Then (three years ago, almost to the day):
I’m standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, watching you sleep. Your pale face is turned toward the door, hair disheveled and lips slightly parted as soft sleepy breath escapes them. Your arms lay draped across your chest, the one held stiff, even in sleep. You’re paranoid of bending it and disrupting the intravenous needle imbedded in the crook of your elbow. I tell you jokingly that if you don’t use the arm it might atrophy. You are silently resolute in your refusal to use that arm. Your leg is slightly elevated by a pillow under the standard issue white sheet and cream-colored blanket and you don’t move that limb either. Movement aggravates the discomfort of the wound and there is caution in you about that.
The constant glow of the medicine pump lights up your sleeping face. There is a repetitive click & whir as the pump releases mighty chemicals into your slight, young body. Those very same medicines are combating the infection that is raging in your leg.
You’ve played endless games with your Dad, watched television and movies, guzzled milkshakes and visited with everyone who walked through the door. You’ve only complained that the food is crummy and you can’t walk around. Touring the hospital in the wheelchair with your Dad is a welcome relief from the boredom. Up to this point, your composure and morale have been remarkable. Your good humor, swift smile and magic eyes have charmed the nurses. Anticipating the surgery tomorrow has eroded the brave face you’ve had all week. The fear of this unknown is insidiously working on your nerves, as well as your Dad’s and mine. You’re terrified and tearfully begged us earlier to not let it happen. It broke my heart to stroke your hair and tell you it was necessary.
The new doctor is confident, cocky even, about how simple this will be and how quickly you’ll be back on your feet. It’s reassuring, his confidence and breezy demeanor about the procedure he’s going to perform. All you want to know from him is if you’ll be ready to play baseball come spring.
Two hospitals, several specialists, multiple tests, large doses of strong antibiotics and a suggestion that we transfer you to another specialty hospital for lack of a pediatric orthopedist at the one we’re in. That a chance meeting in an elevator between your Dad and a stranger changed that course is a miracle. The new doctor is contemptuous, angered that the removal of the abscess hadn’t been done yet. He’s a trauma surgeon that agreed to take you on as a patient when he heard the tale of your care so far. We trust him and must, as we’re trusting him with a most precious item, you.
The consensus is that you were bitten by a spider, probably a brown recluse, and the subsequent abscess from that spread rapidly into a lower leg infection. The wound is about the size of a small saucer, and thankfully the redness that was brazenly marching up your leg has receded from just below your knee to mid-shin, where the abscess is located. Heat still emanates just above the wound, but it appears less angry. Earlier today, you had an IV line put into your chest. This will be the entry point for an 8-week course of antibiotics, as the doctors fear a bone infection setting in.
You stir in the bed, a restless shifting of limbs and body, pulling me out of my thoughts. I know the enforced inactivity is difficult for you. Normally, you’re barely still for a few minutes. I move away from the door, stepping toward your Dad and our night’s vigil at your side. While stuck in this place, you will not wake up alone at any time.
Now:
I’m standing in the doorway of the living room, watching the video your sister took of your last wrestling match. You’re so quick in the reversal and won the match 9-2. You teased me earlier, just after you got home, and led me you didn’t do so well. You wanted to watch the video of the match to see what you did, you said. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make the match this time. The concentration on your face was fierce as you mentally worked your moves against your opponent. I can see you thinking through your next steps, even as your hands and feet move. You love wrestling and it’s wonderful to see how excited you are about it. The focus you’ve given to practice and the strength building exercises impress me. You really want to be good at this sport.
The sensitivity of the scar tissue on your shin has decreased over the past years. It no longer freaks you out when something or someone touched the scar. The first year after the surgery, you were exceptionally protective of that area. Nothing could come into contact with your shin. You wore a shin brace through the first spring and summer season of baseball, all the way through the tournament team. What a recovery you made. Just weeks after the last antibiotic injection, you tried out for baseball and made the team. No one was certain your strength had recovered enough. And now, three years later, you’re on the wrestling team.
There’s a small scar, some scar tissue adhering to the shinbone, and as you grow older it will fade. The sensitivity seems to have completely diminished. The technique the doctor used with the sponge suction after surgery, which amazed the nurses, radically decreased the scarring area and prevented more scar tissue from forming. That chance encounter your Dad had with Dr. Polonet, in an elevator, was no less than miraculous.
And here is the link to The Voice of Reading entry in our blog-off, Scars from our Past.
Surprising enough, we picked the same topic out of 10 choices.
No comments:
Post a Comment