- For the Family – Journal Entry One
By Reese Bunch, Staff Writer
May 29th:
I think today is going to be okay.
It smells like my mom is cooking meat. It makes sense, it’s Memorial Day, and my cousins are coming over. I wonder how many meals my parents skipped to scrape together enough money for this unexpected treat for Memorial Day. Ever since my dad lost his medical license a few months ago, we’ve had to skimp more and more every month.
Looking around in my bed, I had a realization slam into my still groggy brain. My leg was gone. I had to be dreaming. I remembered laying my bike down yesterday and I definitely remembered peddling with both my legs. After that, I remember walking in a little banged up, asking my dad for some ibuprofen, then falling asleep.
I quickly ripped off my blanket, revealing my left leg still scraped up from my crash next to the cleanly wrapped stump that used to be my right leg. I reached down to touch my leg, my brain still very confident the limb would be there. Instead of warm flesh, my hand hit my cold, thin mattress. My brain refused to believe my leg was simply gone.
How could it be? Maybe my wreck was worse than I remember and my unconscious mind simply forced me to remember the day rather than dwell on a grisly wreck. That had to be it; there was no other explanation for it. You can’t go to bed, randomly lose a leg, and wake up to your stump wrapped in clean gauze. My mind started racing and slipping away from me. I tried to regain control of my thoughts, but the currents in my mind were far too strong to swim against. I tried to yell out for my parents, grasping for the comforting presence of my father, screaming for the loving touch of my mom, looking for any sense of normalcy. Rather than coherently calling out for them, a guttural scream was all I could manage.
My mother opened the door, rushed in, and closed it behind her. She had clearly been crying but was doing her best to put on a brave face as she quickly moved to my bedside, seeming to refuse to look me in the eye. Words started tumbling out of my mouth before I could even decide what to say. It felt like I was trying to say several sentences at once: “What happened to my leg?” “What’s going on?” “Is everyone else okay?”
Rather than answering any of the several questions that poured out of my mouth, she reached over me to pull the blanket up above my newly acquired stump. Finally bringing her eyes to mine, she smiled a thin smile that didn’t reach her eyes. After a moment of looking into each other’s eyes, she finally asked, “How are you feeling honey?”
I immediately screeched out, “MOM, WHAT IS GOING ON?I went to bed with both legs firmly attached to my body, and woke up MISSING ONE.”
To her credit, rather than taking offense at my outburst she gently swept my hair away from my face and spoke a few words. “Your wreck yesterday was much worse than you seem to remember it. I won’t go into many details now but, according to your father, you have suffered a major concussion.” She stood up and continued, “Now before you get any more worked up, your father said you need to rest; we will talk more later. Your father says you have a major concussion, which is nothing to ignore.” She started making her way to the door, turning before she left. “I left you an Ambien to help you sleep, and a Dilaudid for the pain. Take both, and I’ll be back when you wake up. I love you, honey.”
She softly closed the door leaving me dumbstruck. She had acted like it was just a small scrape, like I didn’t just lose my damn leg. I lifted my comforter again, just to double-check that I really was still missing my leg. I was.
While I didn’t understand what was going on, I decided the best thing to do was to listen to my parents’ advice. I reached over to grab the pills off of my nightstand, scooping them up and washing them down with a gulp of my ever-trusty nightstand glass of water. I lay my head down while my mind was still racing, with the phrase “what is going on” tumbling around my head and knocking away any other train of thought. I went to turn over and scream into my pillow but felt an unbearable, red-hot pain rip across the stump that was now my leg.
After a few moments, the pain started to subside and I laid my head back down on my pillow. While I was waiting for my medicine to kick in, my dad poked his head into my room. Feeling his presence was reassuring and gave me some hope that I would be okay and make it through this injury. He gave me a sad smile and said, “I’m sorry this had to happen to you. Something like this isn’t fair, and I hope it doesn’t happen again”.
I saw him start to tear up, and all I could think to say was “I can get through this, I love you.” I saw his smile shift to that of a proud parent.
“I love you,” he said and shut the door.
I cried until Ambien took hold and I fell into a fitful sleep.
