Wednesday, January 27, 2010

it was like i was on acid.

I spoke to my dad on the phone last night about the situation in Haiti. I was budgeting while I was talking to him, and half-heartedly said, "I just, I have absolutely no concept of what they're going through." He told me to imagine it was like the entire Halifax peninsula was flattened, and everybody died. Times FIVE.

And, additionally, many, many of the survivors are now missing limbs.

I think my subconscious was aware that I needed a bit of a kick in the pants to try and understand the situation, because I had THE freakiest dream last night. My subconscious can't be credited with too much, however, because I also dreamt I had a pet crocodile who had babies ("WTF am I going to do with 100 crocodile babies???!!").

I dreamt I lost my arms.

BOTH arms. Right below the shoulder.

In the dream, the story didn't say how I lost them, but I was hanging out with my brother and my mom, and I had what I thought was my left hand on my mom's arm. I said, "Mom, but I can feel your arm. I can see my arm and my hand."

"Yes, Rachael, those are the memories in your nerves, they're going to take a while to adjust." It was like I had phantom limbs, on both arms, but they didn't hurt.

My brother then batted a balloon towards me, and for some reason, we both had plastic spoons in our hands (a throwback to me doing dishes before bed?). I took my plastic spoon in my right hand, and batted the balloon back.

"Steve, how did the balloon move if I didn't just hit with the spoon in my hand?"

"We attached the spoon to your stump with velcro, and you whipped your shoulder back."

Oh. My. God.

So here I am, in the dream, facing the fact that I don't have any arms. I remember thinking, "I don't want to be one of those people that does everything with their feet!".. but slowly coming to the conclusion that that was my new reality.

The last thing I remember was looking in a mirror at myself, hair in a ponytail, track pants, sneakers, white turtleneck (my next dream will feature Stacey and Clinton), and a yellow tank top with a race number on it. And stumps. Stumps for arms. I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that this, this was my new reality. I was an amputee.

I woke up, and the first thing I did was feel my arms, my hands, my shoulders. I jumped out of bed and turned all the lights on and looked at myself in the mirror, feeling my arms and hands to make sure they were in fact, attached to my body.

I spend the next 20 minutes trying to get to sleep, while thinking about all the things I wouldn't be able to do without hands - brush my teeth, straighten my hair, make a cup of coffee, bake, hug people, use the shake weight...

Today, I am grateful for my limbs.

Click here to donate to Haiti.

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