Too Much of Spring: The Second Half

 Note: This is directly tied to Leaving the Planet, about a seven-week hospital stint in 1982. This is no less difficult than that entry, so I get it if you might want to time your reading, or just skip it.  I had to write this all because it is how I breathe through my life. I write. It occurs to me for the zillionth time, though, just how glad I am that I blog, for MY sake. Thank you for slogging through these entries. I learn about writing, about who I am NOW, and the entries are the final let go before I decide whether they go into a memoir or in a file.

Thank you all for helping me remember what I needed to. I am alive. I walk. I love the spring with a passion beyond logic. I am alive. Dr. D is not. Except here on this blog and in my heart. I am alive and I still walk.

Here goes...

Post-Op Re entry

I woke up briefly in the Recovery Room. The kind nurse was there again. This time I noticed she had soft, hazel eyes with eyelashes that really were unfairly long and thick. "Well, that's just not fair," I said and she was startled.

"How can you be talking?"

"I opened my mouth?" I was startled by her comment. "What do you mean?"

"Your blood pressure is 65/35! It's not possible."

It would appear that she was right, because when I awakened next, I was in my blue room, my bed table there, in reach, everything on it, just so. I could move my arms and my head!

Only some twelve-year-old nurse named Mandi was looking very stern as she shouted, "Cough! You know you have to cough for us."

I took a deep breath.  Oops. No, no deep breath was forthcoming. I could not fill my lungs without pain and enormous pressure, but the cough was a chokey, shallow, pitiful excuse for a post-op cough. Usually I just coughed a couple of good ones and all that had to be cleared was done and that was it.

Mandi, a ranting chipmunk, was yarping at me, when I tried to say that it hurt to breathe. "Well, of COURSE it hurts. You want pneumonia? Do you want to be on an IV for days? You have to cough and move things around so your bowel sounds come back and your lungs do not fill."

"I know that. I am telling you that I can't."

I got the "whatever" sigh I already knew from Mark's kids and other friends' teenagers. I kind of remembered it myself, from my own youth, only we tended to tag the sigh with "groovy."

Funny. I was twenty-nine and thinking my youth was over, remembering it the way my parents spoke of their own youth. Something was weird in that, but the thought drifted off as most thoughts did during that stay.

All that stayed with me was that I could see my legs because I could bend them. The body cast, however, was horribly tight, I thought. Perhaps they could loosen the side Velcro. Normally the things attached in the back. Mine attached on the left side, over my staples. Something about the fitting of it, someone said. Anyway, instead of lying on the flexible flap, I was lying on lined, rigid vinyl with a thin compacted foam rubber lining. I could not see it, but I felt holes, regularly spaced like ceiling tiles. What, so it could breathe? Ironic, I thought.

The Velcro strapping pressed directly on the incision. Staples everywhere, stabbing me. Bone-deep throbbing. Pressure, pressure, everywhere.  I reminded myself it beat the hell out of a Stryker bed, like a mantra. I chanted, "It's better than the bed, it's better than the bed."

I was right. It was.  Mark was there, but we were almost never alone.  I guess he was worn out. He had to leave that night, but his last words were, "Don't ever go away like that again, sweetheart. We need you home. Look at all these cards here. See how many love you."

Cards?

On my bed table were about fifty envelopes, and I decided to sort them by day. Apparently it took time for my mail to find me. Why they had not given me these for those ten days, I'll never know, but I had them now. A wealth of love, all in one cacophony of cards. The next two and half hours the nurses simply let me be. They checked on me, read the cards I showed them, laughed, and let me be.

But my breathing got worse and I felt as if someone were stabbing my chest, just like the staples everywhere else. Sometimes the cards blurred and I would clean my glasses.

Carol came for the late shift that day, looked once at me, frowning, then at the cards, smiling. She disappeared, and around 11:00 pm some maintenance person appeared with a large bulletin board and two nails. She came back in the room and by midnight, I had a field of dopey and pretty cards to look at across the room, and a long piece of string taped on the side wall, holding about a dozen more cards. She rigged up a bag on the side of my table to hold the rest.

"There. Next time you think you're an alien, look at these. Although, you are beyond weird." She left the room before I could find something to throw.

Between the Dark and the Light

What followed starting at about 5:00 a.m., though, were eight hours of nurses yelling at me to breathe and to cough, and doctors trying to figure out why I couldn't give them a deep breath. They worried that someone had nicked something. I don't know. I longed for my planetary pod at that point.

And I was hungry. All I'd had in almost two weeks was broth, so I asked for food. Some idiot nurse gave me some because she did not bother to check the no food order on my door, I learned later. I had had no bowel sounds yet. None. I had only just been given water to drink, to start stimulating something or other. I think. Hell, I was in no position to think about it at the time. I knew only that someone brought me food that I could chew. Bread and butter. Pudding.

Twenty minutes later, I was projectile vomiting. I remember some ten-year-old in my body went, "Cool. I wonder how far I can puke." And the 29-year-old went, "GROSS." Sigh. Groovy.

All that is relevant is that I could not stop it, I could not breathe deeply, and I could not bend at the waist to accommodate the cramping. Carol was SCREAMING at someone outside the door, probably the girl who had brought me food.

"My GOD! What the hell else can we put this young woman through? If she doesn't sue us for just about everything this nursing staff has done, we will be luckier than you know! Damn it!" The yelling faded. Everything faded. I could no longer see or hear. I could not feel. The room blessedly disappeared into a blur of color and bright lights and voices that faded into whispers that came and went. Some of them were Carol and Dr. D., but mostly just strange voices. One of them was not in the room.

"103.5. This is not right."
"But her breathing is shallow. Why can't she just cough?"
You are never going home.
"We need to get the fever down."
You know no one cares if you die. 
"104? What the HELL is this? "
Death.

I made it go quiet when I could. Quiet and dark and all alone so no one would bomb me with words I could not find. Pain occasionally ripped through the lights or the dark, at will, along with the voice.

This was four years before I remembered my childhood, before therapy.  But something was starting. Here in hell, more hell began.

A familiar face, out of focus. A laugh. One needle sticks me, like familiar needles from a time beyond my reach, a thousand needles, over and over, beyond my control, everywhere beyond an arm, a leg, everywhere, over and over. Something ominous, hiding in corners of a dark mind. My mind. Someone's. Dark. Bright. Dark bright. Quiet. Noise. Quiet. Noise. Screams like me, but silent. Somewhere else. Blurring in and out of Hell.

Then suddenly large blue eyes. A face. Carol. I know the face. I do not want to see clearly. But I know her face. Her eyes too shiny and she's all full of lights.

"Don't you dare go! DON'T you dare go. LEAVE HER HERE! Don't you TAKE HER!" The eyes darting all over the place. Then drilling into me too bright.

Who? Take me where? Who's she yelling at?

Dark. Nothing at all.

Suddenly, sound tearing through, forcing me here. Velcro ripping with Carol's fortissimo accompaniment,a battering trumpet in my brain.

"Get this FUCKING THING OFF HER! How stupid can anyone be?"

Hands everywhere, flipping me. Am I in the bed again? What are all the hands? Jimmy, leave me alone. But no. Not Jimmy. Different. Jimmy? What am I saying? Who? A clatter and my eyes opened as my body cast hit the far blue.

White on blue, Carol on silence.

"They didn't leave room for her DIAPHRAGM! They MEASURED the thing when she EXHALED!"

And I coughed and I coughed and I gasped and I coughed and I vomited and I cried and I breathed and hands held me stiff with Carol at my head, there. Always there.

"It's okay, it's okay. YOU'RE okay."

Ice on the head and  wrists. The rhythms of the coughing slow. The woman in the bed surrounded, but only one head shining. Carol's. She is old enough for shiny silver hair? The woman in the bed, so small when the coughing stops at last. I see her clearly there, so small, entirely without colors.

"Thank GOD. 100. She can live with that. Jeannette. Jeannette, come back. Earth to planet Jeannette."

The woman laughs, I fall, crash landing into dark once more. A different dark. I think they call it sleep.

Gone Quiet

It was dark when I awoke, so I was not sure whether it was the room or me, but there was Carol, holding my hand. At my head. There, always there.

"How many shifts are you working, there, woman?" I asked. I realized that I was all in the same place again.

She simply smiled, but was holding my hand. "You let me worry about that. Listen. You listen to me, BACK in BED B. Look into my eyes and listen! I am telling you you MUST lie still today. Your cast has been sent to cut a hole for your diaphragm." She seemed upset, suddenly.  Her voice quieted as she leaned in closer. "Alien dear, you have to be still. We have strapped you in here, but you can move your arms and your head. It's not the bed. It's your bed. See? The doctor said that the anterior fusion is tight, so you don't have to be frozen. But if you don't pay attention, you have to go back to the planet Hell, and you've had enough, don't you think?"

"Yes. Frankly, I am so tired, Carol, I don't want to move. I don't think I can move.  I am so tired." I didn't know I could sound so small. I didn't mean to cry. I wanted to be strong, but strong was nowhere to be found. She stayed until the drugs put me back to sleep and in the morning, for the first time in forever, all the me's inside were together, there. In one body. In one place. One very blue place.

A Quiet Crash of Spring

With metal. White uniforms, with an occasional jacket of color. New nurses. Mandi again. And there was someone in Bed A. She was nice, but when she said she'd got there Friday, I realized it was six days after surgery, and the weekend was nearly gone.

Dr. D came in the afternoon, which seemed to shock the nurses.

"Have you had any visitors this weekend?"

I shook my head. He held my hand a moment then asked, "When was the last time your folks came to see you?"

I teared up and told him they'd never come. Basically, no one came except Mark, because I was too scary.

"May I borrow your little address book, Miss Jeannette?" Perhaps I was wrong to let him have it. Perhaps he was wrong to ask, but I didn't care. I really didn't care about anything. Lunch came and there was chicken. Dr. D. came back into the room with a hot fudge sundae and my address book about an hour later.  He took me for a stroll, the first since the night before my first surgery, and when I looked out the hall window, I started to cry.

A film of green had covered the world while I was sleeping.

"You'll be out there before the lilacs, dear. I promise you. Before the lilacs."

Lilacs seemed so far away, but he was the kindest man I'd ever known, and he had prepared me for every step.

I didn't believe a word. He was no fool; he knew that I didn't believe him. Funny. He did not try to convince me or tell me to buck up. He did not think that it was odd that I was so detached.

All he said was, "Do what you have to, Jeannette. You still have the new posterior fusion to endure, and all I can say is that if anyone screws things up for you again, heads will roll. Some already have, but I'm sick to death of the mistakes because some people have not done their jobs, and I do not mean your floor nurses. You stay in whatever place you have to be, just like the Stryker bed, honey. Go where you must. But hear me when I say, you WILL see the lilacs bloom."

The Final Cut, the Final Wait

I had to wait for the last operation until the incision could withstand the last surgery on the back. I had no clue what that meant. It seemed silly to me, to wait for something to heal just to slash it open again, but then, it kind of seemed like my life. One wound would start to heal and another would land before the process was done. Why not?

I did not like my cynicism, but I did not care to try for improvement just then. It was Wednesday and no one had come except Judy, who lived near by. It turns out she'd been there three times last week, but I could not remember. She wisely did not describe what she saw; she simply sat quietly by me, reading, occasionally holding my hand. But we'd been friends since we were born, summers in the same play pen. Our connection reached past words.

The last surgery was a piece of cake. Except for the hematomas. The second morning after surgery, the nurses wanted my blood pressure to build, so they sat me on the edge of the bed. We were going to go for a walk, they said. The nurse took my blood pressure, and went, "Oh my GOD. 50 over 30? Why aren't you dead?"

Irony everywhere. All the hovering over the woman again. Hands, IVs. Bottles. "Preppy blood, she calls it." Rolling machine. Something hurts my heart, makes it jump. I leave the room.

When I had my first transfusion a lifetime before, I'd had a reaction. So I had to have "washed and buffy packed cells." Buffy cells. The only way I could remember to remind staff of this was to say I needed "preppy cells." By the time I had had my eighth operation, a year and a half later, the whole staff called packed cells "Buffy Cells." I'd made my contribution to the medical community.

When I returned, opening my eyes with me behind them, it was dark again, but I had not clue what day it was. One of the regular nurses, Janice, I think, said, "This is getting really old, Jeannette. Will you stop dying on us please?"

"What day is this?"

"Friday, dear."

"What day was the surgery?"

"Tuesday. Mark is outside the room. He's been here since yesterday."

The hazel eyes were tired, but they stayed soft and close, and Mark's hand did not leave me once through the night. They did not make him leave.  I had company all weekend, even Jean Ellen. Gail came. Mark went home and came back with the kids. Three of my other friends. Judy again.

It was lovely to be alone again on Monday, but I did not speak that thought. It was too late. The people who came had too much light and too many colors. It was not safe. Nothing was safe. It was time to walk again, they said. I had too much to do to absorb all those colors and the noises of the weekend. I had to walk again they said, so I could go home this week.

Go home this week.

Home? Jean Ellen said she had been painting in my room, but had moved the easel out again, to make room for me. She said that Mark and Daddy had moved my bed in at last, so I did not have to use the foldout any more. Home? It was not my home, not now. I had no home. It was Jean Ellen's home. Before that it was my friend's home. I remembered that last Connecticut operation, living with my friend, her telling me on the phone that her boyfriend had moved in and could they put my stuff in the garage until I knew where I was moving ... My calling Jean Ellen to move back into the apartment, and her saying, "But I just got it to myself last year! Your room is my studio." And Daddy saying I could not live back home with them because of Mom's "knees." He was right; no way I could live there. I was one day out of surgery with nowhere to go home to. Jean Ellen had said yes, but only if I left my stuff in storage. No one had wanted me. Here I was only four months later; it was too late for talk of beds and home.

Alone. Alone. Always a burden, never at home. What do they mean, so you can go home?

That voice again. I shook it off. I had to walk today.

I sat on the edge of the bed. The blood pressure was 104/55. Not great, but okay, they said. I had Carol on one side and Janice on the other. I was taller than Carol now, which shocked me.

"Well, kid, you are standing up straight." I was. We stopped in the bathroom and my face was in the top half of the mirror now. At least I think it was my face. She was pale and her cheeks had caverns beneath. I would not look at the eyes.

Death is not pretty, huh, Jeannette.

I shook it off again.

We walked down the hall. An armchair was by the window at the end of a tunnel that would get longer, then shorter. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Ceiling tiles above again. Familiar patterns. Dark. Light.

We reached the window where I could look out directly into Spring.  This is how it looked to me.

I shouted in a whisper, "Too bright."

Carol said, "Breathe. Just sit down and breathe." I looked at her and she was crying. "Soon you will be out in the colors again. It's been too long for you here, in with all this sterile crap."

What is that color? Magenta? Too many lights. Sunny. Too bright. Laughing somewhere not from the hallway.

Then the voice came. Stop talking about home. I'm dying you  know. Apparently the voice is jumping out from me, this time. It occurs to me once more that I am the woman in the mirror, but it doesn't really matter.

Carol started, then came in close, blue eyes staring into me straight at the voice. Then only dark again.

The Daddies Get Me Home

A hematoma had burst. I remember absolutely nothing at all from the two days that followed. Nothing. I had finally learned to simply leave the scene entirely. What I know is that I awakened exhausted, but quiet. The voice had fled at last.

I would live. But sorrow wrapped me like my flannel robe. My colors had fled my body, the building, my world. Even the blue of my room was gray.  I awakened at peace, in a black and white film. Three surgeries, four near death experiences, seventeen transfusions, hands with phlebitis, wounds like a heroine addict dotting the veins of my arms, like marching white ants.

Carol at my side. I asked for the date, but all I heard was May. I had missed my dad's birthday. Why was that all I registered? When had I come? M. March. The other M month. Lilacs.

Dr. D tried to apologize for something. I looked at him blankly, not understanding why he was saying he was sorry. Somewhere in a place I'd never seen another voice was speaking,  You are alive. You are alive. It's done. You are alive.

An older voice. Older than me. Older than Dr. D or Daddy. I smiled at him and said, "I'm here, Doc D. I'm alive. I can walk."

And then I felt something missing inside as well. For the first time since 1979 that feeling at my core was gone. Something weak and sapping at my core. The pain beyond "1 to 10" was gone. I smiled at Dr. D. and said, "I'll be okay." For the first time, I meant it. He simply squeezed my hand.

Wisely, they did not walk me toward windows. I did not care to see. I had lost track of so many days that I did not bother to try to count. Not tiles, not holes, not minutes. I simply breathed through whatever came.

At last Daddy came and Dr. D. pushed the wheelchair piled high with me, and pillows Jean Ellen had brought from home, and cards, and instructions. It was hard to sit. The cast dug in. Something to get used to. Whatever. I was so tired. Carol kissed me on my forehead and said, "Brace yourself. It's Spring for real. It's okay."

I took her face in my hands though, when she kissed me. I looked her full in the eyes, trying to find regular life words, but said, "You were the only color I saw." The chair pulled me away, while my face adjusted to what smiling felt like.

I stood up to walk out the door, then froze. "Daddy, TURN THE COLORS OFF!" This is how it looked to me.

 

It had rained a few hours before, and now the sun shone full upon the world and all I could see was a world too alive for me to know. Too alive for my black and white soul to absorb or to bear.

My father turned me so gently to him, arms holding me, my face hidden. "It's okay, Jetty. Just breathe. Let's get you to the car." The station wagon back seat was lined with pillows. Mommy's afghan was there, pastels against pale lavender. 

Before I got in I turned to Daddy again and said, "I missed your birthday."

He teared up and kissed me on my hair and said, "No. Not even close, Jetty." 

He drove us up a side street in the town,where the houses were dappled in shade and light, but it was alive with life, growing. Colors, softer, glowing. I wanted to stay lying down, but he had me sit up and climbed in beside me from the other side. "Just take a look out the window, Jetty, for just a few minutes. I'm right here." I leaned back against him and breathed.

The place was the closest place to Heaven here that my father could find.

 

He sang silly songs the rest of the way home—our songs, not Dr. D's—and when we turned up my street, I smiled.  The corner house's lilacs were just in bloom.

And now a break from our regular program...

If ever there was a day that reminded me of how not alone I am, this is it. Why? Because I was feeling incredibly sorry for myself the last few days. Yes, I was. I went to a fantastic writers workshop/conference Friday night and all day Saturday. It was held at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, CT. Really. What better place? I have only been able to attend three of the eight classes I started. Somehow or other I had thought that payback from three hours Friday night and nine hours all day Saturday would have a payback of a day and a half. I told myself I was okay, Monday afternoon, when I rode my stationary bike an hour. I ignored the post-pain, telling myself I was better.

The power of positive thinking.  We, as Americans, are always saying, "Smile. You'll feel better," or "Think positive." I am here to tell you that, sometimes, that is pure hogwash, bull spittle, and nonsense. Sometimes telling yourself that you're fine when you are not is, hmmmm.... let's see .... how shall I say this.... STUMP DUMB. Yeah, that's the term.

This morning I got up and the pain in my right leg was in full throttle. It had been all night. So what did I do? I told myself, "Move around. You'll feel better." I looked in my fridge and realized that putting off the grocery shopping for six days meant that I would be facing a fourth night of turkey thigh. No fruit. One bag of the SAME mixed vegetables I'd been eating all week. No eggs. No spinach. No carrots. No onions. No bread. No vanilla. Less than a quart of milk. Oops.

So I did the sensible thing to do when one leg is numb; I went grocery shopping. Because, truly, when you are feeling oh so pathetic and alone, the one thing you really should do is the one thing that is guaranteed to make things even worse. Yup. But, damn it, I am an independent, stubborn, ridiculous specimen of woman, so out I went.

Hey, but I DID go to the store with the high carriages and the people who take the groceries out of your cart and take them to your car, and put the stuff in your trunk. See? I'm no fool. Of course, when I got into the car, I was so red, so done in, in so much pain that I could not figure out how to lift my left leg INTO the car to drive home.

Now, normally, I am aware of being around sixty, bent over, and well, just not a woman anyone notices. Ask other late middle-aged women about being invisible in America. The transition is not nice, especially when you WERE the kind of woman men noticed just ten years ago. Oh, well. That is life. And then that theory was blown to hell, so I could not feel sorry for myself over THAT.  Two very kind men came over from opposite directions to make sure I was okay. They were not young. They were not old. I don't know what they were other than sweet. And neither left the vicinity of the car until my breathing slowed and my sunglasses were on, and I was smiling again.

When they turned away, I am afraid I shouted obscenities at the two men in my life who had promised to be there for me, who had said they admired me, who... oh, YOU know what I mean. That got me back enough energy to drive home and lug the groceries into my apartment.

You'd think that would be enough to snap me out of my pathetic bout, wouldn't you? Nope. I started getting angry at anyone's promising me to be around, at either of them telling me they wanted me to stop worrying about money, about my future, that I would never be alone. NEVER be alone? What was I here? I'm as alone as it gets, grocery shopping. I can't go to the last class and I realized that as I drove home. Risking city driving at rush hour would mean risking more than my own neck.

And, on top of that, now BOTH legs were numb. I started to cry. I almost never cry about my back; that is an exercise in self-pitying futility. Yet I am human. I want to be like other people, as all of us who have conditions that get in the way do from time to time. I wanted the love of my life to be the man he pretended to be. I wanted my ex-husband to be that man in the hospitals before we were married, not the man he became almost the second we said, "I do." I wanted to go to the gym, to hike. It all came crashing in on me.

After five minutes, perhaps ten, I went, "GET A GRIP, JEANNETTE." I told myself to park my butt in this chair and connect with a few of my closest friends on line. They might be out just now, but they would be back--the friends who are here, who pop up in real life all the time. I got online and the tears were returning, when the phone rang.

There was one of my best friends and his daughter, running errands. He knew I wasn't doing well yesterday when I picked him up from his service station and he was just checking on me, reminding me that he was five minutes away if I needed anything at all. And there was a message on my machine from another friend, seeing whether I was okay. And a message from a friend who was at the weekend workshop, checking up on me. And I re-read the simply back and forth from one of my dearest friends in the whole world who is, unfortunately, six hours away... but we insist on checking up on each other every single day, and when we go more than ten days without talking, we get kinda... what's the word now... bitchy. Yes, for me, that's the word. When I talk with her, my world gets right because we laugh. We laugh a whole lot. And I remembered a conversation with the woman with whom I'll probably join my lot in a few years... more laughing.

I haven't had to connect online since I sat down. I've already realized that I am NOT alone as it gets. Why did I think I needed those two men to be bonded with people in a real way? I guess it was a momentary lapse.

The thing is, I tested myself this month. Why on earth would I tell myself I failed, just because I hit my limits? Those limits have expanded from last year's. I have learned something in my course and have had an unforgettable experience of listening to absolutely wonderful writers for about nine hours of bliss.

So the price was a little too high to be doing either again any time soon? There are no regrets for trying. So I hurt. I have all I need for  another couple of years... many do not have that.

I was confusing "Think positive" with "Think perky."

All I can say now is, "Well DUH."

And slink off to the couch to recover from my own silliness.

Leaving the Planet: Stryker Beds and Aliens, and a Brilliant Elf from the South

 After my first two operations, my Connecticut doctors knew they were out of their depth with whatever was happening, and they sent me to one of the top two specialists in "failed back surgeries" in the country. Dr. D. had all the patients on an entire floor of a small hospital outside of Boston. Boston was just under two hours away, so that was the final deciding factor to use him, rather than the other doctor, who was in D.C.

Daddy took me there, and when these two met there was some sort of unspoken recognition. They were only a month apart in age, and both had the demeanor of old-fashioned gentlemen and yet an undercurrent of something altogether outrageous. And they flirted the same way to young women--without an ounce of serious intent. (Dad philandered, but not with "children," as he put it. "I'm an SOB, but it's not about feeling young with young women. I'll let you know if I ever understand why I'm such a bastard."  But I digress. Big surprise.)

I met Dr. D. at the height of the foliage season.  I don't know why it has mattered to me that this was when I met him. Perhaps it's that I have started many changes of direction in Autumn. He had already read my file, examined the three discogram and myelograms I had had, and greeted me with, "It is one hell of a gorgeous day to be having to go through this much ... well. I should not use such language with a young lady whom I do not know." I think it was that he used the word "whom" that Daddy liked him so. I simply loved the kindness etched into his face. That, and the fact that this man had had six back surgeries himself in the forties, had studied in Paris to learn what they knew back then. Paris doctors had been the experts when he'd had his troubles.  He went into the field to spare patients the years of insanity he'd gone through; although, as he said, most of the time the damage that had been done by the time he saw patients led him to despair.

I was to be scheduled for three operations in one hospital stay at the end of March.  By this time, Mark and I had committed to one another, but were keeping it fairly low key.  I didn't want it official until I was finished with the surgeries. Dr. D. had pulled no punches about what was coming, and it was clear that every operation held danger. When I asked what the alternatives were, he held my hand and said very simply, "One of two things: paralysis or death. There is too much free-floating matter in your spinal canal, and there is some sort of hard matter slowly cutting your spinal cord in two.  We need to get in there and clean it out, my dear. Then we will know more about what the future may hold for you.  Not the news any 29 year old, vibrant young woman wants to hear." He turned to Dad and added, "Perhaps it is worse for you, sir. If she were mine, I'd be terrified, but really. I am the best there is, and so is the neurosurgeon and vascular surgeon I always have at my side. NOTHING I do will not have at least two more opinions behind it." Humility was not part of Dr. D's vernacular; he was a surgeon.

I knew my own body well enough to know that I was weakening almost daily, and that I could not bear the pain I was already in. I hated feeling drugged. I hated struggling simply to stand.  I wanted more out of life than what I had. I missed the freedom of being able to dance, to jump, to stretch. I missed feeling alive. I had already learned that I did not care to die, so it also angered me to know how fragile I was. I didn't DO fragile. But it was what it was. Dr. D. kissed my hand when I left his office and my father did something wholly uncharacteristic. He hugged Dr. D., and he said, "For God's sake, fix my little girl. You don't know what a prism she is."

"I rather think I already do, Sir," said my doc. "She will be far from home, but we'll take care of her."

I balked and said, "You two old farts stop talking about me like I'm eight. I'll be fine. When push comes to shove, you guys, the only one who can make sure I survive is ME."

That took them both aback, but they laughed. I did not see my doc again until it was time for the deed.

And So It began

One morning in mid-March my father loaded four down pillows in the car, and me on top of them, and we were off. The world was brown and raw, and the wind did not yet bear that something that promised Spring. It was still too cold.  Boston was no different, just a little grayer, maybe. While there were rumors of an early spring, such things held no meaning for me. I would not see the outside for at least six weeks, I knew.  My world would be white, hospital green, metal. That was my thinking.

I was immediately referred to as “221’s Back in Bed B.”  It took me very little time to impress upon the nurses that I was Jeannette, not some Back in Bed B. I was enough of a pro to realize that it was necessary to establish my identity immediately, before the gown and bracelet were on. I have never been known for my tact, so my approach went like this: "I swear to God, someone will be injured if you all come in here and refer to me that way one more time. I am not a difficult patient, but that's a deal-breaker. I AM JEANNETTE."

One of the nurses, Carol, ripped the sign from the foot of my bed and, in red marker, wrote, "Warning: Call by name, JEANNETTE." She told me that she would put it on my chart, but that I had better live up to my description of not being difficult. Fair enough. They called me by my name. I have no idea whether or not I was difficult.

 In 1982, insurance companies had not yet told us we were happier checking in the day of surgery, so I had the night to mentally prepare for surgery.  While I understand that some people prefer checking in a couple of hours before surgery, I have never liked it before a long operation. My stays were always weeks, not days, and I needed to claim my turf. (Most stays were four weeks.)  I don't like to think how things might have gone had I had surgery a decade later. One may argue that the old ways were worse; that my surgeries were too extensive, that they kept me in too long. For my part, five days after each operation, I needed transfusions, and nearly died three times when I lost blood. Had I been home when the bleeding came, well. I'd rather not think about it.  All I can say is that I had done what research I could and there was plenty of information on Dr. D. His reputation was worldwide. For this series of three operations, I had nine MD's working with him at one point or another.  I felt that I had all that medical science offered at the time.

... And I can walk, albeit shakily, thirty years later.  I am alive, thirty years later. Neither of these was considered an option for me back then. I am "one for the record books." I am grateful, and that is enough.

Gratitude Was the Least of It Then...

I hated having people with me the evening before surgery, so I was happy Bed A was empty.  I got to choose the bed by the window, where I looked out over lawn, and could just make out houses across the street. The world outside my window was just like the world at home, tired, gray, brown, begging for spring.  Just like me, perhaps.

 My room was blue, though -- a lovely switch from hospital sterility of Manchester. I began my rituals,  arranging the rolling bed table just so: small brush, make up, deodorant, soap, tooth brush, tooth paste, floss, pens, and  address book in the drawer. Pad and book on top. Check. Check. I made three phone calls: to Mark and the children who would become mine, to my parents, and to Jean Ellen. She was terrified I would never come home, and had told me she'd dreamed I was dead three times, so I left her for the last.

I told no one that I was afraid I'd not go home either. I could have done without hearing my sister's fear, but she had always felt she could and should tell me everything. Funny. There seemed to be so much I did not tell her back then. I wondered whether it would be easier for everyone if I didn't wake up. I had an expensive "hospitalization" policy that would cover a flat 80% of everything. Dad paid the premiums, but I would pay the debt. Jean Ellen had made it plain she really didn't want me living with her any more, but knew she had to "cope with it all" until I was married. Did Mark want to marry me out of pity? Did he just fancy the idea of catching and rescuing the wild woman? I was so far from home, why not just fly away altogether? Would anyone really care that much? I shook it off, and reminded myself of what I'd already survived, and that I wanted to live, if for no reason other than to show my Connecticut doctors they were wrong.

Finally, meditation and positive thoughts took me part of the way to peace, and demerol and a sleeping pill took me the rest of the way.

Prep or a Lack Thereof...

I was awakened at 5:00 for surgery prep and Doctor D. came into my room an hour before surgery.  He sang old songs to me and I joined in on the harmonies: "Seeing Nellie Home," and "I love you truly." We laughed and talked a bit. He was not conventional and he talked about his family, while I talked about my marriage coming up in six months. Dr. D. always seemed like an elf to me, the mornings of surgery, done up in his hospital greens. My magical, surrogate daddy elf. Maybe he crossed the professional lines, but he did so tastefully and it helped me every time.

He took my face in my hands, and with his southern accent said, "My sweet child, I've been on both sides of this, remember, and that's why I do this. You are too young to be going to another land, so don't let it enter your mind again. I will read the stupid list of what might happen because I have to, but after each one, say to your self, 'not happening.' We'll have only two surgeons with me this time. You'll wake up in your body cast."

"What cast?"

A cloud flew across his face and stopped in the middle. "One moment."

Apparently his orders to have me fitted for a cast the day before had been overlooked. Since I was going to wake up with my entire fusion having been removed and the bone in a bone bank, this was a rather significant oversight. I could hear his voice, but not his words in the hall. When he returned, the cloud was gone.

Some version or other of the bed.

"An unfortunate incident has occurred. I'm afraid you will have to wake up in a Stryker Bed, strapped down. I need for you to understand you will not be able to move your head or any part of your spine. In fact, you will only be able to move your forearms. Think of it this way. You'll be like a jellyfish, with no bony structure to support your lower spine. Don't be afraid, but you need to understand how it will be until your next surgery. We will have to fit you while you are lying down."

Fortunately, I didn't know enough to have this concern me. I figured I would focus on the living part. Besides, the drugs were kicking in and they came to wheel me downstairs. Dr. D. had to excuse himself to go get ready. The last thing I saw when I went under was his face, and I heard him singing. I believe I was smiling.

Life or Death In the Recovery Room

The first thing I saw was a nurse's face three inches from mine. "What are the medications you are allergic to?" The face had a pimple right at the left bow of its lip. The make up was caked on it grotesquely.  "Did you say dilantin?"

I knew that wasn't right, but I was in the recovery room and could not speak. My head said dilaudid, but my mouth said dilantin. Then I began to hallucinate. Monsters were in the corners and they were carrying dead animals toward me. I felt very odd, as if I was trying to leave myself. That nurse's face blocked the dead animals, but she was shouting. "Why didn't you SAY Dilaudid?"

There was a fight, someone was fired, the angry face went away and someone kind was there. But she said, "Dear, you are in shock and we cannot give you anything for the pain. The nurse gave you the wrong medicine. It is NOT your fault. But we have to keep you here for a few hours." Panic smacked me upside the head. I don't remember too much.

I was in the Stryker bed I think, because I could not move. I was on my back, tilted just enough so that I could see people running around, but as the hours passed, I thought that I was being eaten from behind.  Seventy-four pins ripping into my flesh and I was strapped down. "Jimmy, STOP IT!" I screamed. Three nurses told me there was no one there. It was the remnants of the medicine. I was feeling my staples. I was having strange thoughts of Jim. (Remember, this is pre-therapy. I did not remember what my childhood was.)  I was tied down and could not move.

I heard someone with my voice screaming, "Fucking zap 37 staples in God, stick HIM in a Stryker Bed with no pain meds and see how Well HE takes it!"

Apparently, the voice was mine, which surprised me. I knew it was because the kind nurse turned back to me, smiling, and said, "Trust me. If God were a man going through your hell, He'd be doing worse than you, honey. And guess what! You get your shot now!"

Blessedly, the world went away, and so did I. Unfortunately, I came back, and was still in the damned bed, and this was only day three.

Drugs, Detachment, and Drift

I woke up in the blue room at last. Home.  (Whenever I travel or spend the night someplace else, I refer to the place where my bed is as "home.") I've included a picture, but I am not sure whether that's how Stryker beds looked back then. I was in one, so the view was limited. I didn't know what day it was. Someone was in Bed A—The Hip in Bed A. I freaked her out for some reason. I know my head was strapped so I could not turn it. It all felt bizarre.

I remember the fitting for my body cast because every two seconds someone reminded me not to move my spine, which was tricky, since they had to measure me while I was lying on it flat, staples grinding into every nerve in my back. They would tell me to log roll over the tape,  so they could get the other end, and then would gasp because it was risky.

They commented on the enormous difference between my rib cage and waist and hips. I was somewhat emaciated by then, with a 23" waist, but STILL 37" hips! My rib cage itself was also 37 inches.  One particularly sensitive person said I had boney haunches, not hips.  Had I been able to speak, I'd have eviscerated him. They commented on how odd a shape the cast would be. All I knew was that I wanted this to be over.

One of the delights of being in hospitals too long is the tendency, after only a few days, to feel as if you disappear. I was only in day three, but people knew I would be there a long time and had already started talking around and through me. The scary thing now, as I look back, is that I had already begun to accept that. Besides, no one familiar was with me the day of that first operation.

In fact, I spent two more days completely alone. Mark came on the weekend and could not hide his horror of seeing me trussed up like a dinner meat. He tried to smile but it didn't work too well. Now, Mark always found it difficult to take command of a conversation. Once, during courtship,  we played a game with a bunch of friends where we all had to do animals that represented us. Mark walked around the room silently, pretending to munch pictures on the wall. He was a giraffe. People supposed it was his height. I looked at him and smiled, then said, "It's cause they do not make much sound."

Bingo. Mostly he read the paper and read the editorials aloud. Since I could not really turn my head, his voice was disembodied and hard for me to focus on. Occasionally he'd get up and lean over me, so that I could see his eyes, and he would say, "I love you." And he would find something on my face disturbing, then sit down again. He was there the whole day Saturday, but left that night and told me he would be back "when he could." He would have the kids the following weekend and felt he couldn't leave them. They were already bonding to me and were scared. He told me that he couldn't have them see me like this.

Fortunately, I could not shrug, but I'm afraid I would have. So I simply told him he was right, and pretended it was for the kids' sake. Somewhere inside, I probably knew that, but mostly all I felt was relief.

A couple of friends came Sunday but got bored after telling me the latest gossip in our group. They left in an hour because they had tickets to something or other in Boston. "We decided if we had to come into the hospital, we might as well reward ourselves for it all." They didn't come back. I didn't care.

Jean Ellen was the last to visit that weekend.  She was loath to leave, but staying was worse.  "Don't worry, Jetty. I'll let people know they shouldn't visit you. You can call, though, right? Please don't die."

I wanted to say, "Whatever." Instead I summoned a smile and said, "Well, I'll do my best."

That was at about 3:00. No one else came, and, once again, I was relieved.  Have you ever noticed that, if you are in the hospital long enough people come in expecting you to make them comfortable?  My friends wanted me to smile. They wanted me to tell a funny story, the way I had about other surgeries.  They were nervous about my immobility.  I was simply tired.  One friend actually said, "I came two hours here to see you; can't you manage to keep your eyes open?"

No. I couldn't. By day seven I had counted all the holes in the ceiling tiles. I had studied the linoleum floor tile patterns. I had recited every poem I knew in my head, and had moved on to commercial jingles. I figured I would save the Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins songs for later, and haul out Ronstadt and Gracie Slick when I was in real trouble.

I ate through a straw because the nurses did not have time to actually feed me. Sometimes they tipped me toward the table at the side, so that I could sort of slurp my food a bit, but never for long. One time Carol actually brought me a Friendly's Big Beef Bacon Cheeseburger, rare. At least I think that was it.  She cut it into little pieces and she fed me on her own dinner break.

Mostly, though, I was a roast suckling Jetty, being flipped to make sure the blood flowed properly. Once my call button dropped.  The Hip in Bed A had been moved out of the room that first night, so I was alone in the room all day, every day.  When the call button dropped I panicked. I could not see my bracelet to remember who I was. It was flipped, and I could not move the right arm and the left in a way so that I could really get at it.

The Alien In Bed B

My parents did not come when I was in the Stryker bed. Not once in two weeks. Mom's "knees were bad," Dad said. I had already given up trying to have anyone be honest about what "bad knees" were. Benders. Drunken stupors that had her on the floor, passed out until she woke up. Whatever.

My second surgery was not scheduled until the following Tuesday, so I was to remain in that bed, alone in my bright blue prison. Luckily, something about blood pressure happened, so that I was in and out of it, and had no awareness of time for a couple of days. I didn't ask.  Nurses came in to change blood bags and my sheets, to give me injections, to flip the bed, and to be sure water was in reach of my mouth. My entire left arm was strapped down to keep the IV site stable.  Sometimes they would read me the television guide so that I could watch t.v. if I wanted. The problem was that half the time they forgot to put my glasses on my face, so everything was a blur. Thirty years later, I feel the tightness in my chest, remembering.  Thirty years later, I still try to forget in a moment, days that lasted eternities.

I was an alien smack in the middle of a Dali painting for that week. Not even Mark came the following weekend. I had tried to make some calls, but everyone said I was weird, not myself. I became interested in finding numerical patterns in the number of venetian blinds per window, holes per tile, and the number of straps holding my body in place. I wondered whether this was some holy ritual of some kind before I would be jettisoned into space. One thing I could always count on in myself; I never became bored. If there was a story to make up, I found it. I do not know whether it was a gift or a curse. But I do know that I freaked out sometimes, not being able to see the bracelet on my left wrist on account of the IVs. I could not see the feet, either. I could not touch this body. Have you ever gone two weeks without being able to clasp your hands, touch your lips, touch your own face? Even the right arm chafed at the hinge when it moved, although the pain gave me some sense that the arm belonged to me. If there was an itch on the body I told myself I was not there, so it could not itch. I started to talk outloud to God, just to hear a voice. Mine, not God's. God didn't talk back.

When they tell you you're not alone in all this, about operations? The nurses, the doctors, when they all tell you they are there for you? And voices on the other end of the phone say "I'm with you in spirit?" Well, bull. Ultimately, it's just you there, in a bed, in a room, two hundred miles from anywhere you know. I had never been so alone, so lost, so terrified. When they turned the lights out at night, I made them leave a back light on. At night there was a reflection from something across the room, and the light hit it, and sometimes I could see a bit of me. I would move the right arm and wave to me. That way, you know, I knew for a moment that I was actually there.

By the time Mark came back and I had been alone for eight days, I was afraid. I was an alien from an unnamed planet, you see.  Jeannette had been ousted and something else was in my body.  I pictured a giant conveyor belt somewhere in space, where I'd been dumped off, stamped "DEFECTIVE."

When Mark kissed me,  he saw my fear.  My skin was too sensitive to take his stroking my arm, and I could not see him next to me at all. I had stopped using my peripheral vision because there was nothing left to see.

There was such a long silence. He said, at last, "Honey, don't you know me? Do you know where you are at all? Baby please!"

My Hero and My Home

I remember saying, "You're Mark." I remember that my voice was flat, but something inside awakened. I didn't want to awaken. I wanted him to go, but he was crying. He leaned over me and held my face so that I could not escape his eyes. Softness. I came home for just a moment. Softness in the metal world.  I was so tired.

"I've run out of tiles to count, Mark. I've run out." That was all I could say and he stepped back a moment.

He kissed me on the forehead and said, "Your body cast came, honey." He held it up. I seemed to remember something about jellyfish and body casts, but it was hazy. I felt me leaving again, but he took my face again, willing me to stay.

"Sweetheart, after tomorrow, you will be walking again. After tomorrow, you will not be eating through a straw and you will be allowed to turn your head."

He did not understand. I was not there any more. He did not get it and I could not explain it. I had a world with blue and metal, with 30 6-inch tiles in one direction, and 20 in the other.  Every tile had alternating rows of 12 and 11 holes in them. Mark entered my world from someplace with colors, I thought. And my world had echoes, liquids, smells and cold.  Straps and hours of a silence that ripped through my brain the way staples rip through flesh.

"Walking? I don't have any legs any more. I cannot see them and I do not move. Do I have them? Can  you read my bracelet please?"

The horror in Mark's eyes made me want to believe him as he read my name over and over. "You are right here, honey. You're right here." He looked terrified, but his voice was so soft. I knew that voice.  Then he put his hands on my toes and I felt his touch again. I knew those hands. I had toes! I started to shake again, and he touched legs that were clearly mine because I knew those hands. He unstrapped my right arm and I touched his face with my hand, and Jeannette re-entered this world with a terrified rush.

No matter what the miseries that followed, the pain, the cruelty he showed eventually, that night he was the greatest hero who ever lived. By Tuesday morning, when the team arrived to prep me, Jeannette was already prepped in the ways that counted.

Once again, As Dr. D. laid out his tools and the doctors introduced themselves to me, I focused on the names of the people I loved. The list had grown in two years, so I couldn't even get through them all before I was asleep.

Quick Update

All is well... sort of. A friend needed help. She was not well and her son truly needed help with a research paper--his first ten page paper. The kids' teacher gave them NO guidance. None. No steps through the process of thesis statement, outline, note cards, bibliography. Nothing. She also gave them just three weeks. The HONORS class had had such a paper the first semester, BUT with complete step by step guidance.

Anyway, my nephew--she's like a sister, and they are MY kids. She says they are hers, but I beg to differ... where was I? Oh. Right. He has this due Wednesday and he was on vacation all last week, so five out of seven days I was with him, trying to help, working together. I have NEVER met a fifteen-year-old boy or girl who was willing to sit with someone 5-7 hours for three days of the kid's vacation to get something done. We laughed. We swore. We stomped our feet. Well. No. HE stomped his feet for himself, then did a stomp or three for me because I could not feel my feet.

I slept on a foldout couch and sat upright for hours at a time. In between these bouts of being there, I've collapsed in a heap.

I do not regret one minute of the time. He learned a lot and so did I.  The quality of his thinking was amazing to me, but it was very hard for him to figure out how to do this thing ... and I DON'T blame him a bit. I taught him about garbage drafts. When I wrote for Stanford on deadline and had writer's block, I would quickly read through every bit of my information and then simply write everything that came into my head. Then I would sleep on it and the next day, oddly enough, I'd find the article in there. It worked for him and we both were kind of excited. He has pretty serious ADHD, so without being given the structure I think it was harder for him. PLUS he had to read Jubilee over vacation for his Honors history class. He will have another five page paper next week about how the book has contributed to a deeper understanding of their study of slavery and the Civil war. THAT essay excites him. The fact that it excites him made me happy.

ANYWAY, the kid was on overload and so was Mom. And we all won in this gig.

I mean it that I won, too. There was writing involved--coaching a kid who has this notion that he is stupid into writing a paper that was creative in its rhythm and approach, but followed every single "rule" for the school's comparative literature essays.

So I am not in any way, shape, or form stopping writing. Not on the radar. I admit that writing about my seven weeks in a hospital is far more of a challenge than I ever thought it would be, but we find those challenges in memoir for a reason. I've done my "garbage draft." It holds no meaning beyond just putting it all down, so it is not ready for me to post. I have to find value beyond spilling my guts for something like that.

My kid is the best, and we both had absolutely not the slightest desire to be stuck indoors doing this thing on a beautiful, warm weekend. So we shared our disgust. To give a clue to how burnt out I was by yesterday, around four... he was writing an essay about three legends and what makes a legend. He chose the legend of the basilisk BECAUSE it was not straightforward, was cross-cultural, and had legends that evolved over several centuries. Too much information for him to sort through without help. It was the longest section and I typed while he dictated. Well, first I started writing Basilica... I got past that, and then started writing baskilica... Finally, when we were doing proofreading and I was making notes for him to go to his dad's to input (Adam's computer was busted, he is not used to a little laptop Mac, so he needed his dad's computer next door).  When we got laughing about my problem with Basilisk, by 4:30, on that last page, I was marking a correction and started to actually write "Basket case" instead of Basilisk. Adam and I got laughing so hard, I choked and he spit out his Arizona tea.

At that point we decided he would input all the changes to that point, delete the last three paragraphs I had tried to "help" with, and finish the last page after supper. Worked like a charm. He came up with a creative, insightful, well-thought out ending.

By the way. Lest anyone think that I feel all noble? It's nothing like that. As I said, we are family, with ups and downs, but tutoring is not a down with Adam. Just exhausting is all.

As for Adam? I have been his tutor for five years, off and on. We have it down to our own little rituals together. We've gone through days of finals prep. Hours of math, science, history, Spanish, you name it. We know one another as few aunts and nephews often know one another--I am the luckier for it. Time with him may sometimes be hard on my back, but it is NEVER too hard on my psyche. He is a joy. And a total pain in the hoo-ha. My guess is he would say pretty much the same of me.

***
I am going to bed now for a day and a half. I shall return. No need to believe for one second I'd give up writing here, or on my memoir, or on anything else that strikes my little head.
Sleep. Bed. And, please do not picture me as a street addict, my pain medications. Adam finished his paper. His mom got the rest she HAD to have, so she can have the medical stuff done she needs to do this week. So now I will watch Animal Planet and reruns of "So You Think You Can Dance," because I am, like, an intellectual. I wanna see puppies get saved, and kids do things I was never able to do.

I'll decide about the evening when it gets here.

Part II coming... just a glitch in the brain here

Two glitches, perhaps.  The first is my writing class.  We have assignments in memoir that are things like "Tell a story using primarily dialogue in no more than 379 words, including the title." Another was setting a scene in 401 words. Character was, I believe, 392 words. And each assignment is supposed to stand alone.

Apparently, I'm not particularly good at this. I am working very hard on these assignments, but I choose too big a subject and get in a twist, I guess. I get one reaction from the class and another from the instructors. Now they are NOT at all nasty. Their critiques always include good things, and they suggest. I am learning a great deal about working hard on looking at what works and what doesn't. The problem for me is that these assignments are alien for me. I'm wordy. No doubt about that. However, when I read, I LIKE wordy! (We are not supposed to use exclamation points, adverbs, or adjectives. I used one exclamation point because, I said, when someone shouts, an exclamation point can say that instead of the word "shout." They actually said my exclamation point WAS correct in that situation. So I got one of my three "lifetime" exclamation points.)  !!!!

What happened before the last class is something that showed me how afraid I am sometimes. AND insecure. I am not looking for 89 comments of keep going. I WILL keep going. It's what I do. In fact, after the comment one of the instructors made before class, I came home, came to my blog and went to my comments over the last six months and took a deep breath and went, "GET A GRIP." Yeah. Outloud. But after forty-plus years of people telling me that I am not "such a much," the demons in the brain don't just shut up. I'm better at shutting them up or ignoring them, but ... well, perfect and I will not likely become acquainted in this lifetime. I can live with that.

The instructors rave about some people's work and justifiably so. I LOVE listening to other people's work. I learn from them.  But when I read a piece, the two instructors looked confused. Lary asked whether the class understood what I was saying and five women went, "YES." He asked for them to tell him and each one took a different bit. They understood the whole piece. He seemed surprised.  It was a bit about my brother's and my vigilance, even when I was not quite four--Not Mommy and Mommy. How we watched out for this, took stock of her body language, her eyes, her voice... wary. And what it was to go on one of the magical picnics. The preparation. The excitement. And, yes, the relief of knowing that Mommy was there--not the psychotic or drunken woman. The class got just enough to realize that my mother was not always quite right. And to see that she was quite wonderful otherwise. In 401 words. But even when I got the piece back they said that it was unclear in places and took apart the pieces they did not understand. And they even mentioned that I have to have something so that the readers feel that there is something at stake. That there is something that would compel them to read more.

I had to miss a class because of my back. Both feet were numb. Driving through rush hour would not be a good idea, nor would sitting for two hours in a student chair. Suzanne, and instructor, came to me the other night, when I returned. She was concerned because, well, I wasn't doing that well THAT night either. We had a guest author, who wrote Girls of Tender Age, an amazing memoir. Didn't want to miss that, and am glad that I went. I had sent Suzanne the attachment of my last painting and told her two of you were interested in having it, as are two people here at home. You all know me... I was amazed. But after asking me how I could cope with being as incapacitated at all, or what impelled me forward, a question which shocked me, she then suggested I might want to "rethink" my future!

Okay, she then was called away before I could really respond to that. I had said to her that it would not occur to me NOT to move forward, that lying down or giving in would have given me a lifetime of WORSE health and boredom.

Naturally, I doubted myself.  I have gotten a grip and this showed me that there is recovery left to do inside. However, it also showed me that I am not who I was the first time I had a class where Lary, my present instructor, was a visiting instructor. That teacher's and his criticisms got to me and I gave up writing for a decade. I was worthless, I thought, at 26.  Plus, the manuscript he handed me back was all wrinkled, with coffee stains. Not the other manuscripts. Just mine. As if this were intentional? I know Lary now. I lived for two years seeing his office. The man is not organized and spills on his own manuscripts.

But it took me only two days--no--a day and a half, to realize that this is nothing. And there is no reason to believe that it's personal. Other members of the class have been confused, too. And Lary finally said, at the end of class, that the object here is NOT to think we must write in a style that is almost self-consciously brief, but to learn how to truly look at every word, to experiment with different conventions, styles, techniques to find our voices.

One of my best friends in the world, Linda, helped me there. Today. Reminding me not to stop. Well, what she does is just remind me of who I am because of our conversations, period. It is always good to have at least one person who can help you find solid ground just by virtue of being who she is. (or he.)

I already found my voice. Here in this blog. With all of you. And I am learning every week in my class. I need to be true to myself, to accept the critiques as opinion, not gospel. Besides, some of the suggestions have been extremely helpful, and the "rules" have put me in touch with ALL my vocabulary, not just some of it.

So. Part II is scary for me to relive. It's an exercise in storytelling, but it is also an exercise in moving through that four-year period of operations without having my heart race, without getting the shakes. I learned so much through those nine operations. GOOD things. There may be a part three, but not for a while.

Okay. So. I won't stop writing. I couldn't stop writing and be okay with my life. It's what I have done to process everything since I was about ten. And I will keep learning in my class. I will take the suggestions in the spirit in which they are offered--as learning tools.  And I will not assume Suzanne was saying, "Be a painter. Your writing's a dead end." THAT is a reaction based on junk that has nothing to do with her.

But I'm not going to beat myself up for my bouts of fear or insecurity, either. If the only scars I have out of this life relate to a lack of self-confidence, then I'm not doing too badly, really. The back is a direct result of the battering by a brother in the days before people looked at things like sociopathic or psychopathic behavior in children. Boys will be boys. No one wanted to hear of torture or violence of a child against a child.

I was thrown down the stairs, pushed off chairs when I was reaching for things. I was battered and then called a klutz because I "fell." Jim was expert at it. He would find me at the bottom of the stairs, after pushing me, and tell Mommy how Jetty had fallen again. I began not to know the truth from his fictions. And by the time I was 26, I was missing a disk and there was evidence that vertebrae had been cracked in the past...

So writing about that journey is hard, the journey of the physical toll and the hell I had to live through because of it. Once again, though, for me, it is necessary. I am not ashamed of having all the surgeries; and they saved my life and ability to walk at a time when most multiple back surgeries failed entirely. (I know I'm hyper-sensitive there, but perhaps recounting that journey will help me stop reacting.) I am a SUCCESS story, not a failed back surgery story. I have gone twenty-six years now without another back operation. I've gone twenty years without another back "treatment" beyond occasional periods of intensive PT. I am alive, as I said. I am not wheelchair-bound. I stand.

And right now, I am about to ride fifty minutes on my recumbent bike, at level 12 out of 20. When I get off, I'll need an hour and a half to recuperate. A year ago, I could not manage more than twenty minutes at level 8. At all. Even sporadically. And then I will paint.

My life is a miracle to me, and writing about that is, for me, an exercise in FINDING the graces amidst the terror. You all are the people who help me believe that maybe this journey is worth the READ for others, when I doubt myself.

I found my voice just fine. With you. And I'll refine that voice as I work at home, and learn whenever the opportunity presents itself in classes, with other writers. (And on blogspot with other writers)

It's kind of fun (that's a strange word to have used, but it actually fits--weird), in some ways, to explore the last of my traumas. Oh. Wait. There is Jessica... But that is another journey, for another time. One at a time may be the best idea for now.

Part II is nearly ready.