with moments of partial awareness.
Sean watched everything that was
happening. The first time he saw me
trying to scream was awful for him.
During a wound-dressing change,
my eyes were screwed shut and my
mouth was open in a screaming
position, but no sound came out.
That’s when he realized the pain I
was in and that I was locked inside
my body. There was little he could
do except try to soothe me with hiswords and his touch and to stay by
my side. Indeed, he refused to leave
the hospital for a week, and the staff
provided him a cot in the lounge. Af-
ter that first week, he headed home
for a shower and fresh clothes, but he
found it unbearable to be there with-
out me. He cried in the shower and
vowed he wouldn’t spend the night
there until I was home.
By late October, there was talk of
stepping down some of my medica-
tions to test my responsiveness while
still keeping me sedated enough for
pain management. They began by
testing my breathing, turning the
ventilator on and off over the course
of three days to check whether my
lungs would take over. After a brief
failure, it was successful. The breath-
ing tube was removed on October 30,
three weeks into my stay. That meant
I could no longer be as sedated; the
pain medications had to be stepped
down to allow my lungs to function
properly. It also meant I would regain
consciousness.
It wasn’t like the cheerful “Hey! I’m
alive!” moment with a big smile that
you see in scripted dramas. My first
post-trauma memory is the gauzy im-
age of Sean standing at my bedside. I
also saw a doctor, so I knew I was in
a hospital. Then I spotted my parents
across the room.
I tried to speak to Sean, but my vo-
cal cords had atrophied. I mouthed
the words “When did Mom and Dad
get here?”Colleen focused on this thought through
her ordeal: “Seizures, brain surgery, even
a freight truck couldn’t kill me.”rd.com 87re
ed
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Drama in Real Life