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The Fiery Road
The young, well behaved girl at the counter hesitated to take the card from my hand. I was doing the frantic but enjoyable Christmas shopping, trying to get the wish list for my two darling kids.
I'd had an enjoyable life, satisfying and meaningful but one day that was cut short. After the 'happening' I suffered 60-65% burns to my body, I suffered unimaginable losses and became physically handicapped. At the time of the happening most of the petals in my life were blossoming but then in a blink I was struggling to try and even open my eyes. Everything was going well for me, but then as if in a flash nothing could be worse. I thought this change had taken only a moment but I was told when I swam back to consciousness that I had been in a coma for days.
Before I could see anything my first conscious feeling was one of raw pain. For me, this was confusing.
Many days later I came to realise that my body had gone through some terribe shake-ups and changes. Many months later with the power of prayers, friendships and unconditional love from my Mom and Dad I realised that I was alive and thinking with the same mind I always had. It was then I knew that it was still me.
An essential part of putting me back into a human shape, my left arm had to be amputated. I knew something was very wrong with my whole body. I knew it must have looked grotesque the day my own children ran away from me crying.
I wanted to try and get up, take a walk to see something new. Within the confines of my hospital room, constantly swimming in and out of a morphine induced haze, enduring endless pain as well as trying to mend my broken picture of my life was a real struggle let me tell you.
Weeks after this I realised an interesting phenomenon: if you lie down in a bed for a very long time the thinking part of your brain forgets how to walk. And so I had to learn how to walk again.
Theraputically, the 'timed' activites within the 'temple' of the Burns Unit of Concord Hospital and the Rehab Unit of the St.George Hospital in Sydney I slowly recovered. It must have been during some bad hours of the night, four years back, when Dr. Maitz and his team worked hard to mend my burned and distorted body and piece together what was left of it. But my losses were insurmountable and life seemed meaningless.
Within the expanse of my mind I roamed around a lot. The ground looked firm but it suddenly became very wobbly when I started to touch it. I had so many losses. I kept falling down.
I was carried and dressed or disguised by bandages for a very long time, I was totally dependent on others. I could not bring myself to face the question, "…how do I look?". I had to and I did. I took a chance and looked in the mirror. My initial reaction was one of acute distress. Among the millions of questions I asked myself then was "…how will the world accept me?"
It is a unique feeling to look in the mirror at yourself and see a different person you don't recognise at all. I was totally different. It took me three days and nights of absolute terror and inner work to accept the 'new' me.
Maybe its because of that acceptance that now, four years later I walk and talk like anybody else. ( I would like to believe that). For a number of days and months my 'internal- watch' was always trying to see the reaction of the outside world. I knew people stared at me but when my mind started accepting the fact that there will always be a life long difference between me and the world and the stares will always happen I calmed down.
When I realised that I had been given my life back and that it was time to try and find meaning in it again I changed. The constant egging on from my true friends was a major source of support.
But it needed a strange combination of things to be woven back into my life to make it function. The struggle included dealing with grief plus loss of meaning together with acute physical pain. Out of these sensations came a realisation that there will have to be meaningful accepetances made within. It was a long troubled path but when I began to bring in the acceptances, I felt just the slightest amount of hope. This dawning of hopefulness signalled a turning point for me and I began to look and understand the meaning of 'here and now' way of seeing and enjoying life around.
The little nuggets of hope I started to feel at the beginning of my recovery became small targets to aim for. Reaching a target became a special moment that I basked in. A combination of professional help, painful but necessary medical procedures, and love and affection from people close to me all contributed toward my healing. But the most important ingredient came just from me. It was a decision only I could make. I decided I would live.
Once I decided to live again, and was sure about it then I set about making a schedule to mark my small achievements, my gains. For so long I had experienced only losses. With each gain I patted myself on the back and told myself, "hey, there is a life out there…then I began to grow. I learnt how to live with a new set of rules, and turned many of my disabilities into possible abilities. I learned how to observe, to watch and to enjoy the world around us.
My biggest decision was to be patient and to find the best, most effective and practical way to reach my daily target. Many of the dreams, when I looked closer were nothing more than logical targets.
My hospital bed was near a window and I could see the traffic buzzing through Concord Road, Sydney. I realised that the world like the traffic wasn't stopping for me. With intense anxiety I waited for my kids visit. They came and on the day my daughter sat on my lap and held me, I knew it was time to start living again.
Like I learned to walk, I had to keep falling over and learn it through the 'hard way' to make meanings real, to reach new targets, until eventually the ground started to be become "firm" again underfoot. Once my mobility was established then I dealt with the reality checks. " Can I think like before? Can I feel like before? Can I live like before?" It is so different now and each of my questions came at me at supersonic speed.
For a long time it was scary and my mind wept when I saw my neighbour give a startled reaction whenever I 'loomed up". If people whom I thought had accepted my new self got strartled then what is the outside world's reaction going to be? I guess they got used to the 'look' and accepted. They are wonderful people who again by accident became linked to me and my family. Nowadays I tease them about their startle reactions and we smile together.
While writing this I'm surrounded by the sights and sounds of the terrible Tsunami.. For those who suffer loses, please note that through the tears and miseries, losses can be absorbed and meaning can be restored, life is like that. You just need hope.
Recently I asked a friend, "How do you feel sitting drinking beer in the pub with me?" Her reply encouraged me, she said "What do you mean? I feel quite happy sitting with you, enjoying the talk and the view". We were sitting in a pub at Darling Harbour. I quizzed my freind again, "Are you embarrassed?". The answer helped me a lot. She said "Don't be silly and dont ask stupid questions. If I felt embarrassed, I would have gone off long time back". And we jumped back into the topic we were discussing.
I realised then that it's the differences that make us unique, life is finite and this world is a place for me and you to Live and Thrive in.
I have brown skin. I don't have a left arm. I look different. When I talk , when I walk, when I try to do normal things like paying bills with my credit card I'm different. One of the things that happens to brown skin when it gets badly burnt and when new skin is grafted onto the old, the grafts look darker and the grafted part has a checkered pattern. It does not look pleasing. I don't blame the girl for hesitating to take the credit card from such a mottled hand.
I thought to myself when the girl hesitated to take my credit card, " Mate, is there a rule against building my life again? It's nothing just a burn scar, take the card" . She took the card and the wish-list became Santa's Presents.
R.N. |
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