Everything is fixable
When you’re in an emergency 911 situation, it’s pretty clear you’re giving control over your very life and well-being to capable others. The concept of second-guessing a first responder, for example, doesn’t make sense. They do this every day, whereas hopefully this is a brand new one-off experience for you. That you would place yourself in their care makes sense.
But what happens after? When healing and recovery kick in, yet you’re still reliant on others for various forms of assistance and support?
Let. It. Go.
This really does dive into the trivial, but it’s the trivial that makes up our daily lives, and it’s the trivial that makes us comfortable as we go about our day.
For example: I’m a “driver.” By that I mean I enjoy driving, I have (probably average) skills when it comes to driving, and of course, being who I am, I have opinions. Yet it’s critical that when I get into someone else’s car as a passenger, I let all that go. They are the driver, not me. I don’t need to second-guess decisions, style, or route planning or anything. To do so would not only be rude but counterproductive. They don’t need my additional baggage. We’ll get there, safely and calmly, as long as I can just sit back and be a more-or-less passive passenger, rather than a nervous or controlling rider. (Full disclosure, though: I did make a gentle observation at one point, and rather than changing anything, I learned something very important about the situation that allowed me to embrace my uncharacteristic passivity more fully.)
Another example I consider kinda cute. Before bringing me home, Kathy and Joo needed to clear some items in my office for it to be safe for me to walk through. The biggest issue was a tripod holding my camera whose legs reached uncomfortably into a common area. They asked if they could disconnect and move it, being concerned that I might be annoyed by the change.
Annoyed? Hell no! Let it go!
Disconnect it, move it, it doesn’t matter one whit. What’s disconnected now can be reconnected later. What’s moved away now can be moved back later. Even if something were to break, it can be repaired or replaced later. It just doesn’t matter! In the grand scheme of things, these are trivialities compared to the priority goal: recovery.
I tried to encourage and embrace that mindset as much as possible. Do what makes sense in the service of the goal. All else can be repaired, replaced, or recovered with little fanfare.
My goal is to minimize the impact on the people assisting me, most obviously Kathy. That means being as absolutely flexible as possible to her needs, desires, and schedule. This isn’t about “not wanting to be a burden”, a trope that’s often used to refuse any assistance at all, but rather optimizing the process to make it as easy, or as least impactful, on her as possible. Given how tremendously impactful this situation is already, most of my preferences are secondary. Yes, there may be things which transcend “preference” into “need”, but the key is to be honest about what those truly are, and then stay as flexible as possible when addressing them.
“We are nothing if not flexible” is a mantra we’ve embraced for years. And here we are again.
That applies to everything right now.
Let go of The Way Things Were, and embrace the flexibility of making it all work as well as possible.
Speaking as a now-retired medic, one thing that people often don’t think of is letting the medics know “what happened.” What your medics already know is you had a big fall onto a hard surface that left you unable to move. They of course assumed the worst and treated you accordingly, which (lucky for you) included bypassing several hospitals to take you to one they knew was best able to care for your particular suspected injury. (“Suspected” since they don’t have xray vision to know the facts, and indeed you did NOT have the worst-case injury, “broken neck with catastrophic spinal cord damage.” Which helped your outcome, but they likely don’t know that you have done so well.) THAT was a “big” decision since it took them out of service for an extra hour or so, but it was clearly the right decision.
So, once you’re up and about more and able to go out, I’ll urge you to visit your medics so they can ask questions, which helps their learning, validates the decisions they made, and allows them to accept your thanks. It’s VERY rare for patients to do this, and we appreciate it so, SO much. (Heck: it’s even rare for the patient or family to even say thank you, but we understand they are all typically under great stress, and their focus is elsewhere.)
So meanwhile your homework, should you choose to accept it, is to find out the EMS provider that responded (easy: you probably have a bill from them), discover the medics’ names (a bit harder, may take a phone call), and when the time comes, discover when they’ll be on-duty or otherwise available for a visit. They’ll love it. Take along the photos and be prepared to share them (read: obliterate your name and such from xrays, should you prefer that). They are then likely to share the case report at their next training session, or even at an EMS conference, to spread the lessons learned, and convey how cool it was to learn their patient had a great outcome. In other words, they can LEARN and CONVEY they made a real difference on what could have been the worst day of your life.
If it’s going to be awhile before you can swing such a visit, hopefully you can speak to them by phone and email the pics.
Sooner is better than later, since (as you say), they do this every day, and calls tend to blur with time unless there’s something specific that sticks out, which is reasonably likely in your case. (Attitude, severity, calmness, the Asian daughter who rode along, etc.)
Interestingly, no bill. It’s the local fire & rescue, and I have no idea how billing and/or paperwork is handled.
My sense is that your history is more motivated to learn than perhaps these guys are? I’ll have to see if that’s the case. Certainly a heartfelt Thank You can’t go wrong.