Usually on New Year’s Day, stations have a marathon of their most popular show. In keeping with this annual tradition, The Learning Channel had a New Year’s Day marathon of their most popular and my favorite show – Trauma: Life In The ER. The show takes you into the Emergency Rooms of the nation’s leading hospitals and puts you right smack in the middle of their worst trauma cases. While the show may be an “Adrenaline Rush Hour” as the network named it – it is definitely not for those with weak stomachs.

I watch the show for two reasons. For one thing, I am a huge fan of any show that begins with, “Due to the graphic nature of this program, viewer discretion is advised.” – and I also watch it because it shows just how quickly things can change in a person’s life and how one split second can change everything.

During the marathon, they brought in a worker who was hit in the head with a steel beam and knocked into the Mississippi River. His head was split open and he was not responding to commands. While the trauma team was doing everything they could to try and save him – the doctor had to go talk to the family. I kept wondering how the family felt sitting in that waiting room as the doctor approached them with what was certainly going to be bad news. As the doctor was updating the family on the man’s condition – I watched this woman collapse into hysterics when she found out that as a result of the impact of the steel beam – her boyfriend was now paralyzed.

I could not even imagine having something like that happen to me. Being perfectly fine one moment and then having my life altered forever just one second later – but worse then that – I could never imagine that happening to someone I love. I don’t know which scenario would be worse – knowing that I would never be able to walk again, or having to watch someone I love cope with the fact that their legs no longer work.

Besides the fact that the man was paralyzed, the doctors, in trying to heal his head wound had a dilemma. He needed steroids to slow his swelling, but the fact that the water from the murky Mississippi got into his head – there could be a risk of a very bad infection, and steroids slow the body’s immune system and would impair the body’s ability to fight the infection. So they had to decide whether or not to give him the steroids. That’s another part of the show that I love, watching the doctors at work. I find it so amazing that one minute before a person is wheeled into the doctor’s ER, he or she is a complete stranger – and now – the doctor is making a decision that will be a matter of life or death to that person.

It turns out that the man who got hit with the steel beam avoided infection, became coherent – and can now talk again. Unfortunately – it is unknown whether or not he will ever walk again.

It is reasons like what happened to this man that I try my best to live life to the fullest. You never know what is just seconds away, so I make every effort to enjoy life as much as I can – because the life you live and love so much now can change in just one split second.