A Time of Innocence

Here is an excerpt of an email I sent to my cousin 1/7/04.

Sorry I haven't kept in touch. Been very busy. I didn't make contact with anyone through the holidays much. I don’t think mom and dad did either. Wil had a bad accident on Wednesday, the week before Thanksgiving, playing touch football. He go hit and landed on his head. He was unconscious for about eight hours. His girl friend called me as I was leaving work and told me that they weren't telling her much but that he was non responsive and appeared to be paralyzed. The phone lost reception and by the time I got in range of the next tower, I called and she said they are still saying he was unresponsive, he still had no response in his arms or hands, but that he had feeling in his feet. How they knew that while he was out, I don't know. I felt some relief then, because I figured at least no spinal injury.

We prayed a lot. Mom and dad rode to Knoxville with me. He was still unconscious when we got there. There were about forty or fifty kids there from school, running all over the place. About five of them were in the room with him when we got there. They had him in a private room with monitors and braces on his neck. The nurse was giving him something for a fever and high blood pressure. She started asking me questions and mom walked over to his bed and talked to him for a minute and then stepped toward the door to talk to some of the kids. The nurse asked me if he was on any medications, any allergies and then if he had a living will. I told her no and she said she needed to know whether to put him on life support if he needed it.

Since I did not know how he was- except that he was unconscious, I am surprised they don’t get hurt when they approach folks with questions like that (with no warning). Life got real serious real quick, and I don’t know what I said to her, but her attitude changed quick. I went over to Wil's bed and started telling him it was time to get up. You need to get on up. You need to get up right now. I don’t remember what all I said to him, but I remember the nurse told me about five times that "we see this all the time, he will wake up any minute and he will probably be released by ten o'clock in the morning." I knew she was full of it but I still got my hopes up and when ten o'clock came and went it was a big let down. I must have been talking to Wil louder than I thought because one of the kids poked her head in the door and said, "Is he up?" I answered no and she told me that I sounded just like Wil.

More later, bed now.