Stepping Up

I ran before I walked and now I have to go back and check my form.  My physical therapist Eddy saw me walking with the walker...

...and said I was putting too much weight on my uninjured left leg. That’s the leg that attaches to the most broken portion of the pelvis. So Eddy said we start again.  The past two days have been intense remedial. First learning to position my feet, left far forward unable to support weight, right tucked under me taking the full load. Then using my powerful arms and my right leg as a piston up I come weight biased to the right.  There I stand (when successful) looking around like bird freshly hatched enjoying the view from five feet up. 

Then I plonk back into the wheelchair my hairline rimmed with sweat, my breath rasping. Don’t be afraid Eddy says, as though the only thing I’m afraid of is falling. I’m afraid of twisting my knee and causing excruciating pain. I’m afraid of not being able to do it. I’m afraid I may be able to do it. I’m afraid my arms aren’t strong enough. I’m afraid of letting Eddy down. I am a mass of pretentious nonsense contained in my skin wobbling precariously between the past and the future. “UP!” comes the command. I rise on my right leg trying to ignore my left foot which rests on Elias’ foot so he can measure if I am doing it right or NOT. 

Eddy suiting up to take me in hand 

I rise up on the leg and he says good good good. And that means Elias can’t feel me putting weight on the left foot. The first time goes well, each subsequent attempt to stand gets a little more messy. No says Elias, too much weight, referring to my left foot on his foot. I rest. 

Elias and I

Then the big one, not just standing at the walker but using it to...walk. Properly this time with no weight on my left foot. I get coached.  “Walker. Left Foot. Right Foot.” That’s the mantra. I rise up and start calling the moves. Walker forward. Take left foot and move slightly forward, heavy weight on arms and right leg. Right leg forward. Eddy holds me by the belt, Elias supports my left arm and foot and Natalie keeps the wheelchair close to my butt. I got four steps in, the last being kind of crap with too much weight on my left. 

All that exercise is paying off. My knee hurts a little but nothing like the day before. Tomorrow I trust it will hurt less. I shall rise more gracefully. I shall learn to trust my right leg.  I shall walk with the walker. Soon.

House The Workers

The Key West Citizen reports a couple of major changes in business ownership in the city this week. Benihana has been bought by the people who own neighboring Trattoria Oceanside which announcement was accompanied by a promise to revitalize the businesses next to the airport. Let me be honest: I don’t care for dinner as theater so for the fans of the Japanese chain I’m glad to say no staff changes are expected.

The other bit of business news comes in the form of the sale of the whole Alonzo’s/Commodore/White Tarpon complex with the parking lot at Key West Bight now known as the Historic Waterfront etc..Alonzo’s I like.  A lot. And happily no changes are announced though some sort of mysterious enhancement of experience is apparently in the works. 

The Alonzo’s sale is interesting to me as a partner in the project is the same group of backers who got Stock Island Marina Village built which says something positive.  The new marina offers first rate facilities combined with a laid back neighborhood feel that has a food truck and dog park on premises, the sort of down home touches that give you hope they have an idea of how to treat people in this particular community. This could be a real good thing for Alonzo’s. 

North Roosevelt has been the scene of more wrecks. A couple of days ago an elderly man on a bicycle ride as run down and killed. Which when you remember the other cycling death in front of the Green Parrot last week is a reminder why Key West does not have a good bicycling reputation. Plus a car wreck led to injuries on the Boulevard along with lane closures recently. This is not tourist season either which makes it all the more disturbing. We are killing each other. The woman who cut me off is a resident too.  Apparently her husband has been going around saying I “broke a few bones” which is one way to get me mad after six weeks unable to walk or take a shit by myself.

All this exchange of business is a reminder that this is still Key West, the city with no housing. This is the place that accommodates the poorest and their meager belongings or the richest and their vast baggage train of expectations. The inbetweeners like you and me have a head scratching problem. There are developers trying to figure out some answers yet when workforce housing is proposed, on Summerland, Sugarloaf and Big Coppitt Keys the neighbors rise up in chorus and start lamenting the familiar refrain: Not In My Backyard. In which case we have to ask if not yours, whose? 

You would imagine a city with an ever worsening housing situation would be stepping up the search for solutions. The trouble is, in the Southernmost City there is money to be made from inertia so for now nothing is happening. No renovation of appallingly inefficient uncomfortable 70 year old public housing, no bold vision, no discussion of planning. Leave it up to a newspaper reporter to do for the city what the city dare not dream of...

Check out this aerial shot (from the web) of Ibis Bay Resort for sale.  Reporter Mandy Miles suggested the city buy it for workforce housing. Brilliant, no? Not at all it turns out. Give workers waterfront homes to rent? Hell no!  That’s the level of thinking we are at in Key West.  It’s a shame because this sort of thinking is what could put Key West in the bold innovative category of small city. 

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On another subject allow me to take some space here and thank a couple of readers for their thoughtfulness. I am in rehab in Miami and lack access to the paraphernalia of the postal service but I received a note from Glen in Colorado who wrote me a very legible hand written letter full of pithy wisdom and humor. Thank you Glen.  Your initiative sending your letter to the police department in Key West was quite brilliant. 

Fran wrote and sent a supply of tea equipment which I have received with gratitude. I am glad I answered the phone and got the job done when you called 911 but you should have called back to introduce yourself. I am happy to have you buy me a drink! Chance encounters are way too haphazard. When I am back at home in my routine my email is conchscooter @ gmail.com 

My address if you want to give me a piece of your mind while I am helpless in bed for the foreseeable future with time to ponder your words, is:

Michael Beattie 

Room 508 

Encompass Health

20601 Old Cutler Road

Miami FL 33189 

Health South bought Encompass Health October 1st and adopted their name to sound less regional. The facility remains the same excellent rehab. 

Rolling Through Life

I said it last night to my wife who was pottering around getting her clothes ready for her work week.  “I wish I could get up and walk.”  It’s a thought I haven’t uttered out loud since I lost the use of my legs on August 31st. My wife had her own doctor’s appointment in Miami then she went off home for the week to work and look after Rusty while I stay here and exercise my heart out. I took a few tentative steps while also putting my left foot more firmly on the ground than I should have done: 

As I become more physically active the restraints put on me by my wheelchair become ever more apparent. My chair is too wide for me and this creates numerous difficulties.  The back and the seat aren’t taut and the sagging produces a ghastly slump which becomes tailbone painful after a few hours. The wheels are so wide I have difficulty reaching the rings that I am supposed to use to propel myself. Often I resort to grasping the tire which is unsanitary and gets me yelled at. Even then the chair at 26 inches wide is a tank and an utterly unresponsive lump to move.

I send helpers out to seek out a 22 inch chair left perhaps by a departing patient to replace my monster. No luck so far. No response to my request from my case worker. I soldier on.  At least I am past the Hoyer Lift and now risk my neck by sliding from bed to chair and back: 

As long as you keep the plank under your thigh and don’t allow yourself to slide forward it’s quite simple. Strong arms help and an ability to wiggle. Meanwhile daily life continues. 

At home I use a safety razor and I stand nonchalantly before the mirror. Here it’s a bit different but I got the job done. Bit like the struggle to brush your teeth without dribbling toothpaste on yourself. It’s a whole different way to live.

A Perfect Saturday In Rehab

Friday night saw me grumpy in bed. My wife was coming down Highway One bringing the love dog with her when a failed passing attempt I believe at Mile Marker 72, near Duck Key, foiled her. 

It gets to be annoying for many reasons living along a single access road but this sort of nonsense, in low season no less, is doubly frustrating. No one died but the helicopter landed on the bridge to get a car occupant to Miami in a hurry. I didn’t envy her the flight...

As always with Facebook the details of what and why are absent. The pertinent news is that traffic was badly stalled for hours and I did not get to see dog or wife. I did get to speak by electric telephone with the wife. The dog was incommunicado.  Grr. I felt sorry for myself. 

I received word Saturday the highway was open and a second expedition was en route for my relief. I had a nice long chat with a friend. We sorted the world out and each other, a call that restored my equanimity and prepared me to meet my small brown bundle of love. It was actually pretty cool being able to get from bed to chair using a plank only. No more Hoyer Lift. I got this picture from my wife who witnessed my first attempts: 

She rolled me out to the courtyard where the breeze was blowing and Rusty ran around chewing grass and sticking his head in bushes. We sat in companionable silence and read, dropping comments on the news of the day into the peace of a bright warm Fall afternoon in South Florida.  It was pretty darned pleasant let me say. 

A neighbor of mine, Sonny who I’ve met and encouraged in rehab came out pushed by his devoted mother.  It was great. We traded war stories about coping with hospitals as only survivors can. It’s a small select group of us that knows the misery of ICU and the pain of recovery. My wife and his mother chatted about the vicissitudes of supporting patients in these strange circumstances.  It was good. 

I don’t know how you spent your Saturday but as odd as it sounds I don’t envy you.

Lazarus

I stood yesterday, unaided, for the first time since August 31st. 

Let’s face it, not terribly elegant and I felt like a sack of potatoes but I got out of the chair by myself.  Lazaruscrosevup and stumbled out into a new life. Elias was pretty happy.  I got an extra chocolate espresso. The weights went up as the daily effort to increase upper body strength continues. 

A little at a time.  After the surgeon approved weight bearing as tolerated on my right leg and “toe taps” (10%) on my uninjured left leg I no longer need the Hoyer Lift and I use a board to transfer from bed to chair. 

Loren thought I did a pretty good job with minimal assistance. She is in green denoting she is a transporter but she only has to push me now, no more holding my leg. Whichever therapy school she gets into will be lucky to have her. 

It’s absurd how hard I struggle with exercises that in my former life would have seemed no problem at all. It’s my new stage in recovery. I push as hard as I can adding pounds and feeling my muscles ache when I am back in bed. Yesterday Sonny and his Mom were in Physical Therapy and she said he was having a crappy day.  I saw a challenge as the young adult with dreads and flashing black eyes glared at me. His father is black and his mother is white and I imagine before his stroke he stood like a Colossus astride two cultures in our terribly divided society, tall and lanky and strong and proud. 

Hey Sonny I said. He glared. I heard you are having a crappy day. He acknowledged me so I told him about my agony going to the doctor to get good news. We compared notes how hard everything is. Then I dropped my bombshell. “Eddy loves me more than you,” I said confidently. Hell no he said. Eddy came back and suddenly Sonny was all smiles and cooperation as I sat there and pressed and bent my legs. 

Another successful day in rehab. Back to my room to contemplate the idea I might go to the bathroom by myself pretty soon. 

Weirdly enough I’ve heard nothing from the insurance but I’m thinking I get to stay here a while longer as now I can stand and move along in my therapy. Here’s hoping...Thanks as always for all good wishes.

Small Town Living

Yesterday saw me in another van traveling to the doctors office for a critical set of x rays to determine how much healing has taken place and whether or not I can stand at all on my legs.  It was a day of self centered anxiety seeing me unable to concentrate and nervously chasing Facebook and Adventure Rider my preferred motorcycle forum (!). Thank God for the mindless nonsense of short entries on Facebook in my current state of isolation! I decided to write a thank you note to the life savers at Trauma Star. I got 200 likes in 12 hours which blew me away and makes me glad our air ambulance is  so popular. 

The other thing that blew me away was how many people had participated in some way.  Two people were at Square Grouper and saw the wreck and checked in. One woman about whom I remembered nothing actually did hold my hand and talk to me. 

Nikki also told me she was surprised when I started laughing saying I figured I’d really have to call out sick that night.  I don’t think you’re expected to crack a funny in extremis. I have no memory. Weird. But in the big picture this is less about me and more about the community in which I live. Can you immagine so much outpouring of decency for a complete stranger?  I really do feel blessed to live in the Keys.  This incident has brought that home most vividly.

By two o’clock I was on my way to Doctor Quinnans office.  They took x rays only after the office strong man picked me up under my armpits and raised me vertically out of my chair and plonked me on the x ray table. Utterly astonishing when it is done as easily as you or I putting grocery bags on the counter. Dr Quinnan studied the before and after pictures.

I know nothing about surgery except I do know that man is a bloody genius. He said my wounds were bad. I was split open like a chicken and where my pelvis was supposed to join there was a two inch gap as my legs cartwheeling pulled the two sides apart. Check out the ironmongery inside me knitting me together: 

That pin at the top limits the amount of weight I can bear on my wholly uninjured left leg - irony!  My injured right is supported by numerous pins and screws and plates and can thus support weight as tolerated by me. Excellent! We have reason now for the insurance company to let me stay to continue and expand my excellent physical therapy. That discussion happens today so expect tomorrow to hear about that in excruciatingly boring detail. I apologize for all this stuff about me but unfortunately this is my life at the moment. 

I am looking forward to the next phase hopefully still in this first rate rehab in Cutler Bay. I hope you will stick along for the ride even though this isn’t Key West content. I shall be happy to get back to that whenever I can believe me. I am more grateful than you know for your words of support and general kindness. 

In regards to my wife Layne she is a private person and prefers not to be grist for my mill here but she knows I love and appreciate her kindness to me in this time. It may be worth noting over the 24 years of marriage arthritis has put her in the hospital numerous times so at the moment our rôles are reversed. Plus yesterday the passenger window in the the car stopped cooperating. The Ford dealer couldn’t help but they inspected the window and gave Layne the part numbers required to get it to go up and down again. She passed them on to Oily’s on Stock Island and the window motor should be fixed by Friday. How about that? No husband necessary!

Onward and upward!