An Anniversary of a Suicide Watch

On this day, nine years ago, I had brain surgery.

For those of you who don't know the story or those of you who might need a refresher, I found myself at the age of 28 thrust in a book of medical anomalies with the unhappy diagnosis of brain bacterial abscess caused by unknown infection. It took me two years to fully recover and I was on anti-convulsive medication for nearly six years after that. Today, I'm fine . . . except for all the other dumb stuff I do.

When I mention my brain trauma most folks react strongly. Many are prompted to tell their own stories of nerve-wracking surgeries, unbelievable accidents, and other near-miss encounters with death.

I-absolutely-love-these-stories.

A moral compass given to me by my father
several years ago. I have many that stem from
other sources. Some are made of diamonds.

Sometimes, I'll even make mention of my history randomly just so I can hear people spin their own tales. These stories are the stuff of champions; they have a tendency to breed humility. For me, it's sort of like going to a miniature boot camp that teaches good morals.

Moral compass training. We need more of it in this world.

At any rate, this is how I see it, but you get to decide what you glean from the words that follow. That's the point . . . you decide for yourself.

I'm not exactly sure how long I stayed in the intensive care unit after I got out of surgery. I think it was a day . . . well, maybe it was two. I don't know. Between the anesthesia and the morphine, I couldn't make sense of much at all. As I write this, I recall the fragrance of morphine; it's something like a slow burn of sweet-smelling plastic and it has a strange, subtle allure like the scent of gasoline. Not that I've ever huffed gasoline, mind you, but I've refueled enough lawn mowers in my teenage years to get the gist.

Anyway, after some time, the drugs wore off and my head throbbed with each beat of my heart. Humph . . . my heart was in my head, which always seems to happen when a person observes and accepts their mortality. Inexplicably, our brains seem to fuse with our hearts and we suddenly develop an exceptionally clear and super-human wisdom. Although, this intensified wisdom only lasts for as long as we can keep the wild, degenerative components of our egos at bay. And, the better we do this, the more we learn from our mortality.

So, head throbbing with heart, they wheeled me into a dimly lit room. I remember being severely exhausted and hungry. I hadn't eaten for quite some time because they didn't want me to blow chunks all over the operating equipment and . . . well . . . when you get a window cut in your head you're kind of tired afterwards. It was difficult to completely understand my surroundings. I knew I was in a room. There was a TV. A skinny, old man was sleeping in a bed next to mine. And my girlfriend was around somewhere. After a simple meal, I fell asleep.

And then . . . sucking. LOUD sucking.

The window in my head.

It was the middle of the night and I awoke to find a handful of nurses hovering over the old man. They were trying to comfort him while shoving a huge, plastic tube down his throat. He coughed uncontrollably and they pushed the tube deeper and deeper. When it got deep enough, flecks and chunks of thick sputum floated up the tube into a machine. The man wailed as best he could, but it sounded more like an agonizing moan. One nurse directed the tube and other two held the man down. He tried to push them away, but his weak, semi-flailing arms were no match for the sturdy, young nurses. I watched in horror as they emptied his lungs of fluid. For a split second I had half a fear that I was going to be next and they wouldn't even bother to clean off the tube.

The old man had pneumonia . . . bad.

The next day, when I told my girlfriend about the suck-fest, she had a hissy-fit and marched out to the nurses' station to demand I immediately get a different room. I don't know the science behind pneumonia, but last time I checked it's kind of contagious . . . especially for someone taking boat-loads of anti-biotics, just out of brain surgery. My girlfriend then was, to her credit, my strongest advocate. She raised hell to get me a new room. I'm still very thankful for her effort and care during that time of recovery, despite the fact that, at a previous time, she once kicked me in the back while laying in bed with her and also put her hands down another man's pants before the end of our relationship.

Yeah, I'm not making this shit up.

My girlfriend triumphed. I was wheeled to another room.

I shared this room with another old man, but only for a brief time . . . until he started hacking all over the place. He also had pneumonia.

I'm still not making this up.

My girlfriend didn't just stop at raising hell that time; I'm pretty certain she summoned a few demons as well. I think some nurses lost their souls that day and my girlfriend probably took one or two for herself. Occasionally, she was awesome and scary at the same time.

Anyway, I finally got wheeled to another room with the assurances my new roommate would not have pneumonia. When I arrived, the man in the bed next to mine seemed quite healthy. He breathed easy and had no bandages and seemed downright calm.

The only problem . . . he was secured to his bed with padded restraints. The poor man was on suicide watch.

NOT-MAKING-THIS-UP.

As I said, the man was strapped to his bed. A nurse briefly explained the situation, leaving out the details for the sake of confidentiality. The man had brown skin, dark course hair, and the features of a Hispanic American, although I was unsure from what ethnicity he actually hailed. He had a slightly rotund body and I could tell he was kind of short even though he was laying down.

At first, he was a sight to behold. He exuded complete listlessness and barely moved. For hours he stared at the ceiling. The nurses had to clean him occasionally because he would shit and piss himself. I felt bad for the man and for a while I couldn't shake the question of what could have possibly caused him to be that way. He gave me no clue at all. He remained expressionless. A mental health worker even arrived one day to speak with him, but he got nothing out of him except a heart rate and blood pressure reading.

From heart to head, it's not that far.

Eventually, I decided the man's plight was none of my business and I clearly had to focus on my own recovery. But his hopeless demeanor didn't sway my girlfriend from trying to reach him. She made a valiant effort, speaking to him with a compassionate, soft voice. Unfortunately, she failed as well. I spent the rest of my initial recovery from brain surgery in that room, next to a man who, literally, did almost nothing. About four days later, I had enough strength to walk out of there. I can't remember for sure, but I wanna say I looked at the man as I left. I'd like to say I mumbled something profound to him as I shuffled my weak ass out the door. I know I didn't. Whatever plagued him was beyond me.

From time to time, I think about suicide-watch man. I sometimes wonder if he ever uttered another word, if he ever eventually rose up out of his mysterious despondency.

And, because I managed to recover from a  random brain infection, I celebrate the notion that I can wonder anything at all . . . which gave rise to a greater self-awareness, a knowledge that helps me to accurately know which thoughts I should abandon and which thoughts should be carried to my heart.