Legend Of The Fall

Another sunny, unnaturally warm spring day here in the northeast. Mac and I were talking about going down to the shore today. Before I headed out to Mass this morning, I checked the forecast and found that the tide would be high right around the time we got there, and cloudiness, along with a potential for thunderstorms were also predicted. It's an hour and a half of driving to get there, so once we commit to going, there's no turning back.

In the end, we decided to wait for a more settled day and low tide so we could really enjoy the beach. Plus, we have so much to do around here. There's a lot of yard work still to be done, and we're doing the living room over. In order for it to look halfway decent, we had to tear out the old paneling and put up new sheetrock before painting. Today we stained the wood work and Mac sanded down the joint compound on the sheetrock seams. Tomorrow I should get to do some painting.

As I type this, Rigby is dropping her favorite ball on my feet every few seconds so I will stop and throw it across the room for her. She gets bored so easily!

So, back to the legend of the fall!

I drove home, late that night with my head spinning. Mac had been admitted to the hospital with a broken pelvis. My daughter was living away at school, and my son was working all kinds of different shifts, so Rigby was crated during the day. I'd called my sister from the hospital and she kindly went over and took her out for a walk. It was late as I drove home, but hopefully my son would have gotten home and was taking care of her.

My second concern after the well-being of my husband was financial. Mac is a self-employed contractor. He either works directly for homeowners, or with other builders, roofers and carpenters as a sub-contractor. If he doesn't work, he doesn't get paid. He can't collect unemployment compensation, as I am now doing. If he stays home, there's no money at the end of the week. Of course, he had no short-term disability insurance either, so this was not a good thing. Our income had just been cut in half. On the up side, it could have been so much worse. He could have injured his spinal cord and lost the use of his limbs. He could have injured his spleen or some other organ. He could have landed on his head and been killed. All things considered, he was very lucky. My daughter would be graduating in a month from the University of Massachusetts. I couldn't imagine that Mac would be able to be there. He'd be so disappointed to miss his only daughter graduate from college. I made up my mind that I would not let everything overwhelm me, and I would take it all one day at a time.

Those first days were grim. He was on a lot of pain medication and so he wasn't himself, to say the least. Sometimes we would talk and he would not remember anything of our conversations. I'd spend a couple of hours with him and he wouldn't remember me being there. The nurses had him up and were making him walk with a walker which seemed very wrong to me, and I told them so, but what the heck did I know? He told me through gritted teeth, that he could feel the pelvic plates grinding against each other, which I thought was a very bad sign. When the Orthopedist finally saw him, he confirmed that my suspicions were correct...he shouldn't have been up and moving for he first three days - it apparently takes that long for the bones to begin to knit together, and he could have made things much worse by shifting them around. I felt a lot better about everything once the Orthopedist took over his care.

Meanwhile, I continued working full-time and taking care of Rigby and the apartment, and I also took over all the household tasks that Mac normally did, like doing the dishes, taking out the trash and recyclables, and mowing the lawn. Although we rent here, taking care of the property, which includes an acre of yard, is part of the deal. My son helped me as much as he could, and my sister and her husband, as well as my brother, all lent a helping hand too. I was so lucky to have them living so close by. I came to really understand how difficult it must be, for people that have no close friends or relatives to help them in times like this. We all really need someone to rely on.

It turned out Mac is a really fast healer. After two weeks, the doctor announced that he was ready to go to a rehab hospital and begin physical therapy. I was concerned that they were rushing it, but they disagreed, and Mac wanted to get home and get back to his life. At fifty two years old, he had excellent blood pressure, was not on any medications (except for the pain meds, at the moment), and weighed one hundred and fifty pounds(soaking wet with all his clothes on). He was really in great health, except for his injury, which was healing nicely. They claimed he was ready, so off to the rehab hospital we went. Once there, he made excellent progress, and after ten days, they released him. He'd be walking only with a walker for a while, then he'd graduate to crutches. He had a home health aide scheduled to visit a few times a week, and a physical therapist would be coming by too. He'd be doing exercises on his own as well. The trickiest part, was that he would need help getting outside for fresh air, or to take Rigby out, since we live entirely on the second floor. I took six vacation days off from work so I could be there with him for the worst of it.

For the next two months, he hopped around in the yard on his crutches, played with Rigby, ate three meals a day(a real novelty for him), and watched "The Deadliest Catch" on cable T.V. so often, he soon knew every fact about Alaskan crab fishing that there is to know. By mid-July, he was back to his old self and was ready to climb up on the staging again, and so he did.

The only good thing about Mac being hospitalized, was that he couldn't smoke. He was a two pack a day guy at that point, but he was forced to quit, cold turkey the night he was admitted. It was wonderful to have him in the house at night, instead of outside or down back in the barn, smoking. But, it was too good to last. After three solid months without a cigarette, as soon as he could drive again, he drove to the convenience store and bought a pack. I was so disappointed, I don't think I spoke two words to him for at least a couple of days. He says he will quit again, but he won't say when. I thought he'd gotten the monkey off his back for good, but alas, it was not to be. He knows how much I hate it, but it's his decision, not mine.

That's the story of the fall. By the Grace of God, he had a full recovery, and we somehow survived it. Mac attended our daughter's graduation at the end of May, on crutches, but he was there, after all.

An Unhappy Landing

Today was a day of record setting warmth here in southern New England. Temperatures hovered around eighty five degrees Fahrenheit. Trees are exploding with pink and white blooms, and the grass has sprung up, new and sparkling in a an amazing shade of green.

Rigby was panting, and I was drenched, as we walked around our usual route today. That little dog was in such a hurry to get to her water bowl when we got home, that she dragged me into the kitchen without waiting for me to take her leash and harness off. Even though it’s still April, today really felt like the first day of summer.

Today is also an anniversary of sorts. It was one year ago today that Mac fell off the scaffolding while he was roofing. I got his phone call around four o’clock while I was still at work. He sounded like his calm, normal self, but his first words were that he had some bad news for me… He needed me to take him to the hospital because he couldn’t drive… or walk.

Just outside my office door in the common area, some of the girls were setting out wine glasses. It was our custom to have a glass before closing up on Friday afternoons. I shut off my computer and grabbed my handbag. “I can’t stay…I need to go. Mac just fell off a roof and I have to take him to the hospital”, I babbled as I ran out the door, leaving my co-workers looking shocked and concerned.

I could see the white van in the driveway as I drove up the street toward the house. As always, there were about six ladders of varying size strapped to the roof. I saw Bart and Nash, Mac’s friends and co-workers, their arms linked, forming a chair, and Mac in the middle, being carried. I pulled up beside the van and jumped out to open the passenger side door so they could slide him in. All three of them were laughing and joking as they made their way over to my car. This was to be expected of tough guy roofers. Questions roiled about in my mind at that moment, foremost among them, “Why didn’t they take him straight to the hospital…better yet, why didn’t someone call an ambulance?” But, I already knew the answers. Mac didn’t want them to. He didn’t want anyone making a big deal over him. The staging had buckled, and the plank he was standing on gave way and he fell, landing squarely on his hip with a sickening crunch. His first thought was, "I hope my legs still work". They did, thank God, but he found that although he could move them, he couldn't walk. He was in excruciating pain. This had happened in the early afternoon. He didn't want to be a bother, so he sat and waited until the other guys had finished the job. That's Mac for you.

We started out toward the hospital which was about thirty minutes away. I was balancing trying to drive fast with trying to avoid sharp turns and bumps, because my husband’s yelling and moaning corresponded directly with the smoothness of the ride. I realized that he must have broken bones at the very least. He was never one to complain much, but he was obviously in terrible pain now.

About a mile away from the hospital, I grabbed my cell phone and called the emergency room desk. “ I’m bringing my husband into the emergency room”, I said to the nurse who picked up the phone. “We’re a few minutes away, and I need someone to meet us in the parking lot. He fell off some scaffolding and he can’t walk.”

“Sorry”, came the reply, “You’ll have to call an ambulance, we can’t come out into the parking lot. It’s against regulations.”
“Call an ambulance from the hospital parking lot? What?!” I was incredulous. No one was going to help us. I’d be damned if I was going to call an ambulance to get us from the parking lot to the front desk. And you wonder why your health insurance premiums are so high, my fellow Americans?

I pulled my car right up to the door of the emergency entrance, parked in the “no parking” zone and flicked on my flashers. I jumped out and ran up to the automatic doors, bolting inside. I told the first four people I saw that my husband was injured, he couldn’t walk and I was going to carry him in myself if someone didn’t come and help me. From behind the desk, the nurse in charge pointed out a fleet of wheelchairs in a corner, and I grabbed one and headed for the door with it. A young nurse took pity on me, and looking back over her shoulder toward the desk, muttered, “I’ll help you”, as she turned on her heel and followed me out. Somehow, the two of us wrangled him into the wheelchair.

Then began a long night of x-rays, examinations, scans and waiting… lots of waiting. At one point during the wait, I was astonished when a woman about my age, carrying a clipboard, entered the cubicle we were in. She announced that she had come to collect the one hundred and fifty dollar emergency room deductible on our health insurance. This was possibly the rudest thing I had ever experienced. Here we were, in the middle of a crisis, my husband obviously in pain, I'm distraught, and they want the money now. I was beyond irritated, but the woman’s kind demeanor and obvious empathy for our situation quickly softened my attitude. She was only doing her job, after all. As I wrote out the check, she talked about her children and asked about ours. Her gentle smile and soft spoken words were a comfort to me. She left after telling me that she would pray for a good outcome for my husband.

After many hours, a doctor came in and announced that Mac would be admitted to the hospital. His pelvis was fractured in four places, front and back. Unfortunately, since it was Friday, a orthopedist would not be able to see him until Monday at the earliest, but at this point, they expected Mac would be hospitalized for probably six weeks. Physical therapy would be required after that, of course.

Thus began the lost spring of 2008. The rest to follow...