From surgeon to patient: Loss of certainty is real
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I don’t know if I was already unconscious before I hit the pavement or not, but I was out cold. Blood was flowing out of my head when they found me.
It was a Friday – April 14, to be exact, and I’d left the operating room earlier than expected. It was beautiful outside, the perfect day for a walk, run or ride. I always had my bike in the trunk of my car for days like that. I quickly called my youngest daughter and told her I was going for a 25-mile ride, and then I’d be home for us to hang out. I was looking forward to the weekend. It was a warm spring day with lots of wildlife on the path. I remember seeing squirrels, groundhogs, bunnies and deer.
About 19 or 20 miles into my ride, I remember feeling a little light-headed. Not too crazy, but enough for me to notice, and that is the last thing I recall before my world went black.
“Loudoun County, 911. What’s your emergency?” Later, I’d hear the harrowing police call strangers placed from milepost 29 on the Old Dominion trail, where they discovered me. The conversation was a mix of patience, urgency and frustration. They didn’t know if I was alive or dead because they’d unsuccessfully tried to revive me. I was unconscious, face down in a pool of blood. It was bad.
I’d wake up later in a trauma hospital bed. I don’t remember the ambulance ride or the prolonged surgery, but I do recall not grasping reality. I kept asking, “Is this real? Am I in a nightmare? Am I really awake?” My husband was already traumatized from the ambulance call and the ensuing events. He paced and worried for half a day while hearing the constant sounds of “code red” or “code blue” after being told my surgery would be 4 hours. It wound up being almost 11 hours.
Full-circle moment
My distress didn’t come until later. In the thick of it, I remember feeling comforted by the health care team. The anesthesiologist was somebody I worked with daily. The primary surgeon trained under me, and I was confident in him. It truly became a full-circle moment with me going from a healer to being healed, and thanks to the support, expertise and love of those around me, I pulled through.
As an orthopedic and sports medicine surgeon with more than 20 years of experience, I’d done my share of operations. I’d served as a team physician at the collegiate level and in the National Football League and Major League Baseball. I am actively involved in teaching orthopedic residents and fellows. For me, sports medicine is life. I have always been an athlete and have focused my career on the science of sports. In this wild twist of fate, I became the patient fighting a battle to live, recover and thrive again one day.
Damaged spirit
By far, the greatest challenge for me has been mentally. Yes, the accident was disabling. I had a grim pelvic fracture, severe head injury and associated nerve damage. But what hit me harder than the physical pain was the isolation and the sudden way I was forced to become inactive. Usually, when I wasn’t working, I was outside running, biking or hiking. And then abruptly, I was in a hospital bed on the lower level of my house with unbearable burning leg pain that made it almost impossible to sleep. I felt isolated despite my family’s constant care for me.
My nerves were damaged, but so was my spirit. The latter was the hardest part, taking an emotional toll on me. I was depressed and began to understand more of what my patients would describe even after they had physically healed. Healing is a multi-layered journey, and often, the body heals faster than the mind. It recovers quicker than your heart and soul.
Few people understand what you’re going through. Most folks are fortunate enough never to get injured like this. In their well-meaning attempts to make me feel better by saying, “You’re lucky to be alive,” it had the opposite effect and made me feel disheartened and frustrated. Because there is more to life than being alive. Pain is real. Loss of certainty is real. Loss of identity is incredibly real. Isolation can be just as crushing as hitting your head on the pavement.
Of course, I was lucky, but I wanted to withdraw and be alone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone or see friends. I needed to process the gap between where my mind and body were before the accident and where it was afterward. People kept telling me, “You look great,” but deep inside, all I could think was, “I don’t feel great.”
Living a best new life
The territory was unfamiliar. I’m forever grateful to the doctors who kept me alive and fixed me up, but I am trying to figure out how to live my best new life. That is my goal. I’m 7 months out, doing what I can and prepping for another surgery to improve my nerve injury.
I want to know what I’m capable of post-accident and won’t stop pressing until that actualizes. It might be another year. It might be 5 years. I’m not sure, but I’m bringing every lesson learned from this event forward to help me be a better person and physician. It is all about resilience, pulling yourself up from physical and emotional quicksand, gratitude and—as I was forced to face head-on—the human side of medicine.
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