Sometimes I realize there are a lot of things I don't remember. And odd things that I do. Some memories I can put at specific times and others I just know happened around a certain timeframe. I have a lot of unanswered questions that I probably won't ever get real answers to.
I know that at one point I wasn't breathing on my own. I honestly think I passed out at the scene from lack of oxygen, because I remember trying to answer to my name with my chin on my chest and just hearing myself gurgle, then I blacked out. The next thing I remember is having my clothing cut off in the ambulance.... they found some piercings, I guess I woke up after they cut out a couple, I remember them asking me if I had any other piercings and that, for whatever reason, I could't speak but had to point. Was there a CPR mask on my face, pumping air into my mouth and lungs? Was I intubated? Was I trached by the EMT's? What medical tests and procedures were done at the first hospital? Actually, I can find out some of this info by trolling through my mountainous medical files.
At one point, after my story went international and I was getting a lot of media, therefore public, attention - not all positive, mind you- one of the EMTs contacted me through a now frequently unused social media site. She reminded me of a freakout moment that I had. I don't know if what is in my head, my memory, is of the actual details of the moment, that she told me of, or if my own true memory is of the emotion and panic of the moment and she filled in the details. This woman, so help me I wish I could remember her name (not that I would tell you), I do know the one detail memory that is my own is her touch and her eyes. I know that at one point, I believe it was at the, what I like to call, layover hospital, I gained consciousness again. Before anyone could realize that I was conscious and pretty lucid, before they could gain their composure, I saw the panic in the room and freaked out.... In my head, maybe it's my fantasy, this woman saw from across the room that I saw what was going on, that I was freaking the fuck out and couldn't speak or scream -- it was like those dreams we all have where you're trying to scream and nothing comes out! Wow, it really was, it was totally, exactly, completely TOTALLY like you feel in that dream! I don't remember pain in any of this, that's a blessing, I guess. In fact, I don't remember any pain even before the paramedics arrived. But I remember panic.
Back to this woman. Somehow, for some reason, she looked away from the madness in the ER, the doctors and paramedics and nurses, she looked at me and realized that I was awake and scared as hell, she came to me and put her hands on mine, I looked in her eyes, I couldn't hear anything that was going on.... I don't know if I heard silence or overwhelming chatter-turned-static, but I didn't hear anything. I felt her hands, looked in her eyes, and went back to wherever I needed to be to not be where I was.
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