Enjoy this YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her editorial “How Quickly Life can Change” from the v330 1/23 cc&d issue/book “What Now, My Love” to start her “Poetic License 2/5/23 global open mic” she hosted in a Zoom meeting & a Facebook event page (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuypersbookreading #janetkuyperspoeticlicense
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Enjoy this Facebook live video stream of Janet Kuypers reading her editorial “How Quickly Life can Change” from the v330 1/23 cc&d issue/book “What Now, My Love” to start her “Poetic License 2/5/23 global open mic” she hosted through a Zoom meeting and a Facebook event page (Samsung S9 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuypersbookreading #janetkuyperspoeticlicense
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How Quickly Life can Change
Janet Kuypers
written 1/3/23, the day after football player Damar Hamlin collapsed and was hospitalized in critical condition
Please don’t be angry with me for playing journalist, but I feel I have to recount these details. Please don’t think I am sounding harsh, for if you do, I question if most understand what harsh really means at moments like this.
Last night we were watching television, I had asked my husband John if he was interested in the Bills Bengals game on Monday Night Football, and he said no. But at a commercial on another channel I changed the channel to ABC, and the game was stopped as an ambulance had just pulled onto the field. We watched, discovering that Bills player Damar Hamlin was surrounded by his teammates in one large cocoon. John pulled up a looping 30-second video on his phone of what looked like a not-so-serious helmet hit into Hamlin’s chest, Hamlin falling to the ground, then getting up, and then just... collapsing. Other players running post-tackle had to jump over him, not realizing what just happened.
Then again, no one knew what happened, and we still don’t, minutes later, hours later, the next day.
I asked John to keep checking his phone (like most everyone else was probably doing), to search to find anything out. Then we heard from the field that they had been performing CPR on Hamlin for 9 minutes. I don’t know how much longer he received CPR before they got him on a stretcher to rush him to the hospital. Players on both sides were stunned, crying, and the game could not go on.
All news reporters were extremely cautious to not speculate, which is good. Then John told me he read online that once Hamlin arrived at the hospital, he had a pulse, but he was not breathing.
That is when it hit me, though I didn’t cry then like I am now.
I think I said aloud, “that is what happened to me.” When I was almost killed. Unconscious. Not breathing.
Okay, I wasn’t in a football game, I was just sitting in my stopped car, and maybe if I had a helmet on, my skull wouldn’t have been fractured in three places. So, no, it wasn’t the same, but it hit me, like there was a real connection there, of this man I’ve never met, living a life I’d never lead.
We watch football games, we connect with our team, some of us even wear jerseys. And in recent years concussion protocol is such a major concern because football players have lived through such injuries — both mental and physical — in the past (I remember commentary from players after the Bears Superbowl win, they were all saying that plays were so violent back then that there is no way anyone would be allowed to play like that now). And yeah, we want everyone to be safe on the playing field (though some of us may still say things like, ‘just break his legs!’, because the primal instinct we all have is to still win), but this didn’t look like a serious hit. And Hamlin just collapsed. I honestly think we’ve never seen anything like this on a playing field (and most of the time when something happens to a football player off the field, the world brushes any post-game problems under the rug, and players are completely forgotten), so everyone was too stunned to react.
After this injury, newscasters talked of what Hamlin might be thinking right now. I knew from experience, and John knew from me, how wrong that statement was. “He’s not thinking anything,” John said, and he’s right. He won’t even remember the day, if he was like me, though a part of him might have burned the anticipation of this game into his long-term memory, but there’s no way his short-term memory of the game had a chance to save this into his long-term memory before his heart stopped and he stopped breathing.
After remembering how I had to re-learn how to walk and talk and eat after my accident, I even said at one point, “well, at least this wasn’t a brain injury,” trying to make this better than what I went though, so he should be fine... because this seems to be more related to an impact at just the right nano-moment to cause his heart to pause, but I’m still just speculating, there is so much we don’t know. Then John replied that we don’t know if there’s brain injury because we don’t know how long the heart stopped pumping blood to his brain.
Oh, no. That comment didn’t make me feel any better.
John went to bed. The news said that the hospital would be making a press statement, so I told him I was staying up to wait for more news. After an hour I saw a report that the hospital was not going to make a statement until morning, so I turned off the tv and tried to sleep. I think over an hour went by before I got to sleep as I tried to not think about how in an instant, a life can be forever changed for the worse through no fault of their own.
A dream woke me up at 5:30, I don’t remember details of it, but I remember hearing that Hamlin came in and out of consciousness, which is insanely good, because it took me eleven days to wake up from my coma.
In the morning, after being curled up together, John saw on his phone that Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest (I guess this supports our estimates) and is in critical condition. John then told me that a family spokesperson said he momentarily regained consciousness (“he was awake; now he’s sedated*” — that’s wonderful news), but he is currently sedated. When he told me he was sedated, I was relieved, because I guessed that meant he was more conscious, because I said I didn’t believe they sedated me while I was unconscious. But that’s when he said that I probably was sedated while I was unconscious, because a single twitch could hinder my healing.
This didn’t make me feel any better either.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to Damar Hamlin. Everyone, everywhere, expressed hope and concern for him, and every newscaster, celebrity and athlete pledged their prayers to him (and one commentator the next morning was considerate enough to suggest that people pray, or do whatever you feel is right). And now everyone’s in a holding pattern, not knowing what is going to happen to him, and not knowing if and how he’ll recover. It’s scarier when you’ve lived through this, or worse, with a real and heightened awareness of the potential future for this man. A part of me thinks it’s too trite to say that being unconscious, being in a coma, is like being in that holding pattern, because, it’s not. I can tell you that it’s so much worse.
People on multiple floors of the hospital where I was treated called me “miracle girl” for my insanely fast (only 6 weeks) recovery after not breathing for six days. To quote a musician who once similarly questioned their survival after their hospital ordeal, “Was it science that saved me, or the way that you prayed for me...” I believe science was on my side, and I know that my mind fought vigilantly and desperately to help me recover... but so many people also prayed for me. When I look on Twitter now and see everyone and anyone tweeting an icon of their hands in prayer, all I can think to say to Damar Hamlin is:
I am with you. I am with you in more ways than you can know.
* https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ov9BKFrYysw
1/5/23 Post Script:
After two and a half days, neurologists held a press conference, dispelling the media’s theories he was resuscitated a second time in the hospital (a defibrillator and CPR were only done on the field). News reporters were saying that he still cannot breathe on his own, but after just two days, Hamlin began to “awaken”. The press conference relayed that Hamlin cannot talk, but he can move his hands and feet... and he nods for ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as answers to questions. He was surprised he was unconscious for two days, and the first question he was able to convey was, “did we win?”, which thrills me that his cognitive skills are strong enough that he can remember and think about these things while still in such a debilitated state in the hospital.
I know his recovery will take time (even though every idiot reporter out there is asking when he’ll be able to play football again), and I know the road ahead of him is steep, but I’m sure all the work will be worth it for him to be well again.
I know I cried thinking about what Hamlin went through when we saw him collapse and didn’t have any news about his condition, but I also shed a tear today too. Even though he has a long road ahead of him, it is so fulfilling to shed a tear of joy, and know he’s on the road to recovery.
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