I nodded.
“When you were brought into our emergency room, you were treated to stop blood loss. I met you in the ER. Do you remember?”
I shook my head.
“Well, memory loss after a trauma is normal. After getting you stabilized, I took you to the operating room and removed the bullet. It was very close to your spinal cord.” I felt my heart pounding in my chest and the beeping from the machine sped up, an alarm adding to the noise. The doctor frowned as he punched buttons to shut off the alarm. When he looked back, his expression was serious. “I know this is upsetting. I’m going to be completely honest with you because that’s important.” When I nodded, he went on.
“Your spinal cord is intact, though, you lost a lot of blood at the scene. Blood loss can impair normal motor function due to spinal shock and bruising. There was also some nerve damage which may cause some paralysis. That paralysis might be only temporary, or it may be permanent. There’s no way to know at this point. I’m going to do an initial assessment, so I have a baseline. We’ll take it from there. Okay?” When I nodded, he smiled and patted me on the forearm. “Good.”
He was using simple terms I’d heard over the years which I appreciated. But what he was saying was still scary.
“I know a lot of that was technical and I promise that’s the last I’ll talk about all of it unless you want further explanation. If not, I’m going to examine you now.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”
He smiled and moved to the foot of the bed as I watched. He lifted the blankets and sheets away and pulled out some sort of pen. I noticed my feet were bare. He looked up at me. “Okay, Mr. Monroe. Please move the toes on your right foot for me.”
I nodded and moved my toes. As I watched, I felt sick with dread when they didn’t even twitch. I did it again. Nothing happened. My heart began to pound as my gaze shot to him, and the crazy beeping made me want to hit something.
“Are you moving them?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m tryin’ to.” I nodded vigorously and then tried to do the same thing with the left foot. Again, nothing happened. I shut my eyes.
“Please try again with the left foot,” the doctor said patiently.
“I did!” I snapped. It came out mostly strangled, but he simply nodded as I felt panic rising. I looked over at Candy who came back to the bed. He reached for my hand, and Itook it. “Candy, I can’t move my toes,” I rasped as tears burned behind my eyes. I wanted to be brave in front of him, but the implications of paralysis were terrifying.
“Wait till the doc is done, Rex,” he said, frowning.
We both turned back toward the doctor who was running the pen-like object up the bottom of my foot. Intellectually, I knew I should be able to feel something, but when I couldn’t, I felt a sinking feeling in my gut.
He glanced at me. “Feel that?”
I shook my head. “Nothing?”
“No.”
He repeated it on the other side, then moved to the side of the bed. He ran the pen up the back of both calves and when he got to my thighs and I still didn’t feel anything, he moved higher. I let go of Candy’s hand as he moved up to my waist running the pen over my lower abdomen, upward until I could finally feel something about waist high.
I raised my hand. “I can feel that.”
He nodded and smiled. “Very good.” He replaced the blanket again.
I couldn’t feel it on my bare legs or lower extremities at all and honestly, I was beginning to panic as he walked back, standing next to Candy who’d retaken my hand. I was clinging to my friend like a lifeline.
“Okay, well, you seem to have no feeling below the waist.” He held up both hands in a placating gesture as I opened my mouth to ask a million questions. “Let me finish, please.”
I nodded.
“It’s early days at this stage but as I told your captain, this is not unusual with the amount of swelling you’re experiencing. Some of the paralysis can be caused by anesthesia from surgery, but it’s much more likely spinal shock. At this point, there’s absolutely no way of knowing whether the paralysis is permanent or temporary. I don’t want you to panic. We have to give it more time to resolve. All I can do is keep you here and repeat these tests again tomorrow, Mr. Monroe.”
He was speaking so matter-of-fact…like telling someone their whole life was over…was just another day. Which, come to think of it, as a neurosurgeon, was probably accurate. “So, the feelin’ could come back?”
He nodded. “Yes, and like I said, these findings are very common. All we can do now is wait.” I nodded. “Do you have any other questions for me?”
I felt my heart breaking as I slowly shook my head. “No, Doc. I guess not.”
“Okay.” He smiled and looked at Candy. “I’m going to leave you with Captain Sorensen then. I’ll be back to check on you later. You hang in there, Mr. Monroe.”
