From the Bottom to the Top

On December 9, 2019, I walked across the road from my job at night. 

I never made it across.

A car hit me at more than 60 miles per hour, according to the speed marks. I was a pedestrian. One second I was walking across the road, and the next my entire life changed.

I came within seconds of dying in the helicopter.

I ended up at St. Joseph’s main hospital, where I would spend 191 days. When I got there, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t breathe on my own. I was in a diaper and completely dependent on other people.

Then COVID came.

The entire world seemed to pause while I was lying in that hospital. There were nurses, doctors and physical therapists, but nobody really knew what COVID was yet or what was going to happen. They could talk to me from a distance, wearing masks, but they weren’t supposed to get close to patients. My friends and family couldn’t come see me either.

In a lot of ways, the hospital became a kind of solitary prison.

That also meant I had to do a lot of my physical therapy by myself.

Well, I’m a Gemini ♊️, so what did I do?

I started moving.

At first, I would push my wheelchair for five minutes. Then I would sit down for half an hour. Then I would get up and do it again.

Five minutes at a time.

By my last day in the hospital, I walked for six hours.

As restrictions changed, I would stop and talk with nurses and receptionists from a distance. I connected with people on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Facebook. Somehow, even in that place and during everything that was happening, I found ways to connect with people.

The reason I’m slow today is because of what happened to me.

I suffered a traumatic brain injury, but that was only part of it. Both of my feet had fractured or displaced metatarsals. My left fibula broke. My left tibia broke and needed a titanium rod running from my knee toward my ankle. My left femur was fractured. My right tibia, fibula and femur had fractures too.

My pelvis and five vertebrae in my sacrum were fractured and broken badly enough that a titanium rod was used to connect everything back together.

Six ribs broke.

My heart came close to stopping.

My lungs collapsed and had to be reinflated.

My left thumb bone ended up about four inches below where it belonged and needed a small rod and six screws. My left humerus broke and needed a rod. There were many smaller fractures in my left ulna, radius and humerus.

My right shoulder was dislocated.

Bones in my jaw and face were fractured. Vertebrae near the top of my spine were fractured or moved.

I suffered one or possibly two strokes. I had a severe concussion. My brain rotated about an inch. There was a cerebral hemorrhage, swelling and bleeding in my brain.

Surgeons opened my skull and removed most of my left temporal lobe, about one fifth of my brain.

There’s metal all over my body now.

My nickname is Terminator. 😂

And it still wasn’t over when I left the hospital.

Afterward, I developed a surgical hernia. Then stage two skin cancer showed up and had to be surgically removed. Four other spots were removed because doctors were concerned they could be cancerous.

Through all of this, I never had a case manager or someone guiding me through everything. My mom came so I wouldn’t be put into a nursing home, but in many ways, I had to put myself back together alone.

That is part of why I am where I am today.

But here is the biggest thing.

I am very, very lucky to be alive.

The fact that I can think, write, respond, laugh and tell you this story is incredible to me. I am some kind of miracle, and I believe there is some reason why I am still here.

Maybe there was some kind of God watching over me.

Maybe I won some kind of science lottery.

Maybe it was both.

Whatever the answer is, I’m happy.

No matter what bad things happen to me, I try to smile. Sometimes the smile is on the outside. Sometimes it is only on the inside. Either way, I try to learn from what happens.

The only thing I really consider bad in life is death.

I’m still here.

Whatever happens, happens.

I think every human being has already won a lottery just by being born. Think about it. Out of billions of possibilities, one sperm found one egg, and somehow that became you.

You are already unbelievably lucky to be here.

I know how quickly everything can change. I learned that while crossing a road on December 9, 2019.

So maybe the question isn’t whether you are lucky.

The question is:

What are you going to do with the time you have left?

I know what I’m doing with mine.

I’m still moving.

From the bottom to the top.

       ~Travis Ethington