What I Do Remember

I enjoy writing.

I remember in 4th grade, we had a creative writing contest. A buddy of mine and I wrote this long, juvenile horror story about a couple of kids who encounter a serial killer in their house while their parents are away. We went into graphic and disturbing detail about the various ways we would dispatch the killer.

I'm talking hand in the trash compactor, toaster in the bathtub, beaten with textbooks kind of graphic. Even though we should have been evaluated by a psychiatrist at that point, we did well in the contest.

I think it was the first time that parts of a 4th grader's papers were redacted before being sent home to parents.

In our defense, it was the late 1970s, and I'm sure we stayed up late and watched a slasher film when we weren't supposed to. Imagine that.

After that contest, I wrote something almost every day. Not the garden variety vigilante stuff, but stories about classmates, what I hoped growing up would be like, and how much fun learning was.

I did love learning. I was one of the only kids who would look forward to coming home from school each day and turning on PBS so I could watch my favorite math tutor go over things a grade or two ahead of mine. I loved math. Needless to say, my report card was always straight A's across the board.

In the winter of 1980, I was 9 years old.

The week before my church had its Christmas concert, I got sick. I figured it was just a stomach bug because each time I ate, I puked, and as long as nothing went in, nothing came out. I was fine with this state of things. On day 3, I had to eat, so I chose something bland and kept it down, but I had not realized I wasn't drinking much.

The day of the concert, I was singing in the choir when I got sharp stabbing pains in my lower abdomen. I ignored them at first, but as the concert went on, they got worse, and my body got hotter.

After I got home, I walked into my living room and looked at everyone...and that was all it took. There's got to be a rule somewhere that if your child looks like a ghoul, you should rush them to the hospital.

'Cause they did.

Everything after that is spotty at best. I remember being registered, and they drew blood right there as we were filling out paperwork. About 10 minutes later, a nurse came in and said, "We are admitting your child and taking him upstairs now."

I recall being rushed to a room and having an IV started on me. Not too long after that, I vomited my brains out. The next parts of this are very spotty because it's all I remember.

I had an ice bath, and it took 2 nurses to hold me down.

My IV backed up, and it looked like someone gutted a deer on my torso... the night nurse freaked out and screamed when she turned the light on, and I was so out of it all I said was, " Ice Cream".

It took 4 people to change me and restart the IV. Then came ice bath #2.

I remember my parents crying while looking at me, doctors talking while looking at me... but very few people talking to me. That was weird.

Ice bath #3 was apparently so the nursing staff could earn their merit badge or something. They seemed to be pros at it by this point.

Slowly, I began to keep food down again.

After what I thought was a day or so, I began to eat Jello, then cake, ... then a sandwich. Turns out, it had been 2 weeks of being in the hospital. I missed Christmas and didn't even know it.

When I got to the hospital, I was so dehydrated that my organs were beginning to shut down. The fever was a wonderful side effect, and I was told I had multiple incidents of being at 104 degrees for long periods of time.

Immediately after I got out of the hospital, my attention turned to school. How had everyone been? How were my friends doing? But I was told I never asked about my homework or how far behind I was.

Some of my friends had been to see me, which I didn't remember. Some had sat with me all day, which I didn't remember.

One sent me comics to read, which I never touched...and I loved comics.

They even turned on my favorite math tutor each day, but I didn't seem to care. (That's what I was told... I don't remember it)

After this hospitalization, my grades plummeted quickly. I got my first C, then D...and all the way down the slide into oblivion to F.

I even called someone a bitch. Which got me sent to the principal's office.

I gave up being in the band, stopped writing, and even lost the love of math.

It was the early 80s, so no one took the time to consider that maybe something had happened to me.

It wasn't until I told my doctor a few years ago about the incident that he began to ask me questions about my level of concentration, focus, and interest. What could I focus on? What gave me problems?

Could I read like I once did? Could a book keep my interest? Was I easily distracted? So on and so on.

I told him how I never took the ACT or SAT because I became scared to death of math, which I once loved. I stopped reading anything I was required to read because my mind either drifted, or I couldn't remember small details from one page to another, like character names or plot themes.

How I would start a project and lose interest almost immediately. Over and over again. But the one thing I could focus on was helping others. Anything involving my EMT education, continuing education, or training... I was razor sharp on. And patient care was laser-focused. But when it came to me, anything involving me, I was useless sometimes.

Turns out, I had a traumatic brain injury thanks to prolonged fever and dehydration. It has affected my ability to concentrate and has taken away some of the joys I once had.

I wish someone in the chain of healthcare had noticed back in 1980. Maybe things would have turned out differently.

But now I will make my attempt at writing again. I am 53, and even though focus is a struggle sometimes, I am going to try this.

So, if you get a chance to follow along with me, welcome aboard. Let's see if we have smooth sailing or slam into an iceberg.

If anything, I'm an optimist.

- Dave