Injury Journey

It has taken me weeks to complete this post. I took time in trying to find a way to write this post without being offensive or hurt anybody’s feelings. But here’s the thing, the point of this post is to talk about how MY experience. Today, I came across a post that said, "if people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better." That quote was the motivation I needed to finally finish this post, leave it here, and move on. ~~~~~~~~~~ I never considered myself as someone who needed others to get things done. I always could figure things out, even if it was down to the wire or I was at my wit's end. Things drastically changed after my accident. Life as I knew it changed. I suddenly went from being able to handle things by myself to needing the help of others. There are either two responses from people when you tell them you need help. They either help you or they don't. Sometimes, people try to help you, but not in the way that you nee...

The day of my accident I wasn’t sure what emotions I should have. Does anybody know what emotions to have? I was in soo much shock that I trying to assure people around me I was ok. Looking back, it should not have been me doing the reassuring. First, I had no clue exactly what had happened to me. Second, I was NOT ok. Try as hard as I can, there are pieces of my memory that are gone and not coming back. The day of my accident is one of them. I don’t remember my trip to the emergency room. But what I do remember is lying face down on the bed and realizing I couldn’t walk when they released me to go home. That was the first time I cried after the injury. Before my accident, I never considered myself an emotional person. I always allowed myself a cry once a month- normally coinciding with my period. It was basically scheduled. I would put on slow sad songs and give myself 5 minutes to let a few tears drop. Then I’d go on with my day. Outside of my monthly cries, crying was rare. Th...

Within a split second, I felt a hard hit to the back of my head. All I saw was black as I tried my best to keep my balance. It all happened so fast. I was in shock as I tried to replay what happened, but it didn't make sense. None of it makes sense. I wasn't scheduled to work that day, and yet I was there. The curse of being on-call. The floor was "short" that day. In healthcare, the floors are almost always short. There are too many patients and too few providers. My weekends were filled with picking up shifts; my weekdays were filled with studying. I had dreams of working as a doctor providing healthcare to patients who desperately needed it. Never in my life would I imagine that one of those patients would be my attacker and the cause of my world being flipped upside down. In school, they tell you about job security. But, how secure is that job when your life is changed? They don't tell you about the increasing incidents of violent patients. Why is some...