(bell dinging) - I am Rebecca Fogg, and this is "Beautiful Trauma."
(gentle music) It is about human resilience and some of the many, many ways that we cope with adversity and try to make sense of it.
(gentle music) - So, I gotta ask you about that day in 2006.
- [Rebecca] Mm hmm.
- When your hand was partially amputated.
It's painful even talking about it.
Do you remember what went through your head when it happened?
- Mm.
Absolutely.
So it was one of those, I guess, very, bit of a cliche, but that super slow-mo moment, where first, I heard a loud noise, and still didn't know what was going on but instantly became disoriented.
And so it just felt like I was not comprehending things fast enough.
And so something made me look at my right wrist and I see this gaping hole.
And amazingly, I don't know that it's a problem yet.
I can't comprehend it.
I'm looking at this thing.
And my brain keeps working on it.
And then I realize this is a problem.
I'm looking in the inside of a human body.
I'm looking at things that should not be seen.
And then I realized that it's mine.
And then what I thought was really strange, and I distinctly remember this, is that, the mind quickly starts coming to solutions.
"All right, I live alone.
I'm losing a lot of blood very fast.
I'm standing in a giant puddle of blood already.
I need to save myself."
But before I sprang to action, there was this instant of reflection that my brain just insisted I pay attention to.
And I thought that life that I was living is already over.
This next one, however long it lasts, begins now.
So already in that instant, my brain was telling you, "You've already suffered a death."
- Wow.
- This is a clear demarcation.
There's gonna be before, and there's gonna be after.
And there absolutely was after.
(gentle music) - [Jeremy] How do you describe how this accident happened?
- Mm, mm.
- Because even that is mind blowing.
What happened?
- Yeah, yeah.
We don't actually know the cause of the accident.
But it was the, I had been staying up late, working in a presentation, business presentation, 2:30 in the morning, 'cause I was gonna make it perfect.
- Ah, of course, oh sure.
- Famous last words.
- Yeah.
- And so I'm standing in front of the sink, ready to brush my teeth, turn on the faucet.
Nothing but air comes out, like a cappuccino maker.
Psshh.
And I'm thinking, "Well, that's strange."
I wonder if all the plumbing is screwed up.
How big a problem do I have here?
So I lean over to flush the toilet, and the second I do, that's when I hear the loud noise.
And what happened was there was excess air pressure in the toilet system, in the plumbing, and it was pressure toilets, as many New Yorkers will know.
And it blew up the porcelain commode.
And I had ten-and-a-half foot ceilings.
It hit the ceiling, it blew off all the tiles on the wall.
And when my hand is in a fist, you can see that it was right at that explosion point.
And a shard of porcelain just sliced right through, like a knife and cut it to the bone.
And so I, it was an artery, eight tendons, and a major nerve were severed.
And I knew I had to call 911.
And I knew I had to stop the bleeding.
I wasn't sure I'd be conscious long enough to do both.
- Yeah.
- So I called 911 first, because I knew if I lost consciousness before I did that, I wouldn't be found for days.
- Yeah.
- And then I was able to stop the bleeding with four dish towels, all the direct pressure I could muster.
- [Jeremy] Right.
- Put my hand over my head., And then I woke up the neighbors and I said "Somebody's gotta let EMS in."
(gentle music) - So you will encounter this, especially now that the book is out, is when the book comes out, people will look at your hand.
- Mm hmm.
- And they will say, "Rebecca, you have great hands."
How do you live with that, when people will look at you and say, "Oh, this trauma, you look great!
Everything must be great!"
- Right, right.
Well, first of all, they don't know anything happened.
So a lot of times it doesn't come up.
And when it does come up, then you see the eyes kind of surreptitiously looking at the hand.
And then I offer them the explanation that I know, the question I know that they have.
- [Jeremy] Right.
- But the fact is that, the hand looks perfect.
I have full strength and range of motion, but it is actually a very different hand because of the nerve injury.
And so the peripheral nerve was severed and it did regenerate.
But now I basically can only do the bare minimum to keep my hands safe and useful.
So it's a fun guided tour that I will lead people on to explain all of the ways that the hand feels and behaves differently.
- Right.
- And the subtle things I've had to change.
But there is a difference between what they call a life-changing injury, where it really changes how you interact with the physical world.
It can affect your livelihood and things like that.
- Right.
- This was not a life-changing injury in the end.
I was very, very lucky.
But I have a very changed hand.
But I find it endearing and actually pretty fascinating.
(gentle music) - What does that mean to you, Beautiful Trauma?
- Mm hmm.
It refers to the fact that obviously, this was the big trauma of my life.
And so much of it was unexpected and difficult and grueling.
I started noticing early on that there were also these amazing things that were happening.
The people who were stepping up to take care of me, the things that I was learning.
And then of course it changed my life in a lot of positive ways.
And it just really struck me how unexpected it was to me that these wonderful things could coexist with these awful things.
And in fact, some of these wonderful things could only have happened because of this awful thing.
And so when I stepped back and wanted a title that I felt encapsulated everything, I felt that that was really my big gift from the experience was that I realized that the beauty and the trauma could coexist.
(gentle music) - [Jeremy] This is not a book about how traumatic the event was.
It is truly what you learned from it.
- [Rebecca] Mm hmm.
- And I was just blown away from your business school classmate, who you used the name Scott.
He survived a terrible injury to his arm and his hand.
And he said to you, "You're lucky this happened to you."
What did he mean by that?
- Yeah, this was an incredibly important conversation that I had about 10 days after the accident.
And had remembered that he'd been through something.
And somehow I just thought, "God, maybe he can help."
Because nobody else could tell me anything.
Nobody else knew anything.
And sure enough, he was a veteran of this recovery process.
And first, he said, "You're gonna think I'm crazy for saying this, but someday you'll know it's true."
And he said, "You are lucky this happened to you.
Because you are going to learn and experience things you couldn't any other way.
Amazing, wonderful things, that most people will go their whole lives without knowing."
- And so what have you found?
How has it changed your life?
- Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Ah, so many ways.
And I think it will continue to.
Now it's just integrated into the fabric of my life.
But, on a very superficial level, or rather a very obvious level, I fell in love with medical science.
Because Scott also suggested I study the anatomy of my hand to help me notice the healing process and cope with it.
And I absolutely fell in love with the science.
And science had never spoken to me before.
I'm a humanities person.
I was a musician for a long time.
And I just found it so astonishing and hopeful.
The science I was reading.
The brain's threat defense program, which is how I got out of the apartment alive.
I'm not a soldier.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not used to coping with gushing bleeds, but I did everything right that night.
The brain's threat defense program.
Or peripheral nerve regeneration.
Isn't it astonishing that it can be severed and then it can grow back to the point where I can do all of this?
It's not perfect, but I can do this.
And so, I'm very aware of the fragility of our lives.
And I don't live every day as if it were my last.
I don't think anyone can really, well, I won't say that.
I don't live that way.
But I am very aware of just this kind of thin veil of denial that we have to have, that we have many more tomorrows so that we can plan and we can hope and we can enjoy ideas of the future, but also that it can turn on a dime.
And I think that lends a poignancy to how I approach a lot of things.
And then also, I hope that I have become, I feel like I have these new glasses, where I just see need and vulnerability better than I used to.
And I received such thoughtful support from so many people.
And I think that's helped me give that back to other people.
Hope and recognize it.
(gentle music) - [Jeremy] What do you want people to take away from your experience?
- Mm.
One of them, in studying the psychological response to trauma, I was really impressed by, and very glad that I got an understanding of how different the experience is for everyone.
So everything that we feel, how we move through the world, what happens to us, is the product of many, many factors.
It's not just our will, or our conscious decisions.
It's biological, psychological, it's genetic, it's social, environmental.
And I, in studying the science, I gained a real appreciation for that.
We like to credit character for everything.
And really, there's so many more factors at play.
Many of them beyond our knowledge and control.
And so, one thing I would like people to take away from this is that every single person's experience of adversity is gonna be different.
We can't judge.
And everybody's response to it's gonna be different.
I've laughed a lot during this.
I'm a person who likes to laugh, but also maybe that's one of my responses, that's not everybody's response.
- Right.
- And some people will find it easy to mobilize and just like get to work, and other people will be more stunned, you know?
So I think that's one thing.
Another thing is not to be afraid to ask for help.
We're a society that is, really values independence, and that brings us a lot of wonderful things.
But nobody gets through life without help.
Nobody.
- [Jeremy] Yeah.
- And it's not even something we should value, trying to do everything without help.
- Sure.
- And so, you're gonna need help sometime.
Don't be afraid to ask for it.
And as my best friend, Jen, also mentioned in the book, people want to help, why wouldn't you let them?
So that's another thing I will say.
And I think adversity is inevitable, but I think kindness is as well.
- Rebecca, thank you.
It's a really remarkable book.
- Thank you so much.
It was great to be here.
- And thank you for watching "A Word on Words."
I'm Jeremy Finley.
Remember, keep reading.
(bell dinging) The fact that you became a writer after having your hand blown apart is maybe the most preordained thing that I can think of.
- [Rebecca] Just, just keep on, what do you wanna do next?
Racquetball.
Take up racquetball.
(gentle music)