When is Christmas…, Really

When exactly is Christmas and how long does it last.  According to some it starts on the day after Thanksgiving and proceeds through Boxing Day.  Of course others believed Christmas marks the beginning of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days and ends with the visit of the Magi.  Either way, crass commercialism or liturgical, in order to appreciate the holiday it helps to be within the three dimensional framework of the here and now.  It matters not if the birth of Christ in our world occurred on September 15 during Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles which is a few days after Yom Kippur, or the date reported by others as April 17 to put him into the astrological Aries sign, hence the Lamb of God.  Heck for all we really know he was conceived during a local Beltane Fire Festival which would put his real birthday very close to mine (very early in February).   What matters is we know and associate the concept with something important.

For me, on December 25 2007 concepts were foreign.  Understanding ‘Why was I here’ had given way to ‘how much longer’ and neither really registered enough as I accepted, and waited.  The special holiday approached, I was told of this, and yet I could not leave the hospital.  How can one give of themselves to those they love when the highlight of their day is walking to the physical therapy unit?  Anyone want to walk on a tread mill.  It doesn’t get you where you want to go.

The day materialized, I saw this on T.V.  And my wife and children came.  My sister came too, from Texas.  I remember my sister had come, but needed to be reminded before I wrote this that others had come too, my sister in law and her husband drove up from Philadelphia, and so I guess my gift that year was to let everyone spend Christmas together, in a resort, of sorts.   We got to eat dinner (they had brought carry out) in the common room at the end of the hall. 

Before this day others besides my wife and kids had come too but these visits were at the trauma center and of this time I still have no recollection.  My brother had driven up from Virginia four or five days after the accident and my nephew had flown in from Denver and ridden up with his father.  My best friend when I was young came up from Virginia (I grew up there) too and brought one of his sisters with him.  I thank everyone who came up during these very dark days and hope I was able to entertain.  

I also hear of the friends and neighbors who did so much for my wife and family and it makes me cry.  Cry in thanks and cry because I want so much to be able to repay, in some way, in any way, and yet I feel so frustrated.  I don’t know how.  My in-laws had raced over from Pennsylvania to watch our children as my wife rushed to the hospital.  A family friend stopped in the hospital on his way home on the first night and gave my wife the support she needed.  Later, I was told, he and his family brought the tree that was used for Christmas that year to our house.  My wife’s sister drove up too, to be with her and support her.  The snow came that year, and it was the neighbors who cleared it from our drive.  The list goes on, and all I could do was sit in the hospital and wonder ‘how much longer’.

Those who visited on Christmas day left and I went to bed.  Early evening was my sleeping time and, as had become habit once they let me out of the cage, I would awake around midnight and watch television.  Only on this night of nights I couldn’t just sit and watch, something was missing, something I had to find.  I got out of bed and walked in the hallway searching.  I don’t remember how long I spent walking up and down the corridor but eventually an attendant helped me to the little nook in the hall where reading material was spread out and then told me to wait.  I sat in a chair and while waiting I pulled the magazines to me.  I looked as a studious scientist might as I delved deep into the problems set forth in the articles I read, and then the attendant returned bearing gifts. 

We sat together and ate ice cream at three o’clock in the morning.  Giving a gift to someone you love on Christmas is wonderful.  Giving a gift to someone in need is divine.  Her gift gave me a very warm feeling.  I do wish I remembered the attendant’s name. 

Anniversaries and Arbitration

I am jumping forward again.  When I first started this blog I hoped to move through my time in two hospitals and rehabilitation in some semblance of chronologic order.  But, as with the last posting, this is not happening.  Today again I wish to share events that were most recent.

I had my anniversary on December 11.  It has been three years.  I will always tell everyone that I am happy to be here, but then one can pretty much figure that out, after all, if I was not here I wouldn’t be here.  Three years since the truck ran me over and I was airlifted to the trauma center.  I like to spend this anniversary low key.  My wife and I took the dog for a long walk along the tow path near Frenchtown NJ.  We held hands and strolled along with the dog leading the way.  We visited the bookbinder there to get some estimates on some in need of repair and then we stopped in at the Book Garden, my last book signing was there way back in July.  Then it was home and dinner and holding hands some more as we watched television.  My kind of evening.

Of course we could have gone out for dinner and celebrated, but that falls way outside our budget.  We couldn’t bring ourselves to do that actually, Reality had hit home. 

A few days earlier on December 9 we had sat in on our arbitration hearing.  From day one we had an idea of what the outcome would be, and since outcomes are multi layered, only one layer really counted.  It wasn’t; will they pay?  It was; can they pay?

The lawyer heard from us, and the defendant stayed quiet.  This part of our situation was obvious, the truck ran the red light and I was the one in the hospital.  When the decision was read one hundred percent of the fault was on the truck driver and the company he worked for.  Then the numbers rolled in and included damages, future loss, lost wages, wife’s efforts and lost wages, the list went on and the total to be awarded to our family would have been in excess of 3.5 million dollars.  This was in fact more than we anticipated.  On paper arbitration looks so nice. 

In practice the legal system doesn’t work.  The trucking company did not insure their truck.  Therefore there was no money to be paid by the insurance company.  The driver was very young and had no possessions.  There was no money to be paid by him.  The trucking company was in hoc up to their ears.  They have no money.  They would declare bankruptcy and we would have access to nothing since their current creditors would reap first reward.  Three years have gone by and still I have no work to speak of.  One daughter is in college and a son is on his way.  All of our life savings will go into paying my bills and college tuition.  And then, of course, my wife has to support me as well.  We will have nothing to retire on.

Our insurance company would have paid my family a lot of money if I had died in the crash. 

With our legal system in play we got nothing.  The state of NJ and Hunterdon County prosecutors in particular spent over a year with a case on their desk which they did nothing with but defer to traffic court (apparently it is not a crime in NJ to run a red light, I know this for a fact because I went in and asked the prosecutor in person) so the company that didn’t carry insurance on its trucks could pay a small fine.  The company owning the truck which ran me over was able to recommenced business immediately; in fact it never stopped business operations at all while I struggled to regain my sense of balance for over a year. 

Today is one of those days (they are few and far between) where I have to wonder if the family would have been better off if there was a different outcome three years ago.

Thoughts on a Movie

Jumping forward for a reflexive perspective

I am jumping forward in time today for several reasons.  One reason is, simply put; In six days it will be three years.  Three years since the truck ran me over and I was airlifted to the trauma center.

Three years is a long time, or a flash in ones eyes as your children grow.  These days I still have some short term memory problems and many times I have to search for words, or replacements, before I can translate my thoughts into speech.  In rehab they gave us different ways to help in this regard many of which centered on ‘making a list’ or ‘writing it down’.   

And so, one of the reasons I am moving forward in time today, besides stating that I have an anniversary coming up, is that I wanted to relay a message while it is still fresh because I was never good at making lists.

Last night my wife, son and I watched the movie ‘Wit’.  The movie was loaned to us by a friend (thank you Caroline).  If you haven’t seen it yet then I warn you, it is sad.  In this movie Emma Thompson isn’t playing Professor Sybill Trelawney (Harry Potter) instead she is Professor Vivian Bearing who is suffering from a stage 4 carcinoma.  The line up for this movie is basically ‘all star’.  It is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Margaret Edson, and, as mentioned, has Emma Thompson (academy award winning actress) and is directed by academy award winning Mike Nichols.  Not a bad crew and they bring the fine line between life and death home for all to see. 

The take home message of the movie, for me, reminded me very much of my time in the hospital and in rehab.  Without being able to wait for daily visit from my wife, son and daughter, and later when I knew that others were coming, I would have been lost.  No rock, so to speak, to hold on to, nothing that would have lent any sort of sense or reason to my being.  Later while in rehabilitation it was easy to point out those who were not able to move on, to reclaim a semblance of balance in their lives.  It was those who had no family, no one to go home to.  These people had been in and out of therapy as many times as their insurance allowed.  For me, I wanted to go home because when there, I knew, I would be able to sleep in bed with my wife and watch my son and daughter as they moved beyond high school.  I wanted to go home. 

I am better now, to a point, but still unemployed and this brings depression into the mold.  Fortunately I am able to balance that problem because I am so happy to be home and to be alive and to watch my children grow.  Now, if I can ever get more of my first book sold (http://www.comicfictionnoir.com/) or my next three books published, then I could … I have started dreaming again, and to date, these are real dreams. 

Temporal Sequence Went Out the Window

In my memory, for more than a year before my accident I had a recurring dream, or perhaps flash of clairvoyance would be a better descriptor.  It would sometimes come in the early morning hours, and other times it would hit me as I buckled in my seatbelt and started the ignition.  It was always a flash of information, like a text coming in over the wires, and it was, basically, driving instructions. 

I had several different routes by which I could drive to work and the inspirational message always told me which way NOT to go, and then it told me why.  The problem was always with one particular route and the message told me to not use it that particular day because there would be an accident at a certain location on the route, and I would be in it.   

My last version of this dream had occurred to me on Thanksgiving Day in 2007.  The dream told me that it was okay to travel on that road over the Thanksgiving Holiday; the accident was not scheduled for November.  It was a week or so later, in December, that I would have to worry about.  December 11, 2007 was the date of my accident.

In the hospital, as my memory of time and events began to turn back on I know that I was confused.  I did not know why I was in the hospital.  I did not know what had happened to place me there.  I did not know why half my head had been shaved.  But I do remember asking whoever came in with my food or with my medicine or to take my blood pressure, each and every one, “Why am I here?”

They were all polite, and, to a degree, sympathetic in their response, “You got hurt.  How do you feel?”

I also know that I must have asked my wife the same question on each of her daily visits and finally the answer registered; “You were in an accident,” she told me.

“Thank you for clearing that up,” or some other similar response must have been my reaction, but that answer spawned new questions like, ‘what type of accident,’ and ‘where are my keys,’ which led to ‘I want my keys so I can go home,’ which led to the nurse allowing me to sit in my chair and watch TV at three o’clock in the morning as she watched me chew some pills she had just given me, along with the ice cream.

After one or two more sessions with my wife the story expanded.  It was not just an accident, it was a car accident.
           
“Where?” I had to ask.

Even in the hospital, even without having more than a modicum of synaptic functions in play I was amazed at her response.  It was at the exact location my long term recurring dream had told me to avoid. 

I had never told anyone of this particular dream before but now I, as a TBI survivor, saw a connection.  I know I tried to tell everyone about my dreams, but no matter how I relayed what I had experienced dream-wise for so long, those that listened nodded their heads and then asked, “How do you feel?”
           
Months later, in cognitive rehabilitation sessions, various aspects of the brain function were discussed especially how the brain responds to trauma.  It shuts down.  The three dimensional reality that is put together by the interaction and growth of the nodes in the cortex, disappears.  Then slowly, as one section of the brain after another is turned back on, the 3D basis of reality is woven back together.  Where do people go, you may ask, when they meditate?  They pass through their constructed 3D realm and fly off to wherever a dream or thought might take them.

That is an amazing trip for those skilled in the art, but the questions I had after discussing this reconstructive process were quite simple in cotext, but unanswerable in todays understanding of the system.  Did I dream that same recurrent dream in my coma, or during the restructuring process?  Or was it, as I first imagined, a running warning light that flashed at me throughout the year before my trauma?  Of course I do not know.  I do know that I have not had a similar flash dream since learning I was in an accident, but then again I also know that I did not have any memory of dreams of any sort for quite a while after my release from the hospital.  I was heavily medicated at the time but if it was the drugs causing this lack of dreaming when I was out of the hospital, how could I of had them while inside the hospital?

I liked to ride on my mini-stool.

I had a room mate, not one that I chose of course but he talked a lot and we took classes together.  Some classes were down at the end of the hall.  Everyone walked, but me, I wrote my scooter.  It really wasn’t a scooter it was more of a stool with wheels on it.  I don’t know where it came from but I do remember I could ride it from my room to the hallway and then all the way to the classroom.  A nurse stopped me once and asked, “Why don’t you walk?”

Why walk?  I wondered, when you can ride!

I am not sure when classes started or stopped and what went on in the classes also doesn’t register.  All I know is that we met as a group and everyone sat in some chairs, in a circle of sorts.  There was an instructor of course who led the group discussions.  Sitting in the circle listening to the others in the group finally brought home the realization that this was not physical therapy.  Why was I there?  And why did I have a scar across the left side of my head?  It was plain to see, they had shaved the hair off of that side of my head.  Not everyone had shaved heads like me, but everyone did have difficulty putting sentences together, and this apparently was my problem too.  No matter what I thought on the inside, I couldn’t put it all into words.  

My wife came that day.  She came every day, but I don’t remember that.  She arrived at the ICU when I was being wheeled out of the operating room.  The first person she saw, I was told, was the priest.  She spent the night, and the next and two more after that before she finally left the hospital for a rest.  I was told that I awoke from the coma after a day or so and with tubes sticking in everywhere, mouth included, I spoke to her and others who came to visit.  I do not have any memory of this.  Later I was to learn about TBI and how the brain shuts down for a while when survival mode kicks in, and then slowly reengages.  For me, memory has been the slowest to reengage completely.

The first time I remember seeing her I was very happy.  And I know the first question I asked was, “when can I go home?”  She smiled, and like someone who has heard the question before, she patted me on the arm and said, “When you are better”.   There was so much more I wanted to ask, but it was time for my medicine. 

When I awoke she was gone, and I think I was upset.  I do not think my roommate liked my attitude, and so we had a discussion.  I must have told him a thing or two he didn’t agree with.  The next thing I remember was I had changed rooms.  I had a new roommate.  This one would be hard to talk to, he didn’t speak.

Then I woke up, I think.

What happened after the ‘incident of the dirty bed’ I don’t really know because, well, because I cannot remember.  What does register in my next recollection of the recovery hospital was that my bed was no longer a cage.  Of course this led to my wondering if ever I was so constrained.  Now I was free and that was all that mattered.  Free to climb in, and out of my bed whenever I wanted.  And this made me wonder, if the cage was real, why.  Was I bad, was I in prison, was I ever going to get out. 

What also made me wonder was why one half of my head was shaved while the hair on the other side was much longer than I remembered it being.  I did try to comb it all the way over but it just wasn’t long enough for that.

The room also appeared brighter than I remembered it being, and perhaps it was because this recollection occurred during daylight hours, or the curtains had been drawn.  Whatever the reason, I got out of bed and slowly walked into the bathroom, looked in the mirror and saw the shaved head.  It didn’t bother me too much, just, like everything else I saw around me, it made me think.  Then I put it aside and managed to open my mouth just wide enough to allow the toothbrush in and when I had finished brushing teeeth, washing my face, and attempting to comb, I came out of the bathroom and found an attendant waiting for me.  She carried a tray with food and drink and a small cup filled with pills.  She was nice, and spoke with me as if it wasn’t our first meeting, but she didn’t bother telling me her name, and then she waited for me to finish all of the medicine before leaving.  I sat in a chair beside the bed with the tray of food in front of me, watched someone on TV, and ate in silence.

Why did I shave the hair off one side of my head, and why couldn’t I open my mouth all the way?  I thought about those two things while I waited for someone.  Who I awaited I do not know, but I had a feeling they would come, so I sat, and waited some more, and that was all I remember from that episode in my life.

First Memory was Like a Dream

They told me the comma lasted just a day or so, but I have no recollection of the first ten days in ICU.  Later they moved me to a recovery type hospital and this is where the first memory comes from (I think).  Only was it a memory or was it a dream?  And boy do I have a lot of dream sequences that may or may not have been reality floating around.  I do wish I could figure that one out.  But I will start with the hospital, or the prison, or the torture chamber sequence and this of course all depends on interpretation because this one I do think was real.

It was very late at night and I was in bed.  Only the bed had a mesh of sorts all around it running up high above me and seemed to be closed at the top.  Like a cage.  Dreaming right?  I tried to call for help but my mouth was barely able to open so all I could do was whisper.  Now nothing seemed to hurt and so I was, at first, just curious.  What type of dream was I in.  I tried to touch the netting that seemed to be soft, but solid.  Problem was, my hands appeared to be tied down so I couldn't reach out.  This made me try again to call out for help, but like before I couldn't manage anything above a whisper, and now my jaw started to hurt a bit.

I tried to look around but my neck was very stiff so I could only turn my head a bit from side to side.  On the far side of the netting I noted a curtain that appeared to cut the room in half and hence it closed me in beyond the cage itself.  On the far wall beyond the foot of the bed was a television and it was turned on but there was no sound.  If there was sound I do not remember or could not hear.  I don't remember what was being broadcast either, I only know that it added a dim light to the room. 

My feet moved a bit, they did not seem to be, like the arms, tied down.  But like trying to turn my neck there was pain.  I remember laying in this bed for a while, but how long that was I cannot even guess, days, weeks, or seconds, time itself didn't register.  But I do know that I had to relieve my bowels and this began to cause me alarm. Was I in a dream or did I really have to go?   I couldn't get up, I couldn't call for help and I couldn't really see beyond the curtain.  I tried to free my arms, over and over again but to no avail and eventually, this I remember very clearly, I relieved myself.  Then to applaud my own efforts I sprouted urine too.

Welcome back.

What Happened

Wish I knew. It was written up in the newspapers but hell if I remember.  Based on what the doctor told me many months later (when I had improved enough that I could actually remember things) well, I'm happy to be here.

Now I am trying something new (writing fiction stories) as I look for work in my  'old' world. 

Want to talk about it?

Here is a draft of the press release about my interview on The Authors Show.

Author Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'. He deftly uses humor to open discussion on important human issues. By Any Means is his latest thriller novel

[DATE CITY] Author Saverio Monachino will appear on The Authors Show on October 13, 2010, to discuss his latest thriller novel, By Any Means. The show can be accessed at www.TheAuthorsShow.com.

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Dr. Monachino describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, his attempt is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion about very important human issues.

"I wrote the book," stated Dr. Monachino, "because after publishing on scientific topics in peer reviewed journals for a number of years I wanted a chance to, like newspaper columnists, just give my opinion.  In this way my point of view can be used and we can just leave the facts out of it, and of course this method is a lot more fun, and a bit easier.  In By Any Means I translate, to the best of my abilities, my vision of the three dimensional world around us and use this treatise to help people see, as I do, the important things in life and how they are clouded or misdirected by the social conditions around us."

While it can be said that Saverio's book are funny, the issues he discusses are real.  The humor in By Any Means alternates between simple and subtle.  It also uses the comic take on noir fiction to 'explore motive involving murder, the conflict between true religious belief and cultism, and deeply felt, sensitive, emotional family values.” 

"Readers will enjoy this book," continued Dr. Monachino, " because, as a reviewer in Virginia posted:  'Comic? Yes, and the comedy is truly both deep and subtle. A mystery? Indeed, a murder mystery but those pages seem to cover the deeper mystery investigated by the author. It is obvious that By Any Means has gone to great lengths to open up more important questions than just who killed who as one begins to see the outlay of dysfunctional family dynamics, its development and picturesque guides to finding the right way to reconnect.'"

Dr. Monachino will be appearing on The Authors Show on October 13, 2010. He is available for media interview and can be contacted using the information below or by email at r1234f56r@yahoo.com. More information is available at his website.