Fracture Lines: Craniotomy Notes, Day One

June 23rd, 2021

AM

Another day, another dollar. I am doing my best to remember these daily entries to keep myself focused and composed. Composed? How cute that I think I could ever be composed. I am feverish to write and yet never quite know where to start or end. Irrelevant, these cheap little writing exercises I give myself upon waking feel tiring. I am writing, though. Every day I am writing, it is a habit, a ritual, and a promise I keep to myself.

I am a bit anxious today about some meetings at work, maintenance is coming to the house during lunch to check the air conditioning, and I am sure Dillon will be irritated by the dogs. I think I will make fried rice tonight for dinner. My lack of measuring while cooking rendered a surplus of rice that I need to use. Fried rice with some veggies sounds nice.

Alright, well, I wrote, I didn’t write a single thing of value, but my arthritic hands held the pen and inked this journal. My misery hopes to find some company, and words will spill from me like a tapped keg. We will see.

July 5th, 2021

PM

I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know how to start. My head has been split in two, and that is not me being dramatic for the writing in this sad and frayed journal. I fell. I tripped. I landed on kitchen tile and fractured my skull.

How memorable these pages will be as their ends curl like petals from my tears reaching them. Today was my first day of getting out of bed, getting dressed, and pretending I am a real person. What am I supposed to do now? Who am I supposed to be? I guess I created a real habit with my writing again, because the only thing that brought me the slightest comfort throughout the day was the idea of putting this on paper.

Now, however, that I am holding the paper and the pen, I find myself stricken with grief. I can’t write this.

July 5th, 2021

10:45 PM

Dillon is asleep, the dogs are asleep, and the house is still. I am writing by the light of my phone. I am always being watched now. Nighttime is my sanctuary, nighttime is when I can hide away and cry in peace.

How am I supposed to tell this story? I need practice because I will soon be going to physical therapy. Can I make up a story?

The night I made fried rice, I tripped and fell in our kitchen. I love to cook, I am good at it, I don’t have to follow rules, and there are no expectations other than my own. Cooking was my sanctuary in a world that was not meant for girls with muscle weakness. I can or could stand in my kitchen, prep food at the counter, sauté away above the stove, plate works of art, and feed the people I love. I not only could cook, but I loved to. Cooking was something the disease couldn’t take from me. Until now. I don’t know if I will ever step foot in a kitchen again.

I don’t know the details, to be frank, I don’t want to know them. I am still scared. Terrified. I can’t walk down my hallway without Dillon holding both my hands in fear that I’ll hit the ground again and crack. I am unbalanced; every tiny step I take feels like my body is being thrown against a breaking wave on a shoreline. The fall that night made my body collide with the cold, hard tile of our kitchen floor, the left side of my head hitting first. My skull was and still is fractured. I don’t remember the fall; this is the story that is told to me.

I don’t remember paramedics in our house, I don’t remember an emergency room that diagnosed me with bleeding under the skull, and I don’t recall being air lifted to a university hospital to perform a craniotomy and save my life. I remember none of it. It feels like a book I am reading or a movie someone is describing to me. The people around me, Dillon, his mom, my mom, and friends who check on me, they all have these vivid and horrific memories of the event, but I am left with nothing. I only have tension in my chest from fear and grief. Who am I now?

Does this count as my writing for the day?

July 7th, 2021

10:50 PM

I worked today. I work from home, so I could stay in my pajamas and no one had to see that half my head is shaved. I still don’t know what to do with that mess. I tried to brush the hair that remained, but it was knotted from the hospital. Dillon tried to brush through it, but I got so irritated and upset that I began crying and screaming. I lifted scissors and told him just to cut out the knot. The knot fell on the floor behind me, and I walked to the bed while he scooped it up and placed it in the bin. I don’t care to think beyond the moment in front of me. They shaved half my head and left me with only a ring of staples punched into my scalp.

“We must keep her head together, hand me the staple gun”.

Pointless, this all is pointless. I am broken now, a half-shaved head dyed yellow from remaining iodine, and even more than my head, my soul aches. I don’t know how to put it into words yet, but I remain uncertain as to who I am. I don’t feel like I fit. I ache to remember, but also fear it. What if I remember? Could I ever get out of bed again if I remember?

Everyone looks at me like a teacup being thrown across a football field. Where will she break next? When will she break? I look like a puppet with all the fluff pulled out. Nothing remains inside; I am just a vessel held together by metal and trauma.

July 8th

10:47 PM

I think with each passing day, I am scratching at the walls inside my broken skull for memories I do not want. Beyond the physical difficulties of regaining balance and confidence with each step or move I make, I find I am insufferable to my lack of memory. People around me continue to say things like “well, you said that in the hospital while you were recovering,” or “your surgeon said you shouldn’t do that,” and I am left with only the will to scream or throw their comments out the window in rage. I don’t remember the man that saved my life, I do not remember the man that took a saw to my skull and cracked me open like a coconut. I hold all the memories before that night, but the loss of those days has seemed to create an ocean’s worth of grief and panic for me.

Who am I supposed to be now? Just the girl that cracked her head so hard they had to damage it further, burn vessels to stop the bleeding, and paste the skull back together with metal parts? Can I rock this haircut? My day is outlined by work, babysitting with each move or need, and then sitting in my shower chair as the water washes over me. I heard a helicopter fly over the house today, and for a moment, I thought memories would become vivid, but they didn’t.

I have done this many times. I have hurt myself many times from a lack of strength, but this one is the worst thus far. I will now wash and repeat, I will go to PT, get stronger, pretend like this was easy, and continue with my life. Only I and this journal know that I am struggling and that no part of this has been easy. I feel like my whole being is not the right size. When they cracked my head open, did they install a cadaver brain? I have memories of who I was before the accident, but I don’t think I am her any longer. Where did she go? Will she come back, or like memories, is she lost forever in the trauma?

I have a butterfly tattooed on my right arm. I know, so cliche, so typical. I have the ICD-10 code for my disease underneath it. I got it to remind myself that I don’t have to hide my disease or struggle, and that butterflies go through dark times to morph into something beautiful. I know, continued cliche or eye roll, but I love it. I wonder if I am just in the dark? I cry each night in anger and sadness. I cry for the burden I have placed on the people around me. I cry because when trauma occurs, it is not just me that feels the weight, I may be the one to carry it, but people that love me suffer their version of the trauma. My husband cares for me day in and day out. He remembers. He remembers every painful second from the thud of my broken body to the panicked ride to the hours of waiting while I slumbered in anesthesia. Maybe I was lucky not to remember. His eyes look like how I feel: drowned.

Maybe I should try to sleep, but the medicine keeps me agitated. Tomorrow, I have staples from my skull removed.

July 10th, 2021

10:09 AM

I had the staples removed. Would not recommend. I met the surgeon for the first time, though my mother had to remind me that I had met him in the hospital. The surgeon told me that my head is safe, I can even hit it again and not worry. I am still left with only half a head of hair and no idea how my hairstylist will fix it, but I trust him. The surgeon said my inability to sleep and my uncontrollable thirst should subside, that they can be side effects of the traumatic brain injury. I like the man; he was confident, handsome, and thorough. While Dillon and my mother were in shock when he told me I could even hit my head again and it would be fine, thanks to the metal plates, I found comfort. I still require a lot of support when walking to maintain balance, but that tiny bit of comfort helps in case I fall and eat shit again. Maybe I wouldn’t break as badly. I begin PT next week to work on balance and strength. The constant regurgitation in my life: lack of balance and strength, which then leads to physical therapy.

I still do not feel like myself, but I am slowly letting that fade. I was taken from one body and put into another, and I lacked the memory of how the new me got there. I am trying my best to concentrate on only what is in front of me, both figuratively and literally. I am trying to grieve and move forward simultaneously. I am still pursuing moving forward. I wish I could forget the ache in my stomach to remember. I wish I didn’t want to remember.

April 3rd, 2023

9:45 AM

I stumbled across an old journal today, and when I read through it, there was writing from my head trauma. Ironically, I came across it as I was tidying my office in preparation for housework to begin. Dillon and I are having hardwood floors installed; it is our first big investment since buying this house.

I still don’t remember the injury or the hospital stay, but I recall and feel the grief and sadness in my bones as I read those old journal entries. I don’t think that will ever leave me, but I did quiet them.

Today, I asked the nice men ripping carpet and tile up from our home if I could watch as they tore out the kitchen. They all cocked their heads at me. They replied that I could, but stand to the side. I then watched as they sanded down the tile the best they could and came in with a tool that resembled a forklift but could be carried with two hands, and they shoved it under the tile to be lifted. I acknowledged how I once longed to remember, the fury I held onto for many months, and the strenuous work I put in to lift myself out of that place. I remembered the people who loved me who stayed by my side as I went through the metamorphosis process. I fought every step of the way. I fought myself for so long in denial of becoming someone new. I grieved for months. I felt beyond repair. I had no will to repair, to stand tall, or to live. I held space for it all as I stood in my kitchen watching as people destroyed my home to make space for something new. Something beautiful.

I watch as tiles crack into pieces against the force of the tool, and I grin. The tile that cracked me can also be broken.