I’m Fighting
The second song I wrote after my accident is called, “I’m Fighting.” The beginning of my recovery was extremely challenging. The morning of my accident I took a 6:30 am exercise boot camp class in Christopher Columbus Park. At 5:28pm that evening, my entire relationship to my own body instantly changed and my fight to heal began.
My legs were in rough shape. When the physical therapist first came into my room at Massachusetts General Hospital to determine my treatment plan, she began by assessing how I was going to get around. At that point she was not sure if I was allowed to put any weight on my broken right ankle and as it turned out I could not. So the next day when she arrived in my room with a walker and she said, “OK Meghan from now on you are only going to stand on your left leg. You cannot put any weight on your right ankle until it heals.” Now in normal circumstances that would not be ideal, yet manageable, but my left leg had an eight centimeter laceration on the back side of my knee and had been stitched up only two days earlier. Imagine getting your leg run over, stitched up, and two days later putting your entire body weight on it.
Everything hurt and everything was difficult. Learning how to live from a walker and wheelchair was a huge adjustment. My body was fighting to recover and my mind was fighting to survive the shock of what had happened to me. Thus this song was born.
Initially I was fighting with every bone and cell in my body to get better. I discovered how strong the human body is and no matter what happens to it, it constantly continues to heal itself. It is always fighting to survive. Everyday my physical body would continue to heal; even if it was ever so slight and even to this day I still see my body healing physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually from my accident. I have great respect for the Human Body, it is an incredible organism that most of us take for granted and often abuse. We all only get one body and I encourage you to honor and support your own precious body.
While my physical body was fighting to survive and heal, my mental and emotional body was trying to figure out how to survive my recovery. Being in a wheelchair was very humbling and enlightening. Most of us take walking and standing for granted. Using a wheelchair changed my perspective of the world. Think about reaching for a dish or a glass in your kitchen. I couldn’t from my wheelchair. Everything had to be lowered in my house. It seems so simple now, but at the time it was devastating mentally and I felt so out of control. So much of my life was out of my reach.
Everything was challenging. Simply getting out of bed took over ten minutes. I would need to muster up all my strength to pull myself up to the walker on my one - quote on quote - “good” leg. To help me stay inspired, I started putting the get well cards and pictures on my closet door. One photo was of a baby in the neighborhood named Lily. I would look at her eyes and say, “OK Lily, help me find the strength to stand,” and then I would take a huge breath and hoist myself up to the walker. Everything was difficult, painful and exhausting.
I was tired. Tired of the fight internally and externally. Tired of everyone asking me how I was doing. Tired of needing so much help. Tired of appointments. Tired of moving so slowly. Tired of suffering. Tired of crying. Tired of being me.
Each day brought new challenges and I hoped that the following day I could find the strength to meet the next challenge. I was fighting the hardest to heal my brain, my biggest injury of all was my concussion. There was a day early in my recovery when I feared my brain might never heal. At my darkest moment late one night, I asked one of my caretakers if I would ever fully recover, the answer was, “Yes Meghan, you are going to get better.” I held onto those words and they settled into my heart like a scar that can never fully disappear. “Yes Meghan, you are going to get better,” continued to echo in my mind. I don’t know if they truly believed I would fully recover or if they even realized how desperate I was at that moment. At that point, because of the concussion, my brain felt like it was moving in slow motion. It is difficult to describe but it felt like everything had slowed down, my thoughts and time, it was like a movie that was playing at quarter speed. I feared if I had to live the rest of my life with my brain moving so slowly that I was not sure it would be a life I could or would want to live.
Tears would roll down my face multiple times a day. Between the post-concussion syndrome and the trauma from the accident my emotions were fried. I felt raw all of the time. Like an open wound longing to heal that kept reopening day after day. I certainly did not realize how traumatizing the beginning of my recovery was going to be. It wasn’t just the trauma from the actual accident but the continued trauma of learning how to cope in my newly injured body. It was hard on my inner circles and outer circles of family, friends and neighbors. This song helped me express and process some of the internal battle and exhaustion I was feeling.