What do you get for the traumatic event that has everything?

For better or worse, I get a head start on the rest of America regarding a traumatic event that happened ten years ago.

I don't know when it started, just like we don't know when the seed was planted for the horrible events of September 11. I know that in late July to early August, I started feeling poorly. After a beach vacation in which I slept on a pull-out couch, I thought my subsequent back pain was easily explained. On August 11, when I planned to drive to Nashville to see a Titans preseason game, I was in bed with a fever, barely able to move. There was pain in my back. There was pain in my left leg. I started having trouble breathing. I was 27 years old, for all intents and purposes feeling as immortal as most 27-year-olds, and 72 hours later my entire body shut down.

All I remember of August 14 is pushing myself to drive to work. An hour into my day, I called my contracting agency, told them to put me on short-term disability, and that's it. I do not remember anything else until September.

I drove home that day, in my teal Ford Escort GT that would be my last manual transmission car, and to that point, my last teal one. I got home to the condo that I shared with my roommate Carol. I went to bed, and in bed I remained until my girlfriend stopped by that evening. She took me to the Emory Hospital emergency room and had the unenviable task of calling my parents and telling them that their son was in critical condition and they didn't know what was wrong with him.

I am 37 years old today. I no longer remember what it's like to feel anything in the back of my left leg, a lingering effect of the back surgery I had to remove the abscess full of Staphylococcus. The numb part of my body is like the numb part of my memory. There are second-hand accounts, but the girlfriend and the roommate are out of my life. That's one of the toughest issues with my trauma. Everyone's September 11 trauma is based on what was witnessed and experienced. I don't have any memories to attach to this.