The first days

I was in Brandon Regional Hospital for the first week or so, where I was rushed by ambulance that Sunday afternoon. The hospital staff's objective in their was just to keep me alive. My kids tell me it was touch and go those first few days.

Thoughts, images, memories float in and out of my head like short movie clips, but not a whole day; nothing durable, concrete, that I can latch onto and say I remember. I can remember a few incidents, but that's all.

My first solid memories are of my rehabilitation at Tampa General Hospital, where I spent over a month. they took me by ambulance. I remember my youngest daughter, Kelly, riding next to me. My oldest, Kimberly, followed us over in the car. I don't remember much about my arrival. But much of my time there is indelibly etched into my mind.

Every day was a great day. It was probably all the drugs they had me on. At home, now, I take 11 pills every day. In the hospital, I'm sure it was even more. I was so drugged up that I had no time to be depressed. In retrospect, I can see how people become addicted to drugs.