Close to home

My friend was hit by a car on the weekend. She's not in great shape, but she will be all fixed up eventually. It just brings back memories - for some reason. Seeing her in the hospital bed, doped up to the eyeballs on morphine and unable to move - well, it made me cry for her, and it made me remember so many things I had forgotten about my own accident. Those feelings of helplessness, pain, uncertainty...the list goes on. And I did it in a country where I had no family, few real friends and not a whole lot of support from the health system.
I survived a motorbike crash 12 hours from a major city. I survived going under general anaesthetic with only one working machine in the operating room - and even that left me with wounds that had not been fixed and continued to bleed for another 24 hours in the humidity. I survived a 12 hour trip in a van on bumpy roads without as much as a splint to keep the broken bit together. And then I survived traction, a few more operations and a 3 week stay in a hospital in Hanoi.
After hospital, I was housebound for a couple of months - fearing going out because there wasnt much in the way of 'disabled access'. I remember going to the cinema one time - people everywhere who seemed to completely overlook the huge bandaged leg and crutches as they dashed around in the foyer. At one point I stood in one spot and balled from feeling so vulnerable. I guess that is how I felt the entire time during my recovery, but I was that stubborn I refused to come home and recover in peace with my family.
Then I had to have re-operations at home to fix the first lot. The whole drama seemed to be neverending. But it did end, and now I am a much stronger person for it.
But I have never really acknowledged how hard that whole time really was. Or how it left me emotionally. Or how it brought a dying relationship back to life, but then helped destroy it in the end. ALL of it broke me, but then built me up again into an incredibly independent person, who knows I have what it takes to get through various things life wants to throw at me.

Now, my friend has her own journey ahead, and although I dont know how, I hope I can help her. I think it is important for her to know that she can cry as much as she wants to. Emotional strength will come, but not by force.