To Hell And Back
Dave Malucci, M.D
People ask how I live with my scars. I ask how I'd live without them. The physical manifestation of the terrible pain I bear is nothing. What's inside is all the worse. All the anger, all the guilt, all the confusion, all the petty why-mes? All the sorrow, all the heartbreak. In the blemished skin, I see anguish, I see red raw cutting passionate grief, but I see hope. In that day, what little I remember, I see nothing but pain, but I look at my scars and find I still know what hope is.
I don't remember much of the day it happened, and what I don't remember isn't likely to come back to me now. If I'm honest, this is a blessing. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have been conscious through that. So my story may not be as exciting as others, I may not be the tragic hero Abby has become, or have shown the bravery Chen was forced to, but I survived it. That alone makes it important.
To this day I don't think I can make a whole picture of the event. I remember it was my first day back at work, and relationships between Chen and I and between my boss and I were decidedly strained. I don't remember the confrontation I've heard described in the suture room, I have no recollection of it at all. Maybe fragments but nothing concrete. I was leaving the room, she told me, when the explosion hit. Heat and light pierced my consciousness then, and after that I have nothing. Nothing but the blankness of the coma I was in for three weeks. Three weeks? So much of my life missed, such an important three weeks. For them it was time to come to terms with what had happened to them, time I missed out on. Time I likely as not made all the worse by not waking up sooner. They really musn't have held out any hope that I'd live. Day by day, they probably felt me slipping away.
I think I did too. It's strange what you're aware of in that state. The things you see, but you're not quite sure whether they're real or a figment of your fevered, ill imagination, comforting hallucinations of other times, heartrending memories of what you've been through. I should have been in pain but I wasn't. It was a confusing sensation. I wasn't aware of the real world, of her sitting by my bed virtually day in day out, confessing all to me.
Cliched though it is, your entire life really does run past your eyes, and there's nothing you can do. It makes you realise just how many regrets you've got, how many things you should have done differently, it makes you see your mistakes. And somehow that makes you stronger, because you realise that if you live there's a chance to change things, but somehow makes it hopeless because you know you could still die. It's like limbo and it's indescribably frightening.
I have a lot of regrets. I've done a lot of things wrong and hurt a lot of people. I won't say I'm enlightened, or I'm a changed man because of it, but I certainly see things very differently to the way I did before. I've been given a chance to change things, not to make things right, but to make less mistakes from now on. Human nature is to regret. But everything is about choices. I've made my most important choice - I chose to live.
She told me later how she willed me to live. How she sat there and she willed my eyes to open. She found it in herself to help me, after all she'd been through, she found the strength to help the only way she could. That means more to me now I know. Maybe her strength gave me strength to live on some other level. I don't know. I just know she's too important to let go now. I never will. I can't believe she of all people cried when I woke up. She still cries remembering those moments, but at least they are tears of joy. She's cried enough for a lifetime. We all have.
Rehab has been hellish. Endless tortuous skin grafts, learning to see myself and value myself differently, adapting to the fact that this is how it is, this is what happened. I've never been so grateful for modern medicine in my life. I've never realised I was part of something that could be so important. Get me! I sound so conceited. But I think I have every right. It hasn't been easy, I wouldn't pretend to you for a second that it has. In fact, it's been hell. We've all been to hell. And scarred and strangely proud, I'm on my way slowly back. I think a little conceit is deserved - don't you?
Dave Malucci, M.D
People ask how I live with my scars. I ask how I'd live without them. The physical manifestation of the terrible pain I bear is nothing. What's inside is all the worse. All the anger, all the guilt, all the confusion, all the petty why-mes? All the sorrow, all the heartbreak. In the blemished skin, I see anguish, I see red raw cutting passionate grief, but I see hope. In that day, what little I remember, I see nothing but pain, but I look at my scars and find I still know what hope is.
I don't remember much of the day it happened, and what I don't remember isn't likely to come back to me now. If I'm honest, this is a blessing. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have been conscious through that. So my story may not be as exciting as others, I may not be the tragic hero Abby has become, or have shown the bravery Chen was forced to, but I survived it. That alone makes it important.
To this day I don't think I can make a whole picture of the event. I remember it was my first day back at work, and relationships between Chen and I and between my boss and I were decidedly strained. I don't remember the confrontation I've heard described in the suture room, I have no recollection of it at all. Maybe fragments but nothing concrete. I was leaving the room, she told me, when the explosion hit. Heat and light pierced my consciousness then, and after that I have nothing. Nothing but the blankness of the coma I was in for three weeks. Three weeks? So much of my life missed, such an important three weeks. For them it was time to come to terms with what had happened to them, time I missed out on. Time I likely as not made all the worse by not waking up sooner. They really musn't have held out any hope that I'd live. Day by day, they probably felt me slipping away.
I think I did too. It's strange what you're aware of in that state. The things you see, but you're not quite sure whether they're real or a figment of your fevered, ill imagination, comforting hallucinations of other times, heartrending memories of what you've been through. I should have been in pain but I wasn't. It was a confusing sensation. I wasn't aware of the real world, of her sitting by my bed virtually day in day out, confessing all to me.
Cliched though it is, your entire life really does run past your eyes, and there's nothing you can do. It makes you realise just how many regrets you've got, how many things you should have done differently, it makes you see your mistakes. And somehow that makes you stronger, because you realise that if you live there's a chance to change things, but somehow makes it hopeless because you know you could still die. It's like limbo and it's indescribably frightening.
I have a lot of regrets. I've done a lot of things wrong and hurt a lot of people. I won't say I'm enlightened, or I'm a changed man because of it, but I certainly see things very differently to the way I did before. I've been given a chance to change things, not to make things right, but to make less mistakes from now on. Human nature is to regret. But everything is about choices. I've made my most important choice - I chose to live.
She told me later how she willed me to live. How she sat there and she willed my eyes to open. She found it in herself to help me, after all she'd been through, she found the strength to help the only way she could. That means more to me now I know. Maybe her strength gave me strength to live on some other level. I don't know. I just know she's too important to let go now. I never will. I can't believe she of all people cried when I woke up. She still cries remembering those moments, but at least they are tears of joy. She's cried enough for a lifetime. We all have.
Rehab has been hellish. Endless tortuous skin grafts, learning to see myself and value myself differently, adapting to the fact that this is how it is, this is what happened. I've never been so grateful for modern medicine in my life. I've never realised I was part of something that could be so important. Get me! I sound so conceited. But I think I have every right. It hasn't been easy, I wouldn't pretend to you for a second that it has. In fact, it's been hell. We've all been to hell. And scarred and strangely proud, I'm on my way slowly back. I think a little conceit is deserved - don't you?