Duality

There is a ME
That YOU can't see.
It's the WHO that I used to be.

SHE is fast, lean and strong.
I, however, am stubby, crooked and all wrong.

ME still wants to skate, run and jump.
I instead rhyme bad poems while sitting on MY big white rump.

I know SHE is still there, our thoughts are often one and the same.
But when SHE glimpses MY reflection in the mirror, in HER eyes I see the shame.

Better for ME to hide in plain sight.
Create an optical illusion, right?
Pretend and deny that SHE was ever I.

Visitor

Some time in early August, I awoke to the most peaceful and "right" feeling I have ever experienced. It was the ultimate wake-up call.

The Children's burn unit ventilation was constantly acclimatized for temperature and the air flow regulated for infection control purposes, and I was often chilly. This, and fever, lead to shivery day-dreams of hot summer sun against blue sky, of sitting on the grass eating a perfectly ripe peach with juice running down my arms and dripping off my elbows. After one of my very wet bed-baths, Muriel and Suzanne would turn on the over-head infrared heat lamps to chase my chills.

But this night I was welcomed by the most gentle, enveloping warmth imaginable. Every cell in my body was infused with it.
I was on my right side, facing the wall and the counter where I had accumulated the daily necessities within reach since I had not left my hospital bed in about 3 weeks;  toilet paper, magazines, tooth brush, peanut butter, notepad and pencil to mark off the days like a jailed convict, plus the medical supplies. I could only maintain that position by holding on to the bed rail and having my left leg scissored over and in front of the barbecued right one, as any pressure caused it to scream out in pain. The staples holding the skin grafts in place were constantly uncomfortable,  and the section of calf muscle that had been cut and pulled up to fill the cavity left in the joint was an extremely bizarre feeling and still causing me stomach-turning cramps.

My eyes opened to perceive rays of light of every possible color, emanating from a source over my emaciated shoulder, behind me. I was able to turn my head and upper body just enough to see him, sitting in the chair beside my bed.
It was not surprise that I felt, but an acceptance, a deep knowing, that he had always been there. I think it's what Oprah would call "an AHA moment".
My Papa Cleary died when I was 12 from pneumonia after the flu. It is from him that I inherited green eyes and prematurely white hair, a love of words and laughing at ourselves. And yet, there he sat.
We chatted while he rolled and smoked a cigarette. In life I had never known him to have smoked. He told me about Father, who up until that moment had been a closed book, a closed mouth. He told me how being the middle boy of three had been hard on him, how his mother's sickness and death from colon and stomach cancer while her children were still young had affected him, molded him into a man that could not show affection to the children in his life beyond the age he had been when he lost his own mother. Recounted the times he took "Buddy" to work with him instead of sending the dyslexic and dejected lad to the one room school house.
Papa told me to go easy on my father, that the reason he had barely visited me in hospital was because he was afraid of doctors and diagnoses because of how deeply hurt he had been as a boy. And here I was, representing everything that scared the living shit out of Father.

Struggling with the physical exertion of my Cirque de Soleil pose, Papa told me it was alright to turn back towards the wall, that it didn't make it any less real if I could not see him. And so I turned my back to him, but only physically, for my heart thirsted for this refreshing drink of knowledge he offered.
Next he told me of things astral, said that it was really my grand-mother, his wife, Gladys, who was "watching over me". Since she died when my father was 11 or so, I had never met her and knew her image only from a few photographs. The dear souls worried that I would freak out and question my own sanity if she appeared, dismiss the message as a mere hallucination. And so it was Papa who came to visit.

He told me it wasn't my time yet, that I had more important things to do. He said I'd get sicker, much sicker, and that I'd want to give up, but that I had to hold on. So I did.

"Sicker" meant blood poisoning with an infection circulating throughout my body, which settled back in the knee joint, causing septic arthritis and bone infection. I continued on daily iv antibiotics for a further 6 months once I was able to leave the hospital on the night before my 17th birthday in October.

Wearing a full leg brace for support, I had to relearn how to walk while catching up with my missed course work and manoeuvring, on crutches, a 2-storey school that had no elevator. I had lost 40 pounds and had no energy to spare beyond sheer survival. To say I was exhausted some days is an understatement. I can remember lying in bed one morning that winter and not being able to get up. I just cried. Yes, my whole life had changed and none of it had been by choice, but  I felt guilty for years about being that weak, about breaking down in tears. Wuss.

And so I just got on with life and plowed ahead, as was expected of me, with my comfortable blinders on. It's just easier that way.

Or so I thought.

Wrong again.

Hold On

It's Saturday and Mother is coming to pick me up. The Queen E says they will discharge me around noon, giving time for a dressing change and instructions on pain meds, home exercises and such.

I'll return next Tuesday and Thursday for physio, and we are to visit the surgical clinic prior to physio on Tuesday morning for a dressing change. Thursday I have a follow-up appointment after physio to see the surgeon, Dr. "2-Minute Mitch" Rubinovich. Apparently his secretary should be calling soon with  info about allergy testing, since I have reacted so strongly to the Proviodine. Believing this is mistake #2 from a laundry list of mistakes.

It's a new nurse this morning that arrives all grins for my bandage change. Smiley whips the curtains closed, dons gloves and sets to work. The stretched, blistered skin peels off with the gauze to reveal a pink/red/yellow oozy looking wet mess all down the inside of my calf muscle, which she says is healing nicely. Really?
The dime sized black spot right below the knee joint has now at least quadrupled in size within the last 24 hours. I feel absolutely no sensation as she attempts to rub it away with sterile saline and swabs. I sit up to examine this spot which has been insidiously growing while I ate prunes and porridge for breakfast;  made my way to the cigarette-smoke-filled tv room/solarium to witness Oliver North squirm during the never-ending Iran-Contra coverage; read Margaret Atwood from the Can-lit shelf I had stumbled upon at the school library and turned 3 shades of red when The Rez came by just to say hello. Geez he's cute!

The desiccated waxy spot has the appearance of a black tea-light candle with a crack running right down the middle, with this new string wick which has emerged in the center. If I had some matches or a lighter I think I might try to light it. My eyes tell me that this is  obviously a part of me, yet my brain answers "NO!". My stomach roils and churns.
I tell Happy Nurse that I cannot feel "the spot" at all and that it has gotten bigger since yesterday, a lot bigger. Her smile changes a bit as she starts to take a closer look too. I ask her what the "wick" might be, and she says she thinks it's a stitch. True enough, there should be a stitched incision running crossways below my inner knee about 2 inches long where the lower part of the Teflon rope ligament was stapled to the bone, but where is it? Just this one lone stitch in a parched puddle of dark mud. She happily shrugs and tells me to show it to the doc at the surgical clinic on Tuesday, and hands me my home-physio plan.
I pretend to listen to my Walkman to avoid having to talk to my roomate. There is no A/C in this ancient building. The triple whammy of humid heat, pain meds and lack of sleep due to the interesting night life in this place causes me to fall into a shallow nap. Lights out.

Though I sit sideways in the back-seat with my legs up for the 52 mile-ride home , my right foot and ankle are swollen in a cartoonish way by the time we get there. I begin to refer to it as my Miss Piggy foot, though I suppose Piggy would have hooves. Even each toe is a swollen little purplish sausage.
My weekend is mostly spent on the couch, with our ancient little-fart-of-a-dog with the breath to match, Rags, worriedly coming to check on me every hour, between his naps.
When my grandparents visit on Sunday, there is the usual 30-car-long, impatient procession trailing their's, as Papa guides his big brown boat-of-a-car at half the speed limit along the hilly road that does not give many chances to pass. This old retired dairy-farmer thinks he is still driving his rusty-red International tractor.
Gramma has made a cake, so I carefully make my way down the porch steps on my crutches, trying to avoid Rags who is tap-dancing with happiness and the possibility of some dropped cake. The green lawn is meticulously tended by Father. Yard work seems to be his only hobby. That and smoking his pipe.
My brother shows up in his patch-work-quilt of a car, with his 2 kids who can't seem to figure out why "Aunt Annie" can't run and rough-house with them as I always have. Despite the warnings from my mother, 3-year-old John-John jumps onto the chaise-lounge and into my lap, narrowly missing kicking me in the leg with his little canvas sneakers. 5-year-old Bobbie-Ann is more mindful of my "bobo" and gently sits on the arm of my chair to snuggle. How I love these two little blonde beings with their sun-bronzed skin, arms and legs covered with a light peach fuzz. It's good to be home.

It's Tuesday and we are headed back to Montreal for our appointments. At the surgical clinic I hop up on the gurney and a nurse cuts off the bandages. Under the flesh colored Ace bandage some golden seepage of fluid with a ring of  pinky-red around the edge can be seen through the gauze. The new, raw skin where the blister was is now an angry red with minute bleeding. There is a fine white/cream colored substance marbled over the surface, like a good steak at the butchers. Invisible air currents are causing a slightly painful tingling and I'm suddenly cold. The black tea-light has become even drier, having pulled away from the surrounding tissue at several areas around its edge. Mothers blinks and her eyes grow wider as she has never witnessed my post-surgery wound or "allergic reaction". The nurse says I need to see a doctor, and goes off in search of one. I lie back and count the water-mark stains on the dropped tiled ceiling.
Mother keeps checking her watch and muttering that we will be late for my physio appointment upstairs. She also wants to get to the Bouclair store for a material sale. I am starting to think that is the least of our worries.
Almost in one motion, the doctor enters, introduces himself, puts on sterile gloves, takes a quick history and asks me to lie back down so that he may examine my leg and is asking me, "Can you feel this? And this? How about now?"
What is he talking about? I don't understand. Sometimes I can feel a sharp little barb, and other times nothing. I sit up and see him jabbing my wound with a small, shiny silver object. I can't believe it when my brain registers a needle in his hand. He is probing my wound with a needle!

The word "burn" is said for the first time. Incredulous, Mother booms out, "Burn?" Why does she have to be so loud? It's embarrassing.
Second degree where the nerves are still alive, I can feel that. 3rd degree where the nerves are dead, I cannot. I think I am going to puke.
The surgical pair disappear behind the curtain. I ask Mother what they are talking about, and she shakes her head and checks her watch. The couple return with another doctor and the needle trick is performed again for this new member of the audience. There is a discussion and new words fly by; "silver dressings", "Flamazine", "broad spectrum", "4th degree", "plastics consult","eschar", "debridement", "split-thickness skin-graft", etc.

This feels very, very wrong. A switch has been flicked; something has shifted. This is not happening to the girl in the Sunday night movie-of-the-week.  I feel caught in a bad dream, but there is a lucidity to it all, telling me "This IS reality. This is happening to ME."
But what has happened?

Eventually, details close enough to the truth emerged, though I still don't know exactly what happened since I was unconscious and paralyzed by general anesthesia on an operating table. Numb and dumb to the world.
My surgery had been scheduled as the first one of the day. They had woken me early to have yet another antiseptic scrub in the shower with a sponge impregnated with iodine. With time to kill before surgery, but not allowed to eat or drink, a Word-find puzzle was my distraction. The nurse said she'd get me a Valium, but she never came back with one, despite returning several times to demand that I go urinate.  I didn't need to, but I tried just to please her. I thought I might like to become a nurse too.
Around 8am, already a half-hour late, the nurse came in and told me my surgery had to be postponed because there was a problem with the consent forms that had been signed by me the day before, upon admission. Though I was 16 years old, and the age for medical consent in Quebec is 14, I was now being told that one of my parents had to sign instead. We had asked several times before putting pen to paper with my signature, reminding the staff of this adult hospital of my age, and all said it was fine. Mother arrived within an hour of the long-distance call made to her, pleased with the record time she had made on the autoroute. In retrospect, if only she had gotten pulled over for speeding or had a flat...but then hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?
I was finally wheeled away around one thirty in the afternoon, having to sit through the smells of 2 meal trays wrongly delivered to my bedside table. Never one for waste, Mother ate my breakfast and lunch instead.
I remember joking with the surgeon as the O.R. staff finalized the preparation of the room, confirmed which leg was slated for the scalpel. "Mitch" is Jewish, had a beard and one slight wall-eye, and I was not quite sure where to look. He reminded me of Michael Douglas in Coma or Running, and wanted to get me back on the volley and basket-ball court. He said he would be performing a new surgical procedure using a fiber optic arthroscope. He said it would be less invasive, easier to rehabilitate from. And I believed him, put my trust in THEM.
Lights out.
The plastic surgery experts agreed that I had suffered a 2nd, 3rd and one spot of 4th degree electrical burn during that surgery, probably from the Bovey cautery tool and someone forgetting to ground my body. And the O.R. staff knew something happened, because on August 10th, at another institution,while undergoing my 4th of 7 surgeries that summer and autumn, it was discovered that the first surgery had never been completed. The Teflon ligament had never even been stapled in place, and the joint was still full of bone dust and chips from the drill holes. They had simply wrapped up my leg and sent me back to my room as though nothing had happened. Allowed my attempt at sleep that night while burned nerve endings in my calf muscle cried out with wild electrical shocks of their own, some living, some perishing. Allowed at least a cup of fluid to drain out of my circulatory system into a blister, guaranteeing that I would faint the next morning with low blood pressure; to bash my already traumatized knee against hard wall; my skull against hard floor. Passed off THEIR human error as MY allergic reaction. Told that the early signs of the stiffness and pain of arthritis were due to my laziness. Questioning my pleading for narcotics for dressing changes while they inflicted a secondary chemical burn on top of the electrical one, while secretly trying to provide inexperienced burn care with an inadequately diluted "1 in 4" javel solution for "wet-to-dry" dressings, which should have been at least 1 in 16, preferably 1 in 32.  Allowing student nurses, only a year or 2 older than I was, to practice on me. Wet-to-dry dressings are reminiscent of ancient torture, of the stretching-rack variety.
And yet not one of the witnesses came forward.
My nausea must have been due to anorexia nervosa or Edible Woman egg-foetus stories, not rising toxic wastes from failing kidneys forced to pass protein released from my dead tissues. Not one bothered questioning that the reason I was downing jug after jug of water was because the male x-ray tech performing the gallium bone scan had said that I should flush out my system of the radioactive dye if I ever wanted to have children. Allowing over-heard talk of an over-emotional teenaged girl, not one understandably crying from exhaustion and being so dizzy she could not keep her eyes open for more than a second without throwing up. Using a hole-saw to remove my charcoal tea-light and leaving a 2-inch by one inch deep gaping hole directly into my knee joint, like they were installing a door knob and had borrowed the instrument from the maintenance department.The hole allowed synovial fluid to squirt out when a physiotherapist  bent my leg while I laughed an insane laugh because I could not cry anymore.  Moving me from the orthopedic ward to the terminal cancer ward, letting my open wound to be fanned by the same germ-ridden air that wafted across human solid waste dripped across the floor on the way to the toilet by my dying roommate with rotted intestines. Or how about the old one-legged man who cruised the corridors all night in his wheelchair, who tried to climb into bed with me?
Mother had me transferred to an isolation room in the burn unit at the Children's, but it was almost too late.
I cried with hot shame every time I wet the bed with the urgency of urination so out of control, not able to lift my buttocks off the mattress enough to clear the edge of the bedpan because it felt like my femur was in a vice. Turning the old saying, "No skin off my ass" into another medical irony as squares of split-thickness epidermis were harvested from my left butt to be used as skin grafts on my right leg.
Yet, there was also laughter in those darkest days. My day nurse Suzanne, trying to remove bandage adhesive (to which I actually WAS allergic) with acetone from the itchy rash that had appeared around the skin donor sight, then gently drying my ass cheek with a hair dryer, praying aloud that I not fart and blow us both up. She instilled in me that I could say no to anything suggested, even tell the docs to go to hell if I felt the need.
Acadian Murielle, my evening nurse, always smiling and with a little joke no matter how tired she was with a little boy of her own at home. The rough night nurse, well she was another story, but I did get a private chuckle when I puked on her shoes. Oops.
There's talk that Dr. 2-Minute Mitch has quite the reputation as a party animal, and that the whole consent form fiasco and surgery delay could have been an attempt to buy some time and have him sober up, or come down from his previous day's St-Jean-Baptiste festivities. Who knows? He was being sued by 2 other patients, or their families, since one of them had died when his blood clot symptoms were ignored.

There was also a disturbing instance when 3 young plastic surgery interns or residents suddenly needed a consent form signed by me while I was in the tub room, having a bath in the stainless steel vessel lined with a gigantic plastic bag, where I was to scrub off eschar from the burn surface in preparation for skin grafting. They entered AS they knocked, and Murielle was just able to squeeze in beside them and throw me a small towel to cover my front half. The 3 Stooges stood smirking and elbowing each other, staring at my skeletal body. I had lost 35 pounds, and they had all lost their pens for the urgent signature. I believe Suzanne made a complaint against them on my behalf when Murielle recounted what had happened.
This girl, in so much physical pain from blood, bone and joint infection, was making desperate deals with God to just get her through, be able to endure the excruciating pressure of purulent pus until the next injection of pain killer was due. Mercifully, either one of them gave me "accidently on purpose" too much morphine, or it built up in my system, but there was a 24-hour period of relief where I did nothing but sleep.
Days and weeks had turned into months. I longed to sleep in my own bed at home.
The Friday night of Labor Day long weekend, my Cosby Show, which I listened to with eyes closed due to extreme vertigo, was rudely interrupted by an emergency surgery to evacuate the abcess that had formed in the joint. My temperature had spiked to 41 degrees C. They left drains in, irrigating with saline, and a pump to pull it all back out again. My friends prepared to start grade 11, our last year of high school.
Then kidneys too damaged to function at all, gone as dry as a well in a drought. They couldn't tell if the renal failure was possibly due to the very strong new antibiotics used against my hospital acquired resistant bugs and staving off amputation, or due to the circulatory collapse and rhabdomyolosis (muscle break-down) of the deep burn. The next day, Saturday, it was decided to withdraw all antibiotics as a last ditch effort to give the ol' beans a much needed rest before moving onto dialysis early in the week. My big burly mustachioed ortho surgeon, Wally "The Walrus" Masciuch, told my parents I had a good chance of dying by Monday, either from the infection or the acute renal failure.

But I didn't die.
He'd told me it wasn't my time yet, that I had more important things to do. He said I'd get sicker, much sicker, and that I'd want to give up, but that I had to hold on. So I did.

Reluctant Phoenix

"Cough, Andrea! Can you cough for us? Wake up! We need you to try! Cough!"
Why are they shouting at this Andrea person?
Why can't I open my eyes. I tried,  but the eyelids were instantly slammed shut by a light so bright it hurt.
Wait ... I think... I am Andrea?
I cough and clear my throat. Cheers erupt. Nervous laughter. "Good girl!" the voices say.
Glad to oblige.
"Go back to sleep now".
Okay. Lights out.

I wake up back in my sunny room. Mother is sitting in the corner reading a trashy novel. Blood pressure 120/72. A rose in a bud vase sits on the night-stand. A cup of water with a straw is offered at my dry lips. There is a gross orange colored, odd shaped stain on the curtain that separates me from my invisible, snoring roommate.
"They chipped my tooth", I report. "Why is my tooth chipped?"
A blue plastic kidney basin that I was not aware I was holding flies to my mouth in time to catch the clear contents of my retching stomach. My bandaged leg feels so heavy as it is bent up and down in the creeking continuous passive motion machine (CPM). I stare utterly uncomprehending at a paragraph of  The Edible Woman, one of a stack of books that I had borrowed last week from the school library for summer reading.

I wake up. It's darker now. Mother is gone. A nurse is giving me an injection in the thigh and telling me I have to ask for the medication earlier next time, before the pain gets too bad. Apparently, I've been moaning.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't know, I though I was sleeping". Have I said this out loud, or just in my head? Who gives a shit anyway, why won't they just let me sleep?

In the dark of night I keep waking up with the sensation of tiny springs wound up much too tight, exploding their uncontainable energy below my bandages, down my calf muscle. I can almost hear the sound. The CPM is covered with a synthetic sheep-skin, and by morning I have convinced myself it's the fake wool sheep swirls I am sensing through the bulky dressings. And this is what I tell Mother on the phone when she calls.

June 26th, 1987. It's the day after arthroscopic surgery to repair my torn anterior cruciate ligament. I'll be back burning up the basketball court before they know it. Back out on my white 10-speed, racing past Dean Clark's family farm out on the Branch Road, praying he waves at me again. Those freckles and  lopsided grin give me butterflies every time, though I can barely allow myself to glance at him each morning on the school bus. Must appear cool and aloof, despite the heat of my face.

Of course I passed Non-Weight Bearing Crutch Walking  101 with flying colors, but my physiotherapist had warned me that this morning I would need to sit up with my legs hanging over the edge of the bed for at least 5 minutes to have my blood pressure stable before attempting to stand upright. Always compliant, I do this for 10 minutes while enjoying the gentle sunshine streaming in through the large drafty windows. Each window has an internal venetian blind sandwiched between its panes of glass and operated by pulling on a small cord. Often the cord had broken, and the blind was left permanently useless, unreachable, forever more.

I feel great! I devoured my breakfast after having fasted for 36 hours as my surgery kept being postponed yesterday. I feel strong again, and most importantly, once I have recuperated and rehabilitated from this surgery, I will be back better than ever. My knee will not give out when least expected, to find myself sprawled on the floor or ground anymore, and I can get rid of the brace I have been wearing for the last few months. I joked with friends that I will be the Bionic Woman.
Nurse pops into the room to see how I am doing and check that I am not dizzy. She deems me fit for the journey and hands me the heavy wooden crutches that were propped in the corner. As she pushes the i.v. pole along side, I gingerly head to the bathroom. I have been holding in my pee since she removed the Foley catheter earlier this morning and my bladder is about to burst. Nurse guides me to the washroom door and tells me to "take it easy" and leaves the room.

Wow, that sun has really warmed up this space. I can feel a few rivulets of sweat roll down my back and ribs. The bathroom is small and dark. I reach for the light switch just inside the doorway, on the left. It's generic white hospital tile with a black rounded border and it smells of cleaning product and old piss.

I reach around behind myself to close the heavy wooden door and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I lean in closer to examine the damage I can feel on my teeth, but I suddenly can't find my face, all I can see is an ever growing grey then black blob obscuring my vision. Then the faintness and nausea hit like a rogue wave and I start to fall into the blackness. The crutches crash silently against the floor, for now my ears are filled only with the roaring of that tsunami trying to pull me under. I feel the pain of freshly cut flesh and drilled bone as my knee slams first into the wall, then the floor. I slide helplessly down into the narrow crevice between tiles and porcelain toilet, stopping only because that is where space ceases.
Thankfully, for I couldn't have done it intentionally in such a blind stupor, part of my flailing rag-doll body has set off the emergency call button above the toilet-paper holder, which is wailing inaudibly to my blood deprived ears. Vision slowly returning as I lie on the disgustingly refreshing cold, damp floor. Three alarmed faces at the door, nurses responding to the distress signal relayed directly to the nurse's station. Their mouths are moving in talk but I can't understand what they are saying over the thunderous surf in my head.
They manage to unwedge me from my ever so undignified throne and return me to bed where I am presented a cold cloth as my crown. As my sense of hearing returns I can catch snippets of their conversation. "Are you feeling better now, sweetie? Your i.v. ripped out.  Oh well, we were going to remove that soon anyway. Why are you crying?"

Am I crying? But I don't cry!

"Emotional teenager", discerned with a sigh and a roll of the eyes.
"You got up too fast, don't do that again!"
Right-o.

They take my temperature, blood pressure and get me some cold water to sip.
An injection of pain killer soon quiets the throbbing in my knee and the embarrassment in my head. Lights out.

Time to change the dressings. My nurse is gentle but rushed. She probably has too many other things to do before the end of her shift. The ACE elastic bandage is unraveled, the white mummy bandages are cut and the thick compression pad is tossed aside. She examines the incisions and sutures, irrigates and washes away the blood and yellow Proviodine antiseptic with sterile saline from a big bottle. I ask why one small spot the size of a dime is black and insensitive when she scrapes across it with the long Q-tip swabs, and she says it's just dried blood. From somewhere deep inside myself, I know this is not so. But I am 16 and this is my first surgery, so what do I know?
As she suspends my leg by the back of the ankle, ready to re-bandage one-handed, I catch a glimpse of a bright color along the back of my calf, peeking out from the remaining criss-crosses of white gauze.
I ask, "what is that?". She takes a quick look, ready to dismiss my concern, but instead does a double take. She peels off the remaining gauze to reveal what appears to be some of my own body tissue hanging off the back of my leg, from the knee right down to almost the heel. Whatever it is, it's a beautiful amber color, golden ambrosia.
"Holy shit!", the nurse exclaims. "I think it's a huge blister", she finally makes her slack jaw articulate. "Don't move, I have to call someone about this!", she orders as she rushes out of the room.
Okey-dokey.

A few minutes later, an orthopedic resident in his blue scrubs calmly enters my room, escorted closely by my freaking out R.N. who is babbling, "you won't believe the size of it".
They both don sterile gloves and the nurse gently raises my leg for the Rez to have a better look. His eyes grow wide and round and he now also utters the words-of-the-day: "holy shit!". I am now also inclined to be thinking: "holy shit!"
Rez admits that he is not sure what to do, and leaves to call for advice. I am left with my nurse who is staring at my leg, shaking her head in disbelief and telling me, "everything will be ok. We'll take care of this, alright?" I think she may wet her pants. Soon enough the Rez returns saying that he has contacted the surgeon by phone and was told that he was not surprised as small blisters appeared in the O.R. during the surgery and that I was having an allergic reaction to the Proviodine antiseptic solution. They were simply to drain the fluid from the giant blister using a sterile technique and bandage me back up and check on it again the next day. Mystery solved...until I ask why there would be such a reaction in one spot when the blood-orange solution is painted on from foot to hip. Silence.

On closer examination we discover that part of the fluid filled bubble had already burst spontaneously. The nurse is still able to draw off a cup of clear yellowish exudate with a large needle and syringe, which she and the Rez decide should be sent for culture "just in case". While the Rez keeps me distracted with a one-sided conversation of his sporting feats, she wraps me up again in layers of gauze and ace bandage, good as new.  The 3 of us, inexperienced surgeon in training, experienced but time-harried nurse, and clueless 16-year-old patient having her first real experience of the health care system, all heave a simultaneous sigh of relief.
That was our first mistake.

Winter Blues

It wasn’t for an eternity

Just a week or two
I’d misplaced my rose-coloured-glasses
The world was tinted blue.

Unwelcome certainties and uncertain worries

Seeped out from the walls.
Old grievances peered from under the rugs
And skittered down the halls.

 

Sheets and undies were washed and folded

Appointments were made, mouths were fed
The path was cleared of snow
Desires were satisfied in bed.

Thoughts too dull  for words to be written.

Soul was twice shy, once bitten.
Winter, you whispered sweet-nothings in my ear
Why couldn’t you tell me what I wanted to hear?

 

February knocked at the window,

The blue haze began to shift
The Sun’s spectrum burst from the snowdrops
Wrapped simple experience like a gift.

 

For it’s not those rosy old spectacles

That painted reality anew
It’s an open mind and heart
Somehow I always knew.

 

Hurry Up and Wait

Hurry up and wait,
You musn't be late!
There's a deadline to respect;
It's all cause and effect.
Now if you'd just stand in the line,
Everything will be fine.                          

Fill out this form and wait for our call.
Remember, no news is good news,
So kindly follow protocol.

There'll be no time for small print
Or rubbing temples with rue.          
Just sign on the dotted line,
It simply means you can't sue.

Take a number, have a seat,                              
Wait at the bar.
Take off all your clothes and slip on
This examination gown.
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Knee Jerk Reaction

When I was 19 I underwent a total knee replacement, and was one of the youngest patients to have ever done so. The events leading up to the necessity for that surgery are a whole story unto themselves, and for another day and time.

The operation was January 3^rd, 1990, a Wednesday.  Quite the way to start a decade, especially the last one of the century and the last of the millennium.

I had my hair cut pixie-short like Demi Moore in the movie Ghost. Since Ghost didn’t come out until that summer, one could fairly argue that Demi had her hair styled like mine. Yes, let’s say that, okay? I was always ahead of my time (or so far behind as to never catch up).

Most of Thursday was spent sleeping and barfing, General Anesthesia and I never having had an easy relationship.

By Friday morning I was able to eat a good breakfast, though my nurse wisely warned me not to even attempt the hard-boiled egg. Coffee never tasted so good or so warming, as I thanked the powers that be that my bed was not near the drafty, frigid window. Sheets had been folded and jammed onto the window ledge in an attempt to stop the sneaky cold from blowing in. My shivering Italian hospital roommate was discharged by noon, so I had the whole fabulous place to myself.

My urinary catheter was removed, which meant I was free to begin physiotherapy. To be tethered by one’s bladder is a strange notion and sensation. I performed a few simple exercises while still lying down, then the PT  got me up to sit in a chair while a funny orderly from The Islands changed the sheets on my bed and tried to make me laugh. It felt like an eternity, as the pain and strain covered me in a cold sweat and nausea again was knocking on my door. I was returned to bed where the pressure of swelling and the pounding of blood flow could be felt far beneath the wrap of white gauze and plaster cast. An injection of sweet morphine derivative and some lunch did the trick.  A nap soon beckoned as I stared at a crossword puzzle book, held upside-down.

I awoke around 2 p.m. to my day-nurse taking my vitals, as they had been every 4 hours, even during the night. My pulse was a bit fast she said, but since I had been startled awake, Mary^* said she would repeat it in a few minutes when I was calmer. I did feel rather agitated and had trouble concentrating on my novel; I kept rereading the same sentence and paragraph, over and over. The repeat pulse check was even higher that the first. The reading was recorded on the clipboard at the end of my bed. I had no fever, my white blood cell count from that morning was fine, so no signs of infection. Mary came twice more to take my pulse before her shift change at 4 p.m.. Conferring with the evening nurse, Mary and Nicole^* decided to page the surgeon, Dr. Rivers^* , who felt that it sounded like I was having a transfusion reaction from the 2 units of blood I had received during the surgery. They were to keep a close eye on me, continue taking my vitals every hour, and keeping track of my fluids in and out.

By supper time the heart in my body was pounding and I was hot from the internal workings, though still no signs of a temperature. My mind, however, was floating off, out to the middle of the ocean, where I hovered over refreshing  aqua green swells  close enough to touch. The Sears catalogue had a bedroom comforter set with the color they called (08)Sea Foam, and that was the exact color of my cooling waves.

To put it mildly, I was stoned out of my gourd. When I, that is Mind, would return to the Body, it was too restless and quickly needed out again, out to sea. Lying completely still in bed, my pulse rate was racing, so the orthopedic resident-on-call was paged around 9 p.m.

Young Dr. Morris^*  appeared at my door with nurse Nicole, who was wondering aloud if she needed to be there, since she was all alone on the ward for the moment as other R.N.s were on their breaks . Dr. Morris waved her off, saying he could handle it alone. He was cute, with massively curly auburn hair and light brown eyes. As he pulled the privacy curtain and sat on the edge of my bed, I could immediately detect that he was too heavy-handed with the cologne. He looked and sounded tired, but was chipper as he chatted, telling me that he was actually in the O.R. during my operation; how damaged my knee was; how the lead surgeon Dr. Rivers  was such a great physician, etc. Dr. Morris said I should sit up because he had to listen to my lungs, and huffed on the end of his stethoscope to warm it before slipping it through the slit in the back of the blue hospital gown to check my breathing.  I drifted back to my personal Bermuda Triangle. Next I obeyed the command to lie back while he eaves-dropped on my heart. I simply surfed.

At some point I came back to dry ground when I realized the cardiac auscultation was taking much longer than usual. Though too zoned out in the tactile sense to actually feel anything, I could see Dr. Morris’s hands cupping and squeezing my breasts. My eyes flew up to meet his, which were now about 6 inches from my face. He was breathing heavily and zooming in closer for a kiss. My sudden awareness caused him to pause for a split second, which gave me the chance to say “Please remove your hands”, because I was brought up to be a polite girl. When he did, I said “Thank you”.

Dr. Morris turned bright red, quickly stood up, adjusted his white lab coat and exited without a word. Lying there, I was left wondering if what I thought had just happened had indeed happened. Soon Nicole reappeared and said Dr. Morris wanted her to draw another blood sample STAT, to rule out an infection. As she fluttered about, getting the equipment ready, I was about to tell her what had just transpired, but stopped myself. For nothing really did happen, right? Had I been a little more stoned, or a little less, who knows, but nothing had happened.

By the next morning, Saturday, my heart rate was normal, as were the CBC results. Weekend physio consisted of a tiny Asian PT named Cindy^*, whom I out-weighed by about 50lbs and whose head barely went to the level of my shoulder,  helping me to “walk” with a walker festooned with green tennis balls on its feet. The effort was worthy of a Wimbledon match. My parents and my brother with his soon-to-be ex-wife visited. I talked on the phone with 2 friends and one of my CEGEP teachers. I read and did crossword puzzles, watched TV. I ate bran cereal and prunes, cardboard hamburger steak smothered in dark gravy, and little packages of Social Tea cookies. I listened to my Walkman.

Before the sun was even up, Monday morning rounds began. Dr. Morris was sheepishly grinning at me from the back of the medical mob standing around my bed. I was now finding him to be more handsome than I had on Friday night. To my disgust, I was surprised to hear myself flirting with these young doctors-in-training. The herd left, but  Dr. Morris popped back in, patted me on the hip and said he’d be back to the check on his “favorite patient” later. I was thrilled, and could feel myself blushing. I wanted to kick myself for having rejected his Friday night advances.

When the sun did come up that morning it was bright, and the PT I had been assigned for the rest of my two week hospital stay arrived, ready to whip me into shape. Lindsay^* was about 25 and also had her dark hair cut like me (and Demi Moore). While we did some stretching and strength exercises, Lindsay never stopped talking  to me and my new elderly, though spunky, Maritimer roommate with the broken hip and possible blood clot. Ruth^* and I were literally her captive audience as Lindsay regaled us with the tale of her weekend, spent at her brother’s wedding. She had invited the new guy in her life, Beryl^*, to accompany her and meet her parents. Though they had only gone out a few times and had not slept together yet, Lindsay felt that Beryl was “the one”.  He had been a true gentleman at the ceremony and later at the reception too. Ruth, a consummate old-maid, snuck me a wink when she heard that part, and I had to laugh through my pain.

Out in the corridor for the walker portion of my stamina training, several people remarked that Lindsay and I resembled each other quite a bit, though she had dark eyes and mine are light. I was flattered because I thought she was pretty, but certainly didn’t feel so about myself.

With the effort  of trying to stay balanced, my eyes were focused on feet meeting floor. I was determined to heal quickly and recover exceptionally so that I could get on with the rest of my life. I wanted to be an A+ patient.  As we passed the nurse’s station, Lindsay called out in a sickeningly saccharin voice, “Dr. Morris, look how well your patient Andrea is walking!”

Fighting the vertigo, I quickly chanced a glance up, only to catch sight of my preferred orthopedic-resident choke on the mouthful of coffee he had just brought to his lips as he sat half-assed on a counter.  He spluttered out some coffee onto the chart he had been writing on, which he began to blot with his tie, even before he had stopped choking and had gotten a good breath of air. All the staff around tried to stifle giggles. Dr. Morris mumbled something like ,”Wow. Yeah, that’s great”, as he buried his head back in his work. On our return trip back past the nurse’s station, I could not bring myself to look up.

Lindsay told me that I was doing so well that the next day my physio would be downstairs on the second floor in the actual physical therapy gym where we could begin my rehabilitation in earnest, using pulleys and weights.

True to her word, Tuesday morning a husky looking Russian porter arrived before my breakfast tray had even been taken away, and whisked me off in a wheelchair to meet Lindsay and do my exercises. The paraphernalia seemed a lot like torture devices, and I soon became reacquainted with my penchant for laughing loudly in a demented tone rather than crying in agony.

After about an hour of intense “therapy”, Lindsay said I deserved a 15 minute break and set me free in the hallway to find the water fountain. I dutifully found it and drank deeply. My thirst quenched for the moment, I searched for a place to perch. I spied some vinyl upholstered benches at the end of the corridor near the elevators, back past the entire length of the physio department. Beginning to feel weak and nauseated, I really needed to sit down, so I began my steady trudge, aluminum walker clanking with each ginger step.

As I passed through the arch way that held the doors which, when closed, could block off the elevator bay, a movement back over my right shoulder caught my attention. There in the shadows the couple who had been necking parted. The man had his back to me, but I could clearly see that the female of the pair was a wide-eyed Lindsay. Then he turned to look at me too.

Our eyes met and the clarity hit us both like an arc of lightning. It was Dr. Beryl Morris who stood in front of me and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. All I could manage was a feeble, “Sorry”, as he took off on a light jog down the hall.

Clueless, Lindsay called out, “Beryl, wait! She won’t tell anyone, she’s cool with it”. Then she turned to me and said, ”Oh look at him, isn’t he the cutest? He’s embarrassed!”

I never did tell anyone because nothing really happened, though that nothing still bugs me 23 years later. Sorry Lindsay, we all make mistakes.

 *Names have been changed