Here begins the tough stuff...
As I drove away from the lake (a friend and I had gone to walk after we finished teaching summer school) I dialed voicemail for a second time. I had just hung up from listening to a message I hadn't listened to from the night before. I thought it was strange that I didn't even have a missed call, on the other end I heard an unfamiliar voice tell me "Hi Renee, my name is Kathy. I am calling from Lakeland Regional, we have Aaron in our emergency department. When you get this message please call me."
Just then my call waiting interrupted my message and it was a number I did not recognize. The same woman was calling me back to tell me Aaron had been in an motorcycle accident. She told me that Aaron had been taken by helicopter and she needed me to come to Lakeland Regional Medical Center right away.
I hung up and spent the next few seconds trying to make sense of the message and phone call. I realized that I didn't even know where Lakeland Regional was. I had been following my friend home from the lake up until this point. I tried to call her but there was no answer. I kept trying, shortly before I was about to pass my subdivision I was able to reach her and told her what I knew.
We decided that we would drop off my car at my house. As I pulled in the driveway, I got another call from the hospital asking if I was on my way. This was the third call, I knew then that this couldn't be good. I grabbed my purse and car charger for my cell phone and we left immediately.
It takes about 40 minutes to get to Lakeland and from what I remember, we rode most of the ride in silence. Neither of us knew what to say, especially since my my friend know how my dad had been killed in a motorcycle accident when I was a newborn.
Somewhere during the ride I tried to call my aunt in Michigan but wasn't able to get in touch with her. I also called Aaron's brother in Ohio. (These would become my two major points of contact later on as it was impossible to talk with everyone.) I also called our pastor, who was in Lakeland. He was in a meeting but he said that he would meet us at the hospital as soon as he could.
When we pulled up, we realized my pastor had been able to beat us there. He had told security we were coming so we drove straight throughout the gate. Hospital staff took us back to an office, we sat there for what seemed like an hour. Again, no one was saying much. We still did not have any information and in the mean time someone brought me a bag of Aaron's clothes. A smaller bag had his wallet, wedding ring, and cell phone. Everything in the small bag looked like it was in one piece, nothing was broken or even scratched. I remember feeling relieved, thinking to myself that it couldn't be that bad if his belongings weren't harmed.
Finally, they took two of us back to see Aaron. My friend who had driven me to the hospital came back with me and our pastor waited. We were in the room for seconds before the asked me to come out and consult with the doctor. The only thing I really remember noticing was that Aaron's feet were sticking out of the sheet and he had one sock on. Outside the room they asked for permission to put in an external shunt and went over scans of Aaron's brain with me. I couldn't understand what the doctor was saying, I was hearing his words but at this point my brain just wouldn't comprehend. The only thing I saw in the pictures that I recognized was his neck and it looked fine to me.
Somewhere in there, I was told that he would be transferred to the intensive care unit. I stayed behind in emergency area to fill out paperwork while my friend and our pastor were taken upstairs to the ICU waiting room. This was the first time I felt totally helpless, as close as Aaron and I were I couldn't even tell the hospital if Aaron has any allergies.
By the time I actually got upstairs to meet them, a member of the trauma team was coming out to see me before they left. They actually asked if I were his daughter at first (I had one of my elementary school t-shirts on, short gray shorts, and my short hair had become curly after we got rained on walking around the lake just a few hours earlier). One of the girls hugged me tight and told me she was so sorry. Again, we had little information on Aaron's condition and if we did I was still in total disbelief that I hadn't comprehended it.
We they took all three of us back to go see Aaron, it was not what I had expected. I got a much better look at him this time. He had been put on a ventilator. There were tape, tubes, and machines everywhere. He also had a neck brace on. Funny enough, other than that he actually looked pretty good.
The nurse came in the room to explain the ICU procedures. I had to have most of it reexplained to me after we left the ICU because I couldn't understand what they had said. I had trouble coming up with a password for them so that we could call in and get information if we left the hospital. (I picked "Ohio State" by the way!)
Some other friends heard the news in the meantime and rushed to the hospital. One friend and his wife even came all the way over from Tampa. We sat around, waiting. At one point we went to the cafeteria, I remember not being hungry but everyone was trying to feed me. I think at this point we knew it was serious and Aaron had hit his head pretty badly (even though he was wearing a helmet). Yet, it was so surreal as we all sat together.
At 7pm each night the ICU closed to visitors during the shift changes and did not reopen until 9pm so we decided to go back home. My friend and I still had wet shoes and we needed a shower and a change of clothes. She reluctantly let me stay at my house alone, while she went back to her house to get ready. This friend was just the first of our many blessings. (She stayed by my side for the weeks to come and went out of her way to help, talk about a true friend!)
In less than an hour, we were on our way back to LRMC. We stopped to get McDonald's on the way, neither of us really liked it and I laughed to myself writing this because we could have gone a dozen different places that were on the way. We shared a chicken nugget value meal in the waiting room, it had gotten cold by the time we got a chance to sit and eat. I also searched for a outlet to plug in my phone, the only one I could find was behind a Coke machine. A few more friends came up to see us, there was not much to say. We were just waiting.
We went in and out of Aaron's room for a few hours before deciding to lay across some couches in the main entrance, I was going up to Aaron's room from time to time since you couldn't sleep in rooms. I don't know that we actually slept that night but I do remember how cold we were! At one point during the night I found a staff member who was able to find us some already warmed blankets (another little blessing).
Still uncertain about a lot of things, this day finally ended and a new one was beginning. The next few days kind of blurred together.
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