Day two at USC Medical Center

The wonderful nurses at USC were like angels to me. They did more to get me through the nightmare than anyone. They encouraged me, they were tough on me, and they listened to me. The first night I remember lying on a special bed for spine injury patients. One of the nurses put up a hand written sign over my bed that read, "DO NOT MOVE! SPINAL CORD INJURY!!" Every hour on the hour one of the angels would come in to my ward in the very ancient builing of this giant facility, and take my tempurature, blood pressure, check my fluids and roll me a bit to avoid bed sores. It was always an ordeal when it came to rolling me. I would have to prepare.....They would count, one, two, and I'd say...wait, wait...I'm not ready. They were so good. They waited for me to prepare for the movement.

At 2 AM I was awakened by the frantic sound of three nurses calling my name to wake me. "Elizabeth! Wake up! You're bleeding. Where are in your cycle?" I could hear them and I understood their question but I didn't understand the urgency. I crawled up from the depths of my drug induced fog and tried to figure out what day it was and how many days I was in my moon cycle while trying to stay focused. "Elizabeth!"

As it turned out they were concerned about internal bleeding and needed to be assured that it was normal and expected. I assured them it was. I received another shot of morphine and I was once again in la la land.

Morphine is a tricky drug. I love it, but it gives me terrible nightmares. I was grateful to be out of pain but reluctant to fall asleep. Of course, with enough of the drug, that isn't a choice.

My problem was dreaming of the fall. I keep dreaming that I was either falling or about to fall and my body would jerk and the pain was unbelievable. Tiny bone fragments, like nails, were up against the central nervous system interupting the messages to my lower body. I had no control of anything from my waist down.

The next morning my mother was by my bedside. It was so good to see her. The heat wave was blasting through the concrete walls and this old hospital didn't have air conditioning.

Mother brought me some frozen peach yogurt from the cafeteria. It was the perfect choice for my raw throat. I drifted in and out counting the minutes until my next shot of morphine. Every three hours and not one minute before I got relief. The first hour I slept, the second hour I drifted, the third hour I counted minutes.

My childhood friend, Karen, came in with a "get-well" balloon. She had obvioiusly been crying and tried very hard to not to break down while she stood next to my bed. I asked her to just talk to me. It was good to see her, it was good to hear her voice. I asked her to tell me about her vacation last month. I hadn't heard anything about it and I just wanted something to take my mind off of what was happening. She tried, bless her heart, but every two minutes I asked her what time it was. She couldn't get through her story. I listened as best I could but it was the third hour. My hands were gripping the metal railing of the bed and I watched the clock. It was too much for her. She's a delicate friend.

After she left a team of surgeons walked in, lead by Dr. Santi Rao. The one thing I can say about a teaching hospital is you get to see 6 or 7 doctors at a time. It's a teaching hospital with benefits. Young USC interns on a hot summer day....my, my, my. But to tell you the truth, I didn't notice. My sister Linda had arrived just before the spine team walked in. They all stood around my bed discussng, in whispered tones, my case. Linda leaned down and whispered in my ear, "Elizabeth. Open your eyes. Reason to live." I opened my eyes and saw what could have been a dream...I grinned and gave my first quiet giggle of the ordeal.

Dr. Rao touched my arm. His hand was warm, soft and had a healing energy in it. I looked up into his beautiful dark eyes and told him what the doctor in the emergency room had said. That I may never walk again and that I may not survive the surgery, to get my personal affairs in order. He was appalled that a doctor would say that. He assured me that they will do their best to repair the damage. He explained what proceedure they were planning. They planned on going in from the back, remove bone fragments, install titanium steel rods, use screws and wires to anchor them and use bone tissue, either from my hip or from a bone donor that would grow around the rods and keep everything nice and steady. If they couldn't get to the problem through my back, they would turn me over and cut through my abdomen. Getting all of my organs out of the way, they would try to repair the damage from the front. That idea didn't appeal to me at all so I said a small affirmation. "That won't happen." He didn't make any promises about me walking again but assured me that patients rarely die from this surgery. The other bad news was that the surgery would not be for another week. It had something to do with surgery room schedules and swelling around the tissues that had been torn in the fall.

Dr. Rao introduced me to the young Dr. Grant who would actually be doing the cutting and drilling. Dr. Rao would be right there at his side, but Dr. Grant was the one doing the work. I remember thinking, "He is so yummy." They all were. It was a short consult and away they went. I got another shot, and I away I went too.

Later that evening a nurse came in to check on me and noticed that my belly was getting very big. She asked me when I used the bed pan last. "Bed pan? I can't use a bed pan. I can't sit up, I can't move my legs. I can't even lift up my hips." She ran out of the room.

My sister, Linda, is a healer. She and I were massage therapists at the club and we both were energetic healers. We learned to run energy (Reiki) from the same teacher, Royce Morales. Linda raised her hands above my belly and even though her hands were many inches from me I could feel the pressure of the energy. My bladder was about to burst. I had been drinking water all day as the nurses insisted but nothing was coming out. This was a very dangerous condition. I didn't know that bladders could literally burst inside of you. Linda continued to run energy and the pressure kept building.

A crew of nurses ran in and a catheter was inserted. They carried out two liters of fluid. How did my bladder not burst? Linda.

All of my family stood around my bed. My sisters Sharon, Vicky, Linda and my mother. I had asked them to call Jay, my ex-husband. The main thing on my mind was, if I was going to die, I had to tell Jay that I wanted Shanon to live with Vicky. I believed that no matter what happened

more later....