This excerpt is taken from the chapterBaby You Can Drive |
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Yet strangely, with all the gifts I had after recovering from a disabling chemo, I didn't notice one of the greatest gifts right under my own nose: I didn't need my crutches anymore. But I couldn't know it until the hospital specifically told me when. For me to understand, I needed Dr. Thompson to say something like, "At exactly 3:15 on July 14th, your leg will be strong enough to walk without crutches." I often forgot that I could determine my own rate of rehabilitation. There is no predetermined time a person has to be on crutches just as there is no exact time a person has to wait to go swimming after a meal (though waiting a half hour is a good idea, really). After my allograph and the brutal and painful recovery, I accepted that my rehab schedule was at the mercy of others. After the bone transplant I was given a heavy leg brace that ran the length of my leg. It had eight velcro straps and an adjustable hinge so that I could bend it to varying degrees. In the beginning I kept it locked straight, but after having a pin removed from my knee, it was set it for a 30 degree bend so as to start my recovery. I was also given a Passive Motion Machine, that I could strap into which bent my knee up and down. Dr. Thompson explained that the machine's purpose was to break scar tissue building up in the knee joint. About a month had gone by before I realized I had misunderstood him once again. I thought the machine was somehow exercising the muscles in my leg, but I knew by then it wasn't. My first giveaway should have been the fact that it was a motorized device, moving my leg all on its own. I have yet to see any weight rooms in which you sit strapped idle on a moving machine and receive a complete muscular workout. If there were such places I'm sure they would be huge successes since anybody could get a full body workout as they napped. But one need only visit a local golf course to see that riding around on a motorized vehicle and perfect muscle tone don't exactly go hand in hand. In spite of my ignorance, I hooked into that contraption four hours a day, content with my schedule. The only real drawback to the machine was, being an older model, it was terribly loud -- almost too loud to carry a conversation. As I sat on the couch, strapped in, staring out the window, I would feel as if I were on the tarmac at O'Hare airport during departure time. When Cheryl came in to ask me if I wanted a salad or something, it was like watching TV with the volume down. Since my machine was made of fused metal with a crude motor and weighing a ton, I estimated that it was manufactured sometime in the late 1800s from leftover railroad ties and excess freight. Perhaps it was created by the same guy who invented the hard hospital mattresses and mixed chemo. Emotionally, I wanted to get away from that machine, unstrap myself and run. But logically, and assuming I wouldn't be off crutches for a year, I was satisfied with my slow progress. So the combination of contentedness, ignorance and the mind-numbing noise worked to my advantage, helping me not be impatient, and to work hard for full use of my leg. Somewhere along the line, I think early July, my rehabilitation started to feel a little too easy. About the same time I realized the machine wasn't exercising my leg, I began to ask questions. "All I need to do is sit here and this machine will rehabilitate my leg?" I wondered. "There must be something else. Maybe I'm ready for the next step." As fate would have it, my questions were answered before I even had time to ask another. At my next checkup, between chemo three and four, before I could even ask what the next step was, Dr. Thompson pulled out of a box a brand new, lighter, less restrictive leg brace. It was made of a maroon, velvety material with spongy stuff on the inside. And it only had two straps! As Dr. Thompson held it, I looked at the brace like King Arthur gazing on the Holy Grail. It was so small, so simple -- a new world. "You mean," I was thinking, like a kid getting a car for graduation, "that's for me?" Since I was still on crutches, having Dr. Thompson bring out that wonderful new piece of equipment showed how far off I was with my un-ambitious schedule. I was hoping for a faster, quieter machine. Eager, but not wanting to jump to conclusions, I let him show how the brace worked and a physical therapist came in to go over some of the do's and don'ts of the apparatus. Only then, as Cheryl and I were about to leave, did I say to him, "So does this mean I can walk without crutches now?" Dr. Thompson is such a reserved and polite man but even he must've been thinking, "Well, Duh !" That was the first step, my first glimpse at how rapidly life would change with more mobility. Almost immediately I realigned my views on physical recovery. Whereas once I was sitting on the couch, hooked up to the passive motion machine, thinking how great it was I that could make meals and watch TV, with the new brace I began thinking things like, "I wonder if I can jog with this thing?" I started remembering all the things I used to be able to do. While doing both, walking around like Bambi on newborn legs and imagining all that lay ahead of me, time seemed to fly by as I walked stronger, straighter, and more confidently every day. I had reached the point where I could walk with hardly a limp when it hit me. There I was in my living room thinking normal, everyday thoughts -- "I wonder what the kids are up to today?" "Where did I put that crossword puzzle?" "Man! Those Monkees were a great band!" -- when out of nowhere it popped into my head, "Hey, I can drive the car! I can drive! I can walk outside, swing the door open, put the key in the ignition, turn it and tool around wherever I want." Of my entire recovery, that was the most glorious, freeing and earth shattering revelation. It took about three weeks longer than it should have and felt like one of those discoveries that you wish you could have back, like a first date or missing a tax deduction. But "better late than never" could not have been a more apt cliche. |
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