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| Breathe In An excerpt from Cock-Eyed View: A Memoir By Amanda Leskovac |
I feel like my eyes have only been closed for ten or fifteen minutes before voices and the
sound of papers flipping wake me up. These are the noises that kept me up all night in
the first place: papers flipping, machines beeping, lights flickering. I want to scream, I just
broke my neck! But I don’t think it’ll make much difference. Sustaining a massive injury,
one that brings potential paralysis, didn’t earn me a quiet environment to get some rest.
They should’ve just picked a hot nightclub and plopped my bed in the middle of the dance
floor. At least then I could’ve gotten a drink and checked out some cute boys.
The flipping and talking are right at the bottom of my bed – eight talking faces to be exact
– all with clipboards, all talking about me in third person like I am wearing an invisibility
shield, even though I’m lying a foot away from them.
“Amanda is three days post surgery on C6-C7…”
My ears burn when they say my name. I want to sit up, but I’ve lost the muscles to do it on
my own, and unfortunately, sheer will isn’t enough. If I strain my neck, I can see a clump of
white lab coats crammed into the small space between the foot of my bed and the glass
doors that lead into the hallway. No one notices me struggling to sit up; instead, they are
reporting to one specific doctor, stringing sentences together that start with my name and
end with details I don’t understand.
“Her oxidation level dropped under 90 in the last hour. X-rays show her left lung has
collapsed again.” His voice is even, professional, emotionless, like he has just recited the
weather forecast.
The monitor beside my bed beeps; it’s the only other sound in the room. I want it to shut
the hell up. My Grandma always told me if I didn’t have anything good to say, I shouldn’t
say anything at all. Apparently, no one taught that same lesson to the beeping machine. If
it’s going to make so much noise, I need a good beep. The acid in my stomach rises up
into my esophagus.
“And what’s the recommended action?” The guy in charge gives a pop quiz in my ICU
room. I wonder if he’ll hand out a sticker that reads “Super!” to the one who gets it right.
“She’ll go back on the ventilator today, and then we’ll wait it out, see if the junk in her
lungs clears up, then try to pull the vent again tomorrow.” The big guy nods.
Eight years in medical school and the best they can come up with is junk.
They start talking in doctor code then: this has as much to do with volume and syntax as it
does with the actual medical terminology. They also make their exchanges as concise as
possible – they start sentences, then stop when the rest of the team nods. Having been
an astute English major putting off all my science requirements, their words don’t make
much sense. Unfortunately, even though I don’t understand why it’s happening, I get the
gist of it, and I’m scared.
“You catch all that, kiddo?” Gretchen, the nurse that’s been with me all night, touches my
arm. I nod.
They warned me about my lungs. Gretchen had pointed to the number on the screen
above my bed that displayed my oxidation levels the night before, told me if it dropped
below 90, I was in trouble. She explained that one or both of my lungs could collapse
because my body had endured such a severe trauma. Add my pre-accident daily intake of
cigarettes and weed, and you’ve got one stubborn left lung. It needs to use that
stubbornness for good, I won’t deflate, I won’t deflate. It would forever be known as “The
Little Left Lung that Couldn’t.”
I know that going back on the vent isn’t good. I know it’s a step in the wrong direction, that
it means I can’t talk or eat, which means the feeding tube stays. I just wasn’t thinking of
how big a step backward it might be, or the reality if my lung never fought back.
I wait for Gretchen to tell me it will be all right, but she just squeezes my hand and tells me
she’ll be back to give me anti-anxiety medication for the procedure. I’ve never lucidly
experienced the ventilator tube going in or out, so when I hear Gretchen’s words, I start
the procedure of becoming anxious.
As if they sense my growing apprehension, my parents return and take their positions on
either side of my bed. They both grab a hand. Mom’s eyes are bloodshot, and the end of
her nose is red.
“We just slipped out while you were napping to get something to eat.” She hits her
syllables so her words apologize rather than state a fact – as if I blame them for my
collapsed lung, believe if they had stayed in my room, it would still be inflated.
My brother Marc and his girlfriend stand at the bottom of my bed. Marc looks like a toddler
who’s just been plopped in the middle of a traffic intersection. He glances down at his feet,
then up at the ceiling. I want him to tell me a joke, tell me about a woman in the hallway
picking her nose, or how he fell getting out of the car in front of a crowd of
people…anything will do. We usually play off each other, extend a joke’s lifeline until it
inherently only amuses us. Now he’s on his own. His shoulders sag with the pressure. His
posture belies his 23 years.
We stay like that for a long time. They stand and I lie between them with a rainbow-
striped, stuffed fish on my belly. It was intended as a get-well gift, but turned into my
coughing “helper.” A nurse suggested I position it directly under my ribs, put both hands
on it, push down, and cough up the nasty shit that saturates my lungs, causing them to
collapse. She explained that quadriplegics lose a significant amount of lungpower, and
that’s why attaining a “productive” cough is so hard to do. The stomach muscles vital to
coughing can’t receive the message, contract, because the passageway from my brain
closed down without a detour – a vital alternative route. So I kick my muscles into gear
manually via a good push on my rainbow fish. Success is a mouthful of green snot. I never
thought this would ever qualify as a good day.
My fish and I kept guard all night, pumped the red oxidation numbers up to 95 just an hour
before the X-ray technician took a picture of my lungs. I thought I’d gotten enough
mouthfuls of snot before dozing off for a nap; we had worked hard. The guys in the white
lab coats can’t look me in the eyes and say, Not hard enough. Instead, they hurl around
medical terms and refer to me in third person.
I never feel my lung give up. I don’t understand it – figure I should’ve known before the
doctors did that I’m only getting 50 % of my usual oxygen intake. Each time they had to tell
me – I may notice sore ribs or difficulty breathing, but my idea of “collapsing” is way more
dramatic than that. A hotel gets blown up in Vegas, its frame collapses under the weight; a
severe pain shoots down an old man’s left arm, he collapses from a heart attack. I need
proof – smoke and rubble, a huge pow of some kind. It’s happening inside me, but I’m the
last one to know. I’m sick of being the last one to know.
Gretchen sets up a tray next to my bed and begins assembling various silver instruments.
It reminds me of the set-up the dentist always has by his side when he fills a cavity – filling
a cavity smarts a bit, but it’s nothing to cry about. So I try to talk myself into believing that
the “silver-gadget” tray is used by all doctors performing non-imposing procedures.
Gretchen puts the last instrument down, a tweezer-type tool. I decide reinserting the vent
must be cake.
But the enormous, bottomless pit forming in the depth of my stomach isn’t so easily
convinced – especially when the respiratory guy rolls the vent in. He looks over and
smiles, but even if I’m in a hospital, I’m not feeling hospitable. I stare back with the famous
“Leskovac” scowl. We’re all born with scowl DNA – from the time of conception, we
possess the ridges between our eyebrows that deepen when the scowl is executed. I’ve
witnessed its power firsthand on the faces of my dad, grandpa, aunt, brother. It makes its
receiver feel insignificant, silly even. Sometimes we don’t even know we’re doing it.
And sometimes, we call upon it intentionally. I scowl, not at the man but at what he brings
with him. I want to scare the ventilator out of my room. The technique had worked on the
underclassman in the hallways of my high school. But the vent had cajones those young
kids couldn’t dream of having, and it didn’t spook so easily.
The respiratory guy positions it next to my bed and places his hand on top of mine. “My
name’s Jim. I’m part of the respiratory team.” He allows one hand to stay on mine while he
shakes my mom’s hand, then reaches across the bed to my dad.
“Hi, Jim.” Dad’s voice is strong and heartfelt, just like his handshake. He is truly happy to
meet Jim. He is truly happy to meet anyone who is involved in my care – insists upon it. If
Jim hadn’t offered the information, Dad would have learned it anyway. He’ll remember the
good ones, the ones who take extra time, extra care – though he’ll likely ask me later what
that nice respiratory guy’s name is.
“You need anything while we wait for everyone?” Anything beyond breathing issues isn’t
in Jim’s job description, but he asks anyway. His voice is soft, just like his face. His eyes
are the kind of eyes absent on the faces of my doctors. They may have cared about me,
stood performing surgery for eight hours, wished for me to get better, but I never saw it on
their faces. Jim doesn’t hide his concern. Some people just can’t.
“Juice…I’d love some apple juice.” I smile, knowing full well I’m not allowed to drink
anything – no juice, no water, nothing. I get breakfast, lunch and dinner through my
feeding tube, a strict diet through my nose. But aside from the discomfort of it, I don’t mind
the not eating part of the whole ordeal. I’m not hungry, just unbelievably thirsty. And juice
would’ve taken the metallic, medicinal taste out of my mouth.
Jim laughs, then looked at me seriously. “We’ll get you through this, and you’ll be drinking
juice before you know it. I’ll get you any kind you want.”
Somehow, when Jim says it, I become a juice believer.
***
They tell my family it won’t take long. Dad gives a you take care of her nod to the docs,
then my family walks out through the sliding doors into the hallway, into who knows where.
I want to go too, want to take my rightful spot next to Marc as the baby of the family like it’s
always been. But they leave me behind with the doctor; their voices echo and reverberate
inside my skull like they’re talking at the end of a long tunnel.
At first it just feels like he’s sticking a tongue depressor into the back of my throat – I feel
that irritating second or two of gagging – then he pushes past the back of my throat, past
the mere irritating mark, keeps pushing and pushing until he reaches gagging depths I
never knew existed. Tears sting my eyes, then I go to another place, leave the room,
down the hall, outside – anywhere. It’s over, and I don’t know whether it took two seconds
or ten minutes. They tell me later they had me in “twilight,” so I could be there without
being there – not the whole way under, not fully awake. If that was partially awake, I
shudder imagining the experience completely lucid. I want to package up “twilight” and
take it with me. I want a blurry version of my life, to be there without being there.
***
Dad and Mom stand on either side of my bed, trying to guess what I want, throwing ideas
back and forth like a tennis ball – but the ball isn’t making it over the net. I lie between
them. The ventilator in my mouth prevents me from visiting with my family, from having
them understand even the smallest of requests. Somehow I’ve become the net, and every
idea Mom and Dad serve gets caught in the rope, then falls flat against the ground.
“Are you cold? Do you want a blanket?” Mom serves first. She moves toward the blanket
at the bottom of my bed, wanting to have guessed right on the first try, wanting to just
make it all right. She wants to believe a blanket will do just that – at least all right for the
moment, and that is something. But I shake my head. She stops mid blanket-pulling but
keeps a tight grip on one corner.
“Turn the radio up?” Dad gives it a shot. There is nothing so terrible that the Leskovacs
can’t throw some music on to sing it out. But that’s just it. To have music on and not be
able to sing is worse than not having it on at all. Still, Dad made sure I had a radio in my
room on the first day after they brought me back after surgery. Even though I had no idea
it was in the room, had no idea where I was.
I’ve always fallen asleep to the radio, ever since I was ten years old and got my own room.
Dad never complained about the noise, even when I was going through my gangsta rap
phase and N.W.A. put me to sleep. Dad believed in the power of music, even music he
personally found vile and misogynistic. Dad didn’t bring my old “Straight Outta Compton”
tape to the ICU, but he’s made it his job to turn the radio to an appropriate station and
volume before they leave each night. He feels better knowing there is music in their
absence.
But right now, I don’t give a shit if the radio’s turned up, and when I shake my head at the
suggestion, I can feel my hang-in-there slipping away. The click-gush of the ventilator is
deafening, the only sound I can hear, isolates me from anything positive. I look away from
my parents; stare at the bulletin board decorated with get-well cards. There’s too many,
so they’re stacked on top of each other – an amalgam of encouraging words. I close my
eyes and send a message to my toes: Wiggle. I picture the bump my foot creates under
the sheet, but even in my imagination, they remain motionless, defiant.
Mom and Dad keep guessing, and I keep shaking my head. Dad resorts to handing me a
small, orange board, a little bigger than the size of a piece of paper. One side of it is
decorated with the alphabet in bold, black letters; the top right corner says “Yes,” while
the left says “No.” I’m supposed to point at a letter until I’ve spelled out what I want to say,
a task that is made more difficult by the braces on my hands. Instead of using a single
finger to identify each letter, the braces force me to point with four fingers. If I go for the
“A,” my parents guess the “C,” as if spelling out an entire sentence isn’t frustrating
enough.
The board reminds me of the Ouija board my friends and I gathered around when we
were thirteen. Candles lit, I’d call upon its infinite wisdom to see if Tom Fontaine was going
to ask me to the Valentine’s Day dance. Now I want to hold it and ask it something just as
important. Except, I can’t … won’t. Unlike when I was thirteen and had heard rumors to
suggest a positive response, this is different. I am too afraid of the plastic K-mart
planchette, afraid it will start moving too far to the left, too close to the “No.” When I was
younger, I would’ve blamed my friend for moving it. Now I’m playing all by myself.
Dad pushes the button on the remote to readjust the head of the bed so I can sit up and
start spelling. But I don’t want to sit up, I don’t want to spell out what I want – what I want
doesn’t even matter anymore. We’ve been playing the guessing game for ten minutes
already. Now all I want is to close my eyes, just close my eyes and forget that I might not
be able to walk, forget about the machine breathing for me, forget that there are tears in
my parents’ eyes. Four days prior, I was juggling work and a summer class. Four days
prior, I was counting the credits I had and the ones I still needed to graduate. Now, my list
of have and have-nots is unbearably lopsided.
I’m halfway between lying and sitting when I get light headed, the letters Dad put in front of
me swirl together, and a ringing sounds goes from faint to deafening; a surge of panic
runs through me. I pick up my left arm, clad in a brace almost up to my elbow, and motion
for Dad to quit pushing, with the sincere hope that the motion I’m making resembles the
universal motion for “stop.” I can’t be sure anymore, can’t trust that my limbs are actually
doing what my brain is telling them to do.
The bed stops with a jerk and reverses. As I get closer to the prone position, my head
begins to clear – the ringing dissipates until it’s gone entirely, and I feel more solid in my
skin. Crisis averted. When the hell had sitting become such a dangerous activity? I can’t
walk, and now sitting is out of the question as well.
Dad’s face clouds. “What do you need, babe? Can you spell it out lying down?”
“Oh, Bob. She can’t do that now.” Mom shoots Dad a look, then asks me if she should get
the nurse.
The answer is no. I don’t want to spell anything out and I don’t need a nurse. I just want
my parents to know things, just like they’ve known things my whole life: when I lied about
where I was going and who would be there and what we were doing. I need them to use
their super-parent powers one last time.
***
The next day, I’m woken up from a mid-afternoon nap by two perky little girls in green
scrubs.
“Amanda?”
I open my right eye and there they stand, one behind the other at the side of my bed. I
don’t respond, just stare without affirming or denying my identity. I shut my eye, hoping
they get the hint. I’ve never a big fan of cute, bouncy, cheerleader-girl types, and I would
bet 100 bucks that the blonde closest to me has spent a significant amount of her high
school years at the top of a pyramid.
“Amanda, we’re from the physical therapy department, and we’d like to work with you
today.”
I don’t open my eyes. I’m pretty convinced I’m dreaming, that the girls are a mirage, a
hallucination from the morphine they have been giving me. It just doesn’t make sense. I
figure I have to have something physically working before I can work with any department
that has “physical” in its title.
“Amanda.” The second time she says my name, it isn’t a question. She no longer asks me
to open my eyes and acknowledge their presence, she demands it. To drive her point
home, she reaches down and softly cuffs her hand around my arm. Her solid grip tells me
she isn’t removing it until I play ball.
But I’m not a “ball player,” never have been. I’m obnoxiously stubborn, would have rather
been kicked out of a class in high school than back down. When Mom and I fought, it was
never officially over until I had the last word. And it was usually that last word that got me
grounded. It’s a characteristic that, most of the time, gets me in trouble. But it’s out of my
hands. If the ability to “back down” is a switch inside our bodies, mine just doesn’t have an
off button.
I hold out for about a full minute. I can feel the weight of her stare, and her grip remains
solid on my arm; she isn’t budging. Any other time, I would’ve pulled my arm away,
removed her hand, told her what I thought of physical therapy, and walked away. But I can
only talk when they blow up a balloon in the tube they placed in my throat and put a red
cap on the opening to block air from escaping. They’ve got me right where they want me,
and they know it. I can’t talk or leave the room. After I finally give and open my eyes, I
glare at them unpleasantly.
“Hey, there you are.” Both girls smile. The one closest to me lets go of my arm. “I’m
Jessica and this is Rachel. The docs cleared you for physical therapy, so we’d like to do a
couple things with you.”
I respond with a click-gush, hardly an enthusiastic reply.
“Okay, we’re going to have you sit up on the side of your bed. So first, we’ll put the head
of your bed up as far as it will go, then we’re going to have you lean forward as we swing
your legs off the bed.” Jessica, clearly the one taking charge, explains their plans for my
body. I look from one to the other, beg them with my eyes: Please just let me be, please
just let me lie in this bed. I blink hard. Please just let me be paralyzed.
They don’t take the bait.
I’m a new quadriplegic, but surely it comes with perks. I should be able to stay in bed and
do nothing as long as my little broken neck desires. But they must not have consulted the
quad handbook because they only have one thing on their minds: to see me miserable.
I vehemently shake my head, but they don’t pay any attention to me. I’ve become an old
video game, a tattered teddy bear – overlooked. I start to wonder whether being without a
voice has anything to do with the ventilator or if it’s just part of the quadriplegic package,
part of breaking my neck – I’ve lost the power to choose, to say “yes” or “no,” to tell these
girls to shove physical therapy up their asses.
They shuffle around, repositioning the tubes and wires that are attached and will have to
come with me wherever they decide to move me. Rachel grabs my bed remote, and the
head of my bed begins to rise up, up, up. I have no choice but to go with it. A faint ringing
begins in my ears, soft and distant. Before it gets any worse, I shoot my arm up into the
air and wave it around, motioning for them to stop. The bed stops but doesn’t reverse.
“What’s a matter, Amanda? Are you okay?”
Jessica reaches across the bed, places a hand on each of my shoulders and holds firmly.
I feel the color drain from my face. Her words are audible, but they are muffled and far
away, a ringing is taking their place. It’s as if I’m traveling to an altitude my body isn’t
prepared for, as if I’m suddenly driving up the side of a mountain. I close my eyes and see
white, like a thick layer of fog has rolled into the ICU, rolled up over me, up through me.
The incessant ringing gets louder until it fills my head.
“I need you to stay with me, Amanda.” Jessica’s voice cuts through the smog. I feel her
grip on my shoulders. “Open up your eyes and breathe for me now. Inhale through your
nose and let it out through your mouth.” She draws in a deep breath of her own. Her face
is so close to mine, I feel her exhale on my cheek.
I breathe like she tells me, concentrate on her voice until her face comes into focus. After
a minute or two, my ears pop and the ringing subsides. Her voice mixes with the sound of
gurneys bustling down the hallway, machines, the click-gush.
“I thought we are going to lose you for a second there.” She lets go of my shoulders and
stands back. I’m shaky, still light-headed, but I summon enough energy to scowl at her.
She pretends it’s a scowl turned upside down. “Are you feeling okay now?”
I’ve never had a need for a physical therapist. I never knew they existed, let alone what
their job entailed. Given their title, my natural assumption is that they know a whole lot
about our bodies. But maybe I assumed too much. I’m supposed to trust these two girls,
allow them to move my body in positions I’m not comfortable with, yet they almost let me
pass out. Then she has the audacity to ask how I feel?
I search the room for backup, but both my nurse and my family are M.I.A. They picked a
fine time to leave me, Lucille.
I try reasoning with her on my own – except there is only so much reasoning I can do
when I can’t talk. I put my hand up as close to her face as I can get it. I’m going for the
drama: a close-up on the quadriplegic hand. In slow motion, I push an invisible button on
an invisible bed control. I mouth the word back, then rely on my eyes for a strong finish.
The Oscar, please.
Of course, Jessica has to ruin it. I get a feeling this is Jessica’s mojo.
“No, we need to keep you up. It’s because you’ve been lying back for so long that you feel
this way. If you can start sitting up in a chair a couple hours a day, you’ll get past the
dizziness and it’s great for your lungs.” She smiles. Her enthusiasm grates on my
patience. Sitting up on this day, in this minute, is number one on my “Things I Don’t Want
to Be Doing” top ten list. Licking a public toilet seat is number two.
“Okay, you think you’re about ready to go up the rest of the way?”
Up the rest of the what? I pause for the punch line. I haven’t fully recovered, and she’s
shoving me into round two. Perhaps fainting isn’t quite enough fun for her – maybe she
wants to see me puke as well. I don’t know why she keeps asking me questions when we
both know she’ll disregard the answer. I shake my head, but as a universal sign for denial,
the headshake has lost its power. I become invisible again, and my bed continues its
ascent.
I try to stay focused, repeat don’t get dizzy, don’t get dizzy. But as my body bends further
and further in half, dizziness doesn’t name what it is that I feel. Perhaps some
experiences, some “happenings,” aren’t common enough, haven’t been experienced by
enough people to earn an appellation. To say it feels like my body is being cut in half
doesn’t quite do it justice. And it doesn’t match the visual in front of me. How can I feel so
detached from my legs when they’re right there in front of me?
All my lung trouble has bought me some time, allowed me to concentrate on something
that has the possibility of getting better. But because I can’t feel anything – not one little
thing, it’s hard to believe my injuries are severe. Usually, the more something hurts, the
worse off you are. I’m not in any kind of pain, so I can ignore my legs. If I don’t think of
them, they’re not there. “Nothing” can’t be paralyzed. The sitting position makes this
ignorance impossible.
The bed finally stops when I sit at about an 85° angle. I look straight ahead, knowing what
I have to do. The physical therapists, the ventilator, all the tubes and wires fade in the
background; I take center stage – the spotlight. I slowly let my gaze fall until I have no
choice but to truly acknowledge them: thighs, toes, calves, feet, knees. There is an
awkward silence, old friends meeting after a long time apart. Both feet are wrapped up in
some kind of braces that remind me of old moon boots. I didn’t even know I had them on.
My stomach turns, and I’m queasy.
I click, then gush, push past the nausea. When it settles, I reach forward, place my hand
on the thigh and try to own it, reclaim it as my own. But it won’t be that easy. We have
been a part of one another for twenty-one years, but it’s been an eternity since we
communicated, since our relationship was intimate. I try again with my eyes closed, start
higher up, dig my fingers firmly around bone on the hip, push forward, glide my hand
down to the knee. I feel skin on my palm– soft supple skin – but I feel nothing.
Small tears form, and I open my eyes, stare at my hand resting on a knee. A standard
knee – a joint connecting the femur and tibia. And then I spot something further down,
past the knee. The skin is discolored; a deep blue swirls into a yellowish center. The
bruise is almost a perfect circle the size of my fist. I rub my hand over it and press down,
imagine it hurts. I still can’t feel it, but I know it’s mine.
sound of papers flipping wake me up. These are the noises that kept me up all night in
the first place: papers flipping, machines beeping, lights flickering. I want to scream, I just
broke my neck! But I don’t think it’ll make much difference. Sustaining a massive injury,
one that brings potential paralysis, didn’t earn me a quiet environment to get some rest.
They should’ve just picked a hot nightclub and plopped my bed in the middle of the dance
floor. At least then I could’ve gotten a drink and checked out some cute boys.
The flipping and talking are right at the bottom of my bed – eight talking faces to be exact
– all with clipboards, all talking about me in third person like I am wearing an invisibility
shield, even though I’m lying a foot away from them.
“Amanda is three days post surgery on C6-C7…”
My ears burn when they say my name. I want to sit up, but I’ve lost the muscles to do it on
my own, and unfortunately, sheer will isn’t enough. If I strain my neck, I can see a clump of
white lab coats crammed into the small space between the foot of my bed and the glass
doors that lead into the hallway. No one notices me struggling to sit up; instead, they are
reporting to one specific doctor, stringing sentences together that start with my name and
end with details I don’t understand.
“Her oxidation level dropped under 90 in the last hour. X-rays show her left lung has
collapsed again.” His voice is even, professional, emotionless, like he has just recited the
weather forecast.
The monitor beside my bed beeps; it’s the only other sound in the room. I want it to shut
the hell up. My Grandma always told me if I didn’t have anything good to say, I shouldn’t
say anything at all. Apparently, no one taught that same lesson to the beeping machine. If
it’s going to make so much noise, I need a good beep. The acid in my stomach rises up
into my esophagus.
“And what’s the recommended action?” The guy in charge gives a pop quiz in my ICU
room. I wonder if he’ll hand out a sticker that reads “Super!” to the one who gets it right.
“She’ll go back on the ventilator today, and then we’ll wait it out, see if the junk in her
lungs clears up, then try to pull the vent again tomorrow.” The big guy nods.
Eight years in medical school and the best they can come up with is junk.
They start talking in doctor code then: this has as much to do with volume and syntax as it
does with the actual medical terminology. They also make their exchanges as concise as
possible – they start sentences, then stop when the rest of the team nods. Having been
an astute English major putting off all my science requirements, their words don’t make
much sense. Unfortunately, even though I don’t understand why it’s happening, I get the
gist of it, and I’m scared.
“You catch all that, kiddo?” Gretchen, the nurse that’s been with me all night, touches my
arm. I nod.
They warned me about my lungs. Gretchen had pointed to the number on the screen
above my bed that displayed my oxidation levels the night before, told me if it dropped
below 90, I was in trouble. She explained that one or both of my lungs could collapse
because my body had endured such a severe trauma. Add my pre-accident daily intake of
cigarettes and weed, and you’ve got one stubborn left lung. It needs to use that
stubbornness for good, I won’t deflate, I won’t deflate. It would forever be known as “The
Little Left Lung that Couldn’t.”
I know that going back on the vent isn’t good. I know it’s a step in the wrong direction, that
it means I can’t talk or eat, which means the feeding tube stays. I just wasn’t thinking of
how big a step backward it might be, or the reality if my lung never fought back.
I wait for Gretchen to tell me it will be all right, but she just squeezes my hand and tells me
she’ll be back to give me anti-anxiety medication for the procedure. I’ve never lucidly
experienced the ventilator tube going in or out, so when I hear Gretchen’s words, I start
the procedure of becoming anxious.
As if they sense my growing apprehension, my parents return and take their positions on
either side of my bed. They both grab a hand. Mom’s eyes are bloodshot, and the end of
her nose is red.
“We just slipped out while you were napping to get something to eat.” She hits her
syllables so her words apologize rather than state a fact – as if I blame them for my
collapsed lung, believe if they had stayed in my room, it would still be inflated.
My brother Marc and his girlfriend stand at the bottom of my bed. Marc looks like a toddler
who’s just been plopped in the middle of a traffic intersection. He glances down at his feet,
then up at the ceiling. I want him to tell me a joke, tell me about a woman in the hallway
picking her nose, or how he fell getting out of the car in front of a crowd of
people…anything will do. We usually play off each other, extend a joke’s lifeline until it
inherently only amuses us. Now he’s on his own. His shoulders sag with the pressure. His
posture belies his 23 years.
We stay like that for a long time. They stand and I lie between them with a rainbow-
striped, stuffed fish on my belly. It was intended as a get-well gift, but turned into my
coughing “helper.” A nurse suggested I position it directly under my ribs, put both hands
on it, push down, and cough up the nasty shit that saturates my lungs, causing them to
collapse. She explained that quadriplegics lose a significant amount of lungpower, and
that’s why attaining a “productive” cough is so hard to do. The stomach muscles vital to
coughing can’t receive the message, contract, because the passageway from my brain
closed down without a detour – a vital alternative route. So I kick my muscles into gear
manually via a good push on my rainbow fish. Success is a mouthful of green snot. I never
thought this would ever qualify as a good day.
My fish and I kept guard all night, pumped the red oxidation numbers up to 95 just an hour
before the X-ray technician took a picture of my lungs. I thought I’d gotten enough
mouthfuls of snot before dozing off for a nap; we had worked hard. The guys in the white
lab coats can’t look me in the eyes and say, Not hard enough. Instead, they hurl around
medical terms and refer to me in third person.
I never feel my lung give up. I don’t understand it – figure I should’ve known before the
doctors did that I’m only getting 50 % of my usual oxygen intake. Each time they had to tell
me – I may notice sore ribs or difficulty breathing, but my idea of “collapsing” is way more
dramatic than that. A hotel gets blown up in Vegas, its frame collapses under the weight; a
severe pain shoots down an old man’s left arm, he collapses from a heart attack. I need
proof – smoke and rubble, a huge pow of some kind. It’s happening inside me, but I’m the
last one to know. I’m sick of being the last one to know.
Gretchen sets up a tray next to my bed and begins assembling various silver instruments.
It reminds me of the set-up the dentist always has by his side when he fills a cavity – filling
a cavity smarts a bit, but it’s nothing to cry about. So I try to talk myself into believing that
the “silver-gadget” tray is used by all doctors performing non-imposing procedures.
Gretchen puts the last instrument down, a tweezer-type tool. I decide reinserting the vent
must be cake.
But the enormous, bottomless pit forming in the depth of my stomach isn’t so easily
convinced – especially when the respiratory guy rolls the vent in. He looks over and
smiles, but even if I’m in a hospital, I’m not feeling hospitable. I stare back with the famous
“Leskovac” scowl. We’re all born with scowl DNA – from the time of conception, we
possess the ridges between our eyebrows that deepen when the scowl is executed. I’ve
witnessed its power firsthand on the faces of my dad, grandpa, aunt, brother. It makes its
receiver feel insignificant, silly even. Sometimes we don’t even know we’re doing it.
And sometimes, we call upon it intentionally. I scowl, not at the man but at what he brings
with him. I want to scare the ventilator out of my room. The technique had worked on the
underclassman in the hallways of my high school. But the vent had cajones those young
kids couldn’t dream of having, and it didn’t spook so easily.
The respiratory guy positions it next to my bed and places his hand on top of mine. “My
name’s Jim. I’m part of the respiratory team.” He allows one hand to stay on mine while he
shakes my mom’s hand, then reaches across the bed to my dad.
“Hi, Jim.” Dad’s voice is strong and heartfelt, just like his handshake. He is truly happy to
meet Jim. He is truly happy to meet anyone who is involved in my care – insists upon it. If
Jim hadn’t offered the information, Dad would have learned it anyway. He’ll remember the
good ones, the ones who take extra time, extra care – though he’ll likely ask me later what
that nice respiratory guy’s name is.
“You need anything while we wait for everyone?” Anything beyond breathing issues isn’t
in Jim’s job description, but he asks anyway. His voice is soft, just like his face. His eyes
are the kind of eyes absent on the faces of my doctors. They may have cared about me,
stood performing surgery for eight hours, wished for me to get better, but I never saw it on
their faces. Jim doesn’t hide his concern. Some people just can’t.
“Juice…I’d love some apple juice.” I smile, knowing full well I’m not allowed to drink
anything – no juice, no water, nothing. I get breakfast, lunch and dinner through my
feeding tube, a strict diet through my nose. But aside from the discomfort of it, I don’t mind
the not eating part of the whole ordeal. I’m not hungry, just unbelievably thirsty. And juice
would’ve taken the metallic, medicinal taste out of my mouth.
Jim laughs, then looked at me seriously. “We’ll get you through this, and you’ll be drinking
juice before you know it. I’ll get you any kind you want.”
Somehow, when Jim says it, I become a juice believer.
***
They tell my family it won’t take long. Dad gives a you take care of her nod to the docs,
then my family walks out through the sliding doors into the hallway, into who knows where.
I want to go too, want to take my rightful spot next to Marc as the baby of the family like it’s
always been. But they leave me behind with the doctor; their voices echo and reverberate
inside my skull like they’re talking at the end of a long tunnel.
At first it just feels like he’s sticking a tongue depressor into the back of my throat – I feel
that irritating second or two of gagging – then he pushes past the back of my throat, past
the mere irritating mark, keeps pushing and pushing until he reaches gagging depths I
never knew existed. Tears sting my eyes, then I go to another place, leave the room,
down the hall, outside – anywhere. It’s over, and I don’t know whether it took two seconds
or ten minutes. They tell me later they had me in “twilight,” so I could be there without
being there – not the whole way under, not fully awake. If that was partially awake, I
shudder imagining the experience completely lucid. I want to package up “twilight” and
take it with me. I want a blurry version of my life, to be there without being there.
***
Dad and Mom stand on either side of my bed, trying to guess what I want, throwing ideas
back and forth like a tennis ball – but the ball isn’t making it over the net. I lie between
them. The ventilator in my mouth prevents me from visiting with my family, from having
them understand even the smallest of requests. Somehow I’ve become the net, and every
idea Mom and Dad serve gets caught in the rope, then falls flat against the ground.
“Are you cold? Do you want a blanket?” Mom serves first. She moves toward the blanket
at the bottom of my bed, wanting to have guessed right on the first try, wanting to just
make it all right. She wants to believe a blanket will do just that – at least all right for the
moment, and that is something. But I shake my head. She stops mid blanket-pulling but
keeps a tight grip on one corner.
“Turn the radio up?” Dad gives it a shot. There is nothing so terrible that the Leskovacs
can’t throw some music on to sing it out. But that’s just it. To have music on and not be
able to sing is worse than not having it on at all. Still, Dad made sure I had a radio in my
room on the first day after they brought me back after surgery. Even though I had no idea
it was in the room, had no idea where I was.
I’ve always fallen asleep to the radio, ever since I was ten years old and got my own room.
Dad never complained about the noise, even when I was going through my gangsta rap
phase and N.W.A. put me to sleep. Dad believed in the power of music, even music he
personally found vile and misogynistic. Dad didn’t bring my old “Straight Outta Compton”
tape to the ICU, but he’s made it his job to turn the radio to an appropriate station and
volume before they leave each night. He feels better knowing there is music in their
absence.
But right now, I don’t give a shit if the radio’s turned up, and when I shake my head at the
suggestion, I can feel my hang-in-there slipping away. The click-gush of the ventilator is
deafening, the only sound I can hear, isolates me from anything positive. I look away from
my parents; stare at the bulletin board decorated with get-well cards. There’s too many,
so they’re stacked on top of each other – an amalgam of encouraging words. I close my
eyes and send a message to my toes: Wiggle. I picture the bump my foot creates under
the sheet, but even in my imagination, they remain motionless, defiant.
Mom and Dad keep guessing, and I keep shaking my head. Dad resorts to handing me a
small, orange board, a little bigger than the size of a piece of paper. One side of it is
decorated with the alphabet in bold, black letters; the top right corner says “Yes,” while
the left says “No.” I’m supposed to point at a letter until I’ve spelled out what I want to say,
a task that is made more difficult by the braces on my hands. Instead of using a single
finger to identify each letter, the braces force me to point with four fingers. If I go for the
“A,” my parents guess the “C,” as if spelling out an entire sentence isn’t frustrating
enough.
The board reminds me of the Ouija board my friends and I gathered around when we
were thirteen. Candles lit, I’d call upon its infinite wisdom to see if Tom Fontaine was going
to ask me to the Valentine’s Day dance. Now I want to hold it and ask it something just as
important. Except, I can’t … won’t. Unlike when I was thirteen and had heard rumors to
suggest a positive response, this is different. I am too afraid of the plastic K-mart
planchette, afraid it will start moving too far to the left, too close to the “No.” When I was
younger, I would’ve blamed my friend for moving it. Now I’m playing all by myself.
Dad pushes the button on the remote to readjust the head of the bed so I can sit up and
start spelling. But I don’t want to sit up, I don’t want to spell out what I want – what I want
doesn’t even matter anymore. We’ve been playing the guessing game for ten minutes
already. Now all I want is to close my eyes, just close my eyes and forget that I might not
be able to walk, forget about the machine breathing for me, forget that there are tears in
my parents’ eyes. Four days prior, I was juggling work and a summer class. Four days
prior, I was counting the credits I had and the ones I still needed to graduate. Now, my list
of have and have-nots is unbearably lopsided.
I’m halfway between lying and sitting when I get light headed, the letters Dad put in front of
me swirl together, and a ringing sounds goes from faint to deafening; a surge of panic
runs through me. I pick up my left arm, clad in a brace almost up to my elbow, and motion
for Dad to quit pushing, with the sincere hope that the motion I’m making resembles the
universal motion for “stop.” I can’t be sure anymore, can’t trust that my limbs are actually
doing what my brain is telling them to do.
The bed stops with a jerk and reverses. As I get closer to the prone position, my head
begins to clear – the ringing dissipates until it’s gone entirely, and I feel more solid in my
skin. Crisis averted. When the hell had sitting become such a dangerous activity? I can’t
walk, and now sitting is out of the question as well.
Dad’s face clouds. “What do you need, babe? Can you spell it out lying down?”
“Oh, Bob. She can’t do that now.” Mom shoots Dad a look, then asks me if she should get
the nurse.
The answer is no. I don’t want to spell anything out and I don’t need a nurse. I just want
my parents to know things, just like they’ve known things my whole life: when I lied about
where I was going and who would be there and what we were doing. I need them to use
their super-parent powers one last time.
***
The next day, I’m woken up from a mid-afternoon nap by two perky little girls in green
scrubs.
“Amanda?”
I open my right eye and there they stand, one behind the other at the side of my bed. I
don’t respond, just stare without affirming or denying my identity. I shut my eye, hoping
they get the hint. I’ve never a big fan of cute, bouncy, cheerleader-girl types, and I would
bet 100 bucks that the blonde closest to me has spent a significant amount of her high
school years at the top of a pyramid.
“Amanda, we’re from the physical therapy department, and we’d like to work with you
today.”
I don’t open my eyes. I’m pretty convinced I’m dreaming, that the girls are a mirage, a
hallucination from the morphine they have been giving me. It just doesn’t make sense. I
figure I have to have something physically working before I can work with any department
that has “physical” in its title.
“Amanda.” The second time she says my name, it isn’t a question. She no longer asks me
to open my eyes and acknowledge their presence, she demands it. To drive her point
home, she reaches down and softly cuffs her hand around my arm. Her solid grip tells me
she isn’t removing it until I play ball.
But I’m not a “ball player,” never have been. I’m obnoxiously stubborn, would have rather
been kicked out of a class in high school than back down. When Mom and I fought, it was
never officially over until I had the last word. And it was usually that last word that got me
grounded. It’s a characteristic that, most of the time, gets me in trouble. But it’s out of my
hands. If the ability to “back down” is a switch inside our bodies, mine just doesn’t have an
off button.
I hold out for about a full minute. I can feel the weight of her stare, and her grip remains
solid on my arm; she isn’t budging. Any other time, I would’ve pulled my arm away,
removed her hand, told her what I thought of physical therapy, and walked away. But I can
only talk when they blow up a balloon in the tube they placed in my throat and put a red
cap on the opening to block air from escaping. They’ve got me right where they want me,
and they know it. I can’t talk or leave the room. After I finally give and open my eyes, I
glare at them unpleasantly.
“Hey, there you are.” Both girls smile. The one closest to me lets go of my arm. “I’m
Jessica and this is Rachel. The docs cleared you for physical therapy, so we’d like to do a
couple things with you.”
I respond with a click-gush, hardly an enthusiastic reply.
“Okay, we’re going to have you sit up on the side of your bed. So first, we’ll put the head
of your bed up as far as it will go, then we’re going to have you lean forward as we swing
your legs off the bed.” Jessica, clearly the one taking charge, explains their plans for my
body. I look from one to the other, beg them with my eyes: Please just let me be, please
just let me lie in this bed. I blink hard. Please just let me be paralyzed.
They don’t take the bait.
I’m a new quadriplegic, but surely it comes with perks. I should be able to stay in bed and
do nothing as long as my little broken neck desires. But they must not have consulted the
quad handbook because they only have one thing on their minds: to see me miserable.
I vehemently shake my head, but they don’t pay any attention to me. I’ve become an old
video game, a tattered teddy bear – overlooked. I start to wonder whether being without a
voice has anything to do with the ventilator or if it’s just part of the quadriplegic package,
part of breaking my neck – I’ve lost the power to choose, to say “yes” or “no,” to tell these
girls to shove physical therapy up their asses.
They shuffle around, repositioning the tubes and wires that are attached and will have to
come with me wherever they decide to move me. Rachel grabs my bed remote, and the
head of my bed begins to rise up, up, up. I have no choice but to go with it. A faint ringing
begins in my ears, soft and distant. Before it gets any worse, I shoot my arm up into the
air and wave it around, motioning for them to stop. The bed stops but doesn’t reverse.
“What’s a matter, Amanda? Are you okay?”
Jessica reaches across the bed, places a hand on each of my shoulders and holds firmly.
I feel the color drain from my face. Her words are audible, but they are muffled and far
away, a ringing is taking their place. It’s as if I’m traveling to an altitude my body isn’t
prepared for, as if I’m suddenly driving up the side of a mountain. I close my eyes and see
white, like a thick layer of fog has rolled into the ICU, rolled up over me, up through me.
The incessant ringing gets louder until it fills my head.
“I need you to stay with me, Amanda.” Jessica’s voice cuts through the smog. I feel her
grip on my shoulders. “Open up your eyes and breathe for me now. Inhale through your
nose and let it out through your mouth.” She draws in a deep breath of her own. Her face
is so close to mine, I feel her exhale on my cheek.
I breathe like she tells me, concentrate on her voice until her face comes into focus. After
a minute or two, my ears pop and the ringing subsides. Her voice mixes with the sound of
gurneys bustling down the hallway, machines, the click-gush.
“I thought we are going to lose you for a second there.” She lets go of my shoulders and
stands back. I’m shaky, still light-headed, but I summon enough energy to scowl at her.
She pretends it’s a scowl turned upside down. “Are you feeling okay now?”
I’ve never had a need for a physical therapist. I never knew they existed, let alone what
their job entailed. Given their title, my natural assumption is that they know a whole lot
about our bodies. But maybe I assumed too much. I’m supposed to trust these two girls,
allow them to move my body in positions I’m not comfortable with, yet they almost let me
pass out. Then she has the audacity to ask how I feel?
I search the room for backup, but both my nurse and my family are M.I.A. They picked a
fine time to leave me, Lucille.
I try reasoning with her on my own – except there is only so much reasoning I can do
when I can’t talk. I put my hand up as close to her face as I can get it. I’m going for the
drama: a close-up on the quadriplegic hand. In slow motion, I push an invisible button on
an invisible bed control. I mouth the word back, then rely on my eyes for a strong finish.
The Oscar, please.
Of course, Jessica has to ruin it. I get a feeling this is Jessica’s mojo.
“No, we need to keep you up. It’s because you’ve been lying back for so long that you feel
this way. If you can start sitting up in a chair a couple hours a day, you’ll get past the
dizziness and it’s great for your lungs.” She smiles. Her enthusiasm grates on my
patience. Sitting up on this day, in this minute, is number one on my “Things I Don’t Want
to Be Doing” top ten list. Licking a public toilet seat is number two.
“Okay, you think you’re about ready to go up the rest of the way?”
Up the rest of the what? I pause for the punch line. I haven’t fully recovered, and she’s
shoving me into round two. Perhaps fainting isn’t quite enough fun for her – maybe she
wants to see me puke as well. I don’t know why she keeps asking me questions when we
both know she’ll disregard the answer. I shake my head, but as a universal sign for denial,
the headshake has lost its power. I become invisible again, and my bed continues its
ascent.
I try to stay focused, repeat don’t get dizzy, don’t get dizzy. But as my body bends further
and further in half, dizziness doesn’t name what it is that I feel. Perhaps some
experiences, some “happenings,” aren’t common enough, haven’t been experienced by
enough people to earn an appellation. To say it feels like my body is being cut in half
doesn’t quite do it justice. And it doesn’t match the visual in front of me. How can I feel so
detached from my legs when they’re right there in front of me?
All my lung trouble has bought me some time, allowed me to concentrate on something
that has the possibility of getting better. But because I can’t feel anything – not one little
thing, it’s hard to believe my injuries are severe. Usually, the more something hurts, the
worse off you are. I’m not in any kind of pain, so I can ignore my legs. If I don’t think of
them, they’re not there. “Nothing” can’t be paralyzed. The sitting position makes this
ignorance impossible.
The bed finally stops when I sit at about an 85° angle. I look straight ahead, knowing what
I have to do. The physical therapists, the ventilator, all the tubes and wires fade in the
background; I take center stage – the spotlight. I slowly let my gaze fall until I have no
choice but to truly acknowledge them: thighs, toes, calves, feet, knees. There is an
awkward silence, old friends meeting after a long time apart. Both feet are wrapped up in
some kind of braces that remind me of old moon boots. I didn’t even know I had them on.
My stomach turns, and I’m queasy.
I click, then gush, push past the nausea. When it settles, I reach forward, place my hand
on the thigh and try to own it, reclaim it as my own. But it won’t be that easy. We have
been a part of one another for twenty-one years, but it’s been an eternity since we
communicated, since our relationship was intimate. I try again with my eyes closed, start
higher up, dig my fingers firmly around bone on the hip, push forward, glide my hand
down to the knee. I feel skin on my palm– soft supple skin – but I feel nothing.
Small tears form, and I open my eyes, stare at my hand resting on a knee. A standard
knee – a joint connecting the femur and tibia. And then I spot something further down,
past the knee. The skin is discolored; a deep blue swirls into a yellowish center. The
bruise is almost a perfect circle the size of my fist. I rub my hand over it and press down,
imagine it hurts. I still can’t feel it, but I know it’s mine.
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