The notebook I wrote the note to George in came in very handy, it ended up being the place that I wrote everything I was told about George’s condition for the next two weeks. They were a long two weeks.
After sitting in the hospital waiting room for several hours and asking repeatedly to see a doctor, finally one came to talk to me. She asked me to go with her to a conference room, where we sat down to discuss George’s condition and prognosis.
As I had feared, his condition was much worse than I had originally been told. He was burned over 40% of his body, and most of that was third degree burns. He had broken a rib in the crash, and that had punctured his lung and caused it to collapse. They were working to get his lung re-inflated so they could stablize him. She told me that the collapsed lung was the biggest threat to his survival at that time. She said if they could get his lungs working properly then, given his overall good physical condition, she gave him a “cautiously optimistic” chance of survival.
I was stunned at the severity of his condition. Even now, seven weeks later, I am still in shock that he was hurt so badly and so suddenly. Accidents are very cruel. They sneak up on you and punch you in the gut. I’ll never forget the helpless feeling that overcame me when I went into his room for the first time. The doctor explained that the risk of infection was incredibly high and that most burn patients experience at least some infection during their hospitalization. Because of this, I needed to wear a gown, gloves, hair covering, and mask each time I went into his room.
The room was stifling. It was brightly lit and had a glass window that allowed visitors to view the patient without entering the room. I stood by George’s bed and looked down at him. He was heavily bandaged, so heavily that I had a fleeting thought that it wasn’t him at all. I looked him up and down and my eyes came to rest on his feet, which were protruding from the sheet. It was George. I knew his feet immediately because of his very high instep. I looked at his feet and for some reason, looking at them, I began to cry. I think it was because they were all I could recognize of my handsome, full of life husband.
George at St. Barnabas After the Crash
The nurse handed me a kleenex and I stood crying helplessly in the room. No matter how I hoped it wasn’t true, the realness of the situation descended on me and I realized that my life was never going to be the same.
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{ 1 comment }
this is so vivid, that reading it, I began to cry.
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