Safe and Sound
I have forborne from writing in this blog, preferring less visible corners, like
MyParagraphs and my off-line paper notebook for lack of notability in my everyday musings and general shortage of scribbling vigor. Ironically, this post ominously chimes with
RollerSkatingUnprotected, and sets me off to wonder in awe about the next excuse to write.
Thursday, August 21, 2008, about 11 p.m. It was uninvitingly dark and drizzling outside, but I decided to stroll out for a smoke and to get some unhealthy stuff to munch on at a local 7-11. Since most of the roads in our little neighborhood lack sidewalks and drainage, I was starting to arch around a puddle towards the middle of the street when a vaguely familiar string of events occurred.
Hit. Flight. Loosing altitude. Landing. Concussion. Skidding. Full stop right in the middle of the puddle.
First of all, it's the second time I'm saved in such a spectacular way in a collision with a car. It's the second time the car is left effectively unusable pending (at least) front window replacement, while I'm able to walk away without a single broken bone, all my clothing almost completely intact and just a couple of tiny scratches. If I were as atheistic as a brick, I would believe by now. Thanks to the scrapes of faith left in me, though, I gratefully bow. If you asked me to describe the whole accident in just a couple of words, I would seriously say "warm and soft", since that's exactly what it magically felt like.
I didn't lose consciousness per se, but a few moments after I made my usual touch-down on the head, the effects of the concussion kicked in and, thanks to complete sobriety, I was able to witness somewhat like a hard reboot of my brain. It was like, the whole canvas of memory and cognition suddenly broke up into a myriad of separate pieces for me to set them back step by step like a huge, impossible puzzle. For a minute, I had only one hazy thought: I have just been hit by a car. I didn't remember anything and any query into memory went unanswered, however hard I tried. I didn't remember who I was, what I was doing there, where I was going, what date, month or even year it was. In a couple of minutes, when people helped me up on my feet, it started coming back to me, but even five minutes later I had to ask what date and time it was.
It didn't scare me much, rather, it was a most interesting experience. You can watch flicks like "Memento" in throngs, but you'll never get a clear idea of what's going on in an injured head until you get one, too. Granted, the simplest and safest brain injury as they might be, concussions have sombre, long-going consequences often enough not to wish one on yourself for a million bucks.
The whole "hard reboot" process resembled that of a hard drive a bit. Especially in that the information in the short-term memory ("cache") was mostly lost or garbled forever. Of course, it was probably a matter of just a few hours' worth of events.
I also got aware of some kinds of self-tests going on in a injured body and mind. Right after the hit, when I was still lying in the puddle, I felt immediately that I was probably OK and could control all limbs like nothing ever happened. But at the same time, I was subconsciously limp and almost felt that my brain was gradually checking different parts of the body, shifting attention from nerve clusters in the middle of the torso and up to arms and legs. I'm next to positive the self-check-up was not conscious, but I was aware of it enough to ask people not to touch me for a few moments. The mind self-test was more of a willful one. After some of the memory returned, I started going through some seemingly distant parts of it to assess the damage. Naturally, there's no enumerations in human recollections, so I'll never be able to know how much I lost (or gained) in the event, but random checks of the long-term storage found no missing pieces.
To make a long story short, the driver and the passengers of the car that hit me turned out to be quite a nice and cordial bunch of guys. They called a taxi right away (it would probably take an ambulance a lot more to get there), and in a few hours I was happily, voluntarily hospitalized for a full week. I had my much-needed rest from the Internet, made a bunch of new friends and a lot of new acquaintances, had time to think and to talk. By now I know concussion is no joke, and I'll suffer from a few annoyances for a few weeks (or maybe lifetime), but I'm sincerely grateful for the whole experience. It shook me up a bit - something I've been needing for a long time now.
Thanks!