Cobblestones
(Canada Writes entry)
It’s a surprisingly comfortable place to sit. I’d eyed it for about fifteen minutes before deciding to make my way over from the hospital bed where I’d been resting. Like the electric chair, this chair is loathed – “I’d rather be dead than in a wheelchair!” But it sat there, benignly, having been left by a nurse who brought it in, a signal that this was my new reality. She’d left us alone together. It is exactly the wheelchair that people imagine; black back and seat, metal arms, footrests that look cold and hard. My father would have called it a contraption. It looked more medieval than medical. But, it also looked like an escape. Perhaps a way out of the room and maybe even the intensive care ward. I envisioned the coffee shop downstairs that I saw when they wheeled me, on a stretcher, up to this room.
I waited eagerly for Joe to come visit. My illness had been
hard on him too. It had come on quickly, it was much worse than we thought it
was. The pronouncement from the doctor that I might not survive the surgery
that was needed to save my life, was a shock. I slept through the surgery. Joe
didn’t. He looked tired as he came through the door as he had every day for the
previous week. I pointed to the chair and said, “How about I take you for a cup
of tea?” In the forty years we’d been together, I never enjoyed taking him out
more.
I rang for the nurse, and told her I wanted to use the
chair. I was assisted in. I watched to see how the foot petals folded, how the
leg rests swung away, where to press to unfold the seat. I didn’t want to be
assisted a second time. I sat there and the first thought that crossed my mind?
“Death would be worse.”
My first few forays were tentative. There were many skills I
needed to learn about manoeuvring myself about. But, after a very short while,
I noticed something: It’s a surprisingly comfortable place to sit. As I learned
how to use it my range of movement slowly increased. My world got bigger, push
by push and roll by roll. It was hard to explain this to people who’d heard
about my transition to being a wheelchair user. They talked about me being
confined to my wheelchair. I was now ‘wheelchair bound’ and I was spoken of
with pity, and often in the past tense.
A phone call had to be made. I was home again. Before I got
sick, I’d had a lecture tour booked, four weeks in the United Kingdom. 20
lectures on 20 working days in 18 cities. I’d been lecturing for a long time
and doing stints like this, though daunting, were well within my abilities. But
I’m sitting down now. I’m only learning how to use the chair. What about the
airports? What about the airplanes? What about traveling from city to city,
venue to venue, hotel to hotel. The number of times the chair would need to be
folded and put in to be taken out again a few miles later would be punishing on
Joe. Was that fair to him? These questions swirled around the doctor’s office,
he advised, to our shock – go.
Sitting at the base of the ramp, at the door, ready to transfer to the
airplane, I had a bout of panic. Once on, once the door closed, I couldn’t turn
back. My head echoed with the voices of so many people – “you’re in a
wheelchair, you need to accept it and adapt to a new and different life.” I
made my way down the aisle to my seat, holding the headrests on either side to
keep me upright. I found my seat. I sat down. I watched Joe put our luggage in
the overhead bin. Outside the small window I watched for my chair to be loaded
to the plane. We took off without me knowing if it would be there waiting for
me when we landed.
It was.
I got in.
After being on the plane, it was a surprisingly comfortable
place to sit.
Every day over the next week, I felt stronger. I was
scrupulous with taking my antibiotics. I was rigourous with getting rest. I
followed the doctor’s orders as if they had been given by a drill sergeant. And
it was working. I was getting better. I knew that “better” still meant that I’d
be using the wheelchair. But that didn’t matter – “better” meant stronger,
“better” meant simply, more.
Then in Carlyle, I finished work and went back to the hotel.
I was vibrating with excitement. We were halfway through the trip and I knew
with certainty that I was going to make it all the way through. But more
importantly, it was a Friday night and I’d finished my antibiotics. I could
drink again. Just across the street from the hotel was a pub. Joe had checked
it out the night before and found that it was fully accessible. Just after
dark, we headed over for a beer.
It tasted good.
Really good.
We drank and we laughed. It was the most normal time we’d
had since I’d fallen ill. We didn’t talk about the hospital, the operations,
the infections or the wheelchair. We talked about the trip, the funny things
that had happened, the old elevator in the hotel and the farting noise it made
as it hauled us up to our room. But we talked about something else, something
that had not been part of our conversation for a very long time. We talked
about the future.
Joe hit the washroom before we left the pub, the accessible
loo was difficult to get to as the staff had to move beer cases every time I
wanted to go. They did it, willingly if not eagerly. The pub was very busy now,
I didn’t want to bother them. The hotel was just across the street. I’d wait.
We waited on the sidewalk for the signal to change and then we started across.
Joe pushing, me assisting. In seconds bumping over the cobblestones increased
the need to pee to almost unbearable proportions.
I started to laugh. Loudly. Drunkenly. I screamed, “I gatta
pee!” and the two of us rushed the hotel, struggled through the doors and we
howled at every burp and fart the elevator made as it made it tortuously slow
accent. Moments later, in the room, relieved and back in the chair. We simply
laughed.
For the first time, but not the last, I patted my chair as I
transferred from it to my bed. A relationship had begun. What had been new was
now normal. That moment changed my life.
Back home in Toronto, pushing myself towards the luggage carousel, a successful trip behind me, a strong chair below me, a good man beside me and my future in front of me – life was OK. And it was going to be OK.
Only recently someone accidentally said to me, about a friend
who had broken a leg and was using a wheelchair, “I don’t know how he does it,
I’d rather be dead than in a wheelchair.” Then she looked at me, “Oh, my God, I
forgot.”
I pointed at my chair and said, “This is better. Trust me,
much better. And, you’ll be surprised, it’s a surprisingly comfortable place to
sit.”
I don't see how you could have lost.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for sharing the beginning of a threesome for you and Joe. I'm glad you learned to love your freedom again. My yoga teacher reminds me that sometimes acceptance is the solution.
Alicia
Thank you for sharing these moments with us. It's great to read how this relationship started. And I'm glad this doctor told you to go, it was probably the best way for you to learn to get used to your chair, and to learn that you could still travel, lecture, and work.
ReplyDeleteI expect to see the winning entry published all over the place -- because it must have been amazing to beat this account.
ReplyDeleteAs a hospital chaplain, I'd like to see this essay in a pamphlet for people with sudden-onset mobility challenges. Any chance of that?
Thanks for sharing this time of your life with us.
Great story, Dave. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of something in my life that I said those words....I'd rather be.....turns out I'd rather be alive and that things that initially are different/awkward can and do become a new normal.
ReplyDeleteI love this writing. Thank you X
ReplyDeleteFor me its about future that is hovering richly there when sometimes we cant see it. With your wry humour and warmth and steadfast partnership.
Its a winner for me!!!!
Maggie, if you would like to use this piece - in any way you'd like - in your role, please do with my blessing!
ReplyDeleteDave, this is a wonderful piece! Thank you for sharing this time in your life. We've been "having a year" here, with my lymphoma last year, and now my husband's preparations for dialysis. I think maybe most of us "have" something sometime. It's so lovely to read about your journey through this time. Husband was told this morning to go on the trip to Quebec to visit our oldest son's home in two weeks. Like you, this change in our lives will be only that, a change. Thanks for reminding me of that.
ReplyDeleteHugs for you and Joe! You are a great team.
samm in Welland
Thank you for your willingness to be vulnerable. A very personal story . . . with very wide reaching implications for so many!
ReplyDeleteI too, loved this glimpse into the history of Dave. Thank you!:)
ReplyDeleteLol! Only thing worse than going over cobblestone in a wheelchair, is doing it with a full bladder. The agony! :) I really love that your doctor advised you to keep your travel plans. Doesn't sound like most doctors I've known. Very impressive! This whole story just makes me happy. Stories of disability onset usually feel like stories about a mourning process. This just feels like a transition. I want the world to read it. :)
ReplyDeleteI liked it, don't know why you didn't win.
ReplyDeleteMy father was very resistant to begin using a wheelchair. However, once he tried a chair, he was hooked. He could go more places, in a much shorter time.
He also hated the term wheelchair bound. He preferred the term wheelchair enabled.
This is excellent. (Not surprised, though.) There is a commercial here that makes me cringe every time I hear it. It's for Life Line Screenings, and it's a woman talking about her aunt who had a stroke. She says something like, "She survived, but she lost something much more important to her. She lost her independence." Really? Her independence is more important to her than her life?
ReplyDeleteThis is a much better - and real - message. Thank you. Wish you would have won if only to get your experience out to more people.