Still Something

She's going to be 19 next week. She plans to be back in university next year. She was out riding her horse when it spooked and bucked, giving her whiplash. She was thrown to the ground, layed there unable to move for over an hour. Her horse returned to the farm without her, and dad came out to find her. She can hardly see, her ataxia makes her movements jerky and hard to control - but she still texts her friends all day long on her cell phone (with a magnifying glass held up to her face). Her voice is flat and her sense of humour is sarcastic. She doesn't know why she just can't go home, she's fine you know, don't I see there's nothing wrong with her? Same as before the accident she says. She'll never be what she was, but she's still something.

He's only 28, soon going to be 29. He's married, they have a one-year old child. He's been here almost a month. He just. stopped. breathing. one night and his wife found him, EMTs came and rushed him to the hospital. Some type of cardiac arrest. Only activity seen was in the brain stem (our base base base brain). He was supposed to die, but he has lived, and he continues to fight. He's pretty much blind, and he can't stand or walk. He's getting stronger, his eyes squeeze shut and his whole body shakes and jolts when he laughs after telling me a bad joke. He'll never be what he was, but he's still something.

She just turned 20. She's been here nearly a year. Pictures of her 'before' are all over her wall. With her friends. Her brother. Her parents. Her graduation class. Happy, lovely, excited, long blonde hair, fully alive. She'll probably never walk, and she hates her chair. She's angry. She gives me the finger about a hundred times a month, and then tries to laugh. She can get out a few words now. The first word I heard her say was 'hi', the second was 'motherfucker'. We're friendly. She was riding in the car driven by her ex-boyfriend (ex for a good reason), home for summer after her first year away at univesity. She was going to be a teacher. He had been drinking, they were arguing. She was more confident after being away at university. She didn't want to get back together, told him she hated him for being so mean to her, and that she would never take him back. He missed a turn and drove the car off a cliff. He walked away. She doesn't remember anything that happened up to a month before the accident. She wonders why he doesn't visit. She loves him. She'll never be what she was, but she's still something.

She's 24. She's been here for 8 days, but she swears adamantly that it's been at least 4 months, and that she's going home next week. She smiles and laughs but her eyes and her voice are just flat, like a robot. She was in the car on a family vacation, summer off from nursing school. The car flipped. Everyone else was ok, enough. Her arm is in a sling, and her mind is like a mixed-up puzzle, the pieces put together in a way that doesn't make sense. She tries to make order out of it. She thinks she has made order out of it - what do I know, maybe she has. She talks and walks, and if you didn't know you'd never guess. Unless you actually listened. She'd never guess. She hasn't yet. She'll never be what she was, but she's still something.

Some days it is harder to work here than others. Coming in is a daily reminder about how lucky I am in life, and how quickly your luck can run out - no matter what kind of person you are in life. What keeps me coming back is knowing that where there was once no sparkle and shine, where there were no words, where there was no clarity, there's still something that can be coaxed out into the light. And while it might not make a person what they were, they're still something.