I FINALLY found out today about Emilie. Julie emailed me back saying that, yes she had been in a coma, but she was out of it and responding the last she had heard. That was it. So I called Shea up immediately and told her. She said she would call Jessica (another old friend of ours) and get right back to me with hopefully more details.
Meanwhile, I called Kirsten and told her what I had found out and that Shea would be calling me back with more information.
Little while later Shea did and it didn't sound good. Here's the whole story...
Emilie was driving up to Phoenix for some reason and wasn't feeling well. When she got back from Phoenix she was only feeling worse and then half of her face and body went completely numb. They rushed her to the hospital and the doctors discovered that a blood clot in her brain had caused a stroke and she was going to have to have surgery immediately. It wasn't likely that she would survive though.
When the surgery was over Emilie was in a coma. A few days later though she started to come out of it. She started responding. She could recognize her mother's voice and squeeze yes or no with her hand. She's going to live.
However, she is going to have to learn how to walk and talk and function all over again. It's still not clear how much is affected, what she will remember and think and such. I'm still pretty hazy on all the details.
Now comes the question of how I approach visiting her. Shea got the address and phone number of her mother but I'm gonna have to call around to the hostpitals to see which one she's at if I want to visit. The thing is I have this slight phobia of hospitals. After all my surgeries I cannot stand to go into them by myself...brings up too many bad memories. So I'm thinking of getting Kirsten to go with me if I visit.
I don't know if I can or should visit though. I don't know what I would do or say. I don't know if Emilie would even want visitors. I know I hated having people see me in the hospital when I was recovering. Keep your distance but feel free to send flowers, money and other goodies. I wonder if that's what I should do instead.
It's all so surreal and of course in true Alli fashion to try and make things seem more tangible I turned to the few things I have left from Emilie. (Remember, not a lot survived the fire.)
I read through all my yearbooks and even found some cards she had given me for birthdays and Christmases from eons ago. I realize I have memories of this girl from 15 years ago. I can remember being teeny tiny and hanging upside down on the jungle gym with her. I have this vivid memory of her rushing up to me after sex ed in junior high saying: "Oh my God Allison did you hear? Males reach their sexual peak at 17! Devon Sawa is going to be 17 this year I have to get to him!" I remember her at my birthday parties and all the dances of high school. I remember the last day of our sophmore year spending 4 hours sitting at eegees (local resturaunt) doodling on each others arms and talking about our plans for the summer.
Will she remember any of that?
Man, life is weird.
While going through all my old stuff though something else really hit me hard. I'm such a completely different person from the high school Alli. I mean, I'm still "unique" (I got called that 57 times, I counted!), "tornado girl" (31 times) and "quite the character" (12 times) but it feels like a whole different world. Like a past life or a movie I watched a long long time ago.
It got me to thinking about how this will relate to the rest of my life. Will I look back to this point and time 10 years from now and think this is a completely different world? I am a completely different person?
I guess the thing is you really never know how much things are going to change. It all seems to happen so fast but looking back it seems to span on for decades longer than it actually did.
I wonder if I'm the only one.