What would it be like to wake up one day to find that you
can’t move your head, and the last thing you remember is going to bed with no
problems? With my recent, and very real, experiences I think I can give you a
pretty good idea of what it would be like.
Waking Up In A Halo
I don’t wake up quickly, which is normal for me. I will
slowly become aware of what is around me by feel and sounds then eventually
I’ll open an eye to take a look. This time is no different in that regards, but
it is different in other ways.
The first thing I become aware of is I’m lying on my back. I
turn my head to the side so that when I open an eye I can look for the clock.
Or, I try to turn my head, but it doesn’t move. I can feel my neck muscles
tense up, but my head won’t move and I can’t tell why.
I open both eyes at this point and everything is a little
blurry like I have been asleep too long and my eyes are taking longer to focus.
Still, I can see and there are a couple of things that are immediately noticed.
There is a black shadow across the top of my vision, and on both the left and
right side there is a black line going up from somewhere around my shoulders to
the shadow at the top. Trying to turn my head again to get a better look
doesn’t work any better than before. I can’t move my head. No matter how hard I
try, my head will not move, not even a little bit.
My vision starts to clear up some and I am able to focus
more on these black things I am seeing. Looking to the left and right by moving
just my eyes, the vertical lines look to be black rods. Looking up the black
shadow is still hard to figure out, but there are two silver colored bumps or
protrusions of some kind poking out, one above each eye. Rolling my eyes around
to try and get a closer look, I can see that there is what looks like the ends
of more black rods pointing forwards at the top corners of my vision, and there
is something connecting the vertical rods to the ones that point forwards.
Rolling my eyes to look down I can’t see where the vertical rods end, it’s out
of my field of vision.
I finally become aware of a tightness around my upper chest
and back. It’s firm and hard, yet soft at the same time, and it is restricting
me from taking a full breath a little. At the same time I become aware of a
tight pressure on my head that feels like it is pressing in from four sides,
yet at the same time it is not pressing on my skin at all. In fact, now that I
think about it, I don’t feel the pressure of a pillow on the back of my head,
it’s like my head is floating in place.
All of this finally adds up. I’ve seen pictures of people in
something like this, even seen a couple in real life, and now I’m in one
myself. I’m in a Halo Brace. Screws have been embedded into my skull and fixed
in place with a Halo ring around my head that is attached to a frame of rods in
front and back that are attached to a vest that is strapped around my chest and
lined with a soft padding. It’s holding my head perfectly immobile. I won’t be
able to move my head as long as the Halo is there.
