Tag: #physicalpain

“Your Bones Held.”

Chapter Four – Thursday, May 2, 2024

At 8 a.m., I awoke to find that my older son Kalen had arrived from Tallahassee. He took a 6 a.m. flight to Miami and then got an Uber from the airport to the hospital. Kalen and Leslie apparently had coordinated this. I knew Kalen was coming but I didn’t remember when. Leslie knew. They had already made the plans. Leslie was going to give Kalen his car so he could stay at our house for the few days while Leslie stayed with me.   

Kalen and Corey are nine years and five days apart. I already noted that Corey was in college. Kalen was a lawyer in Tallahassee. The hardest calls I had to make when I found out just how hurt I really was to them. Both handled the call well I thought. Though I later found out that Corey was terrified of losing me. The idea still haunts him to this day. He and I are very close. He is studying to be a writer, so we have a lot in common.

Kalen on the other hand was born to be a lawyer. I knew when he was four years old that was his career path. He had unusually well-developed negotiating skills even at that age. He knew how to deliver a cogent argument when he thought he was wronged. Some 30 years later, he loves what he does and that makes me very happy.

Kalen is now very happy about my relationship with Leslie. He thinks Leslie is very good for me. He is notorious for reminding me to “Be nice to Leslie.” Or “Don’t be yourself. Think about Leslie.” Kalen thinks Leslie is the “normal” one, which by default makes me the crazy one. Over the years, that has changed somewhat. He has softened his critique of me a bit. While I loved seeing him from my hospital bed, I also hated myself for being in the situation that made him come for this little visit in the first place. Under his professional analytical exterior, I knew he was worried sick, and that it was my fault.

***

One of the strange things about being in the hospital is the total lack of privacy. Aside from the nurses, administrators and doctors who just walk in, we had an unexpected visit from the hospital rabbi. He must get notified when a Jew is going in for surgery or something because he just appeared. We did not request a visit, though I could be wrong about that. I do remember something about a clergy visit and thought even if it would be a priest, it probably couldn’t hurt.

The rabbi was a not a tall man. He was wearing a beige corduroy sport jacket and kippah. (The small head covering that most male Jews wear mainly in synagogue to cover their head in deference to God.) My first thought upon him entering my room was that the jacket he was wearing seemed out of season. It was hot in Miami in May. Why was he wearing a jacket? But that thought quickly vanished. He introduced himself. He told me he came to offer a prayer for a successful surgery and speedy recovery. Then he saw Kalen sitting in the chair. Kalen stood to shake his hand, towering over him. The rabbi suddenly looked thrilled. He started taking something out of a small case. As he did that, he explained that during weekday morning prayers, observant Jewish men wear tefillin. They are small black leather boxes with scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah.

Realizing what was happening, Kalen laughed and said, “Mom, only under this specific circumstance will I do this for you.”

Kalen stood still while the rabbi wrapped his arm in a black leather strap and placed the tefillin box on his forehead. Clearly uncomfortable, thinking most of religious or spiritual practices are “voodoo,” Kalen and the rabbi recited the prayer for me at the foot of my hospital bed. It was probably the kindest, most selfless gesture Kalen had ever made for me. I was not allowed to take a photo. He would never want any to see what he’d done. But at that moment, I understood just how deep his love for me was. It was one of the most memorable moments of my unfortunate stay and one of the silver linings I had mentioned earlier.

After the tefillin, the neurosurgeon Dr. Urakov came by. I introduced him to Kalen. He reiterated what to expect for the surgery. He said that they would take me down around 3 p.m. It would take about four hours. The first two hours, he said, he would reconstruct my T4 vertebrae and attach it to my spine with screws and rods. After that he would clean out the shrapnel that lodged in my spinal column.

“Anytime I have to work near the spinal cord, time stops,” he said. “That part takes as long as it takes.”

  The very words “operating near the spinal cord” sent a chill down my spine. Once again, I couldn’t believe all this was happening to me. Kalen and I exchanged a very serious look. Trying to lighten the mood as Dr. Urakov started to leave I pointed to Kalen jokingly and said, “He’s a lawyer. Be careful.” He laughed, shrugging it off and said, “I’m not worried.” I felt like a schmuck.

***

I didn’t know what time it was. I didn’t know the time most of the time I was there. All I knew was how long it was until I was due for my drugs, especially the morphine.

I wasn’t happy that my surgery was scheduled so late. Under normal circumstances, I’d be pissed that I wasn’t the first surgery of the day. I hate waiting…for anything. I firmly believe I was born without a patience gene. I don’t like waiting for anything, especially for unpleasant things like medical procedures because I conjure up worst-case scenarios in my head. In Yiddish it’s called “dreying.” It means mulling something over and over in one’s mind until it makes you more worried than you should be. For me it makes me anxious. And then I get nasty.

Except this time, there wasn’t enough time for me to drey. Things happened so fast. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything before the surgery. And I really had no idea what was going to be done to me. All I knew was that it was really serious. Life threatening. I did not have the luxury of putting it off. I was also on a lot of drugs. As I look back, I think the best way to describe my mood was resigned. I wasn’t flipping out. I wasn’t really even scared. I knew I had no choice. Without the drugs I was in unbearable pain and in that IV was Xanax, my second-best friend next to morphine.

***

Leslie had stayed with me overnight at the hospital. He slept in a reclining chair. It was very uncomfortable. Remember, Leslie was injured in the boating accident too, only he didn’t have a chance to get any help for himself. He was too busy getting us home and then dealing with me. Leslie wasn’t with us in the room when the doctor visited. I don’t remember where he went, but Kalen was with me and there was plenty of time before they came to get me for the surgery.

Or so I thought.

Leslie returned to the room around 11:30 a.m. At noon, the assisting neurosurgeon Dr. Tyler Cardenal came to get me. He said the surgery before mine had ended earlier than anticipated and they could take me now. Strangely, I didn’t feel freaked out. I was told to give Kalen my jewelry. Leslie followed me to the Pre-op. I don’t really remember him there, so much was going on. But if I think hard, I am able to recall images and flashes of him and things that he said.

Let me stop for a minute to say that I abhor all of this. I hate being a patient. I hate hospitals. I hate being poked, prodded, or anyone telling me what to do. I hate being naked under an ugly hospital gown. I hate the catheter and the IV. I despise large institutions and bureaucracies. I am convinced that the rules large institutions use were designed to cater to the lowest common denominator. Those rules exist for people who do not think for themselves or do their research. I do, so therefore those rules do not apply to me. I need specifics. Facts that apply to my specific situation. I question generalities. I must know why a rule or regulation is needed before I consider complying.

For example, when procedures require fasting, institutions state rules that there is no food or water after midnight before your procedure. That does not take into account the time of one’s procedure. Someone with a 7 a.m. procedure would have fasted for 7 hours and someone with a 3 p.m. procedure would have to fast for 15 hours. That makes no sense to me. That’s why I have to know exactly how many hours I need to fast based upon the time of my procedure.

Even in my extreme, no-choice situation, I felt no different. My bullshit antenna was up and on high alert. Fortunately, I was coming to this surgery from a hospital room. I was a patient admitted to the hospital the night before from the Trauma Center. I was doped and drugged throughout the entire pre-op stage, so everything had already been done. I guess they didn’t feed me that morning, but I really don’t remember.

The formality now was to meet the operating team and the anesthesiologist. I remember meeting him and Leslie said that he had done business with the guy; that he wasn’t very nice. Not a great foreboding for what was to come. But I didn’t think too much about it at the time. I had passed the point of no return. He said I had to be intubated. I sort of knew what that meant. I really didn’t want to know too much more. And thank God, I was really drugged. I had the IV. I had anti-anxiety meds. I had pain meds, and I was about to get even more. Plus, after the surgery, I was going to be out of pain. Or…so I was led to believe. My recovery was 100% guaranteed. Anything I could do before the accident; I was going to be able to do after the surgery. That was really good news, but what they didn’t tell me was that there was a lot of time between those two things and much, much more pain to get me through to that alleged 100% recovery.

I don’t remember saying good-bye to Leslie, but I knew I wanted him to be the first person I saw when I woke up.

***

“Leslie?” I managed to croak out loud the second I was alert enough to realize where I was. The surgery was over. I was in the recovery room. And I was alone. I was seriously doped up, but I knew enough that I did not want to be where I was. At that very instant, I panicked. My fight or flight response kicked in and I wanted out.   

“Leslie,” I said louder this time with more urgency.

No one answered.

“LESLIE! I screamed. “Where are you?”

I don’t remember who came in, but it wasn’t Leslie.

“Where the fuck is Leslie?” I demanded to know.

No one could tell me anything.

The longer it took for me to get answers, the wilder and more agitated I became.

The memory of Leslie leaving me on the tarmac in the ambulance at Fort Lauderdale Airport came flooding back. Had it only been the day before? I had no sense of time. All I knew was that I was alone, afraid and Leslie was nowhere to be found…again.

 I became belligerent. I demanded to know where my family was?

After what seemed like a few minutes of screaming, but was probably only seconds, a woman approached me and said that my family had gone for dinner.

“Dinner?” I screamed at her. “They went to dinner? Now?”

I was incensed.

“What the fuck is wrong with them?” I continued loud enough for everyone in the recovery room to hear me.  

And then I realized that the inside of my mouth was raw.

“What is wrong with my mouth?” I asked no one in particular. “My cheek is ripped to shreds.”

No one answered me.

Then, all of a sudden, a bunch of people came over to me. They told me where I was, which I had already assumed. They told me that the surgery went well and at what time it ended. They told me how long I had been in recovery and asked me how I felt.

“Well,” I said. “The inside of my mouth is torn to shreds.”

“That’s the anesthesiologist,” someone said matter of factly like that was supposed to make it feel any better.

“And where is my family? They are supposed to be here!”

I had no idea what “that’s the anesthesiologist” meant. But I had no more strength left to pursue this line of questioning. I had exhausted myself. That’s when the orderly came to wheel me away. I was drugged. The inside of my cheek was ripped to shreds and it hurt to talk. I guess I dosed off.

I woke up when I was wheeled into my room.  

“Where the fuck were you?” I demanded the second I saw Leslie. “I was down there the whole time screaming for you. You left me again! How could you do that a second time! How am I supposed to trust you? They said you went out for dinner!!!” 

I knew that saying “you left me again” would hurt him. I was angry. I was afraid. My mouth hurt and I was tired. I knew he felt very bad for leaving me in the ambulance when we got off the plane in Fort Lauderdale. I knew he was second guessing that decision now even if he couldn’t think straight at the time.

But I didn’t care.

I was terrified and he was going to pay.

“I’ve been here the whole time,” he said. Kalen and Corey were here too. “We were waiting for them to call us to come down to you. They never called.”

“Well, who the fuck was responsible for that fuck up?” I spat out to no one in particular. I was livid. My mouth hurt badly, and I was really tired.

“I’m sorry,” he said so earnestly, taking my hand, stroking my face and looking into my eyes.

I managed to slur “My mouth hurts. They scraped the shit out of the inside of my right cheek. It hurts to talk. And I’m really thirsty.”

I was so tired, still under the effects of the anesthesia. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. But I knew I was no longer alone. Leslie was there. He would take care of me.  

I was kind of propped up in the hospital bed. But I couldn’t sit up or move. Leslie put some water in a Styrofoam cup, bent down and held it near my left cheek with a bendable straw so I could get a sip of cold water. I drank some and swished some more around my mouth to ease the pain in my cheek. It didn’t work. It hurt like crazy.

Then I realized I was hungry. How long had it been since I’d eaten? I had no idea. But I couldn’t eat because the inside of my mouth was raw.

Leslie opened a package of small bear graham crackers from somewhere, broke them into small pieces and fed them to me in between sips of cold water. I dozed off again. I don’t remember much else. I was uncomfortable. Pain was everywhere, even in my delirium. But the worst was over.

Or so I was led to believe.

“Your Bones Held.”

Chapter Three – Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Around midnight, we got the word that the plane had departed Fort Lauderdale International Airport for Cozumel. The ambulance arrived to get me. The paramedics came to my room to move me from the bed to the gurney for the drive. Fortunately, I was still hooked up to the IV, so I had constant pain meds running through my veins. I was not exactly sure what they gave me in Mexico, but most of the time I was not in extreme pain.  

At the airport, one of the most incredible things happened. A small, eight-passenger plane was waiting for us on the tarmac. The team introduced themselves to us very briefly and then huddled to discuss how best to get me out of the ambulance and into the small jet. They decided to roll me from side to side to side on the gurney to slide a “sling” underneath me. It was like a heavy-duty, rounded parachute that had handles. Once inside the sling, it was like a cocoon. Each man held a pair of handles. They slowly slid me off the gurney. I was terrified they were going to drop me or let my back touch the ground. That would have been excruciating or worse…paralyzing. I kept telling them to be careful from inside the cocoon, but my voice was so muffled from all the fabric I was surrounded by that they couldn’t hear me.

The thing about pain is it’s multifaceted. There was the pain you feel when something happened and the pain you anticipate. The pain itself is horrible, but the pain that was anticipated was relentless. It never let up. I was always on guard.

Fortunately, these guys had done this before. They were methodical and careful. They talked to each other the entire time directing their efforts for my benefit and dare I say comfort. They walked me toward the entrance to the plane and very carefully guided me hand-over-hand through the small door and up the stairs into the plane. They gently curved the sling to fit in the narrow aisle and lowered me onto a stretcher that covered several seats, my feet toward the back of the plane. I was essentially flying backwards. One man hung my IV from the overhead luggage rack with a wooden hanger and the catheter onto the stretcher below me. Leslie came in and sat down.

I was soon to learn their whole story. This was a volunteer organization called Hatzalah. It was a Jewish volunteer emergency medical service run on donations. They rescued people all over the world who had spinal injuries. Their website said, “They get the right people with the right training to where you are in the fastest possible time.”[1]

The first man I met was Simi. He was a NYC firefighter who survived 9/11. He spent 15 years overcoming survivors’ guilt and now dedicated his time to saving people like me. Captain Jamie was an anesthesiologist. He oversaw my pain management. The pilot was retired Israeli military. And Itzy was a jeweler from Brooklyn. Not totally sure what he did. I spent most of my time with Simi and kept a very close eye on Captain Jamie with the drugs. After a few Q&A rounds about my medical history, Jamie started the morphine, and we took off. Once in the air, Jamie reassessed me. Based upon my injury, he knew I was in a lot of pain. He recommended Ketamine. I’d never even heard of it, but Leslie seemed to know all about it. He said it was powerful. I said, “Bring it on!”

 Immediately after the first dose, I saw a brilliant array of colors. I felt happy and started telling funny stories, making things up about Simi and Captain Jamie being comics in the Borscht Belt of the Catskills. I had a whole routine. Then it started wearing off and I was back, lying on a stretcher on a private jet being flown from Cozumel to Florida because I had crushed a vertebra in my spine and could be paralyzed with any wrong movement.

So, I asked for more Ketamine, over and over again. Captain Jamie would only send me tripping periodically throughout the flight. But each time, I loved it and didn’t want it to end. I got funnier with each dose and was the star of my own comedy show. I had the final dose in time for the landing. After two hours in the air, we finally landed in Fort Lauderdale. But I still had to get to Miami to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.  

Again, an ambulance was waiting for me on the tarmac. I hadn’t realized it, but the sling was still underneath me. The men again pulled up the sides, grabbed hold of the handles and slowly navigated the narrow space in the aisle, the door and stairs to get me off the plane. At this point, I was so drugged up, I could hardly keep a thought in my head, except one. If they dropped me or dragged me on the ground, I was going to die. Thank God they didn’t. Instead, they gently placed me down on a very hard metal surface. Rolled me from side to side to get the sling loose while the Miami paramedic laced me up into this very uncomfortable, gurney-like thing.  

Then chaos ensued.

            While the volunteer airplane men said their goodbyes, told me how funny I was and that they would always remember me, I was starting to really hurt again. This thing they laid me upon was horrible. It was hard and unyielding. I needed Leslie. But the paramedic told me he had to go inside with our passports to get cleared to re-enter the U.S. My sister was there. I thanked her for coming to my rescue and asked her to find Leslie and get my little suitcase that he had packed for this exact situation.

Leslie’s son, who lived with us, had driven an hour to meet us at the airport at 2 a.m. so that he could take our other suitcases home while we went on to the hospital by ambulance. My assumption was that Leslie would handle the passports, hand off the luggage and meet me in the ambulance.

Not so.

After much noise outside the ambulance that was still sitting on the tarmac, it turned out that the airplane volunteers talked Leslie into going home with his son and our luggage. He did not come back to tell me. He did not kiss me goodbye, he simply left.

I was shattered.

I was more than just strapped to the gurney; I was laced onto it. I could not move my arms, legs or head. I was screaming at the top of my lungs.

“Leslie!”

“Leslie! Where the fuck are you?”

“I can’t fucking move. And my back hurts!”

“Leslie!”

 I was beside myself, screaming in full panic mode and even worse, trying to move to get out of the contraption I was in.

The female paramedic sat on the bench seat next to me in the ambulance, trying to calm me down. She told me that Leslie had gone home to sleep. She said that he could barely even stand, so they all advised him not to get into the ambulance and instead go home to get some sleep.

I was furious. I was hurt. I was scared. And I was helpless.

Then it sunk in. He had abandoned me!

I had a broken spine. I was strapped to a gurney in an ambulance going to a hospital to have more pain inflicted on me. I was terrified. I was alone and Leslie had left me in this condition to fend for myself. I was crushed; devastated.

“I need drugs,” I said out of desperation to no one in particular. “Where’s my pocketbook?”

            Outside the ambulance door behind my head where I couldn’t see, I heard my sister.

            “I have your pocketbook, your suitcase and your passport,” she said.

            “Where’s Leslie?” I asked, hoping beyond hope that he hadn’t left me this way.

            “They made him go home,” she said.

            “What the fuck is wrong with them,” I started again. “How could he just leave me this way? He spent the entire fucking day packing and unpacking, further hurting his back. He refused to sleep and now that he was so exhausted, he left me? To sleep! WTF kind of bullshit was that?” I cried.

            “Give me my pocketbook,” I ordered.

            “No,” she said.

            “Give me my fucking bag!”

            “He said not to give it to you,” she said. “He’s afraid you will take more Xanax.”

            “He’s afraid!” I screamed. “He’s fucking afraid? Who the fuck is he to be afraid, Sleeping Beauty? I’m fucking afraid. My spine is crushed. I’m in pain, I’m freaked out that all the plans we discussed when we landed, he just threw out the window and left me to fend for myself, lying here completely helpless. Give me my fucking bag!”

She hesitated for one second to look at the paramedic at the same time as I managed to jerk what was left in the bottle of water I had in my hand and doused her with it. “Give me the fucking bag.”

Dripping from the water, she placed my pocketbook on me.  I tried to get into it through the straps of the gurney but couldn’t, so I asked the paramedic to help me. Miraculously, she did.

I generally keep Xanax with me when I travel, in case I have trouble sleeping. I usually only take a piece of a .25 mg tablet to help me fall asleep. When I’m under extreme stress, I take a half. This time, I popped the whole damn thing into my mouth and swallowed it with the drop of water I had left in the bottle. Within minutes I had calmed down from hysterical to just terrified and pissed.

***

We drove south to Miami via I-95. After an hour or so of trying to find a position that wasn’t excruciatingly painful, we finally arrived. It was 3 a.m.

I was expected. The head of neurosurgery and his assistant were there to greet me. I thanked them profusely as I was rushed into the Ryder Trauma Center where even more indignities occurred. They wanted to cut my clothes off. I refused. I wiggled out of them and was covered with an ugly hospital gown.

“Hospital rules,” the trauma nurse on my right said.

Meanwhile, on my left another nurse was drilling into my forearm trying to start another IV.

“Ooooouch!” I shouted.

“Didn’t get it,” she said. She tried again and I screamed.

“What the fuck are you doing to me?” I yelled.

“I can’t find a vein,” she said.

“Well stop trying!” I demanded. “You are hurting me. Can’t you see how black and blue I am from the IVs in Mexico?”

She tried one more time. I exploded

“Get her the fuck away from me!” I commanded. “She obviously has no idea what she is doing!”

While all this was happening with my left arm, someone was trying to put a neck brace on me. Someone else was hooking my legs up to things. A third nurse came in, took my right hand where there still was an IV in place from Mexico and announced that he had found a good vein underneath all the bruising.

I was desperate for more Xanax. But my sister had my pocketbook. Thinking of how she refused to give it to me the last time got my heart racing again. My blood pressure was already astronomically high and rising. All I wanted was to be put out of my misery. I didn’t care how they would do it. Just that they fucking would.

The first nurse came back and spoke right into my right ear. Very calmly, she said, “You are badly injured. You have to stop moving or you are going to make matters worse. You need to wear this neck brace.”  

I said, “I am in a lot of pain, and I am terrified. Until you give me something to knock me out, I cannot cooperate with you. My back hurt very badly and that idiot on my left stabbed me with what felt like a hammer and chisel three times in the same forearm with no result. I cannot take any more pain and that includes wearing the neck brace!”

The next thing I remembered was being in the Stanley Kubrick movie A Clockwork Orange. I had toothpicks holding my eyes open. My sister was standing next to me with wild grey hair and dark black circles around her eyes. I was strapped into some kind of metal hooped skirt that I kept pulling at while someone in the background kept telling me to “stop moving.”

The rest was a blur. I later read in the Trauma notes that the nurse did take pity on me and administered a push of Ativan in my IV to calm me down. That’s when they sent me for all sorts of tests. I had blood work done, X-rays of my chest and abdomen, CT scans of my entire body, including a scan of my brain and my legs, specifically to rule out blood clots because I had flown. I was aware of none of this. Hours later, the report stated, I went for an MRI. They scanned my brain, face, neck, cervical spine, chest, abdomen, pelvis, thoracic and lumbar spine, and liver. All of the MRI scans confirmed what the CT scans had said. I had a T4 compression fracture with retropulsion. In my delusion, the MRI I was in was the metal hooped skirt I thought I was wearing in the dream I had being in A Clockwork Orange.

I also learned that while I was waiting to be taken for the MRI, I was left in the hospital hallway for about two hours. The notes said that I was asleep and snoring. Before the MRI, they gave me an IV push of Xanax and Fentanyl to help with my late-onset claustrophobia. No wonder I had thought I was in a movie. I had no idea where I was or what was even happening to me. It is truly terrifying to think back on this. I was in a hospital hallway, alone, with a neck collar restraining my movement, unable to move due to extreme back pain in a semi-reclining position on a gurney, drugged out of my mind.    

Around 1 p.m. I woke up in a hospital room. My sister and Leslie were there.

“Nice of you to show up,” I slurred and sneered at Leslie.

He looked like shit, but I didn’t care. He left me and I would never forget that.

There were all kinds of things going on, many of which I couldn’t track. I was exhausted and very drugged, which was a good thing.

They told me I met the neurosurgeon, but I don’t remember. He explained what the MRI found and what had to be done. I couldn’t even remember his name even though it was written on the white board right in front of me.

What I do remember, mostly because I have a photo of it, was my ex-husband Alan brought my younger son Corey to see me. He had just finished his spring semester of college. I had them bring me sushi. I wanted sake but they said no. They left around 10 p.m.