can only think of a few posts that have induced chills. This one did, for sure.
I hope (all of) you are okay.
dedd: I feel I should scold you for not coming back full swing. I shan’t though I am pleased you still stop by here occasionally.
Three cheers for happenstance cooper, it makes us what we are.
This was first class, master class.
You are my favorite brownoser.
What struck me most about this is that the sister had already lost both parents. Happenstance, indeed. It’s so cruel. I can’t imagine hearing what you’ve described so eloquently.
Yup, that was the part — she was the one screaming, and to realize , the next day while reading the paper, that she was now alone from the immediate family perspective just kind of got to me.
You told that part. situation really well. It was horrbile and tragedy does things to you…changes perspective of how it all is suppose to go.
There is no way to really put in words all of what took place for the parties involved. I don’t think seeing a broken person ever can be easy to handle.
And no, this isn’t a crap blog. I’ve seen those around.
Have a good week! (I’ll check back next week…)
ha,
You caught be just to my taking off to go plant some flowers and veges.
Everything has potential to change us, some things just more so. I guess the realization is just coming for me.
Eh, I never thought this blog was crap — though some do I’m certain and it has crap moments — I was talking of nowickedwitch.com which is crap but good crap.
Everyone needs a place to crap.
It’s something that will occur to you once in awhile as you’re having a beer with friends. It will bring on hours of philosophizing, more if you’ve done Tequila shots.
It’s the people left behind who suffer, that is the agony you felt.
your post gave me big goosebumps Cooper.….
it’s one of the most memorable posts that I have ever read.…
so very well written !!
all I can say in response is ..that you just never know do you.…
You never do, do you.
that eight hours can remind one of eternity.
A few minutes actually can do that.
Death and thoughts of death should be the shot in the ass to make one grab life with more zest.
We should at least make the best of the time we have here, every second of that time. That it may be limited, is limited in fact, should deter us from wasting it.
Cooper, “knowing” you — this experience will only strengthen you to make sure you live every day with meaning. We can wish for nothing else.
Great story.
It all adds up doesn’t it.