Coma

University of Maryland Shock Trauma Unit, March 1980

February 4, 1980

The pink Post-It note was nothing extraordinary among the 10 or so others on the message board in the lobby of Pearce Hall. It was always a thrill to have one tacked up with your name scrawled across the top…someone was thinking of me and made the effort to call. Who could it be? Mom? Dad? That boy from Young Hall I liked?

“My brother, Jim?” I read with surprise. That’s odd. I don’t know if he had ever contacted me since I left 5 months earlier for Geneva College. This was indeed unusual, but intriguing. I was anxious to see what he wanted; I didn’t take the time to worry about anything, although that would have been warranted.

I returned his call immediately; he had called an hour earlier. Our younger sister, Sharon was crossing a busy intersection on her way home from school when she was struck by a car moving at about 35 mph. Her body flew into the air, leaving her shoes behind and shattering the windshield of the car. Somehow she suffered no major physical injuries except the worst kind - a serious traumatic brain injury. She was airlifted to the shock trauma unit of University of Maryland hospital, her life precariously balanced on the edge of death. It was surreal. I was enjoying college life and this news smacked me hard in the face.

Wait - just an hour ago, it was all football games, late-night cinnamon rolls at Perkins, cramming for tests, new friends, music, dorm life…an idyllic college experience. I wanted it to just be a practical joke or a bad dream or something. The reality of it was too harsh and it just didn’t fit into the lifestyle I was thriving on right then. Everything was perfect and this was so un-perfect. It was indeed like waking from a good dream, and not wanting to believe it was over, wanting it to continue, and wishing the reality was the nightmare.

Over the next several hours, the news spread, and by that evening I was taking calls from both students and staff at Geneva. Some were even trying to help me arrange a way home, as I didn’t have a car. I found myself avoiding the thoughts of my sister, unconscious in a hospital, tubes doing everything to her and for her, perhaps dying, perhaps never to function again. The 300 miles served as a buffer between the harsh realities and my collegiate utopia. Then I would flagellate myself for being so selfish; so what if this rocked my world? Especially when friends asked…then I somehow contemplated her serious condition and felt miserable.

I busied myself with finding a ride home. Not many of us were from the Baltimore area, and finding a ride from western Pennsylvania was tricky. No one had any extra money then either, so trips home were an added financial burden. Ironically, the young man that eventually gave me a lift was named Rich King. He was a lifter of spirits as well, and we found things to talk about to keep the subject off my family’s difficult situation. We laughed and told stories on that journey down I-70 in the middle of February, two full weeks after the accident.

My brother met us at the standard rendezvous point and drove me directly to the hospital. He briefed me on the details of the accident, Sharon’s current condition, and he prepped me for actually seeing her.

“She doesn’t look like herself at all,” he said soberly. “She doesn’t have any hair and there are tubes sticking out of her everywhere. She doesn’t recognize anyone and is just staring most of the time. It’s hard to see.” He choked up then, and I saw a new side of my brother for the first time.

We arrived at the hall outside her room. My parents were there and we all hugged and cried together a little. My folks were absolutely worn out – they looked tired, depressed and disoriented. Jim and I went in together to see her. It was shocking. She was propped up in a seated position and her eyes were open. But she was not there. Her right arm and leg were pulled up tight against her body like someone had drawn back an invisible bowstring that attached her hand to her shoulder and her knee to her chest. An ugly tracheotomy protruded from her neck. She had about two week’s worth of hair growth on her bare skull – it had been completely shaved. Another bandaged tube ran out of the back of her head where a shunt had been placed to drain excess fluid from her brain. She looked like something from The Matrix. There was music playing somewhere. My mom told me to just talk to her like she could understand.

There was someone moaning and grunting on the other side of the ward. It was a sickening pot of emotional stew and yet I couldn’t express my disgust or fear or sadness. I was the big sister, the oldest daughter, the levelheaded one with all of it together. I began to say all the ‘right’ things – I asked her how she was, I was great and school’s going well. I’ve been praying a lot for you and you’re going to recover and the hospital is doing a good job of taking care of you. We’re going home now and we’ll be back tomorrow. All with no response. The blank stare. The empty expression. The hollow, glassy eyes. The raspy hiss of the tracheotomy.

I couldn’t wait to leave and recoil from the reality. The visit at home is a blur – trips to the hospital all weekend, eating meals other people prepared, reports and updates on the phone, being strong for everyone and constantly expressing my faith that God would take care of her.

I wish it had all never happened. I wish it could have happened when I was more mature. My inner struggle was a deep one and much soul-searching went on during that time. I found myself constantly feeling guilty about having a good time, being a college kid while my sister suffered. I struggled with not having enough compassion for her. I wanted to cry sometimes and it wouldn’t come. I wondered if my emotions were normal, or if I was somehow numb to it. Did I care enough? Was I concerned enough? Did I really love my sister? I didn’t understand the term ‘survivor guilt’ at the time, but that was what I was experiencing. 

When Sharon finally did leave the comatose state she was in, it was not as we all expected. Like a withered, weak hand reaching out of a dark, dense fog, she barely touched the edge of reality. It wasn’t an awakening like I thought it would be. “Oh, hi Kell, where have I been? What happened to me, when can I go home?” None of that. In fact, it would be many months before a single intelligible word would be spoken. Months before she could feed herself. A year before her second first steps. And never the same again. The struggles – physical, emotional, spiritual – would continue for all of us for many years.

But struggle is not all bad. This terrible catastrophe had its place in the sculpting of a family. We all failed and won on many different fronts. Learning and not learning the life lessons God wanted. It was the shaping of us and we’d have to travel similar roads in the future if we failed to learn those lessons at that time.

God was gracious to answer our prayers and give my sister back to us. I had my victories and defeats in my struggle to be a better sister, a better person. It’s been a marathon. She has been victorious in so many areas, truly a walking miracle, overcoming many obstacles to become a wife and homemaker, champion cross-stitcher and faithful prayer warrior.

John and Sharon, 2011