I lay there in the neuro intensive care unit with lights flickering and shadows moving around me in the middle of a sodium crash post brain surgery. It is four days later but my sodium crisis has been 24 hours long, if not more. I lost track. My movements are very much involuntary but my thoughts are more than voluntary. I see my mother in the chair wondering if her oldest child and only daughter would die and she would be all alone here in New Jersey to deal with it. She is sobbing and asking the medical staff things I cannot hear or understand. They are just mumbles of incoherent sounds flying around the room like ghosts. I see the fear in her eyes. My pajamas are soaked to my skin and have become one. I can only see tubes and wires attached all over me trying to save my life. I am urinating at least a liter every 15 minutes and vomiting even more in between. I can barely move. I see the lights. I hear the voices. Nothing makes sense to me. I am full of confusion.
My head is swarming with thoughts. I don’t believe in God or anything right now. Will that punish me in the afterlife? Will the universe torture me forever? Tears are rolling out of my eyes and I think that is the only action I am completely aware of with my body. I see my mother praying. I wish for them to tear my flesh apart. To rip me open and find what is making me so sick. I beg them in my mind to either open me up or leave me scarred for life. Or to kill me right then and there; I want it all to end. I want it to end for those around me and for the pain that surges through my body with every heartbeat. I am not quite sure. The thoughts swarm and slosh in my head. I am not sure whether it is the meds, or the swelling of my brain, or just the confusion overwhelming me. I’m not sure who I am asking, all I know is I want to die. Or do I want to live? I see the lights above my head in the hallway and beg for answers but all I get is wishes for it to end. Or were they prayers? I don’t know who to blame. I don’t know the answers. I just want it to end and I am not sure how. I feel too young to decide this and it adds to my confusion and thoughts as more tears pour like floods from my trademark green eyes. I wish the docs would just fix me or end this agony.
Finally my body passes out from exhaustion and I no longer am thinking and no longer feeling the pain. I am cold and feeling wet all over. I look up and my mom’s tears are dried. In the corner I see my boyfriend has come to worry beside her. I think it is over and am filled with relief but still can’t speak or move. Even a few hours later I still can’t speak or move but the crisis is over. A few hours later I do and I just think I am glad this is over. The crisis is over and I can breathe. For now I can rest and not have to decide the answer to a question I feel too young to handle. Or just not ready to decide the answer too. There are no words, just silence. I’m okay with silence for now. No words, no feelings, no answers just silence. You only feel the relief in the room. It took no words just small movements and glances. With only silence there to hold us together.
