Celebrating Women...for the Real World
Sunday, September 11, 2005 Where were you on 9/11-Part II

Where did I leave off? We have fluid and swelling, healing of a collapsed lung, blood pressure that's not stable, and two doctors that said we'll probably be going home in 3 or 4 days.

We are watching Good Morning America. They have a breaking news story announcing some kind of fire at the World Trade Center. A few minutes later, they announce that a commuter plane has struck the building. Not thinking much about what happened, I decide to walk downstairs and get a Starbucks. By the time I got back up to the room, the second plane had struck and it appeared to be passenger jets. Then, as we're watching the report, they announce that a plane has crashed into the Pentagon and there are reports of another plane over Pennsylvania that was hijacked. I looked at my husband and asked "are we under attack?" He said, "I think so." After what we had been through the past week, it was really hard to comprehend what was happening. What did this mean to us?

Suddenly, there were a lot of people "coding" on the floor. We were on a cardiac ICU floor, so, you can imagine what that meant. Our nurse became quite harried and, well, scatter brained for lack of a better word. She came into our room and told us we'd be going home today. You can only imagine what was going through my mind. OK, maybe not. But more on that later. She finally told us that any patient not considered critical or on life support was being released as Houston was on high alert and, at the time, it was thought that our refineries would possibly be the next "hit". That is when I finally understood the full scope of what was happening.

I am planning to write a full recap of my our ordeal, but that sums up where I was on 9/11 and touches on what was going through my mind. I would like to close this post with a little insight to my mental state that day. I was bringing my husband home who, up to this point, was constantly being monitored with medication being administered intravenously. I knew he was not ready to come home, but I understood the reasoning behind his release. He was in severe pain and so weak that he couldn't even go to the restroom by himself. I almost had to spoon feed him. My sister lives in New York and I could not get in touch with her. My aunt who lives in Texas and is the closest thing to a mother that I have, happened to be back in Pennsylvania visiting friends (I don't know if I've mentioned that I grew up in PA). I could not get in touch with her. I remember sitting on the couch at 2:00 a.m. watching the recap over and over in utter disbelief. I wanted to feel so sorry for myself but couldn't. I still cry today when I see a recap of that fateful day. I watch with sadness for the families that lost loved ones. I feel angry at the scum that did this. I even feel a little sense of comfort because, on that one day, it didn't matter if you were the richest man, on the highest floor, wearing the most expensive suit, or if you were the janitor who cleaned the toilets; on that day I feel that we, at least in the US, truly became one person, under God, indivisible. I saw people helping each other out of the buildings that were hit and surrounding area; I saw a group of people selflessly give their lives as they took control of a plane and crashed it in PA in what I believe to be an effort to save hundreds of thousands of lives. There was an unselfish effort to help each other regardless of race, age, gender, and financial status! Out of all of the bad, I personally found comfort in focusing on the positive!

Posted by Sheri & SuZan :: 8:59 PM :: 0 comments

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