ER

I hit the Canton-Potsdam Hospital Emergency Room on a slow evening, I guess—or maybe that's just the kind of service you get when you arrive by ambulance. They wheeled me right into a room, transferred my backboard to a bed, and had me roll off it. Right away a nurse came in. She told me to get changed—I'd never so happy to don a hospital gown. I peeled off my cold, wet clothes, begged her to cut off my wet pants so I didn't have to jar my leg, and asked for a towel. I soon lay clothed in a dry gown and beneath heated blankets. For the first time in two hours, I stopped shivering. With these small improvements, my sense of the emergency felt behind me.

The nurse started an IV and did an EKG (I was thinking, isn't that for older people? It took me a moment to realize that I was just days from my 55th birthday.) They told me the on-call orthopedic surgeon was on his way over from Ogdensburg, a border town on the St. Lawrence River, and he should be here within the hour. I was told how lucky I was: he was the orthopedic surgeon for the Clarkson University ice hockey team. I was also told that if I'd gone to the emergency rooms of Gouverneur or Star Lake, I would have had to transfer to CPH for orthopedic specialty care anyway, so I silently offered up a quick thanks to the EMT who diverted me here, and begged forgiveness for objecting, however silently, to the disgusting cigarette smoke smell on his fingers as he tied on my oxygen mask.

My mother and neighbor Beth, who drove her, soon arrived with my purse. Beth is a real take-the-bull-by-the-horns type; she had already rifled through my wallet, given them my insurance info, and called Dave to tell him we were at the ER. She found my mom something to eat while they took me to x-ray. Thankfully, the tech was able to x-ray through the splint, positioning plates so that I didn't have to move.

When I got back to the ER the nurse pulled the splint from my foot; the doctor would soon arrive. As she put some dilaudid in my IV she explained that some of the pain was from the dislocation tugging at muscles and ligaments now held in an unnatural position. I recognized an opportunity—as gross as it was to look at my foot, I was a bio major with a graduate degree in health and physical education; I knew I'd one day want to study my foot in its current condition. I asked Beth to look in my purse for my cell phone to snap a photo. I hoped it was in there—my mother suffers from short term memory loss and she was quite stressed when I asked her to dry the rain from it and put it in my purse. I also hoped the phone would still work.

Beth pawed around in my purse and said, "Look at this." She pulled out my digital camera, which I never carry around in my purse. For once, dementia to the rescue—my mother had a hard time distinguishing my cell from my camera, so had brought both. Beth took several shots of my foot.

The doctor arrived and told me he'd already reviewed the x-rays. My ankle was fractured in three places (a trimalleolar fracture): the tibia, the fibula, and the talus, the ankle bone that these longer bones articulate with at the ankle. Later research put me right in the middle of the demographic for such fractures. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons:

During the past 30 to 40 years, doctors have noted an increase in the number and severity of broken ankles, due in part to an active, older population of "baby boomers."

As soon as the doctor found out I was a writer he said I must cast him in my next novel as the handsome doctor who swoops in to save my life. I smiled, but knew this wouldn't be possible: the details would strain believability. Because he was Canadian by birth he spoke with a French accent, his name was "Luc Perrier," he was fit and handsome (as you can see), and, like most orthopedic surgeons I've met in my life, quite full of himself. I try not to adhere to such stereotypes in my creative writing. He marched over to my foot, picked it up by my big toe, and suspended it—I prepared to scream, but this didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. My guess is gravity itself was beginning the process he would soon complete.

"We will add something to your IV now," he said, and I turned to watch the nurse insert a syringe into the port. "Can you feel it?"

"It feels all hot going in there," I said, looking at my arm, and with that he grasped hold of my dislocated foot and pulled. I heard and felt the crunching of the bones as they realigned, but whatever anesthetic he'd given me had done the trick—it didn't hurt, at least not any worse than it already did. I now understood the orthopedic surgeon stereotype: it certainly would take some mad hubris to do something like that and believe you were helping the situation.

Before I was wheeled off for a set of post-reduction x-rays, he told me he'd admit me tonight and perform surgery tomorrow. The need for this didn't surprise me. Beth, however, followed him from the room and demanded to see my x-rays, she told me later. She doesn't think people should be operated upon without some proof of the necessity.

But even to her untrained eye, she said, after seeing the x-rays, she knew he spoke the truth.

Tomorrow: a photo montage of my ankle, inside and out, and a special tribute to the cause of my accident.

My first ambulance ride

The sound and sight of the ambulance backing down our driveway finally drew the attention of some other neighbors. I recognized the voice of Ken, two doors over, as the EMT reached into my makeshift tent and strapped oxygen onto my face. He apologized that he now had to touch my foot, and strap it into a splint to immobilize it for the ride. I was so focused on the implied promise—that I would soon get out of this weather and get some help—that it only hurt a little more when he cinched the straps that kept my foot in its twisted position.

I rolled to one side and they slipped a backboard under me. Later, Ken would tell me he became one of the "pall bearers" that carried me up the hill and into the ambulance. I said over and over, "Be so careful. It's incredibly slippery." It's odd how safe you feel in the world until something like this happens—now, I could perfectly picture them all falling on the hill, dropping me, and sending my newly sledded body down the hill and into the lake.

But we made it to the gurney behind the ambulance without mishap and they set me, with the backboard, down on top of it. They asked what hospital I wanted to go to. I knew Gouverneur was the closest, but my aunt had had such a bad experience there a few years earlier she made me promise that if I had any emergency with my parents I would take them to Star Lake. So I said, "Star Lake."

The guy actually laughed, which isn't surprising—Star Lake, like most destinations any farther east into the Adirondack National Park, was kind of in the middle of nowhere. He said, "It's Gouverneur or Canton-Potsdam."

I said, "Take me anywhere where I can find a good orthopedic surgeon."

As they pulled the raincoat off of me and pushed the gurney into the ambulance he yelled to the driver (without hesitation, I noticed): "She's going to Canton-Potsdam."

Potsdam was an hour away, over many back roads with plenty of painful bumps. To make me comfortable for the ride (please note intended sarcasm), they left me on the backboard. They claimed I was strapped on but every time we went around a turn I reached over my head to hold on for fear I'd roll off.

Surprisingly, the man and woman in back with me kept me distracted for most of the ride. They checked me over for other injuries (none), kept asking me if I had chest pain or difficulty breathing (no). All I wanted at that point was to get warm, and they did crank up the heat and cover me with dry blankets, which made me feel a bit better. They were kind of surprised when from beneath my shirt I produced the damp rice sock that had been keeping me warm.

Then he told me he had to cut off my sneaker.

I was wearing my MBTs, the mother of all the new knock-off toning shoes. I was rarely without them: they'd greatly improved my feet in the past year and eliminated my need for the custom orthotics I'd previously never been able to go without. Since they're so expensive, and since my feet had never complained that the shoes had "broken down" the way other sneakers usually do, I had delayed replacing them as long as possible. I have no doubt that their complete lack of tread was the main reason I went down so fast—with no channels for the water in the lawn to seep into, I'd hydroplaned.

As he snipped through the laces, I told him that this pair of shoes had cost me $245. He said, "Look at it this way, then—cutting this one off only cost you $122.50."

Every few minutes they asked what my pain level was, on a sale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain I'd ever experienced. The first time I answered I looked at the woman: "I'd say it's a five, but that's only because I've had a child. If I were a man, I'd say a nine."

They finally started to orient me: we're past Canton, we're past the new Wal-Mart, this will hurt a bit because there's a bump here but the hospital's just ahead. They told me my mom and Beth, Ken's wife, were in the car behind the ambulance, and that they had my purse.

And I thought, this is just so ironic. I'd never heard of this hospital until earlier this summer, when a social worker whose family summers at the lake hired me to teach my "Healing Through Writing" workshop in the building across the parking lot. That had been at the beginning of August.

Now, at month's end, I was being wheeled into the hospital in desperate need of my own healing.

Healing: You've got to play to win

Even my first husband, who suffered from alcoholism to the point of suicide, would have drawn a line between him and the seventeen men and women in my Canton-Potsdam Chemical Dependency Unit workshop (read the first post on this workshop here). Ron would have said he had nothing in common with them. I heard that same line-drawing from one of the participants, who upon hearing that I was an editor, was eager to share some of his poems with me.

“This isn’t court ordered for me or anything,” the poet said. “I’m here to get clean for my wife and kids.” I hoped that would be enough incentive—I noted he left himself off that list. “And the piece I wrote says I used heroin but I didn’t, I used cocaine. I just thought the rhythm in that line benefitted from the sound of ‘a needle in my vein.’”

This guy was tall with big blue eyes and sun-kissed hair and he followed everything I said with great interest, nodding his head and offering insightful comments about work read by others.

I was thrilled to find two poets among the rehabbers in my "Healing Through Writing" workshop. Emma (left), the social worker who hired me, had told me that some of these people would not be willing participants. Although the workshop was a required component in their treatment, some of them may have no inherent interest in writing. Even she didn't really know what to expect, as the arts component in the program was new, and they'd never had a writing workshop before. She warned me that the participants might be so freshly parted from their addictive substance of choice that they’d be physically unable to sit still and pay attention. Which did happen—at one point, Emma gently chastised a man who, in the middle of the workshop, suddenly snapped open a newspaper and held it before his face as if checking sports scores. Gambling is one of the addictions represented here, Emma had told me.

So I wasn't expecting much. A recovering addict I know, an experienced rehabber, suggested I might expect to reach one person. Then, if I connected with two or three, I’d be pleasantly surprised. But I wasn't without hope: Emma said that this was a motivated group.

Any anxiety I felt was immediately relieved as we dove into the first interactive element‚ filling in the drawing above. It's supposed to be a man, but the rehabbers called it a gingerbread man. My questionable visual arts talents aside, this illustration is an effective tool. The man starts out empty. "What goes inside here?" I asked, and the room bounced to life. As participants called out suggestions, I filled them in. Among other things we added a heart, bones, kidneys, and a stomach. “Vomit,” one of them said—okay, that was a new one. I drew some speckles in the midsection, to their delight.

When they had reached the limit of their biological awareness I said, “How about anger. Is there anger in there?” “Hell yes!” I heard. When I asked where I’d put that, one called out, “All over the place!” We added other emotions and then the title, “The Person With Too Much Inside.”

I moved to the next whiteboard and, as the participants called them out, listed the reasons people might want to write. I've given this workshop in many settings and I’m usually thrilled to get five answers; I’ll fill in the few extra needed to illustrate my talking points. So imagine my joy when this crew came up with 17 reasons—so many I had to go back and squish them in, leading to jokes that I didn’t know how to number correctly. This is what they came up with (excuse the cell phone pic):


They really got into this part of the discussion so we lingered there, talking about all the ways writing can help people. I modified the drawing of "The Person With Too Much Inside" to relive some pressure: the opening in his brain lets inspiration in, the opening through his hand lets his feelings and ideas out. After a break I prompted them to do a writing exercise and to my great surprise, all but one of them shared what they wrote. Some of it was quite good.

Even though the workshop exceeded all expectations, I couldn't help myself: my gaze kept drifting to the one non-participant, a guy with heavy lidded eyes who would alternate between nominally paying attention and checking out. In looks and attitude, of all the people in the room, he reminded me most of Ron. He didn’t call out answers. He stared into space when the others wrote. And during the sharing period, when he finally moved his hand and I looked hopefully in his direction, he was pointing to the person on his left, signaling that I should call on his neighbor rather than him.

When the workshop was over, I saw this guy one last time. As I walked to my car I saw him outside smoking. He was petting Strawberry, the unit's therapy dog, as if the animal were the only being capable of loving him and accepting his love. As our lives diverged I wondered if he was going to make it, because in so many ways, this young man was Ron.

Yet this time there would be no suicide drama. I was free to walk away. And as I did so, I was able to smile at him one last time, and say goodbye.

Healing with the Enemy

The young man reads his hastily scrawled words from a spiral notebook. He has soulful eyes, a short, hard body, and bad teeth. In his story he is high and drunk and stealing and crashing two trucks. While he reads he reaches beneath the table to pet Strawberry, the lab mix therapy dog curled up at his feet.

“I was scared and went to the only safe place I could think of—my grandmother’s house,” he reads. “It was there I was arrested for the theft of two vehicles and DUI and a bunch of other stuff I was too messed up to hear.”

The writing prompt I’d asked him to incorporate into his story: “grandmother’s house.” Is that how you would have used it? Not me.

But this is not my milieu. This young man is now out of prison and doing a stint at the Canton-Potsdam Chemical Dependency Unit in Potsdam, NY, where yesterday I gave my “Healing Through Writing” workshop. Previously I’ve given this workshop at libraries and writers’ groups and bereavement groups. None of which bandied about words like: Addiction. Prison. Court-ordered rehab. Heroin. Cocaine. Relapse. Escape.

I tried to pretend this was just another workshop. "Healing Through Writing" has always worked its magic before, and I prayed it would do so again. But somewhere deep inside I felt I was crossing enemy lines. For a good eight years after my first husband Ron committed suicide, I’d explain gently to my children (and anyone else who would ask) that Daddy was sick with a disease that had eaten him up from the inside out. I was speaking from my head, through the filter of obtained knowledge. Even my heart wanted to jump on board. But inside my muscles and bones, I held tight to my anger that he would choose alcohol over our children and me. I released that anger, slowly, through my writing.

In any other setting, I would have been afraid of this young man, who told me he writes so that he won’t beat up on people with his fists. Except here in Potsdam workshop, there's a difference: during the break he came up to show me his poetry. It contained sweet, sensitive, insightful musings on life and death—the same kind of stuff I like to write about. I told him his writing moved me. "You have to do something to pass the time in prison," he said, telling me that when he wasn't writing he was reading and re-reading books obtained through the black market.

He told me he writes as if speaking to his best friend, who was killed in a car crash by an erratic driver three years ago. The young man was to pick up his friend that night; instead, he went to get high. This odd fact may have saved his life, and he has some survivor guilt. “But he’s always with me,” the young man said. He shyly rotated his forearm to show me his friend’s name, tattooed on the white vulnerable skin of his forearm.

I asked him if he had hope. Without missing a beat, he said, “Every day. And I’m going to work on my poetry even more when I get to the halfway house.”

Everyone has a story, and if willing to share it, you can find common ground. That’s what I love about these workshops.

I’ll share more about this amazing experience in my next post. For now, I’ll leave you with this:

I just conducted a Google image search for “Canton-Potsdam Chemical Dependency” to try to find a picture to accompany this post—and while scrolling through the images, on page four, I found the picture of Ron and me “torn asunder” that I created for a previous post. Why would it be there, I wondered—“chemical dependency” wasn’t even a keyword phrase associated with that post. Then, on page five, I found my headshot. When I put the cursor over my face, it said, "Healing Through Writing."

Maybe Google knew something I didn’t. Maybe I was right where I belonged.