Fighting for my life

I had been in the Emergency room for several hours when they wheeled me up to the intensive care unit. I was struggling for every breath I took. I heard doctors mumbling in the hallway and as I saw one of them walk by motioned for him to come into my room. I explained to him how hard it was for me to breath and he reached for his stethoscope and put it to my chest. I can only assume what it sounded like. Constant gurgling I assume. He called for another doctor to come in and he asked him to listen too. Seconds later he told me the my lungs must have been penetrated by the bullet because one lung had collapsed and they weren't sure about the other. "We are going to have to put in some chest tubes. I had no idea what that meant I just wanted to be able to breath again. He heard him call for a scalpel. And then I felt him cut into my side and insert a long rubber tube. Seconds later came another one. Oh my God, that hurt so bad. Then they started pushing oxygen through the inserted tube to re-inflate my lung. The stood there beside my bed discussing what they should do next. This was an old hospital in a small town. They had no access to trauma equipment like they needed. I heard them make the decision to transfer me to Duke Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. Doctors and nurses hustled around my bed trying to get me ready for the trip. It was about a three hour ride to Duke. The ambulance was waiting for me at the emergency room door. The began wheeling my bed in that direction when I saw him. I don't remember him saying a word at the time but the EMT's told him he was welcome to ride in the back of the ambulance with me if he wanted to. They said however, you must be careful sitting back here to make sure you do not touch or move this equipment. It is assisting her with her breathing and if it is moved she could suffocate. The vehicle starts to move. The red lights spinning and flashing outside. The sirens blaring with the sounds of urgency. For three hours we rode like this. For three hours, unable to speak I watched him stare at me afraid that in a split second he could move the equipment I was using and I would die. "Oh Lord" I prayed over and over again. Please get me to Durham before I die. Please get me to the help I need to keep me alive. I have a two month old daughter that I needed to take care of. She needs me God. Please give me the chance to be a mother for her. When you are fighting for the very next breath you may take, three hours is a long time to gasp for air. I thought this ride would never end.

Three plus hours had passed when we finally pulled up to the emergency room door at a Duke. It appeared that every doctor and every nurse in the hospital were waiting for me to get there. Everything moved at a pace I could barely keep up with once we were there. IV's in both arms. Another chest tube. Needles in the top of my hands. X-ray techs all around me. I felt like a human pin cushion. After they were able to stabilize me as best they could they allowed him to come in to see me. I don't remember him asking me anything. He never asked me if I was okay. He never said he was sorry. He just kept repeating over and over "Tink, you know that was an accident don't you? You know I would never do that on purpose. You did tell them it was an accident didn't you? The gun just went off. I never meant to hurt you. If you tell your mom anything other than what I have told you to tell her, well lets just say he warned me about doing that. And the whole time he is talking all I had running through my mind was "Don't tell anyone anything. Don't let anyone know what really happened. Keep what you know to yourself because IF you don't and IF you survive this, it will only be a short time before he would do it again and the next time I was sure he would get the job done correctly" I had a baby out there somewhere that needed me. I could not give up the will to live. He never left the hospital but it wasn't because he cared so much about me. He stayed there because he had the authority to determine who got to see me and who didn't. I do remember seeing my older sister and her husband for a few minutes. I remember this because it was September the 22nd and that was their anniversary. For the first few days as the were trying to get me stable for surgery, he let me see no one. Mom couldn't be there 24 hours a day because she had Lisa with her. The day before they were going to do the surgery he came into my room and stood over me. He handed me a pen and a piece of paper and told me to write "give Lisa to him". I could not speak because I had tubes down my throat and up my nose. His only chance of getting her was for me to be able to write it for him. As he stood there waiting I thought " Oh Lord. If I write this and mom gives Lisa to him he may run off with her and I may never see either one of them again." But he wasn't leaving until the note had been written. I had hoped that mom would be able to tell this was not a note that I had wanted to write and she would keep Lisa with her. But that was not the case. She too knew if she crossed him in the wrong way she could be next on his list. Two days pass. Then day three, four and five. On day number six they were able to take me into surgery to attempt to repair the damage the 22 hollow point bullet had done to my chest.

Waking up after surgery was shocking. Here I was sixteen years old with a gunshot wound in my chest and now I had stitches under my breast from the middle of my chest to my arm pit. This is horrible! Now I am going to have this grotesque scar on my chest for the rest of my life. I would never want anyone to see it. I suppose ego is top of mine at that age but all I could think about was how ugly it was going to be. It was four days later that by the grace of God and many prayers I was able to go home. I was so frightened. I had to go home with him. If I didn't he may hurt me again or the rest of my family. And besides, and I know most of you will find this unbelievable but, I still loved him. And he had been telling me for ten days that it was an accident. How sorry he was. How he never meant for the gun to go off. Was my memory correct or did it really happen the way he said it did. Come on I thought to myself.. You know better than this. He was stoned out of his mind how could he remember what happened. I was sober and in my right mind when this happened. It had to have been the way I remembered it. But fear and a lack of courage led me back to the trailer with him. He had brought his mother and Lisa to the hospital to pick me up to go home. Words cannot express the feelings that I had when I got to hold her again and know that she was safe. I was so afraid to go back there with him. Was he going to wait until we were alone and then try to hurt me again? Or was he really remorseful about what happened and did it make him realize how much he loved me?

As we pulled into the driveway I could only imagine what the condition of the trailer would be. Had anyone gone over to clean up the mess I had made trying to get Lisa's things together for her to go with my sister to my mom's? Had anyone come in to clean the living room floor where I had laid bleeding? Was I walking into a nightmare? And where was my dog. I had been gone for ten days. Had he run off? I later discovered that my faithful dog had been shot by my husband the same night I was. He must have run off to die. I just knew from the rumors that I would probably never see him again. I realize he was just a dog and Lisa and I had survived a tragedy but I still hurt over losing him.

Then night time rolled around and it was time to go to bed. Lisa would lay on my stomach and together we laid next to him. I didn't sleep much when he was there. I wondered if I fell asleep if he would go into the bathroom and get a straight razor and come back to bed and slit my throat. I would lay like this every night and during the day when Lisa would nap I would try to catch up on the sleep I was missing. We were home about a week when I heard a knock at my door. He was at work and besides he had a key to get in if it were him. Knock knock knock! I went to the door and standing there was the sheriff. Oh no what was I going to tell him? I invited him in but told him he couldn't stay long because I was afraid he would come home and find him there. Then I would be in trouble! He asked me again and again what had happened that night. I insisted that it was an accident but he knew better and I knew he knew better. Because I did too. After a short period of time with me he agreed to go. Maybe that will be be the end of it. I had said it was an accident and I meant it was an accident now leave me alone. He didn't buy it. He came back every 8-10 days asking me if I was ready to tell the truth. Thanksgiving and Christmas had come and went. We had settled back in to just living life one day at a time. By the first of the year things were back to the way they were and the abuse was starting up again. I had to find a safe way out of here even if I did love him. It wasn't safe for Lisa and I to be there and keeping us safe was my responsibility. I had nowhere for us to go. My family was having nothing to do with me since I had made the decision to go back with him. Now I realize just how frightened they were of him so I can't now nor could I then blame them for wanting to nothing to do with him. In late January I was able to talk to my dad who was still living in Virginia. He told me if I would leave him and press charges against him, he would come pick me and Lisa up to go stay with him.

After long deliberations in my mind I decided to go with my dad. I'll just press charges in secret and the day that they come to arrest him my dad could come by, get me and Lisa and we could head to Virginia. The sheriff that had been talking to me was a friend of my moms so I knew he would work with us to make sure Lisa and I were safe. I questioned myself a million times before I made my final decision. Was I doing the right thing? I loved him so much. My mind was too immature at sixteen to make any sense of what had happened. I so desperately wanted to believe him. What if I was wrong. What if it "was" an accident and I was giving up the love of my life for nothing, just because my parents wanted me to leave him. I was so confused. There are choices you make when you are young and mentally immature that could effect you for the rest of your life. It would not matter which choice I made the bottom line was whatever I chose I would have to live with the consequences of that decision FOREVER! Wait until your mind and body have matured before you put yourself in a position to have to make mature decisions. Give yourself a chance in life. Another lesson better left unlearned.