Lucky Girl

"You are a very lukcy girl. Do you know that?" He said quite sternly and seriously.
As I sat in the opthamalogist's chair, my eyes heavy and numb from the drops, I laughed.... It's always the same laugh, hearty and easy going, as they look me over and shake their heads in what always seems like disbelief. I laugh because its what I've come to do.

The doctor didn't seem to find any humor in my laughter, in my casual way of shrugging it off, my easy going smile. He wanted a sign that I understood. "Be grateful you can see what you do. Once your optic nerve was damaged it is irreversible. Final. Nothing can be done to restore your sight. "

"So basically, your saying I'm screwed." I replied, sadly.

"Yes. But you do understand, you are a very lucky girl."

It happened 3 and 1/2 years ago, what now seems like another lifetime in many ways. The day started out much like any other. My best-friend(and roommate at the time )asked me to go shopping with her, she wanted to redecorate. So off we went to 18th street and 6th avenue, an afternoon of shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond. I became increasingly exhausted as time passed, at one point looking for somewhere, anywhere to sit down. We then ventured uptown to 44th st for dinner at our local Caribbean Restaurant, Island Spice. We talked about the usual things, boys, clothes and interior decorating. It was a night like any other........

Shortly after arriving home the phone rang. A dear friend, at the time playing for the Local Professional Football team wanted to make sure we were coming to his birthday party. "Please come, he said. Come for me, it will be fun." I hung up and before I could take two steps the phone rang again. I thought it was him again, but instead it was my fathers stern voice. "Don't go to the party." He said. "You sound exhausted. Go lay down, your friend will understand." I shrugged him off, in the way I often do. "I'm NOT foolin around with you, go lay down." He admonished me. I promised I would- and hung up the phone. Instead of going to my bed I grabbed my makeup bag and hairbrush and tried to transform myself into something at least semi- presentable. Any other night I would have obeyed my fathers wishes, but on that night, something told me I was ok, something told me to show up, at least make an appearance. Besides, my roommate desperately wanted to go and I didn't want to disappoint her. It would be ok. Two minutes after entering the bathroom I went blind. I wasn't all at once, it started slowly. It was methodic, like a wave....first my peripheral went dark gray...then black, moving across to the center until there was nothing. Complete darkness.

I fell straight to the floor, between a porcelain pedestal sink and toilet, just 6 inches between the two, without so much as banging my head on either. Straight down I fell, and as I'm told, started seizing violently on the cold bathroom floor. My best-friend said she heard a big sigh and then a thud before she found me. 911 was called and I was rushed by ambulance to the local hospital. Originally thought to just be having seizures alone, I was medicated and set to be released that night. A drug overdose, the doctors insisted. I must have taken something to make me have the seizures. They interrogated my roommate, who nearly laughed in their faces. "She's never taken a drug in her life. She doesn't drink. Something is wrong with her!" She tried to explain to them. They only believed her when the toxicology report came back negative. But the seizures never stopped, and increased in time and intensity. They soon discovered that 3/4's of my brain was flooded with water, swollen, and they couldn't see anything underneath it. I was critical they said, and every Neurologist on call was called in to assess me. I needed brain surgery they all concluded. Seven different neurologists looked at my brain and said it needed to be operated on, relieve the swelling, take a biopsy. Only One disagreed. One fought for me. One, demanded they give me 24 hours to fight. I was young, he said, I deserved a chance. If nothing changes then shave her head and take out a chunk of her brain, he said. They put me into an induced coma and waited to see. The next day I awoke, nearly blind but aware of what was going on around me, albeit it all seemed like a fog. I was sick.... that's what I knew. I couldn't process much else.

Everyone who came to examine me came with a look of deep concern on their face. They told my parents things were very serious, would be touch and go, and they would be lucky if I was a vegetable. They asked if I had been out of the country recently, could I have West Nile, it could be a brain tumor they told my mom and dad, or..... a stroke. I was completely paralyzed on my right side, couldn't recall words, remember anything longer than a few minutes past. I would pass in and out of sleep for weeks. Every day my hospital room was filled with people, my parents and friends, but to this day I don't remember anything that took place during that time. Spinal taps eliminated West Nile, or any virus for that matter. I was negative for the tumor..... I must have had a stroke, but the clot, a venous thrombosis, passed through the vein to my brain, making it much harder to find then obvious clots in arteries. Why... they couldn't understand. "She's so young." Everyone said. The next few months were spent relearning everything. How to hold myself up, balance, walk, write my name, read, open food. I was transferred to Mount Sinai, put into the same unit with Spinal Cord injuries. It was the most horrible, sad and yet amazing experience of my life.

I met an artist named Mickey from Soho, paralyzed after tumbling down her stairs after tripping over a box she had just packed for her move to a new apartment. I met Jorge and Jose, both from South America, both day workers injured on the job, falling off of roofs. They had never met before their injuries and yet had grown close like brothers. They always smiled, flirted with me every day, and laughed, often. They were completely paralyzed... forever. Jose's parents came everyday, adopting his new friend like a member of the family as his real family was back in his old country. The parents were full of support, unconditional love. Next to me, in my morning physical therapy class sat The 60 yr old Professor. He never spoke. Was always very solemn. Many thought mean or angry. I sensed something else. Profound sadness. He was diagnosed with late stage Cancer, unable to use his right leg following the surgery. Every day I sat next to him, and every day I tried to make him smile. My work eventually paid off... As I suspected, he was deeply depressed, afraid of his fate, frustrated with his body. But soon he began opening up, talking to people, even laughing. Finally, there was Ray. My age, about to graduate from the school of Pharmacy at Syracuse, I believe. He had been transferred over from the hospital Christopher Reeve was in after his injury. Ray had been in a car accident. He and his friends had been driving back from college after a night of drinking. They asked the completely sober designated driver to drive- and he did. What no one calculated was that though not drunk, he would speed, and they would all end up driving off a mountain into a ravine. All suffering miraculously little more than a scratch. All but Ray, who when the paramedics arrived believed to be dead and called the coroner, only realizing at the last minute he was actually alive. Ray was brought in, in his wheelchair with a shaved head and a huge scar down the middle of his head, down his neck to his back. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He didn't even want to look up. He would look at me, occasionally... and I understood. Eventually, we became close. We clung to each other in many ways... though the circumstances were different, the anger, the frustration, the fears we felt were the same.

I felt guilty the day I left. In many ways, I didn't want to leave the friends I had made. I especially didn't want to leave Ray, who would he laugh with? Who would he rehab with? Who would he trust..... And what would the world outside hold for me. I was no longer the same. I didn't move the same or think the same. I was moving in slow motion while everyone else went 100 mph. The next 6 months were spent back and forth to a different hospital, physical and occupational therapy every other day. I visited Ray shortly after I left Sinai, I would bring him magazine's like Stuff and Maxim, anything with hot girls. I could walk now, not well, but well enough to stay upright. Ray would never walk again. He would be released soon, back home to his parents. He was afraid.... how would they take care of him, they had to build wheelchair friendly rails into the house. I was so lucky, he would tell me, without any jealousy or envy. Just a sincere sentiment, one that I knew I should cherish. I was lucky. I would never regain all my sight. I would stutter, tremor and lose the ability to balance, walk if fatigued. I wouldn't be able stand bright or flashing light. I would have intense burning nerve pain down my right side. I would have seizures. But over time, I would learn to compensate. I would learn my limits. I was NOT a vegetable. And I wasn't paralyzed.

I was lucky. I AM lucky. I know this. Maybe sometimes I start to ask for too much, forgetting how far I've come. Maybe I become greedy. But never ungrateful. And I'll never stop laughing.