Press on!

You’re Going to Feel Some Pressure
After waking briefly in recovery to learn I was still breathing, but had lost my leg, I next awoke in STICU – “stick you” – Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit, again still breathing. The pronunciation of STICU’s anagram works since nurses and technicians and doctors and other shady types are constantly slinking or barging into your room at all hours of the day and night sticking you with needles, sticking you with IV ports, sticking thermometers in your mouth, sticking (and removing) heart monitor sensors on your hairy chest, and sticking…well…giving you suppositories and enemas and such. There’s a whole lotta stickin’ goin’ on in STICU.

Heaven Can Wait
Adding to all this was the faint sense of disappointment or loss skulking about at the edges of my mind. Friends were visiting in between health caregivers, delivery people were arriving with flowers and balloons, doctors were coming and going, yet something was there, hanging in the air, a nearly imperceptible mist of foreboding. I slept on and off, ate a meal or two, but couldn’t put my mind at ease. It wasn’t the amputation, to which I seemed to be adjusting okay, but something else. During a lull in the day’s activity, I searched the past 24 hours of my memory. Then, a recollection of giddiness came to me. Just before going under for surgery, I had mused at the possibility of not surviving it. The prospect was not altogether repulsive. I might actually be meeting the Lord shortly, perhaps in minutes. I had prayed, asking Him if I would be with Him soon. I’d been hopeful. Now, I understood. It hadn’t been my time to go. I was still breathing. The answer was, “Not yet.” Meeting my Lord would have to wait. I shook off the feeling and turned to face my new future.

Too Much Pain at the End of the Medicine
The next day, things settled down. I was getting my bearings. Occasional guests came in to chat. Nurse’s visits became more routine. My beard was growing, I hadn’t showered since the morning of the accident, and I was developing a rash. Pain was becoming a constant issue. Sleep came easy…until the meds wore off. I was already on a pain medication regimen, but as expected, it was not getting the job done. I buzzed the nurse and was told that it was not yet time for the next dose. I explained that it was time because the meds had worn off. She said I would have to speak with the doctor. I suggested that pain meds should not be prescribed on a fixed schedule that doesn’t match the duration of the drugs’ effectiveness. She was unyielding. There was a disconnect.

Three Hippies
Thirty-three years earlier, during my “before Jesus” days, I wrecked my Suzuki GS450 motorcycle. I was zipping toward town on I-45 going around 60 mph with traffic. I glanced left across the freeway to look for the business I was planning to visit. As I turned back to look for my exit, the ground was coming up fast in front of me. I put my hands out to break my fall, and my left wrist snapped instantly. The truck in front of me lost its load of 2x4s, like giant toothpicks skittering down the road, one bounced just right and caught in the spoke of my front mag wheel. I skidded and rolled amidst vehicles swerving and tires screeching. I could hear my bike behind me flipping, spinning, and crunching on the pavement. Wearing just shorts and a tee-shirt, I tried in vain to protect my helmetless head. I knew my bike was going to land on me, or a car was going to run over me. As everything came to a stop, I somehow ended up on my feet. I looked down, and I was missing my shirt, shorts, underwear, and one sneaker. I was wearing the other sneaker and only the band of my underwear. Road rash covered me, and the skin scraped white formed tiny red dots then started to bleed all over. My left hand was missing. Standing there, facing back the way I had come, looking at all the stopped vehicles, I cried out, “Somebody help me!” A woman, staring directly me at me through the windshield of her car, was contorted in sympathy, sobbing in tears.

Three hippies came running up to me, “Are you okay man? Look, his arm is broken.” They picked me up and carried me to the back of their beat-up work truck. They were carpenters, I think. They sat me down on a large piece of plywood in the bed of their truck, got back in, pulled off the shoulder of the road, and eased gently down the embankment to the access road below. In minutes, they deposited me at Citizens General Hospital’s emergency room. I sat naked on a gurney, wearing one sneaker and holding my left arm. It had suffered a compound fracture. The bone was sticking through the skin. My hand was bent backward such that it had slid down the protruding bone, partially out of sight, and rubbed against my forearm. I was shouting and cursing, calling to everyone who came past me to give me something for the pain. My arm was broken and my skin was on fire. Finally, a nurse came to me and said, “Stop that Mr. Vincent. We’re not giving you anything for your pain until we have thoroughly checked you out. Pain is a diagnostic tool.” The attitudes around pain management had not changed much in 33 years. “Motorcycle accident, broken arm? Car accident, amputated leg? Make the patient wait for hours, then give the patient as little medicine as possible” seems to be the general policy. Well, I’m against it.

Frankenstein
One more day and night, and it was time for the plastic surgeon to remove the bandages and have a look at my stump (now named Bumpus). He unwrapped the Ace bandages, cut away the gauze, and sat back. I leaned forward and beheld the headless neck of Frankenstein’s monster. I was aghast. Not at the missing limb, but at the spectacle – all those stitches, 30 or 40 inches of surgical wound, my knee swollen to thrice its size. I just wasn’t prepared. I don’t know what I expected to see, but it wasn’t this.

Thank you, Sir, may I have another?
After four days in STICU, I was getting ripe. No shower for four days. I could smell myself – the dried sweat and blood, the body odor, the sour aroma coming from the as yet unchanged bandages, the smell of residual surgical cleansing products, all of it was congealing into a symphony of offense. I could imagine what others were thinking. A smallish but muscular male nurse came in that night and asked if I wanted a bath. I laughed out loud. My stump was wrapped in gauze and Ace bandages and wedged into a contraption thingy to keep me from bending my knee and busting my stitches. I had IV ports in each arm connected to bottles of this and bags of that hanging from poles at the head of my bed. I had heart monitor stickers connected to wires coming off my chest and abdomen. My right leg had a freshly installed, 19-inch titanium rod and was in a fiberglass boot. Bath? Ha! “What do you mean”, I asked. “I’m trapped in a giant spider web. I can’t move.” He explained that, with a little coordination, he could give me a bath. I yelped. A man giving me a bath? Preposterous! Before I could protest, he said, “I’ll be right back, and we’ll get you cleaned up.” I wasn’t sure what to do. I was frozen with fear – a man washing me…you know…down there. Necessity trumped vanity. I went with it.

The nurse squirted some kind of sauce on my chest and arms, and with a warm wet cloth, started to swipe up and down. He washed everything he could reach. Everything. Then, he said, “Okay, time to rollover.” I thought, “No way!” He gave me one small instruction at a time. I obeyed faithfully, and before I knew it, I had rolled over onto each should in turn while he washed my backside. I felt like a million bucks, injuries notwithstanding, of course. My body tingled all over. I smelled terrific. He said, “You feel that?” I said, “Yes, it’s marvelous, what is it?” “My secret ingredient,” he laughed, “Listerine! I pour a little in the pan with water and baby shampoo, and then microwave the towels before I start.” It was the finest experience of my hospital stay. The next night, I asked for the nurse, but he was working another group of patients. So, I waited until the next evening. Shift changed at 7pm. At 8pm, I was buzzing the nurse’s station looking for him. “I need a bath,” I said. He was off that night, but another nurse came in with a bucket of cold water and some wash cloths and set them on the tray next to my bed. She was big and had an attitude. She turned to go, and I said, “Wait! Are you going to bathe me?” She smiled, “Sir, I think you’ve been here long enough to start taking care of that yourself.” “I am an invalid!” I protested. “Only if you think so,” she said, and walked out of the room. The water in the bucket was cold! No microwave! No Listerine! I was mad, but what could I do? Somehow, I got through it between gritting teeth, head-swirling pain, and thoughts of revenge.

Two nights later, the short male nurse came in to check on me at shift change a little after 7pm. I said, “Thank God, it’s you! You can’t imagine what I’ve been through. I had to give myself a bath, and it was miserable! Could you give me another one of your Listerine baths? “Sorry, sir. I don’t have the time. Just one per customer. We’ve got a busy floor tonight.” He agreed to microwave the towels and setup the pan for me, and yes, with Listerine. Doing it again myself wasn’t nearly as good as his version, but I still felt like maybe half a million bucks.

 

 

Read More: Living as an Amputee