 The Celebrated 6th Tower! My friend Hillary, also my supervisor at SoHumane, shows up just as the big move is about to take place. I’ll have to transfer to another gurney to go upstairs. This is terrifying, as the first few gurney transfers nearly destroyed me. “Can you skoochie yourself over?” a nurse asks. Aha! A graphic art term! “Hillary,” I call from my bed, “tell her, can I skoochie or what?” Humor prevails once again, and I make the switch without falling to pieces. I say goodbye to the sweet CNAs who took care of me. A few minutes of disorienting back-travel through hallways and elevators and I’m on the top floor of the hospital in a room with a fantastic view of the entire Rogue Valley. I’m in a new bed, but there’s still one of those annoyingly sticky 3’ x 3’ pads underneath me. Wayne goes about re-decorating the room with my father’s picture on the shelf, plus the plants and flowers people have brought. He pins get-well cards and the cat poster onto a bulletin board. It’s quiet up here. Staff members are quick to inform me that 6th Tower is the cool place to be. “When you press the call button, we’re there.” There's an atrium where you can dine with the other patients, a whole PT gym, a soda-stocked refrigerator, plus therapy dogs who come to visit. It almost sounds like camp, and I’m looking forward to getting some rest. The head nurse of the PT unit, Geneva, comes to see me in the late afternoon. She looks to be around my age, a kind, soft-spoken black woman who holds my hand while she speaks healing words of courage. On the elite PT floor you get a schedule outlining the appointments you'll be having the next day. Breakfast, Occupational Therapy, Lunch, Physical Therapy, Dinner. Someone refills your giant plastic sippy cup with fresh ice every eight hours. Thankfully, the bedside commode in my new room has a regular, hard seat. And that "rest" thing? Ha! Not even. The next morning a nurse is in my room at 6:00 am to check my vitals. They have rolling computers now, with all your information on them. It reminds me of a modern-day hurdy-gurdy. Now and then I hear a helicopter come in for a landing on the heliport below us, and leave again. They’re loud and rise close to my window. I wonder who’s been plucked from a remote location and spent time not only on their back being lifted by strangers, but also immobile and airborne.  My new titanium-enriched femur! My physical therapist, Susan, comes in. I’ve already seen the wheelchair in my room and hissed at it. When I was a kid and went to the hospital for one injury or another, they would have to wheel me out to the entrance. Hospital policy. I always tried to refuse on the grounds that I didn’t really need one. But Susan promptly sits in the wheelchair, cheerfully zipping around my bed, checking out my injuries, asking questions about our house. It’s like being visited by the coolest camp counselor you could ever imagine. I immediately feel safe and comfortable around her, although I refrain from telling her that quite recently, the entire back wall of our kitchen had to be replaced and our kitchen sink has been temporarily relocated to the back porch since mid-July.
“How come I don’t have a cast?” I ask, pointing to my extra-large left leg. “It’s on the inside,” Susan says. “Do you want to see it?” She goes out and returns with one of those rolling hurdy-gurdy computers, bringing up my chart. A moment later the image of my left femur comes into view. A titanium rod with what looks like zip-ties holding the broken pieces of my bone to it. There are two screws at the bottom of the titanium rod, just above my knee. “Whoa…” I breathe. Susan gives me a rolling tour of the entire floor, including the PT gym. Tomorrow we'll get started on stretches and continued hobbling. Later on, Wayne shows up with the baggy, pajama-type clothes I’ve asked for, plus a few toys. My iFart hand-held fart machine, for instance. Yeah. I’m not afraid to admit it; we actually have more than one fart-generating toy in our home. You would be amazed at how such a simple thing can quickly pffft you out of a funk. He places my Tin Man bobblehead on my bed table. Wayne tells me our kitchen walls have now been restored, and the windows are properly framed in. He’s found a wonderful man to replace our last contractor, whom he now refers to as “Richard Weed.” I’ve felt too weak to worry about the house for the past week, so I’m glad to hear good news. We’ll want to have those windows in place once fall comes. He also lets me know that the heinous ladder which let me down so callously has now left the property. He ditched it at the local Habitat for Humanity “Restore.” I am banned from ladders for life. A while later a man named Bill comes for my first OT session. He tells me stories about his cats while gently rubbing skin softener on my left fingers. He asks me more questions about our house, such as how I might be able to get around once I’m inside. I learn the basics of wheelchair travel: how to lock and unlock the brakes, propel myself, and turn. Later I’ll be learning how to dress myself. I’m plodding onward, doing whatever people tell me because we know there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I accept my situation as du rigueur, although I'd prefer to kick back and watch Disney cartoons. My eyesight is a bit off; I've been experiencing nearly 20-20 vision although I find it hard to focus on things like crossword puzzles and books. Rhonda, my other OT, comes in to give me my first shower since I got here, in the “shower chair” – a chair made entirely out of PVC pipe, with a plastic seat. I’m still scared to transfer from one thing to another for fear of falling over, but I wheel myself into the bathroom and stand up, shuffle around with Rhonda’s help, and ease into the chair. Warm, soapy water pours over my filthy hair for the first time in more than a week. Ahhhhh… I hold my left arm up to avoid getting my splint wet. A few remaining twigs drop away, racing for the drain.
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 My newly plated wrist. These postings are excerpts from my novel-in-progress, a somewhat fictionalized story tentatively called "A Spontaneous Renovation." There most likely will not be x-rays in the book.
I wake up to the young wrist surgeon standing next to my bed in shorts and a Mickey Mouse-with-a-moustache t-shirt. I consider asking him if his mom knows he’s here, but instead I thank him for coming in on a Saturday to rebuild my wrist. I know I shouldn’t make fun of how young professionals look these days; my surgeons are currently the masters of my universe. My left hand is still asleep due to an anesthetic “blocker” which feels essentially like having my entire hand shot up with Novocain that’s constantly in the early stages of wearing off. My left leg is an alien entity swollen to twice its size, oozing and unmovable. I’m also fitted with a nasal cannula for oxygen. The leg surgeon stops by to check on me, although the only thing I retain is that a titanium rod now exists in my left thigh and I have dozens of metal staples keeping the incision closed. Evidently I’ve lost a lot of blood during surgery and I’m anemic, so a transfusion is being considered. Nurses and CNAs come and go in the drug-induced fog, some even trying to get me to order food from a menu. I’m stuck to the pad on the hospital bed because the incision from my leg is oozing but I can’t really shift to unstick myself. In fact, I can’t turn over at all, so lying on my back is the only option. I’m given a long, flexible nylon rod with a handle on one end and a loop on the other, for lifting my lumpen left leg. The door to my room opens and my reading group friends who’d seen me in the emergency room waddle in, squeezing themselves onto the bench by the window. “Do you know what Wayne’s doing?” Beatrice demands in a hushed voice. “Wha… huh?” “He’s trying to block people from speaking to you! That’s called abuse!” “He told me to fuck off!“ says Molly, waving her cell phone at me. “You need to speak to someone about him right away!” exclaims Marge, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. “Right then,” I reply groggily from my bed. I’m in somewhat of a vulnerable position so the only thing I can figure is to try and be polite until they leave. Wayne calls a few minutes later and tells me he’s had arguments with Holly and Marge regarding several members of my family. He’s been awake for nearly two days and they all seem to have gotten the best of him. “I’m sorry, but that blubbernaught Molly tried to tell me it wasn’t my job to protect you and I just lost it.” “Huh? Jee-zuz...” I murmur, “what a doofus.” I can’t believe I’m doing damage control from my hospital bed the day after surgery. “Are you okay?” I ask gingerly. “Has… the train left the station?” (Our secret code for when he’s headed toward a possible meltdown.) There's a pause, so I add, “Don’t worry, honey. You have my permission to protect me any time. It sounds like you could use some sleep, though. I love you.” "I love you, too," he sighs. "Rest and heal, sweetheart." The hospital chaplain steps in and takes a seat next to my bed. We have a pleasant conversation about God, Lutherans, and Advanced Directives. He also explains that when you hear the Lullaby song over the PA system, it means a baby has just been born. Tim, aka the Baron of Darkwing Manor, drops in, which is a great honor, as well as several other friends bearing candy and good wishes. My mother calls to check up on me and I tell her I’m okay. Mostly I just leave the TV on a nature channel with the sound turned down. Eventually the nurses take the catheter out. It’s time to get that portion of my body operational again. Instead of the dreaded bedpan, I’m helped up to standing by a CNA and placed onto a portable commode. “How about a little potty music?” she asks, turning the water in the sink on full blast, hoping to inspire my sphincter muscles. Not much luck. What a creepy feeling: a full bladder and I can’t relax enough to empty it. Several tries later, I’m successful... but the seat is one of those soft, squishy ones. A noble concept, except once you’ve sat on one for a few minutes it’s a long, painful process to carefully unstick the soft plastic from the backs of your thighs without tearing the skin off. I have to say that chocolate definitely makes me feel better. I keep several pieces on my tray. Although I’m not hungry enough to actually bite into them, I lick them and they seem to elevate my mood. Wayne’s brought my laptop in, so I finally have my own portal to the outside world. The next few days flow together, with people coming in at all hours to check my vitals, wash me and give me pain meds. They’ve weaned me off the I.V. in favor of a painkiller called Percoset. When I can’t sleep at all anymore I ask for something, but whatever doctor is on duty deems it too late at night to give sleep medication. Darn. I know I have half an Ambien in my purse, but it’s stashed in a drawer where I can’t get to it. My iPod's in there, too, although I'm hesitant to plug up my ears in this setting. I'm compromised enough as it is. The nurse on duty tells me about the hospital’s Relax channel. Late at night it’s a picture of shifting night stars with gentle, new-agey music. It puts me to sleep! Every single move I make needs to be calculated now. How I move my left leg with the leg-lifting rod and scoot myself close to the side of the bed using only my good right arm and hand. How I grasp the bed frame and lean over to get both legs hanging off the bed, ready to stand on my right leg. How I stay balanced while I twist myself on the ball of my good foot to get into position over the commode and gently ease myself onto it. All attended by one or more of the CNAs, of course. There’s no room for assumption or hasty moves. Meanwhile, a physical therapist named Jim comes in several times a day to get me to hop on my good leg using a hybrid walker with an arm rest on the left side. There’s some kind of discussion about whether I will go upstairs to the celebrated Tower 6 Physical Therapy Unit or get shipped out to a rehab nursing facility. All depends on my insurance, plus what I can do on that walker. In fact, I believe every single thing that happens is preceded by a conversation between the hospital and my insurance. I pray to be able to go upstairs. Then I blow them all away by hopping with the walker, Jim at my side, from my bed all the way out into the hallway and back, which is about 80 feet. Five days after I’ve arrived, the medical director of Tower 6 stops by to introduce himself. My insurance has cleared me to move upstairs… I’m in!  Always try and remember to wear a bra. You never know what can happen. It’s a warm Friday afternoon in early September. We’re in full renovation mode, hurrying to finish the kitchen of our small cottage before the weather turns. Every move we make seems to open a new can of worms. Wayne’s inside doing some research while I’m up on the roof, doing my yearly cleaning of the chimney pipe when I notice a tiny spot from the installation of the bubble for the solar tube that I'd like to touch up with silicone. I climb back down the ladder to get some. Then I start back up the ladder. I’ve used this aluminum ladder for years. It came with the house. Going up to the roof has always included leveling the ladder, jumping up and down on the first rung to test it, then taking several careful steps up the rungs until I can place my left hand onto the sloping part of the porch roof for support. The difference this time is that the ladder is on a 4’ x 8’ piece of fiberboard left over when the contractor brought the new kitchen appliances onto the back porch. Since I’ve already been up and down a couple of times, I figure it’s okay. Big mistake. Several rungs up, a split second before my arm reaches the safety place, the ladder abruptly slides out from under me backwards. “Oh my God, oh my God!” I cry as I fall. I feel myself twisting and bumping my head, my nose rubbing against wood, and add, “I’m dead, I’m dead!” I land in a patch of periwinkle, dry sticks and dirt, perpendicular to the ladder with my legs stuck under the fiberboard. I’m still trying to work this landing out in my mind. Did thirty years of aikido falls, many of them aerial, have something to do with it? Was I trying to flip myself to a safe place? Maybe. Wayne rushes out from the kitchen. “Are you okay?” I look down and see that my left thigh is somewhat misshapen, and my left wrist is bent at an appalling angle. “Should I try and pull you out?” he asks, beginning to put his hands under my shoulders. “No, this looks really bad,” I grunt through my teeth. “I think we’re going to have to call 911.” While Wayne goes inside to get the phone I wiggle my toes and fingers, relieved to feel sensation in them. My head and back feel okay, too. My poor husband. He doesn’t come from a medical family like I do, plus he struggles with anxiety/depression, a veritable taffy-pull of emotions under stress. But I hear him speaking with the 911 dispatcher and he sounds confident before ringing off. “Honey,” I call from my spot in the periwinkle, “can you please load a pipe and bring it out here? I think I’m going to need it.” Several minutes later my pain is reduced by that great, naturally medicinal Oregon pain reliever which has become legal. “Can I at least lift the fiberboard off ?” Wayne asks. I nod, and he gently picks up one end, exposing my feet. He upends the fiberboard and carries it off. The Talent-Phoenix Fire Department arrives shortly after that. “Brian, I’d like you to meet my wife, Leanne,” Wayne says to the first one who comes around the back of the house. They survey the situation, ask me about my head and back, what day it is, where I think I am and who is the President, all which I answer correctly. They call an ambulance. I’m making jokes now, resigned to my injury. I can’t help it. That’s how I was raised to deal with trauma. My father was a doctor. We always cracked jokes to relieve tension. The EMTs arrive moments later. “Don’t worry, we’ve got some great drugs,” they assure me. “Whoa, go easy at first,” I say. “I’m not used to the hard stuff.” By now the afternoon sun is beating down on us in the backyard. My nose is covered in blood on the outside and a fly keeps trying to land in it. They splint my left arm. The hard part will be straightening my leg to get a splint on it. I can feel the bones in my thigh shifting and bumping around. I’m morphine-infused now, so each time they shift me I try to relax into the new position. “Am I in shock?” I ask. “No,” Brenda, the female EMT answers. Wayne returns with some big pieces of cardboard and holds them over us, shielding us from the sun. “Isn’t my husband the greatest?” I drawl. It takes a little while to get the splint to fit me, but they finally do. I shriek as I’m lifted out. They set me on the stretcher, strap me in and we’re off. No one’s watching when I grab the fly, who has successfully landed on my bloody nose, and throw it into the periwinkle. Being carried on my back through our backyard is dizzying and scary, but I have the presence of mind to call out to Sofie, our shy tuxedo cat holed up in my office, “I’m okay, Sofie! I’ll be back soon!” I’ve been here since 2002. Totally on my own until 2009, when Wayne moved up here from Texas. I’ve painted both buildings, cut my own firewood for the wood stove with a chainsaw, and performed a number of other property-maintenance duties (such as climbing up on the roof dozens of times). I never once slipped or got hurt. As they load me into the ambulance I look out at the oak trees and breathe a deep sigh of gratitude to my property for protecting me during all those years I was here alone. Wayne ducks in the side door to tell me that he will be right behind us. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “Don’t worry,” he says, kissing me. They close the doors and I looked up at the female EMT attending me. “Is it okay if we don’t turn on the siren?” The trees over our road fly by. I briefly wonder how an accident like this will impact our kitchen renovation and our finances at large, then forget about it. Apparently morphine doesn’t take the pain away as much as it makes you not care about things. When we arrive at the hospital they slide the gurney out from the ambulance and everything begins to spin. Contrary to my drug-induced joviality a few minutes ago, I’m instantly terrified. The only thing I can think to do is mentally call out to my late father, the doctor, to please come and be with me. “Dad! I’m really, really scared!”  What they saw... Moments later I’m in the ER. My insurance policy has satisfied them, and they began to x-ray me right there on the table. Moments after that several other friends arrive.
“What the hell were you doing on the roof anyway?” they ask. “Hey, it’s me, remember?” Sigh… I tell the doctor to just cut my funky old work clothes off. I was going to throw them away after today anyway. They all look at my x-rays, but I can’t. It’s enough just to see my husband and friends looking at them, shaking their heads and gasping in disbelief. Apparently I’ve shattered my left femur and broken and dislocated my left wrist. Moments later a surgeon arrives. “We can fix this,” he tells us. “We’ll get you walking again in six months. You’re lucky. When this happened in the past, people usually just died.” Walking in six months?!? You don’t understand! I have a season pass at Mt. Ashland! They take me up to my room on the 5th floor, where another painful, teeth-gritting transfer to my bed takes place. Wayne helps me get settled. This purports to be a difficult evening. I’m not allowed to have anything more than a few pieces of ice to suck on, I’m very high on drugs and seriously bewildered. Strangely enough, the one image that keeps reoccurring in my mind is the little purple raspberry icon from Candy Crush Saga, like the very simplest of mandalas designed to keep me distracted. After Wayne leaves, a young male nurse comes in and carefully asks my permission to wash me. Twigs and leaf bits are still clinging to my hair, and I’m too terrified to even try to move, but I say yes. Then, during an attempt to turn me onto one side to wash my back, I finally burst into tears, crying, “I can’t, I can’t!” The nurse holds me for a moment, and then manages to reach under me and sponge my back. Afterwards, I throw up. They have these new throw-up bags that are more reminiscent of airline sickness bags, where you can just hold it over your mouth and not spill any. A visiting nurse tells me, “I want you to remember two things: Brush your teeth after each meal, and breathe in deeply through your nose and out your mouth and often as you can.” I attempt to use a bed pan and fail miserably. Trying to fit a plastic tray 3” deep under my sagging, middle-aged butt with just one hand while being scared to roll even 1” over to my bad side, then lying there waiting for something to happen… not a chance. So they hook me up to a “foley,” which is another word for catheter. There isn’t much sleep to be had in the hospital, as people come into the room every hour at least, to check on me. Plus I’m on major pain killers with an IV needle in my right hand. But they have warm blankets! Terrified and alone in a hospital, these warmed-up blankets calm my nerves and keep me from bottoming out completely. The next morning they wheel me down to the operating room and I have a fleeting image of meeting the anesthesiologist. My needs are basic: All I have to do is get through this and I can get more water. Then… I’m in the recovery room. “Water! Water!” I think I’m yelling, and wonder why the nurses are going about their business, ignoring me. Most likely they just don’t hear me due to my cry actually being a faint sigh. Soon I get a tiny amount of water. My wrist is splinted and bandaged but there’s no cast on my left leg. Eventually they wheel me back to my room where I get more water! I guzzle it gratefully, then promptly throw it up. Later I wake up to Wayne quietly decorating my room. I look at the clock and see that it’s 7 p.m.! “Long surgery,” he tells me. "Nearly six hours." He’s brought a framed picture of my father and placed it on a shelf overlooking my bed. Then he pins our Cat Identifier poster I made for the cat-sitters, with pictures and short descriptions of all our cats onto the bulletin board. Several friends have stopped by during the day, leaving an array of flowers and candy. I doze off… |
Here's where I expound on whatever I'm passionate about at the time. I welcome your comments, as long as you're not hateful, a terrorist, or attempting to pedal work-at-home offers.
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