I’m ready now

Way back when everything first happened and everyone kept asking: “What happened? How’s Kevin? Do you need anything? What happened? ” It was kind of exhausting…it felt like our life together had been reduced to the accident, and that no one realized that they were asking questions dozen’s of other people had asked, and that every single one of them hurt me. Every last one.

So I wasn’t really interested in hearing others’ perspectives from that day. I think there are one or two there, but I can’t quite call them to memory. Kavi says that it’s normal I struggle with my memories while I was stuck in survival mode-trying every day to make sure my family had what they needed, take care of my Kevin, and go to work, because I had to get back to work. I realize now I was just using it as a means to stop thinking about the accident and how that backfired terribly. I struggled then to set my boundaries and tell people I didn’t want to talk about that. I was still processing.

But I’m ready now. And asking questions. And sometimes, the story comes up organically.

T– in the lab, for instance; she runs the lab. She’s actually the reason there was enough blood and plasma on hand to keep Kevin going. T– saw a need that needed met in case of a severe trauma and acted on it. It helped as Kevin lost twice his blood volume that day and depleted the supplies on hand.

T– was telling me that the day of Kevin’s accident, she was out taking a walk near the hospital campus, but not necessarily in that direction, and wondering if she might be called in. At some point she got the call and rushed in. She went to the ED and ran into A–, an ED tech.

We’re no stranger to A–, having needed his assistance several times as we needed to visit the ED for appendicitis, broken bones, jammed fingers, and abdominal pain. Kids. Anyways, A– was in the ED that morning and he stopped T–. T– says he pulled her into 1035, one of the larger observation rooms (I think) to talk to her. A– told her what happened and who the patient was, Kevin, and that they both cried a bit and hugged. Then they just tucked it away and got right back to work, jumped right back into the desperate fray that was saving Kevin.

I still don’t know how they did that. I know I was way more invested, but I struggled to maintain my composure. I know, I know. What I mean though is I deal with the occasional difficult situations with patients and I struggle to tuck my deeper emotions aways, keep it impersonal. They are both amazing.

Then there’s W–, Kevin’s boss. We were talking about the book Kevin wrote: a short story about his experience- and I let W– know that I had I hard copy I would lend him, otherwise, it was only available digitally.

W– started to recall that day: he was traveling between our home and Denver and there’s a gas station they usually stop at; he was in that area when he got the call about Kevin, and it didn’t look good. I still remember the call W– place to me, as we were headed to Grand Junction, and I remember the emotion in his voice, and I chided him. I told him he needed to pull over and take a minute because it sounded like he was speeding and we didn’t need another casualty that day. I promised I would keep him posted.

I mentioned to W– that he still sounded a little choked up, hoping to lighten the mood; his response surprised me. W– said he still has a hard time remembering that day, it was difficult, and then he mentioned it must still be hard for me, too. So I told him the truth.
Yes, it is still hard but I’m better now sharing with people who mean something to us, to people we care about and who care about us, and in setting boundaries and telling other’s when I don’t want to talk about it.

And now I want to know more, I’m ready to listen to their stories about that day. I plan to start asking all kinds of questions.