Who Cares?

I had no idea what would come of me posting a meme on Facebook but it let loose a torrent of comment. I don’t post memes. I sent it to an online friend going through tough times at home. It generated no response.  I thought about it for a day and that flat affect pushed my mind into asking myself what does this really mean? 

I’ve heard it said that people will tell you who they are if you listen.  They sure manage to muddle me up.  I have terrible judgment where my feelings are concerned. So I started to ask myself, laying here in bed, what is friendship? Friendship is how they treat me?  That’s a new one.  Which may give you an idea how naive I am. 

My scooter wreck brought me close to the face of God.  It also brought me face to face with who I am and who I want to be.  Flat affect isn’t who I want to be. I know I want joy.  The bugger is I don’t know how to find it or share it.  To be joyful alone is absurd, the stuff lunatic asylums are filled with all the time. I feel joy at being alive and I now look and see who feels joy with me. If my presence even across the ether doesn’t make you smile then I’m doing something wrong.  I don’t want to run you the wrong way or be an annoying permanent smile on your horizon - the smile of insincerity. I want you to show me your joy. And your sadness and your fear. 

The only television hero I had failed at it. Anthony Bourdain turned his life around saw my world through his eyes and tripped. I can’t afford to trip on my journey out of rehab. Help me step out of my shell. Help me trust my instincts as you do the same.  We can only have a small part of each other but that part should be first rate.  I hope this page will continue to be the best I can do and it does something good for you.  It’s all I can offer.  It has to be enough.  If you know me you know I struggle daily with doing my best and I often fail. It’s all in the struggle and like rehab I can’t do it alone. Whether it’s worth the effort I can only say it is for me. 

Thanks for reading. 

Michael Beattie

AKA Conchscooter 

The Great Thirst

I was living through what was for me, the hardest time in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital.  I called it The Great Thirst. Webb Chiles the sailing adventurer I am proud to call my friend says his worst fear is thirst after he shipwrecked once without water. It is an ever present memory for him as my lesser thirst is the worst memory of all the operations and tubes and injections and bedridden daily repetition of my current situation flat on my back. 

So it happened I was lying on my back in ICU one Sunday morning with intravenous tubes in my arm supplying me food and water and a nasal gastric tube stuck up my nose down my throat into my stomach to prevent my digestive system going wrong even though I was restricted to a diet of ice chips.  The tube is as intrusive as it sounds and all the other stuff hanging off me was so much less than that ducking garden hose giving me a sore throat impeding speech and tasting like sour food and rubber. It was an ever present horror.  I do not exaggerate. Getting it down my nostril I gagged and vomited twice -as you do I’m told- and I faced its removal by it being pulled out like a snake charmer surprising an audience.  What a prospect...

I couldn’t breathe well enough without oxygen. I woke up in the night struggling with replays of the accident. I felt suffocated by the tubes. My lips were parched. Oh yes they were parched. I dreamed of glasses of lemonade. Of cold water. Of orange juice. Nothing alcoholic interested me and carbonation made me vomit.  I already knew that.  All I got were ice chips. Rationed pieces of ice to moisten my lips. I begged I pleaded I moaned I swore I bargained I was the worst patient in the world.  The doctor looked down at me sadly and reassured me one glass of water would do nothing for my thirst as though that would reassure me enough to forget my desire. 

Then Sunday morning came round. And with it a visit from the Catholic chaplain who stopped by. I had, on admission papers confessed to membership in the Holy Roman  Universal  Church and was thus eligible for confession and last rites which these days is called anointing with oil or something rather less apocalyptic than Last. Rites. To be applied before you are expected to pop off.  I dredged up what sins I could recall for the Irish priest all soft pink folds of skin white wavy hair and a reserved manner of the type that tells you humanity disgusts him. I certainly seemed to. It was depressing as he anointed me with oil and told me to straighten up my life. There was no brilliant moment of enlightenment or hope or love. 

My confession was heard, my orifices anointed to prevent the ingress of evil, I was as shriven as I could be. Pure as the driven snow.  So immediately I set  about screwing the pooch.  “Father “ I said. “Could you kindly push that bottle of water a little closer. My wife accidentally left it out of reach.”  Poor man he stood no chance. He helped a fellow albeit fallen Christian to a jug of water -melted cursed ice chips actually- in the name of charity and then hustled off closing the door behind him at my urging. I sucked down the precious fluid my mouth agape like I was receiving an offering. The doctor was right; it did nothing to slake my thirst. But it tasted so good. 

Being human you will no doubt judge me and judge me badly but I ask one thing of you.  Go without drinking anything for twenty four hours and then tell me you don’t feel like an addict, a dope fiend, craving fluid like a rat dying of poison seeks water. Well meaning friends warn me against the addictive properties of Percocet. They know nothing of me if they think I am an addict of pills.  Food? Yes! Water? Abso-bloody- lutely. I was reading a book about the opioid epidemic called “Dopesick” a brilliant read which I have been afraid to touch since the scooter wreck. Perhaps I can plunge back in now. Now I can eat and drink and behave like the nice middle clas boy I am.  I looked behind the curtain of addiction and I did not like what I saw.  I have no doubt neither did you. 

Daily Life, Legless

I spent ten years, from 7 to 17 in English boarding schools which I like to describe as akin to Hogwarts without the magic.  Thus when presented with a plate of institutional food I tend to get warm fuzzies of being looked after.  Beef stew strawberry shortbread and milk. Hot tea to follow.  I’m good, very good. Too bad they serve it at 4:45pm.  A tad bit early...

I sit up a little in bed, not too much as my stomach has been sliced to get access to my pelvis for surgery and I pull the plate up over a napkin and with BBC radio 4 on the miracle of the internet I spoon food and ponder Brexit in my solitary rehab room (Thank you Cigna). Later I’ll have a candy or a Kind bar or something with Netflix on my phone.  Then Percocet. Then oblivion. And no I’m not getting Oxycodone addicted. I am addicted to riding but I want no comments on either please. It’s a lost cause. I’m 60 and I know who I am. 

The break in the day is rolling out for therapy for a few hours.  I come back battered.  I don’t complain but I am as covered in sweat as if it were broga. I desperately want to be able to put weight on my legs.  Even just my good left leg....it will come they promise. 

My therapist Eddy marches people up and down the stairs so they call the contraption Eddy’s Mountain. And then I met Missy the therapy dog who comes by Friday through Sunday...

And there I am stretching legs and arms and building back my core strength; leaning forwards, building confidence preparing to transfer from bed to wheel chair. Heady stuff. 

It’s a learning curve. I met Eleanor yesterday (I can’t photograph patients) a teacher who suffered a stroke. She is 90 years old all wispy white hair and gentle smile who was widowed 8 years ago and is learning to climb stairs with confidence. She is of Hungarian descent and has a wicked sense of humor with no fear of talking of death. We have a date in heaven when the time comes. 

Television news remains nonsense I have discovered now I have access to cable. However Sunday night at nine Anthony Bourdain’s last series begins so I shall be glued to CNN probably with tears in my eyes. Don’t bother calling. His death really affected me. I felt kinship for his outspoken eccentricity I think. 

Get this: two of my scooter forum buddies sent me care packages. Pretty bloody special! And this is the weekend. My own therapy dog. 

Have a weekend everybody!  I am !!

The Torture Chamber

There is a perverse thread in human nature where we delight in freaking each other out. Physical Therapy is a case in point. Once your trauma is stabilized and your broken bones realigned you leave the hospital and move to rehab.  All this predicated by the harridans at your insurance company.  We fought and managed to present a united front such that Cigna retreated and moved me to a fine facility in Cutler Bay called Health South. I like it here a lot. (The inevitable and useless television). 

“Rehab will kick your ass” is the phrase repeated over and over and in assorted form by friendly people who think it’s a helpful warning. I don’t know how making me apprehensive makes things better but people are weird. And by the way it actually won’t kick your ass.  Read on 

Rehab may kick YOUR ass but that’s because you didn’t work out before you got in whatever pickle you are in. Occupational Therapy deals with the upper body and Physical Therapy with the lower body and they each have a series of exercises carefully balanced against your injuries. I have a history of exercise and though fat I had muscle. Now a five pound weight makes me sweat. That is not uplifting but I know it is the path to recovering the use of my legs. 

Rehab is carefully controlled exercise.  My right thigh is broken in two places and my right knee cap split. Yet I can put some weight on it because of the way my pelvis broke.  My left leg is fine, but can bear no weight because of the pelvic fractures above it.  Oh and my left clavicle in my shoulder cracked too.  I am a mess. 

Yet because Health South is a pro outfit with educated and thoughtful staff they dream up ways with all my limitations to increase strength appropriately while making me sweat.  It’s not like sleeping but it’s not like torture either.  It’s a program and my goal is to be able to shit on a commode properly by myself. I’ve moved up to bed pans which is better than shitting the sheets but these guys can make it better than that. 

Plus they have an espresso machine that dispenses chocolate espresso.  OMG. I’m addicted. Bugger the Percocet. 

Besides which I get out of my room and out of the goddamn bed, I see clouds and palms and sunlight. I joke around with strangers and I start the slow but determined process of rebuilding my muscles.  

What an interesting experience this has all been.  And no, it’s not torture, it’s life.  Speaking as one who nearly died.

Flying By Hoyer Lift

If you are lucky enough to have never dealt with a Hoyer Lift consider yourself blessed.  It’s a crane used to get immobile people into and out of beds and chairs. Here’s  the company literature on the subject of this very useful tool:

They roll you from side to side in bed and put what amounts to a huge IKEA bag under you with six loops all round it.  Then they bring the lift into your room and attach loops to hooks on the machine. 

Sosa a nurse’s aide got me out of bed and into my wheelchair all by himself. He’s prettty smart and very compassionate like everyone at Health South. And efficient: 

So there you hang like a sack of potatoes and I love it! It’s like flying. The bag holds you distributing your weight evenly and you are up in the air smiling like a big fat newborn.  Getting photobombed (I told you these people are amazing). Hilarious. 

After Physical Therapy they rolled me back to my room in the wheelchair and left me to have lunch sitting up with a promise of a return later to Hoyer me back to bed.  Which was great for a change but after half an hour I felt myself slipping forward in the chair. Hmm.  That’s not right. As you can see below my feet are in no position to support me yet. 

Well, with my left foot not on the support and my right leg broken in two places there was no way to stop the slide. My emergency button was out of reach - duh! - and the door was closed but I started yelling. “Help! Room 508! Help! Someone? Help! Anyone!” After scrambling a bit and trying to gain time by wiggling I reached the button and caught it as it fell toward the floor.  Help arrived. Lots of help. They righted the tilting ship that was Conchscooter in his wheelchair and a party ensued. 

You lovely people.  Lots of laughs. Back to bed. Bring on the Hoyer Lift I say! 

Awaiting Torture

This whole business of nearly dying and being resuscitated is a bit new to me. Mostly it has, as you would expect with me, brought on a lot of heavy thinking about life and the meaning of fear and love and obligation and use of time. More prosaically it means rehab. 

First it meant a mundane ambulance transfer out of Jackson South to the rehab at Health South.  A rough ride on my still torn pelvis it was too. No luxury there. 

It was done late at night so I saw nothing of the world outside.  The EMT monitoring me used to live in the Lower Keys which created an instant bond. We Are Everywhere. Moving out of the hospital meant no more trauma alerts and while it is medically supervised you are presumed to have basic health status: ie breath and not be anywhere near ready to pop off.  Gone are the IVs and monitors reduced to four checks daily of blood pressure on a rolling device.  Very nice.

A long way from ICU where I lay bleeding out one end as they poured blood in the other. I arrived around ten pm Friday and as such have not yet seen the gym known to some inmates as the torture chamber. I am a little apprehensive as they say Physical Therapy is torture.  Not exercise, but making your body do what it feels it cannot do. For my part I want to walk and shit in the toilet. I hope I am ready for what is to come. 

Thanks for demanding I keep up this page.  I shall do my best to be coherent and spell checked as I type on my phone on my back through the haze of all these experiences.