another page from the chapter of 'stupidity'

So as I'm meandering around memory lane here, I'll share a sparkling moment of classic Hope s-fer-mart smartness. This particular flashback was inspired by the department supervisor, who is going in for knee surgery tomorrow. She is supposed to be off for 6 weeks. As we're sitting in our meeting going over what everyone is occupied with and might need help with, or be available to offer help with, she says, "Well, I should be back by then..." Then is a date just 3 weeks post-surgery. All of us in unison blurt out: Don't. Be. Stupid.

Ahem. I may as well have said, "Hi, kettle. I'm the pot." If you have a queasy stomach, may I redirect your attention to the posting entitled 'get fit for Jesus.' Ahem ahem.

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It was a Saturday afternoon, just 2 weeks until Christmas break, and I was bumming around doing what all normal 10 year old girls do on a Saturday afternoon: sitting on the brown low-pile carpeting with the silver flecking, watching cartoons while cutting up old blankets and hand-sewing wee little doll clothes for the wee little dolls I had made from the blankets I had cut up the previous weekend. When nature called, I absentmindedly stuck the needle in the carpet for safe keeping, right next to my project. Upon returning, unable to see the needle amoungst the silver flecking, I began crawling around on my hands and knees to look for it. I heard the needle crack, and there, under my knee, was half the needle. Try as I might, I could not for the life of me find the other half of the needle. Oh, well - grab another one, and finish sewing.

I was really excited when I finished my little project, and ran across the street to the craft store, where I had developed quite a lovely friendship with the elderly lady who owned the shop. As I walked across the street, my knee felt a little achy. While the shop owner inspected my handiwork, I lifted up my pant leg and inspected my knee and noticed a small red pin prick, right about where I felt the crunch of the needle. "What happened there, dear?" the lady asked. My first response was, "I think there's half a needle stuck in my knee!" She raised her eyebrows at me, and I told her about the missing needle. After a few minutes, she had convinced herself that it was just a prick, and that nothing had gone into my knee. I, however, was NOT. I had spent at LEAST half an hour looking for that needle, because if my mother or sister were to find it by stepping on it, I knew I'd hear about it (again.) So when the Orange Fairy got home, I showed her my knee, and told her what I thought had happened. "I don't think so, Hope. Go to bed." And I did.

The days went by, and my knee ached more and more, long after the little red speck had disappeared, but the story was too unlikely. No one could believe such a thing was possible. In fact, because my sister had had growing pains in her knees, the Orange Fairy thought maybe I was just complaining to get attention. When my knee showed signs of swelling while I was visiting with my step-mom and Dad a couple of weeks later, I tried my theory out on them, to no avail. My step-mom spent the better part of Friday night and Saturday afternoon helping me sew a red-headed Cabbage Patch doll kit I had bought from the craft store. She had red hair and blue eyes, and we sewed her a pair of jeans (I embroidered on the pocket) and two sweat suits and a red flowered dress and a pale pink flowered dress. I couldn't have been prouder of myself!

It was the last weekend before Christmas, and so on the Saturday night, as always, there was the annual Christmas Concert at the church. My step-mom, step-aunt, and Dad always performed, and we always really looked forward to the fun, goofy show the Sunday school kids would put on. As we sat there watching, my knee began to throb and I could no longer stand the pain. I began to cry, right in the middle of the show. I began with quiet little tears, and tried my best to not interrupt. Two weeks of being in pain and being told I wasn't in pain finally caught up with me, and I wailed. Loudly. The WHOLE church noticed. I was so embarrassed - I remember my cheeks flushing, and trying unsuccessfully to get up and run outside so I wouldn't wreck the show. I couldn't even stand and fell over backwards into the pew. The WHOLE church noticed.

My Dad tried to have a look at my knee, but it had swollen so much we couldn't get the cuff up high enough to see. It felt hot, burning hot to the touch, right through my pants, and when someone laid their hands on it, it felt like fire. I wailed louder. The WHOLE church by now was standing, many of them hovering in circle around me in the middle of the building, swaying, speaking in tongues, eyes closed, faces up, palms towards the sky. The Pastor had broken out in loud prayer, his booming voice resonating above the woeful pleas of the forest of people around me. "Oh, Jesus - bring down upon this child your healing powers, so that she no longer has pain! Oh, Lord Jesus, we praise you and we thank you for coming here tonight, in this, our hour of need..." I distinctly remember thinking several thoughts as the tears streamed down my cheeks for what seemed like hours: this isn't helping, please stop touching my knee, you people are hurting and scaring me, can we PLEASE just go to the doctor now?

I was carried out into the crisp night air, plopped into the back of the station wagon with my leg stretched out across the seat, and driven back to my Mom's house. I hadn't stopped crying at all and it felt like my knee was going to rip the seams open on my pant leg. The Orange Fairy called a taxi, and off to the hospital we went. I had a healthy dislike for the hospital by this time - I'd had several surgeries on my ears already, so going into the hospital meant being put under, and waking up sick and dizzy and disoriented. I wanted to go to the Medi-Centre, with the nice lady there who never stuck needles in me and just gave me cherry-flavoured prescriptions for my ear infections. But nope - straight into the hospital we went.

Most of the events after we arrived at the hospital are a haze - I'd developed a full body fever by then, and imagine I was in shock, too. I woke up in a soft leg cast that went from thigh to ankle. Four hours of laparoscopic surgery were required to dislodge the needle from under my kneecap, where it had been ground in and effectively embedded into the back of my kneecap. Cartilage had begun to grow up around it, making it impossible for them to get it all in one piece - three separate cuts, to take it out in three separate pieces, with a cut for the camera next to each of them, for a nice total of six scars in a semi-circle around my kneecap. I had a very serious blood infection, and the bone in my right shin had begun to eat itself away.

The little girl in the bed across from me was a young native girl whose 18-year-old brother had shot her in the eye with a BB gun, on purpose. Her whole right eye was red and there was a stitch on the surface of her eyeball. But she could walk. I, on the other hand, was supposed to wait for wheelchair assistance to get up out of bed and go to the bathroom, the common room, the kitchen... I was allowed to sit and watch TV or play cards, with my leg elevated, but no foosball or air hockey or wandering up through the smoking hallway to the maternity ward to ogle the babies. I made friends with another boy who was in traction, his leg suspended high in the air by the contraption on the bed where he was forced to poop in a diaper. I felt really sorry for him, and would always sneak off to the kitchen to steal the chocolate sandwich Peak Frean cookies for us. When I got caught, they would tell me to stay off my leg, and I'd agree, but I never did.

The morning of my 11th birthday, 4 days into my little hospital vacation, I had disobeyed doctor's orders enough that I'd managed to earn myself a second round of surgery to flush out the site - totally avoidable had I kept it elevated so it could drain properly. I stayed off it after that, even on Christmas day when my Mom and aunts and my uncle and my sister and my step-mom and my dad came to visit. I got a brown-haired brown-eyed Cabbage Patch kid named Brooke. The little native girl across from me never had any visitors - she was sitting alone on Christmas morning, so I gave her my homemade red-headed Cabbage Patch Kid. I got out just before New Year's Eve, 10 days after being admitted.

There was still a week of Christmas break for me to recover, and so I settled in on the brown velvet couch to watch TV and heal. But I was anxious to get up, to go, to see people and do things. Twice I snuck over to visit the lady at the craft store, who stared at me in disbelief when I told her where I had been. She asked how my Cabbage Patch Kid turned out, and why I hadn't brought it to show her. I explained to her about the little native girl with the red eye from her brother shooting her with a BB, who stayed in almost as long as I did because no one picked her up so she went home with some new foster parents. She offered me a new kit, so I could make another one, but I had Brooke so I didn't need one. Besides, I wasn't much in the mood for sewing just yet...

I also wasn't in the mood for taking the horse pills for my blood infection. Enormous white lozenges the size of my Dad's thumb, 4 times a day. I skipped the ones I could, which was especially easy when I started back to school. Along with not being in the mood for sewing, or taking those pills, I wasn't in the mood for being stuck on the school bus, sitting in for recess and catching up on missed homework, spending lunchtime sitting on the bench by the front doors, or using the crutches that hurt my armpits. Certainly not for 6 weeks.

Rotten Breath Boy - he was a weasly little strawberry blond with too many freckles, a violent streak, and halitosis that carried the stench of sauerkraut and hot dogs. I had a thin soft cast that went from just above to just below my knee, but it didn't hurt to put weight on the leg. I had long since stopped using the crutches at home when no one was looking, and would often venture across the street without them to visit my friend at the craft store. Then one day, nature called just as the bell went. I waited until everyone left so I could sneak over to the bathroom without the crutches. Rotten Breath Boy had forgotten something, and busted me hobbling in sans crutches, after which he promptly ran outside to tell everyone I was a faker. I followed him out and tried to explain that yes, I had to be on crutches for 6 weeks, and that even though my knee didn't hurt I still wasn't allowed to walk on it. I pleaded a case for my sore armpits to excuse my sneaking into the bathroom, at which point Rotten Breath Boy yelled, "Faker!" and squarely planted a kick right on my knee.

By the time my Mom got home from work, I was limping. My knee felt hot and sore. Unfortunately, we had a 4-week outpatient check-up at the hospital the next day. The swelling (surprisingly) hadn't gone down by the next morning, and I guess all those pills I had skipped set back my recovery a bit, so I was feverish again. Instead of flushing the knee, they figured they'd drain it. This involved several very long thin freezing needles stabbed progressively deeper under my kneecap and into the joint, and one HUGE FAT NASTY needle about the diameter of a penny nail and about as long as your pointer finger being used to suck out about half a cup of nasty green pus. I screamed. The WHOLE hospital noticed. I left with orders for 6 more weeks of horse pills, on crutches.

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I'd like to say I've improved with age, but that would be an outright lie. Both my father and I were of the mind that until we were bleeding to death, or at least ill enough to mimic bleeding to death, there was no need to get anything checked out. And recovery time, was wasted time. Why would I sit in bed doing nothing if I felt at least sort of OK? I had mammoplasty on a Friday night. Six weeks off equated to me being back at work the following Tuesday morning, a little nauseous, a little sore, but ready to go. I was home under 9 hours after having Wil, 8 with Kaelan, and suffered through 15 grueling hours in the hospital after Serejane was born because I haemorrhaged. I got my gall bladder yanked on a Friday morning, and had my dayhome kids back on the Monday morning.

My father was born with a hole in his heart, had high blood pressure, had suffered 3 heart attacks, had a couple of open heart surgeries, and a couple surgeries to remove foreign growths from his intestines and stomach. He retired in April of 2006, and he and my step-mom, after spending 24 years living in the downstairs suite and caring for my step-mom's mother, were in the process of realizing a dream: moving into their first home. They took possession on August 1st, moved in on August 2nd, and were returning the moving van on August 3rd when my father slumped over the wheel of the truck, dead from a massive fatal heart attack. He had complained to my step-mom earlier that day that he was feeling weak and a bit sick. He had wanted to take a nap, but they figured they should just get the rental truck dropped off and they could go settle in, take their time unpacking.

He should have asked me and my husband for help moving in. After 3 heart attacks, he should have recognized the signs of the heart attack. He should not have played them down as 'feeling a bit like having a nap' to his wife. If nothing else, my father's death has taught me that I MUST listen to my body, and I MUST listen to my doctors. My Daddy's stupidity has shown me my own, and THIS is why I'm taking the steps needed to find out what the heck is going on with my crippling ovarian pains. And if they yank my ovaries, I'll shave in bed. For 6 weeks.

Sally, if you read this, SIX WEEKS. STAY HOME.

Comments

Tanya said…
I got chills reading about how you gave your doll to the little native girl. I would bet she still remembers that kind gesture.

I think sometimes it's hard to admit when were sick or we've hurt ourself. I remember breaking my foot(I didn't know it though) and trying to shrug it off and say I was ok, my friends had to force me to go to the ER. I think I cried more that they were forcing me to go than because of hurting myself.
Babzy said…
What a gawd awful thing to happen. A similar thing happened to me with a sewing needle but your story is way worse. The detail gave me the shudders.

I had a dream last night about you and me running for the bus and it went right on by.
ticblog said…
Missing the bus - story of my life, Babzy lol... The ironic part being, of course, that my mother drives a bus...
fmartell2 said…
Hope my dear you and me have WAY TOO MANY freaky things in common. I had the same thing happen with a beading needle in my big toe. Walked on it like that for over a week, and everyone thought I was FAKING it! Turned out I stepped on a needle and had it break off inside. Did the whole hospital thing to have it removed. Didnt have to go back again and again, because I DID stay off of it... lol
alphonsedamoose said…
Hope could feel your pain with that needle. I also could feel the pain when you described what happened to your father. I learned after my heart attack to listen to my body. It certainly seems to know what it is talking about.
What a great gesture you made to the little native girl. I'm sure she'll never forget it.
heatherjs2003 said…
Kids in school are so cruel. I had torn ligaments that never healed properly in my knee giving me arthritis and lots of pain. If I took crutches to school for support and was seen, OMG, "walking", I was faking. Stupid people. And how many times I had that knee of mine prayed om with the power of tongues. So many memories.
Glad you're taking the time to look after yourself. Use the Schick Intuition Razor if you shave in bed, less messy.
ticblog said…
I'm leaning towards one of those home electrolysis kits, where you insert the metal probe down into your pore against the root of the hair follicle and zap it with small electrical currents. I mean heck - I'd have 6 weeks to kill - why not? lol
heatherjs2003 said…
I'd lose my patience after about, say, 3 hairs? lol. But hey, if your determined...
ticblog said…
Well you know - I can only work backwards for so long before I run out of historical pages from the chapter of stupidity. I have to think about my future, after all..
ticblog said…
Pale gold, Babzy - I think your little pink-eyed friend there is colourblind... (or just has the computer monitor set funny - tell them to push the little buttons on the bottom of the monitor and adjust the contrast and brightness.)

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