Another retroactive entry, originally linked to on the index page.

Hi, guys!

This message, like the preceding one of last Wednesday night, is being sent to the majority of the people in my address book (including three small mailing lists, two of which I administrate). I've also added everybody who's sent me mail on the subject since. I apologize to anybody who doesn't want to receive this stuff; I usually abstain from mass-mailings, and I don't expect to keep sending these updates out in the future. But at the moment, it seems the only viable alternative.

So. First and foremost, I'd like to thank everybody who e-mailed me with support, sympathy, condolences, and so on, not to mention those who got in contact with me in Real Life. I suppose a silver lining in the dark cloud is that I've been made more aware that I have some of the greatest friends in the known universe, and more of them than I'd have imagined possible a few years ago, both online and offline. I hope to reply to y'all individually in the near future, but I'm not quite up to it yet. In the meantime, a general thanks will have to suffice.

For the record, I've been checking my e-mail about twice, perhaps thrice daily, which is actually pretty remarkable when you consider that my bed is right next to my brother's computer, and that I *usually* check my mail every few minutes when I'm well and at home. For now, though, I've just been staggering on occasionally, exporting the non-mailing-list messages, and printing them out to read in bed, which is where I've been spending most of my time. Generally either resting or sleeping. I've been getting LOTS of sleep; quantities I can generally only dream of having. I only wish I were able to enjoy it.

That's the problem with a lot of this getting sick stuff, really. I mean, I got a ride in a helicopter! I got a CAT scan! All this cool stuff happened, but was I appreciating it, or even noticing much of any of it as it went by? Noooooo. I was too busy giving my name for the thirteenth time and listening to the doctors discuss what sort of sutures to use in my head.

Anyway. Aside from being perpetually tired, and feeling some discomfort in my left eyelid (which results in my wanting to keep my gaze directed downwards as much as possible), and, okay, noting that part of my forehead resembles something out of Frankenstein's lab... well, aside from that, I'm doing okay now. Really. :-) The only time I even consider my as-yet-untouched bottle of codene is in the mornings, which are admittedly pretty horrid, with my head and stomach vying to see which can pound the hardest. But by mid-afternoon, all is okay, and by night I'm positively fine, even if napping frequently. See, I never WAS a morning person. :-)

In case anybody wants the details, I'm on antibiotics (cephalexin), ibuprofen (Motrin with every meal), iron (to counteract the blood loss), "stool softener" (to counteract the iron pills), and lots and lots of bacitracin (antibiotic ointment). And artificial tears, to keep my eye moist. Thank goodness I wrote out a schedule, or I'd never keep track of it all. The prescriptions start running out in a couple of days, though, which I figure means that I should be feeling better by then. I hope.

I saw the ocular plastic surgeon guy yesterday, and he complimented the work the people in Hartford did on me, and told me to just keep putting on the antibiotics and putting in the lubrication, and come back in a month, at which point I think they're going to be doing some reconstructive work. (How they reconstruct eyelashes when the relevant portion of the upper eyelid is almost completely missing is beyond me, but I guess I'll find out.)

My actual vision appears to be just fine, which is pretty amazing, all things considered. I'll be going to my usual eye doctor one of these days, just to be certain of that (and perhaps to pick up another pair of glasses if the pair I had doesn't resurface; it was in my knapsack, in the van, at the time of the crash, and I'm not sure what's happened to it since. I'm told they used my knapsack to keep my feet elevated on the side of the road, but after that, who knows.)

College starts on Friday. I figure I'm going to be dropping the one course I had then, so college really starts on Monday for me. I'm hoping I'll be ready by then, but it's too soon to tell. *sigh*

As for my mother... she's still in the hospital. Basically, she had some damage to her spinal cord; at first they thought that it might have been severed, but that has turned out not to be the case. For that matter, the damage to her vertebrae turned out to be located one vertabra lower than they'd originally thought. I have no idea what that means, but it is apparently a Good Thing. She has a tube in her throat, but they've been making that smaller, and while she's not actually talking, she is aware of what's going on, and is communicating. Particularly with my father, who's stayed with her the whole way through.

She was out of the ICU for a bit, but the last I heard, she was back in it. An attempt was made to give her solid food and have her sit up, but that was unsuccessful. That's not a problem, though; that was apparently more than they'd actually expected at that point, and they were just testing her limits, to see if she COULD do it.

If I understand matters correctly -- which is not a given -- she's currently paralyzed from the waist down, but this is not expected to be permanent. The hope is that she'll continue to improve (as she has been doing), and be ready to enter rehab in another week or so.

[A few paragraphs on my mother's Hebrew name (provided for purposes of prayer) snipped. If you're reading this while it's still relevant, and want more information, just drop me a line.]

The emotional side of things still hasn't come crashing home yet; I think my body's been too busy knitting the physical side back together to allow me to consider anything else. I'm sure that'll change as I get better, and I'll be saving all your messages of support against that time, when I imagine I'll need them. It strikes me that it's also probably a Very Good Thing that I'm taking the Poetry Workshop this semester; I suspect I know what I'll spend much of the semester writing about. Ought to be theraputic.

I ought to be uploading this and getting back to bed. Once again, sorry about the mass mailing, and I hope to respond individually soon. Thanks.

Shmuel