Anesthesia

I am awakened before 6a.m. by a nurse, who tells me it’s time to  have my Proviodine bath prior to surgery. I have only slept a few hours because of anxiety and weird hospital noises, despite the sleeping pills, which are dispensed like candy. My aluminum crutches seem to be making an awful racket in the still deserted hallway of cold tile. The nurse has left me towels, wash cloth and a bottle of that orange, sticky disinfectant that looks and smells like old cough syrup. I scrub from head to toe, as I did last night in the hospital shower. My hair is going to look like hell tomorrow, but that’s the least of my worries.
The tub-room looks out over the frozen city. Dawn has not yet crept over the January streets of Montreal. I imagine all the workers trudging through the slush on the dark streets down below, as I had done too only days before. The warmth of the water is reassuring, and I would like nothing better than to float awhile longer, but other patients need their bath too. I happen to be first on the hit-list.
Now I have an hour and a half to count down. If I could at least eat something it might help to pass the time, but I must be fasting. So I just stare at a crossword puzzle for most of the wait, pencil poised for action but hand remaining still.
The blue hospital gown they have given me is too small. It must belong to an eight-year-old. Experience has taught me how to tie these ridiculous open-back gowns so that my ass doesn’t show, but there is nothing I can do about the length. Just don’t bend over!
Soon enough the O.R. gurney’s wheels are heading my way. The ward has forgotten to give me the Vallium they keep promising, though they remember to order me to pee, several times. I pretend to on the second and third requests, to please the nurses and for something to do. And away we go!
My stainless-steel chariot is parallel parked outside the operating theaters, along with all the other lucky contestants lined up. A nurse hands me a shower cap that matches her own. I ask her where she was when I really needed the headgear before my flea bath. I count the holes in the white ceiling tiles while eavesdropping on two boring and pretentious surgical residents scrubbing up at the pedal sink.
A nurse with a kind face notices my uncontrollable teeth chattering and gets me a blanket just out of the warmer. Steam is rising,yet I do not find it affords much comfort.
This was to be #6 of 9 surgeries, trying to fix the damage done in the first. This was the biggest, the most painful, most technically difficult with the most risk of complications, and hopefully the most life-transforming.
They would cut off the ends of the bones forming my right knee joint and replace the void with titanium metal and Teflon plastics. The leftovers of my skeleton would be added to those of cadavers to be ground into a cement-paste to patch up the living bones of cancer or accident victims in want of repair. Medicine has a sense of humor unto itself.
What if they cut off too much, the circular saw slips? What if I can feel the pounding of chisel and hammer? What if...?
I realize that both the temperature and anxiety are equally to blame for the teeth chattering.
What’s the hold up? I stretch my head backwards to scan the scene upside-down, like when I was a kid. “A kid is a baby goat”, my grade 2 teacher would say.
Once in the O.R., they transfer me to the operating table and strap me down with a seat belt. I laugh, nervously, and then they do too. Their faces are masked, only the windows to their souls show as they start an intravenous line in my hand. It takes two of them, as they have trouble due to my cold-constricted veins. Electrodes are attached to my chest and a blood-pressure cuff to my other arm.
I visually search the machines around me, praying that they don’t malfunction. I try searching the eyes of the scurrying staff, wondering if they are all competent. Did a romantic spat or a puking kid keep them from a restful sleep last night? Are they working a double shift? Did they graduate last in their class? Do any of them take the drugs they are supposed to inject into patients, ...? 
Off to “la-la land” for me, they say. Like a sleep without dreaming; no concept of time, just lost hours, forever.       
                                                                                                    

I spy the syringe lying on a stand nearby- I did not notice its preparation. I yearn to double-check the name and dose of the medication, but I’m bound and tethered. Too late... 
Like a curare dart, the sweet poison is injected into the i.v.. It  travels up the vein towards my heart, where it is pumped to the arteries and the capillaries beyond. I can feel it circulate. As it reaches the cells of my mouth I can taste the now familiar metallic-garlic taste, and it will soon be “lights-out”.
But something is different than the other times. Something is wrong. I think they have given me too much of the sleeping potion, I think they have given me the dosage for the 300-pound-man next in line. I struggle to tell them, but cannot speak for I am already paralyzed, though still conscious. I quickly resolve to die in peace; there is no point in wasting my last moments lamenting over it. What’s done is done. Just release...
I have the sensation that I am a falling tree, roots still gripping the soil, but my trunk is speeding faster and faster backwards towards the damp and dark rain-forest floor. I can hear the horrible crashing and splitting sounds as I shear the limbs off other trees around me on my trajectory to earth. They are screaming.
I am aware of the powerfulness of the destruction, but can feel none of it. My body is already down and frozen stiff, but my soul is suddenly slammed on its back, into unconsciousness. Bitter-sweet anesthesia.

Screwed (and Tattooed)

Jesus was nailed
but I’m screwed to my cross.

Screws have threads that bite
and hold the bone.  
Stripped now are the heads;
the metal has become my own.                   

Fixated on primitive defenses,
body confused, knows not what it needs.
Too weak to ever conquer metal and plastic,
on the bone itself, it feeds.

Corrosion stains surrounding tissue black
while monocyte soldiers fight
to turn perceived enemies back.

Joints that are healthy are rarely even felt
but ache and complain miserably
when they begin to grind and melt.

A quagmire,
no solid place to bear the load.
The weight of a life lived well;
I’m screwed, trying to walk this slippery, shifting road.

Red rose was planted to cover the spot
an attempt to grow beauty, to hide the rot.
But beauty existed before the petals,
before the scars and screws;
before the thorns and metals.

Blue and Green

Sky so blue, so clear

Wind crisp and light

The trees dance with the sunshine

Swaying with green delight.          

Or is it a constant fear of

Falling apart in a storm 

That makes them tremble with fright ?

Your two skies are a moody blue,

Like the calm river surface

With the murderous current beneath

They gaze upon me, with love? concern? affection?

See me, and feel our unique connection

I can only know my skies from the inside

Looking out. But I like what I see.

Monocular vision they say

Flat and one-dimensional , like

These words I lay on the page.

With much love? concern? affection?

Growing stronger with age.

Our roots run long and reach deep,

These trees and you & I.

Don’t want to have to say goodbye.

Let’s weather the storms together

With much love, concern, affection.

p.s. Je t’aime toujours

Just Breathe

My boys, Simon and Will, started back to school this week after a quiet and uneventful summer. Friday night after supper I thought we could go get some ice-cream as a treat.

While I cleaned up the kitchen, my husband was relaxing and watching the news, after a full week of frustration at a job that does not deserve his many talents.

The kids had been playing outside, riding their bikes and scooters, hide-and-seek, frisbee, whatever ; trying to squeeze the last delicious drops out of summer.  When I went to get them, however, the street was now deserted. I asked their father if they had asked permission to go to the park or to a friend's house, but he said they had not.

So I set out for a walk around the neighborhood to find them, thinking at each corner I would meet them, or hear them laughing down the bike path, or spy them across the soccer field at the park, playing on the jungle-gym. No such luck.

Meanwhile, as I had been out looking for about 45 minutes, my husband was calling around to 4 friend's places, but the kids were not there either, and there was no answer at the 4th house. It was starting to get dark.

We got in the car to go search some more. We left a note and told the girl next door that if the boys returned, we wanted them to stay put.  Anyway, after driving around a bit frantic in the dark, and getting more worried and angry at the same time, and stopping people to ask if they saw the 2 little freaks, we returned home, relieved to find them standing on the corner waiting for us.

The oldest, 11, was crying and saying  how sorry he was. The youngest, 8, was trying to blame his "big brother", who is actually about 6 inches shorter than "little brother". Apparently, each thought the other had came to tell us they were going with a buddy who had arrived on his bike, unbeknownst to us, and whom we had not thought of calling. This friend has Asperger's syndrome, and thus does not always have the best judgement in social interactions.
A good lesson on clear communication for all involved; something we parents are still working on.

The real problem is that our oldest has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease that will progressively see him become a quadrapalegic as each muscle of his little body gives up. We try to balance Simon's current sense of freedom and respons(ability) with his safety.  We want him to experience these thrilling moments of adventure while he still can, as one day he will surely be dependent on others for every activity of life.

All the talk in Buddhism about breathing makes me laugh with the irony, as Simon will most likely have to make the decision to be hooked to a respirator in order to continue living into his 20’s, his very manhood.  

Just breathe ... indeed.

I don't tell our story to make anybody cry, as I rarely do myself (anymore), or for sympathy. It just puts things into perspective for me, and helps me to think about others who are struggling in all the multitude of ways possible. I think my husband and I have always been the type rooting for the under-dogs of this world.

I worry that Simon won't experience the great joys of life, like the love of a romantic partner, getting his driver's license, or being a father to his own kids. I am scared of rejection by his peers, not feeling like a worthy member of society, unemployment, depression, etc. You name it, I worry about it. That's just my Mother Nature, for both these children who had to be cut out of my body in order to be given up to this world.

At the same time, it allows me to appreciate the immediate little joys of the everyday, like learning to ride a bike without training wheels, or listening to him laugh his uncontrollable and infectious laugh at a silly movie or at Jackass stunts, or enjoying a tasty peach with the juice running off his elbows. As nasty as his disease is, I feel it is important for him to know about the hardships others face, such as drought and famine, abuse, accidents, illness, war... Maybe we go overboard sometimes. I know I go overboard sometimes.

We are learning to "not sweat the small stuff", or trying, anyway. We are all stumbling, falling and getting back up to expose our bruises to the next punch that life throws our way.

I find that breathing gives me the time needed to find my patience. Somedays it is really buried deep. And I agree with my poet friend John O. , that it's easier at times to have patience for other people's children than it is for our own, I guess due to expectations and how it reflects back on us.

Just breathe...