I was hit by a car when I was 16.
Now at the age of 38, I have repeated that line so often, it feels insignificant. The passage of time has worn down the edges of trauma, has healed the wounds so only faint scars line my psyche. Once disabled, I am always disabled. But these days, it’s more a way of life, rather than a complex maze of medication and medical professionals and medical accommodations. Disability just is and my life, thankfully, moves along with it.
But I remember those days, often in a blue-green medical gown, repeating dates and kicking my feet. Those were tests to see how well my mind and body remained intact. My patellar reflex was still good. My memory, unfortunately, was not. Even now, as I reach into the webs of recall, I struggle. Is that memory mine or have I seen the scene in Girl, Interrupted? I have been in many different hospitals for many different reasons. The hospital halls in my memory all blur together to a menacing grey-white.
I remember a hospital Christmas gathering where the walls were brown and gold and the piano keys were a glistening black and white. I remember a cold New Year’s Day outside my hospital window where the fields of snow were white, white, white. I remember wondering green hospital halls meandering from appointment to appointment. I remember the bright and harsh sunlight when I received the news: I have brain damage, and while there may be some healing in the upcoming year, the condition is irreversible.
It’s been over 20 years but now at the age of 38, I have learned that I have a lesion on my pituitary gland. Where it has come from or even what it is remains a mystery until September, and I am breathing sharply in anticipation of more hospital walls and doctors telling me bad news. A lesion is irreversible but it may also be progressive. The mystery is agitating, terrifying. I have been very lucky but I wonder if my luck has finally run out.
I am fine, I say to myself. But ever since that fateful night when I was 16, I have felt the ticking clock of death, that eventual fading into nothingness as I slowly lose my mind. I may be wrong about how I’ll go, but that fear will always exist, beyond the complications of disability. When you know the differences between how well your mind has worked, you wonder how many thoughts do you get to have left.
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