Ok, that post sounded bitchy towards the end, so I'm going to venture a bit more and say:

Damn it feels good to be a gangster.

I was just wondering this afternoon why I can't remember a damn thing about my ICU stay, but I can remember every single dream I had while in a medically-induced coma. Of course, all I did was dream for almost 3 weeks, but you'd think I wouldn't be able to remember that either. Not that I'm complaining.

The one dream that really sticks out in my mind is the one where I was living in a home for the disabled, and I knew that I was permanently incapacitated due to brain damage (not true in real life, but it was very vivid in the dream). It was my birthday, in June, and my nurse was watching Wimbledon on the television. I was listening to it, since I couldn't get my damaged eyes to focus on anything, as I waited for my sister and Cody to take me out to celebrate my birthday. I waited and waited, and finally they arrived. I was so excited that I started having a seizure and, by the time it ended, the nurse had asked Laine and Cody to leave. The nurse knew I was disappointed that I couldn't celebrate my birthday with them, so she put up little decorations and balloons and was as nice to me as those kind of nurses can force themselves to be. I remember feeling so empty, so helpless, and so depressed. I kept waiting, trying to force my eyes to focus on the door, hoping that they might come back to get me.

Later on that night, my nurse turned on the radio and some jazz music was playing (I don't remember who the performer was). As I listened to the music, I could feel my eyes starting to focus and I couldn't stop smiling. My heart was pounding and I felt like I was being born, almost painfully, but joyfully as well. My nurse noticed my agitation and was worried by my heart rate and blood pressure so she turned the music off to get me ready for bed. But the depression had lifted and my mind was too excited to sleep. I couldn't stop laughing to myself as I stared up at the ceiling, and my caretakers tried every method they could think of to calm me. They could all tell that there was something different about me, but they couldn't explain it. I knew that I was going to be my old self again, and this little brain-dead ogre that I had become was not long for this world.

The nurses left to get one of the doctors, and a younger male orderly tip-toed into my room, creeping over to the bed. I don't remember what he asked me, but it was a very odd question to ask a patient of my mental ability, something mathematical. I stopped laughing, turned my head and looked him dead in the eye - the first time my eyes had focused successfully on anything in months. Without missing a beat, I answered his question correctly. To which he replied, "Holy shit" and stumbled backwards out of the room. I couldn't stop laughing because I knew that by tomorrow they wouldn't be able to recognize me anymore... and that's where the dream ended.

That's the dream that sticks out the most in my mind, because it happened right before I woke up for good. I'm really grateful for that dream, because the first day of being aware and awake was really difficult and confusing. But I was "myself" again the next day, sort of, and a couple of days after that I was moved out of intensive care. It was a really good dream...

I've tried to find meaning in another dream where I was riding a shrimp boat in a wheelchair at Walt Disney World, but haven't come up with any sort of interpretation just yet.

The funny thing is that my dreams felt so real, I would wake up as they brought me off the sedatives and tell my sister all about them, believing that they had really happened. I swore up and down to her that I'd done this and that, and she was pretty worried about my mental health, since she knew I'd been in the same hospital bed the whole time. It wasn't until the day I left the hospital that I realized they were all just dreams. I've had a lot of people ask me if I saw a light at the end of the tunnel or if I met God, and I say, "No, but I spent two and a half weeks dreaming myself back to health, and that wasn't too shabby."

Plus, having crucifixes thrown at me by nurses who were convinced I was a witch was the experience of a lifetime.

slowly returning to normalcy!

Current mood: satisfied

With little trouble, Cody and I were able to unstrap my neck brace, chest restraint thingy, and I was free! It's a little early, but I was supposed to take all this crap off next Tuesday anyway, so woo hoo! The other night, at a gas station, some half drunk old man stopped me and gazed into my eyes (with great difficulty) and said with the utmost concern: "Are you going to be all right???" I reassured him that yes, I will be just fine and GOD DAMN THOSE GYPSIES FOR DOING THIS TO ME IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Gotta go - I'll write something more deep later, perhaps, when my chest doesn't itch so badly.

Oh yeah, it's really funny how people I never cared about or who weren't even remotely interested in me PRIOR TO this life-altering occurrence now suddenly can't stop telling me how much I mean to them. AND I made 3 peoples' days yesterday just by being alive. They don't get out much.