"The worst day of my life"

What the hell is going on? Where am I? Why am I here? Why can't I talk? Shit why can't I move? Am I sitting down town in a railway station one Toke over the line? I don't think so. Shit if I could just figure out one thing. I'm totally lost! Can someone help me? Shit I can't talk. So it goes for awhile how long I'm not sure. My first real good clue that I was in serious trouble was when the nurosurgeon ask me if I knew what day it was? No. Do you know what month it is? No. When he ask me do you know what year it is and I didn't know It was like someone hit me right in the face with a board! �I even heard the sound WACK! "Shit Miles what have you done?" This is SERIOUS!!!!

I was in traction from the moment I woke up and on a respirator. I really wasn't in that much pain I just couldn't move or breath or talk. I was dying of thirst. Can I have something to drink I said? They would have to read my lips because I was on a ventilator and couldn't speak. No sorry you can't. Well shit I guess I'll die of thirst in intensive care. The good doc comes by and says were going to put you in a halo and get rid of the tongs. So off we go to the operating room. I really don't remember going to sleep but I sure as hell remember waking up as he's screwing 4 bolts into my skull. My lips are screaming! I heard the doc say give him �a little more valium. LIGHTS OUT. I'll never forget as long as I live waking up. I was back in ICU and the nurses were transfering me back to my bed. The radio was playing The J. Giles Band. I was higher than a kite, feeling no pain. Shit I feel like dancing!!! I started moving �the only thing I could my shoulders to the beat of the music and these two good looking nurses were dancing from one side of the bed to the other hooking up tubes and stuff singing to the music. Shit if I could feel like this all the time hey this broke neck crap aint so bad.

Hey were's my valium?

Hey why do you keep turning down the respirator?

Hey what do you mean I'll never breath or move again?

Doc! I have ants on me!!

Hey Doc. When Am I going to get out of here? In three to six months he says, you have a �C-2/3 fracture. I'll show your ass, you don't know who your dealing with I thought. Shit I got a tugboat to catch in thirty days. You won't be on it he says. Where's my valium? You don't need it. Why do you keep turning down the respirator ? We have to, to make your diapham work or you'll never get off the respirator, if at all. �Hey Doc when will I be able to move again? Move? Forget that, you'll never move again! �I think I cried the rest of that day. Well I laid on this Roto Bed for three months turning from 45 degrees left to 45 degrees to the right every 4 minutes 24 hours a day. Kind of like a pig on a bar-b-que. The only thing the bed had going for it was that it had a little 5 inch TV that hung right in front of my face and I could watch TV as I rotated back and forth. Well one day as I'm rotating my months away I saw an ant walk across my little TV screen and disappear somewhere inside the TV. Shit this ant is in the bed with me! I can't move!! Then I see more and more two or three at a time. �I'm thinking these ants are probably building a nest in my ears. I tell the Doc, Hey Doc I have ants on me. But he didn't understand me, he thought I said "I feel like I have ants on me " and he says thats normal. It took several days before I could prove my case and get a nurse to see one on the screen before he would disapear inside the TV. They stripped my bed and put me in another room. I have many horror stories to tell of my hospital stay but this book will never end if I go there.

After three months I kick the respirator. That was a battle I wish on nobody. I know what a fish out of water must feel like. My kingdom for one breath! No kidding! I would of gave everything I owned for one good breath. When certain friends or my mother or sister would visit I would beg them to turn up the respirator. I knew how, I just couldn't move a finger. Man if I could just move. Speaking of move on Easter Sunday I moved a finger for the first time!! Unbelievable!! Hell if I can move a finger I'm going to move a toe and walk on out of here. Yeah thats the ticket! After two more weeks the good doc says it's time to remove the halo. Fine by me, having 4 screws �sticking in my head is no fun. He gets out his wrenches and starts turning "the wrong way I believe" and I start screaming your turning the wrong way!!! No I'm not he says shut up!! He turns some more. Dam it to hell your tightening it!!! No I'm not shut up!! This goes on way to long before he gets it off. Shit! Sooner or later this broke neck shit is going to kill me!!! I wanted to go home but was shipped out to a Rehab Hospital a few days later.

I was loaded into an ambulance and off we go to F. Edward Hebert Rehab Hospital. It was about a 30 minute drive. When they took me out of the ambulance I saw the sun for the first time in 14 weeks. It was BLINDING!! Get me inside please!

I had a great nurse at rehab. Her name was Karen Turner. The first day I was there she was giving me a bed bath and shampoing my hair. My hair hadn't been washed in 14 weeks and it was a mess and my scalp itched like those ants built a nest in my head. I told her this so she says less wash it again. Ahhhhhhh that felt sooooo good!!!!! Thanks Karen.

The next day I met Cathy. She was my physical therapist. She was GREAT! Very good looking. It didn't take long before I fell in love with her. Must of been the Florence Nightingayle Syndrome. Twice a day for two hours �each she would work with me. She would lay me on a mat and range my arms and legs. There sure was alot of grab'n and feeling going on. I could always blame it on muscle spasms. Man do I miss her. She was a great therapist but a very nice person too. I also met Aldo there. He broke his neck on a motorcycle about a month after I did. Sometimes he and I would end up on the same mat and we would try and beat the shit out of each other to amuse ourselfs and everybody else. I guess watching two guys that couldn't even roll over slugging it out was pretty funny. As weeks turned into months I kept improving. Finally the day came to try and stand. She put my wheelchair �at the end of the parallel bars and put a belt around me. She got my knees inside hers knees and on 3 up I went! After about 5 seconds I started to pass out from the blood draining out of my head but it felt good to stand again. I continued to improve a little each week. I finally improved enough that after 14 weeks I was able to walk with the aid of a cane. It aint pretty but it's a hell of a long way from being a fish out of water strapped to a roto bed. Now I have pretty good use of my right side. It's very weak but I get by. This little dance I call walking is right side lead left side follow. Lately I find myself more and more in my wheelchair and not using the cane. I have the usual problems that most have with a spinal injury but as I said I get by. I'm not complaining after fighting with that respirator. This fish is back in the big pond.