Without going through the whole thing again, a couple of
years ago I had my right lower leg amputated after a systemic infection and
spiked blood sugar spun out of control. I had fallen a couple of times and the
last time I was unable to get up off my bedroom floor. Two friends of mine,
Becky and Ruth talked and were concerned I hadn’t returned phone calls in a
couple of days, so they called to police to check on me. Suffice it to say,
after a series of bad decisions by me, I ended up in the local hospital ER and
then was transferred to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where they pretty
much pulled me back from the edge and got everything under control . . . but
losing the leg was inevitable.
All very dramatic, I realize, but I guess it’s the reason I
really don’t sleep much. Or at least sleep when I should and where I should.
I have large gaps in my memory of those first couple of days
after my crash. Bits and pieces, but no string of memories. Little mind-bites,
like those sound bites on the news. Nothing connects, though I have an outline
of events in my head.
Things started to come into focus as it became clear I was
going to lose my lower leg. I was surrounded by friends and family, and while I
tried to delay what was to be the inevitable with other treatments, it was
clear that the leg was going to go. I think I slept pretty well in the
hospital, though the massive antibiotics they were giving me ruined my stomach
for weeks. Leg gone, I remember lying in the recovery room thinking about how
weird it was not to see a lump under the covers where my foot would have been.
It’s kind of weird when they knock you out for surgery and you wake up in a
large bustling room with a bunch of other people who were knocked out for
surgery.
It was inevitable.
Rehab I think I slept pretty well, too . . . though the repeat
of strong antibiotics continued stomach issues that I had in the hospital.
I was fitted for my prosthesis there at the local hospital
where I was doing the rehab . . . a black carbon fiber, titanium and stainless
steel replacement for a real leg that wasn’t all that great even when I had it.
Physical and occupational therapy, and a home check with my therapists to make
sure everything would work for me (I widened three doors and added a ramp, and
a bench for my already big shower.)
It was great to be home. Returning had been a major goal of
mine in rehab, and while there had been some discussion of moving into a
different place, at that time I just couldn’t think clearly about that just
then. I’m not very good at setting goals for myself, but that was one. Another
friend named Becky (Becky 1.0 and Becky 2.0) spent days cleaning my house from
top to bottom, in and out. She comes every couple of weeks now to clean as
well.
I had trouble sleeping almost as soon as I got home. I’d
sleep fine when I first went to bed, but then I’d wake up in the middle of the
night, often covered in sweat. Then less and less.
My usual dream is a vision directly above me lying on the
floor struggling to get up and not being able to. The dream usually ends with
blood coming out from under me somewhere and creating kind of a thick burgundy
liquid against the wood floor. I don’t sleep much after that. It’s pretty much
the same most nights, though sometimes I dream of being taken out of my house
and to the ambulance, the snow feeling so good on my face, looking up and
seeing that blur of snowflakes coming straight down on me. Other times my
trying to get up is on a loop . . . unable to pull myself up on the bed or the
chair and falling back to the floor. Every once in a while I’m sitting on the
floor, missing my lower leg, hunched over, my hands on my knees, blood running
out of my knees and my right elbow (which had been rubbed to the bone while I
was flopping around on the floor before I went to the ER). I used to be strong
. . . in my dreams I’m weak.
So now I sleep mostly in a recliner in my living room and a
bit in the bedroom. It’s funny, because I have a great bedroom, with its timber
framing and high ceiling, lots of windows at the head of the bed and a row of
windows facing the front of the house. It used to be my sanctuary and it still
warms me when I go down the hall. I just can’t seem to spend a whole night
there.
It’ll get better. My two Becky friends suggested
re-arranging it so the bed faces a different way and the TV and bureaus are
positioned differently. That might be a good idea.
Time will tell, and time heals. We build those scabs over
all kinds of wounds, then they close up and we get scars. Those scars stay with
us, but after a while we own them.
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