Doctor, My Eyes...

Wrestling against the restraining straps I strained my stomach and there was strap burns on my wrists. I fought for every breath as I was flat on my back as they wheeled me restrained to the gurney down the dimly lit corridor to the back of the emergency room. My neck was in a tight brace, so tight I could not move my head up or down, left or right as I heard menacing noises and could feel the impending treachery of not knowing if I would live or die. I was fighting.

“You will relax or you could go into shock…we’re trying to help you” said the statuesque nurse as she secured the second medical lock in my left arm, they prepared an IV for both arms. It felt like they were running fire hoses in my veins. ‘Nurse, its hard to see…what are you doing? Are you a nurse?’ “I’m Nurse Ross, Trauma RN for this emergency room.” We are working to help you, you need to relax and be quiet?

She leaned over my body, I was tied down and restrained to a board on the gurney, her auburn hair was in a weird bun and her breast and cleavage were prominent in her purple nurses smock. “RJ, do as we tell you or this experience will be all the more painful…if you understand, squeeze my hand.” I squeezed Nurse Ross’ hand….her voice was soft, stern and ominous to me, she reminded me of Nurse Ratchid in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. I didn’t want to play Nicholson’s role in this real life drama. I was scared for my life.

The Doctor came in and made his assessment and ordered all kinds of medication. “Nurse we can’t control his blood pressure with the meds we already gave him…RJ are you in pain?” Hell yeah Doc, why the fuck else would I be laying hear? “Give him morphine, 600cc”, said the Doctor, I screamed, ‘Noooo’ “I will get sick on Morphine and throw up, I will choke on my own vomit.” Ratchid, I mean Ross, shot me full of Morphine, I could feel the heat of it all through my body as my stomach slowly soured. I started praying out loud.

The Doctor took my blood pressure again….he said, “Nurse, you need to inject those medications a little quicker or he’ll go into shock.” “Yes Doctor, but I must make sure its not to fast, or he’ll crash” Nurse Ross looked at me as if she was punching my ticket to the promise land. I left myself in the hands of God. Other Nurses, orchestrated by Ross and the Trauma Doctor, now surrounded me. “We must lower his fever….strip him” said Nurse Ross.

My shirt was opened and I was naked from the waste down. Nurse Ross shoved ice between my legs, on my scrotum and atop my manhood, at that point, most thoroughly shriveled. Ice was shoved under my armpits and on my chest. I prayed not to throw up when the world went into slow motion and everything sounded like an echo from another dimension. Nurse Ross was pushing needles into the Med Lock as the Doctor pushed another needle into my arm.

How did I get here, what the fuck happened. Oh yeah, I was sitting in traffic waiting for the light to change. I was stressed out over finances and couldn’t wait to be on a plane to Los Angeles for some summer work. I was waiting for traffic to move when suddenly…my head snapped back over my head rest, my right leg buckled and popped off the brake, my dashboard flew apart and my stereo flew into the back window, my head was then snapped forward and bounced off the steering wheel when my car was abruptly push-forced into the SUV in front of me.


I was hit hard from behind by an SUV with incredible force. I opened my glove compartment after hearing a knock on my window. I heard bells and ringing in my head. I called 911 after hearing, “are you O.K.” It was then I realized I was slumped over my steering wheel and my neck, leg and back were all going numb. My head had funny sharp pains shooting through it. It was hard to talk, it hurt, I gave my name, location, condition and said things looked fuzzy and it hurt to talk.

The 911 operator said, “You need to repeat that…” I threw the phone on the floor and said ‘fuck this’. I tried to open my car door and pain, in waves of intensity that could only be brought on by torture, ripped through my body everywhere. The paramedics removed me from my car, which I last saw all banged up while being rolled away. I had to get out of this mess and get to L.A. I had to make this money or I would be in serious trouble.

The pain didn’t go away after the morphine, but it felt ‘different’. I told that to Nurse Ross who responded by giving me more morphine. I prayed again, they left my head and neck in a brace but released the restraints. After being wheeled from one MRI, X-Ray, Sonogram and EKG to the next MRI, X-Ray and blood tests galore, I realized I might miss my flight on Friday. It was Thursday night, 22 June 2006 and I was in Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip.

Nurse Ross turned me over to an Orthopedic Surgeon who had my test results and gave me a bunch of bad news, Dr. Grimm ran down the problems; “RJ, you have a severe concussion that has affected your eyesight, but that’s not on the main menu of problems we need to confront immediately…you have disc damage to your cervical spine, lumbar spine, damaged vertebrae in your neck, nerve damage obviously causing severe pain throughout your body, numerous bruises and your blood pressure is above stroke or heart attack level.” We’re gonna see if you can stand.

The Nurses removed the neck brace. As I put weight on my left leg the room spun like a carousel going at 1000 rpm in reverse, “Doctor this aint a good idea, I’m a little dizzy.” “Hold on to the rail and try putting weight on your right leg” said the Doctor as I tightly held on to a wall rail as I sat up on the bed facing the wall. When I put weight on the right leg, waves of pain buckled me as I crashed to the floor pulling out some of the tubes they had shoved in my arms.

“Its safe to conclude you can’t walk” said Dr. Grimm. I wanted to curse him out. I didn’t say anything as the nurses cleaned up the blood and stuck me with all kinds of needles running new micro tubing inside my arms. I finally threw up. I was admitted, put in a room and put on a stroke watch as an ERT Unit rolled in with all kinds of equipment.

“Doctor his blood pressure is uncontrollable,” said Dora the floor RN who now had me in her care. “Doc, do something about the pain and I won’t be so damn anxious,” I said while they ran for more drugs. Doc said “We are going to do something for both pain and blood pressure.”

“RJ you need to relax as much as you can, the people around you are an Emergency Response Team. If we can’t control you blood pressure which is now at 230/145 you will have a heart attack or a stroke…. calm down.” I started praying again, the team left the room after morphine, darvon, percocet and other pharmaceuticals mixed with a blood pressure cocktail put me in a weird consciousness. People now had ‘weird lights’ around them that illuminated in different colors. Different people had different glowing colors, walking shadows scared me.


It was night and I thought about my life and I struggled to get calm. The ERT people were outside my room on a Code Blue for another patient when an extreme bright soft glowing light that didn’t hurt my eyes, glided into my room. She was in all white with a black band around her white head wrap that covered her head and neck, her face was soft and radiant and her robe like dress flowed gently. She sat down next to me and smiled.

I tried to talk; she put her finger to her lip and whispered “quiet”. I couldn’t quite see that well out of my right eye, I turned my head toward her and asked who she was. “I’m a Doctor, call me Nona.” O.K., Nona what kind of Doctor are you, I asked, “the healing kind.” She put her hand on my head and looked into my eye, I could see a bit better after that. “You need to stop worrying, all your problems don’t mean a thing if you can’t solve them” said Nona.

“Talk to me, tell me about the accident” Nona asked. I gave the extreme short story but said I will loose an employment opportunity, which means probably loosing my home. Being in a hospital bed waiting to stroke out wasn’t a solution to my problem. Nona said, “If you didn’t have the house you were in what would you do.” I told her I didn’t want to live with my mother, stay with friends or be in a shelter. I needed to be self-sufficient.

“Who is in your life right now to help you”, Nona smiled waiting for my reply. I told her, ‘No one is in my life that can help me with this. I live alone and help support my mother who lives with my brothers. I am fighting to keep a roof over our heads and food on our table. As you can see I am in the process of failure.’

Nona took my hand and said, “Stop it! Listen. Give up on what is yesterday, what is useless, what is defeated and what is gone. Live for giving, heal your soul, live with faith to confront what is real and dismiss what isn’t, if you really believe you will heal.” ‘Doctor my eyes hurt when in the light, but not when I look at you, I don’t know why.’ ‘I cry in the dark because I’m ashamed of failure and failing and this accident is a metaphor for my life, all pain and no joy.’

“RJ you will never love anybody until you really know how to love yourself, stop living subjectively, live objectively…understand!” Nona put one hand on my head and another on my heart, I felt warm all over and wondered about the morphine and other pharmaceuticals I’d been given. I started to see my life playback in living color, I saw much that made me proud, a lot that made me humble and some things that made me ashamed of what I’d become.

“You can’t make a life by yourself, and you won’t have life until you really love”. What do you mean Nona! “Tell me what love is RJ?” What kind of love are you talking about Nona? “What is the greatest love, RJ”? I know its not doing for someone or purpose because of what you feel but doing the most right despite what you feel…that’s what the Word says Nona. “What is duty RJ?" ‘Duty is the obligation of service for a high cause likeGod, Country and family, why Nona?’

“Are you getting your love entangled in your duty? Love knows when to hold on, and when to let go, if you give all possessions even you’re life and have no Love in you, what does it profit?” I was stunned to understand something like severe injury had to get my attention, I was afraid. I looked at Nona, she continued, “You know the time to kill and to heal, the time to laugh and to weep, you’ve been there…without Love you will never have the time, don’t let time run you out.”


‘Nona…Doctor my eyes feel funny, they’re hurting and you’re starting to get blurry.’ “RJ your going to hurt all over for a long time, healing is often long and painful, but an Almighty God will renew your strength…. do you believe?” ‘Hell Yeah…I mean, Absolutely!” Nona got up and glided to the door saying, …Love! After she faded out of sight everything turned black.

I could hear voices echo in my head, shouting, cursing, screaming, it hurt to open my eyes, but I did, everything was blurry, my arm hurt from the force of the blood pressure cuff, my body hurt everywhere but I was relaxed as if all my cares were taken away. “RJ can you hear me.” This big black man about 6’7” 330 lbs had a stethoscope under the blood pressure cuff waiting for me to say something. ‘Yeah, I hear you. What’s going on?’

“Your pressure was high all night and the drugs seemed not to be doing anything, about an hour ago your pressure peaked and then you suddenly lost blood pressure, we caught you while you were crashing.” ‘What Doc?’ “We are going to test you right now to see if you had a stroke or a heart attack, I’m Doctor Green, I’m a Cardiologist, I think we pulled you out of a dive.”

After a day of tests I rested that Friday Night and would be in the hospital till the next Friday undergoing an operation and therapy. That night I asked Dora, the supervising RN about ‘Nona’ and what kind of Doctor she was. Dora turned sheet white while shooting me up with meds and then she caught her breath.

Dora said, “about 7 years back a woman belonging to some religious order, a PhD in Psychology helped out at the hospital though she was dying of Cancer, she always had the same advise, ‘no matter what live, love and do something meaningful.’ Nona dressed like a Nun.” I couldn’t wait to get out of that hospital, living to Love takes time and I had too much wasted time to make up for. Its not enough to know what love is, the pursuit continues.



RJ