The coastal road from Deer Isle to Belfast in August is usually a clogged mess, but in the wee hours of the morning we could speed…and did. Especially when we turned inland on the straight road to Augusta, past darkened vacation houses around shimmering Lake George to our left. After Augusta it was interstate the rest of the way and our speed got serious; we got to the Portland Airport in plenty of time for our flight to Washington D.C.
We had had an update from Chris Derby, with both good and bad news. Eliza’s oxygen levels kept rising, but it was becoming obvious that she had sustained other severe injuries. He assured us that by the time we arrived at her bedside they would have a clearer picture after using sophisticated imaging.
Although exhausted, we were still euphoric that she was alive. We also had faith that she was in good hands. The airplane trip was uneventful, and soon we were headed south to Charlottesville in a rented car.
Each slowdown en route was magnified a hundred times in our mind, we were so anxious to get to the hospital. We had to force ourselves to stop at traffic lights once we got to Charlottesville. Finding a place to park, signing in, waiting for the elevator – it was all torture. But we had not given a single thought in all of this as to how she would look.
The shock came when we were ushered into the Intensive Care Unit. She looked like the Michelin Man; the hydrating fluids had blown her up to grotesque proportions. She was so heavily sedated with morphine she was like a beached whale in the bed, with tubes everywhere and machines beeping. The doctors had put her into an induced coma and she seemed miles away from us.
This was the point at which the euphoria cracked, and reality set in. I can’t remember how we reacted as it has blurred in my mind, but I do remember that a friend of hers who came to see her a few days later when she was conscious hastily left the room rather than burst into tears in front of Eliza.
By this time they knew the extent of her injuries, and they were all on her left side. She had broken her femur, arm, collarbone and back and punctured her lung. They had already operated on her leg, and stabilized her spine with a rigid metal “halo” that screwed into her forehead.
