Overcoming dire expectations

When I awoke from a coma in the hospital a few weeks later, I remember the confusion – I did not know where was, why I was there, what had happened, why I could not move at all, why darkness surrounded me when my eyes were open, and why I could not hear myself when I spoke. I felt that the situation must be quite serious, but just how serious it actually was, I could not yet imagine.

When the doctor told me that he had to start lowering the doses of morphine, because they were very high and addiction had begun to set in, it started to become clear to me that this was far more serious than I’d initially thought. I knew that morphine was given in cases where the pain was so big that a person could die outright from the pain. When they started lowering the doses of morphine, I had incredible withdrawal symptoms – an unbearable change of heat and chills, full body pain, dizziness, hallucinations, and insomnia so bad you cry out: “For God’s sake, let it end!”

After a few weeks it finally ended. I had a tracheotomy, so I could finally talk and ask what has happened. My mom told me I had suffered an incredibly severe and grave injury: I’d fallen from a great height, had broken bones almost all over my body, damaged a number of internal organs, had a hematoma in my brain, and would likely have damaged eyesight (which is why I could not see anything around). I thought, “It sounds quite terrible, but it will not be so bad.”

I do not know where the optimism and faith, that it will be good, came from at the time. Now I know that the incredible miracle that I am still here happened thanks to my belief for life and love for it. Later, they told me that no one had expected me to survive – the doctors only gave me a 1% chance to live. After the accident I spent a few years in and out of hospitals. I went from one operation to another, and during this time I’d been planning a rehearsal at the Faculty of Law.

I was happy with every little progress I made: When I got up from the wheelchair, when I could hold my own spoon in my hand again and eat on own, when I was able to go to the bathroom alone, when I learned to control a computer with a voice output, and when I tied my shoelaces by myself…. They were small steps, but thanks to them I learned how to enjoy seemingly insignificant trifles that at first sight look easy, but they can brighten the whole day and the entire inner universe. So, I enjoy the morning singing of the birds, the smell of the blooming jasmine, touches of summer breeze, leaves whistling in the wind, warm beams of the sun, and all the other beauties of Mother Earth that surround me each day, and which I am part of.

I have had 20 challenging operations and my eyesight has not yet returned. But I cannot say I’m blind, because I see. I see differently, but I see much more than ever before: I see truly, through my heart. I feel how trees, rivers, oceans, animals and mountains vibrate with life and how the heart of the Mother Earth beats for us all every day, unceasingly as it beats in the heart in each of us. I understood that only life in harmony with nature is an existence full of life.