To say that I
had "clarity" throughout my stay in the trauma unit would be only
partially true. It is more accurate to say I had self-awareness. The heavy
medications I was given made me hallucinate which was entirely new to my world,
yet I knew what was happening. There was one moment where I looked at the solid
ceiling above me and saw a sort of smoked plexiglass. There was a conference
room above me and I saw beneath the table and chairs, people coming in and out,
and my cat under the table looking down into the room at me, crying. All of
this I knew was not actually happening. There was no conference room above me
and certainly my cat was nowhere near there. But nevertheless I enjoyed the
show.
There was a common theme in my hallucinations, actually the only
constant like a rerun of the same show. A television set was mounted across my
bed above me but I never wanted it turned on so instead I was staring into a
dark mirror of sorts. In that mirror I often saw a small child on the floor to
my right/left with dark hair, moving in such a way that it looked like jerky
stop animation filming. But she stayed right there, sitting, standing or
fussing around but never looking directly at me in the mirror. I felt comforted
by her presence yet I knew she was not really there. The other image that was
quite recurring was that of myself whole before the accident, sitting behind my
injured self in the bed, cradling me.
None of my "hallucinations" were ever disturbing to me. The disturbing things were the things that were very real and happening night and day. The sound/vibration of the specialized hospital bed that was meant to shift my body and help prevent bed sores, was a constant annoyance. But the scariest part of the bed was being repositioned because when I was on my side and the bed tilted, my head would slowly drift down and I felt myself rolling slightly. There was no way for me to readjust my body nor did I have the strength to move my head back, though I tried. All I could do was wait until the next position shift, done every two hours. Shifting, rolling, tilting, with constant sound in either bed vibration or alarms from IVs or other monitors… This was not life as I knew it…
