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I recently read an article (Cara Anthony – KFF News) about a young Black man who was shot in the head, operated on, then his family was pressured to donate his organs. On the operating table after being rolled through the hospital corridors on a hero’s walk to celebrate his selfless donation, his neurosurgeon burst in and told the doctors to take him off the table. He was alive, and is today, several years later, is married, a musician with young children. His first-year neurosurgeon, Dr. Zohny, is now working to “quantify consciousness” so that these mistakes are no longer made.

This article shook me to my core, as it could have been me. A year before this young man’s traumatic brain injury, I suffered one myself. After my craniotomy, I remained in a coma for a full month.

During that time I had dreams of jumping upwards from shard to triangular shard of familiar works of art and stained glass to reach a light above. Also of “field trips” to exotic destinations that always ended up at what seemed like my concrete block college dorm room. My mother-in-law was staying with my husband and was at the hospital one day when she saw signs of more than a vegetative state (she’s now a retired RN) as they were giving up on me. The last thing I remember is an empty grey space and my saying to myself “I can’t go now, I have too much shit to do!” I recall those words exactly.

Once awake, there was a long way to go but worst for me is that I had a tracheotomy tube and could not speak. My husband said that the accident forced a Ctrl-Alt-Del of my brain and I had to learn everything all over again. He learned to remove the trach for a few seconds at a time so I could say a few words.

I’d been trapped in my mind for weeks, unable to escape. Then, when I awakened I was learning again what I wanted and needed to say, and was unable to do so.

When Scarlett O’Hara stood up with her fist in the air and said “as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again” I’ll never be silent again, no matter what anyone tells me. So go ahead, I’m retired so you can’t fire me or take my Social Security.

We have a huge problem in this country, and we’ve voted for him to be our president twice. The problem? Once elected he failed in every way to fulfill his oather of office. He only represents the half of Americans who voted for him, despises the rest of us and wants us all declared enemies of the State.

I never knew much about Charlie Kirk, only disagreed with the hatred he showed America and Americans that he despised for their gender, color or sexual orientation. His death at the hands of a mentally unstable individual is heinous and my thoughts go out to his wife and family. But his death is not my fault, or that of of Democrats or progressive organizations or the media or late night comics.

Efforts by Donald Trump and MAGA to blame all of us and threaten loss of free speech and funding to voice our discontent over his wackadoodle policies is against our Constitution and laws.

I was born into and will hopefully die in the United States of America, which cherishes free speech and the rule of law. I will not be a second-class citizen because I’m a woman and a senior citizen. I know what it’s like to be stifled inside, unable to get out of my own brain because of too many presciription medications administered to me in the hospital by knowledgeable physicians.

Do you know why I think I was saved, besides my neurosurgeon, his terrific PA Kyle (thanks, Kyle), my husband and his mother? I’m white, and I had excellent private health insurance. My husband recalls sitting in the ER, filling out forms then waiting. Staff was looking for a name to call, muttering no insurance, medicaid…. AETNA! Yep, they called on him first.

There are so many things that Trump has already ruined that will take us years to regain, as it did me and my wonderful brain (thank you, Auntie L, the HS English teacher who taught me words no-one else knew, especially my rehab therapists) and motor skills. But we can do it. Not without the free speech our Constitution guarantees, however.

Donald Trump is the biggest bully we’ll ever know, but he’s a bully, and bullies are by nature cowards. The more we obey in advance his directives, the more he’ll try to get away with. He’s already going to leave the White House billions richer because no-one is enforcing laws on the books keeping him from doing so. We don’t want a dictator or king. We need a president and Congress who remembers that they’re elected by us, we, the people. Dee