Gone

by Linda K. Olson

  Dave’s day consisted of running in the dark early morning hours, then driving to the hospital, coming upstairs to see me, and then going back down to work in the Radiation Oncology department in the third basement of NRMC. When finished, he drove home to do household chores and then drove the eleven miles back to the hospital so he could spend an hour or two with me, watching baseball or football, before I fell asleep.

  I, too, had a rigid routine:

  Get up.

  Eat breakfast.

  Go to PT.

  Back to room for lunch, collapse, and nap.

  Return to PT.

  Return to room.

  Eat supper.

  Visit with Dave.

  Turn off light, go to sleep, and dream.

  Dream every night that tomorrow morning my legs and arm would be where they belonged and I’d go back to finish my radiology residency, go on vacation, get a job, have a family, love Dave forever. Be normal.

  Every morning, I considered whether I wanted to get up or bury myself under the pillows and cry. My stomach churned; my eyes squeezed shut; my breathing was shallow and rapid. But I did not bury my head. I did not cry. Every morning, I turned on my iron face.

  Dave and our kids still recognize it: the face that says, Leave me alone; I will do this.

  I continued the interminable PT that consumed my life. Two or three times a day, I was pulled into the leg sockets and strapped onto the stilts. My white gym shorts offered some level of modesty, hiding my underwear and everything else from the general public when I moved. In my opinion, what they saw was much more grotesque than anything that was hidden: fat, lumpy-looking, hard, skin-colored sockets that encased my “stumps;” a metal knee joint plugged into the bottom of the socket; a shiny, hollow aluminum pipe that extended from the knee into a rubber foot cut flat through the ankle. My shoes looked truly out of place on the contraptions.

  At least my core and supporting muscles were getting stronger, thanks to Donna’s creative, if brutal, therapy regimen.

  “Linda, it’s time to start walking, really learning to walk, with your new legs,” she said one morning.

  Sweat rolled down my face and my curly hair frizzed as I stood for two minutes, then three, then four. Clutching the parallel bar with my left hand, I tried to lift one leg and put it back down. Donna stood behind me, holding on to a wide leather belt she’d strapped around my waist. If I fell, I wouldn’t fall far.

  Dave was there every day, sweating with me.

  “Remember, it takes a baby a year to walk. Give it time!” he’d say.

  When frustrated, fearful tears would start to flow, he’d repeat his mantra: “I didn’t marry your arms and your legs. If you can do it, I can do it.”

  He asked a million questions, wanting to understand everything Donna and I were doing so he could do it for me if he needed to. I started moving. Not sure if you’d call it walking, but it was movement.

  Meanwhile, we did our due diligence and obtained second opinions from other rehabilitation centers. “You will not be able to walk from the parking lot into a grocery store, because it will take too much energy,” said one well-known rehab doctor. “It will be nice to have legs for looks, but you will need to use a wheelchair to go anywhere.”

  Another said, “Triple amputees can’t ambulate successfully. It takes too much energy, and they all give up.”

  The third looked at us and said, “I don’t know, but you’re young enough, and you may be motivated enough, to make it work.” Amid enthusiasm like that, we thought it no wonder there were not very many successful walkers out there.

  “Okay, Linda. We’ll show them. You are going to walk a mile.” With that challenge, Donna mapped out a walking course for us, one with benches or chairs at close enough intervals that we could rest frequently. I went out onto the hospital grounds, tethered to my physical therapist by a rope and belt around my waist. People saw me. I kept walking. Some said hi. Most looked away. In my mind, I said, Hey! I’m just like you. In fact, this could be you!

  Every day we made progress. Every day we walked farther than the day before. Step by step by step.

  Soon, the toy-soldier thump, thud, thump, thud became my trademark sound. Thump when the knees locked and thud when the heel struck. The belt came off. A quad cane provided enough support that I could walk on my own. I was free!

  As I walked on my own, I looked people in the eye, smiled, and said, “Hi, how are you?” I forced them to look at me and respond. No more talking to belly buttons and crotches from a wheelchair for me, and no more letting people act as if I wasn’t really there.

  Four months after the accident, I walked a mile in my new legs.

  Life as I knew it had seemed to be over. But was it? Are we defined by our legs? What do we do when we get new legs? Are we the same person? A new person?

  I wondered, if I gave it my all, where it would take us.

  Cry My Eyes Out

  I’m in Rose Canyon in San Diego, crying my eyes out. I do this every day. It’s a cool October morning. Dawn is about an hour away, but I know this place so well that moonlight and the company of stars are all I need. I’m running on dirt roads where nothing but tall weeds and bunny rabbits exist.

  This is my safe place. I’m alone and free to let all the emotions work themselves out without shame. No holding back. Why her? My thoughts turn from sorrow and anguish to anger and become absolutely homicidal. I let the anger run full force through me. It drives my legs faster. I know I will forever have the energy of this anger to push me.

  By the time I head back to the house, the eastern sky has started to gray. The tears have dried. I know that my legs and lungs have done their work and that my tensions are calmed. I can now think better and plan. I will now be able to focus my concentration and direct my energy toward her problems and toward those of my courageous cancer patients—problems that, in the grand scheme, are far more important than mine. As I cool down, take a shower, and put on my uniform, I reach a peaceful equilibrium that will last until tomorrow morning.

  CHAPTER 5:

  Climb Every Mountain

  I squeezed Dave’s hand and nuzzled his neck as I whispered in his ear, “I can’t wait! Can you believe we’re doing this?”

  I kept looking up at the arrivals-and-departures board to make sure our flight from JFK to Frankfurt, Germany, was still on time.

  It had been only nine months since our last trip to Germany. Just nine months since the accident. Nine months learning how to walk on my clunky fake legs. Nine months through a yearlong medical leave of absence from my radiology residency at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles.

  Thankfully, the radiology department at UCSD had welcomed me with open arms, allowing me to observe as a nonpaid resident so I could get back into the learning process. While I’d gotten strong enough to walk a mile in my strap-on legs, Dave’s legs had become even stronger. Carrying me up and down the stairs several times a day was part of his daily routine. His legs did double duty. It was a good thing he was young and I was lightweight.

  “Dave, did you hear that?” I asked, poking him in the ribs. Our flight was announced in English and then German. Hearing the guttural words made me tingle with excitement. I was a giddy passenger. I’ve always loved people-watching in airport terminals, parading down long jetways, climbing the stairs, and walking sideways down the skinny airplane aisles, looking for my seat number.

  But mixed with my excitement was nervous energy that made my body shiver.

  We would be spending a couple of days with Dave’s parents, who were still stationed at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, then would travel by train on to Salzburg and Venice. We’d brought my one-arm-drive wheelchair but had optimistically decided we’d leave it in my in-laws’ Stuttgart apartment and do the trip to Salzburg and Venice without it, hoofing it like any other young couple in love. We intended to prove that even though we might look funny, our lives were nearly normal and we could still have a good time.

&n
bsp; The nine-hour Lufthansa flight was exciting at first. I giggled and snuggled up to Dave after we buckled our seat belts. Following dinner and a glass of wine, we settled in for the long haul over black nothingness thirty-five thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean. But as the hours dragged on, I started squirming. My residual legs were swelling inside the tight sockets of my prostheses, and I felt welts starting to form along their tops. I reached down into my jeans and tried to wiggle the skin around to relieve the pressure. My skin would blister and break down if I didn’t get my artificial legs off soon. If that happened, our full-week trip would be ruined.

  Dave’s slow, rhythmic breathing told me he was already asleep. Not wanting to wake him, I sat thinking. And then I became aware of the pressure building in my bladder. I sat motionless, trying to ignore it. Nope. That’s not gonna work. Need a distraction.

  I reached into the gap between my body and our shared armrest, pulled out my book, and skimmed a few pages. If I could just take off my legs and if the flight attendant could just hand me a catheter . . .

  When Dave finally squirmed a tiny bit, I poked him. “Please,” I whispered. “I need to go to the bathroom—really badly.”

  “Why didn’t you say something sooner, hon? Of course,” he said.

  Dave unbuckled his seat belt and stood up. Positioned awkwardly in the narrow aisle, he leaned over and, as if I were a limp doll, pulled me into a standing position. As the plane lurched, he used his body to brace me. I wriggled sideways down the narrow aisle, holding Dave’s belt as he walked in front of me.

  We’d both flown many times, so we knew that airplane bathrooms are tiny, but as he opened what looked like a trap door into the mouse house–size lavatory, it was clear right away that my peculiar method of sitting down wasn’t going to work in this teensy space. To sit on a toilet, I had to find something stable behind me that I could put my left hand on to brace myself, then lean back, totally extend my right leg forward, lift the left leg slightly to unlock it, swivel on the right heel, and plop down on the seat—a clunky, noisy procedure that didn’t ever get any more finessed with practice. It was not dainty.

  “We can’t do this!” I whisper-shrieked.

  “What do you mean, we? I can’t get in there,” Dave said.

  “I can’t sit down, let alone stand up. What are we going to do?” The we question again.

  “Here, just put your feet straight out and I’ll lower you down.”

  “Wait! I’ve gotta pull my pants down!” I said. The plane lurched, pitching me into Dave’s chest. “Don’t move,” I said. I leaned against him and buried my head in his armpit. As I fumbled with the button on my jeans, the only thing that kept me from falling was the wall Dave’s body created. There was no way I could hold on to anything and pull my pants down at the same time. Next time we do this, I told myself, I’m going to wear underpants with a quick-release crotch. I started to laugh as I imagined rolling through the aisles at Victoria’s Secret. I was out of breath when I finally got my pants down.

  Dave began to lower me, but I stopped him. “We can’t do this. It’s too small for both of us. The door won’t close.”

  I felt a bead of sweat slide down my neck and spine. I hated the fact that I’d just used the word can’t several times in the past two minutes. The word I had sworn not to use while still in the hospital in Salzburg. Instead, I tried to say things like “This is hard” and “Isn’t there another way?”

  “Well, it’s already done,” he said, stepping back and bracing himself in the doorframe as the plane swayed slightly to one side.

  The bathroom door stayed open. With his slender body, Dave blocked as best he could what now looked to me to be a ginormous doorway. My face burned and my bladder clenched. I dropped my shoulders and closed my eyes in an attempt to force my body to relax. Traveling used to be fun. Now it’s mortifying. Dave stood there as if this were an everyday occurrence. How does he do that? Like this is no big deal, like this is something people see every day.

  I thought back to the beach and the many other occasions when Dave had acted as if nothing bad had ever happened to us, as if we were the same as we’d been a year ago. Well, I guess, if he can do it, I can do it, I thought. Maybe the gawkers think they’re watching the newest members of the mile-high club. Yeah, I kinda like that thought. I liked that idea, but, of course, it wasn’t true.

  Back in our seats, I sat pensively. The giggles and enthusiasm were gone. My spontaneity had been squelched. I leaned back and pretended to float weightless over a beautiful, grassy field with lemon-yellow crocuses, clumps of cotton-ball sheep, and neatly stacked wood. My winged arms and rudder legs propelled me over a rushing river, whooshing up through gossamer clouds, banking right and swooping over craggy, snow-crested mountains. I was invincible.

  An announcement, first in German, then in English, interrupted my fantasy: “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are starting our descent into the Rhein-Main Airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Please return to your seats for the remainder of the flight. Local time is 8:45 a.m. Flight attendants, prepare for landing.” Dave and I prepared ourselves.

  As we descended the stairs onto the tarmac, cold, fresh air greeted us. When we entered the terminal, Dave was on the lookout for the luggage carousels, I for the women’s restroom.

  “Hey,” I said as soon as I spied the DAMENTOILETTE sign. “Let’s stop there first.”

  Dave set our carry-on bags on the immaculate tile floor and stretched his body side to side. It had been more than twenty-four hours since his last run, but he looked relaxed. I walked with my quad cane, toy soldier–style, into a vast, modern-looking bathroom with what must have had twenty to thirty roomy stalls. I took the first vacant one and sighed as I locked the door and sat down on the toilet. But my relief was short lived.

  When I put my foot out in front of me, turned, and looked for something to put my hand on so I could push and lever myself up, there was nothing. Grab bars would have been nice but hadn’t come into vogue yet. Most, if not all, toilets in the United States at that time had the water tank mounted securely behind the seat, either in the wall or in the floor. I’d practiced this maneuver incessantly while learning to walk at the naval hospital. After perfecting it, I’d gained my freedom to be away from the house for extended periods of time.

  I looked around and felt a twinge of anxiety. There has to be a water tank somewhere! And then I saw it—high up on the wall above my head. I was in trouble. Not sure what to do, I turned slightly, put my hand on the back of the toilet seat, and tried to push up. I was able to prop my body up and fully extend my strong arm, locking my elbow, but all that did was lift me a few inches. I repositioned myself and tried again. And again. No way that will work. I sat still and looked for another solution. I saw none.

  And then I looked at the locked door. If I could open it, perhaps some compassionate fellow traveler could help me. That would be no more humiliating than the show I’d given my fellow plane passengers just hours before.

  I grabbed my cane and tried to push the lock open, but it was too far away. My heart raced; my hands and upper lip began to sweat. I started to panic. I’d been there for a long time now. I was pretty sure Dave was pacing outside, wondering if I was okay. I looked at the space under the door and considered sliding off the toilet and onto the floor. Running out of ideas, I realized that I needed to get Dave to help me. I took a deep breath.

  “I need help!”

  Nothing happened.

  A little louder. “Help! Does anyone speak English?”

  Another wait.

  “Can. Anyone. Speak. English?”

  And then a “Yes, I speak English. What do you need?” floated toward me. “Where are you?”

  “Over here. I can’t get out.”

  The voice moved toward me and stopped on the other side of the locked door.

  “My husband’s name is Dave. He’s waiting outside for me. Can you find him and get him to come in and help me?”

  “Y
es, but I think I will need to clear the bathroom first,” the bodiless voice said.

  She spoke loudly in German and then English to get everyone’s attention: “A lady in here needs help, and we need to have her husband come in to help her.”

  The bodiless voice moved away from me, but I heard it projecting toward the entrance. “Dave . . . Is there anyone here named Dave?”

  I heard Dave’s faint but concerned response. “Yes. I’m Dave.”

  “Your wife needs help.” Behind her, what sounded like dozens of women walked out, chattering and telling those outside not to go in.

  I sat and waited, mortified but also relieved as I heard Dave walking toward me, calling out, “Where are you?”

  “Right here,” I said.

  “Can you unlock the door?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” he said, from right outside the door.

  I heard movement; then, suddenly, his grinning face was looking up at me as he slid on his back under the door.

  “My knight in shining armor!” I said.

  He reached up to unlock the door, stood, hauled me up, and wrapped me in a hug.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It’ll be funny in a few years.”

  We walked out together, my arm gripping his. The throng of waiting women cheered.

  Still feeling a little sheepish, we found an airport wheelchair for me to use and followed signs to the departure gates. Our connecting flight to Stuttgart was scheduled to leave in an hour, which left us plenty of time. Or so we thought.

  We approached the podium and handed the gate attendant our tickets. He took one look at me and the wheelchair and flew into action.

  “Please give me your ticket. And your passport, please,” he said to me, first in German, then in heavily accented English when I looked puzzled.

  “You must go. Now!”

  I tugged on Dave’s shirt. “This guy is telling me I need to go with him,” I said. “And that I need my passport and ticket.”