As for me, I don’t see that happening until after tomorrow’s spinal surgery. Good thoughts, everyone.
the unposted: part 3
The morning of the neck surgery, a nurse approached me with some papers to sign authorizing the operation. She handed me the document, and as I read it over, I noticed a paragraph acknowledging that Cedars-Sinai is a teaching hospital and that I was giving permission for students to not only observe the operation but to participate as well.
Now, I love Cedars. They were doing an amazing job, but my understanding of this spinal surgery was that it was extremely delicate and dangerous, and between how far we’d come and the bullets we’d dodged getting to this point, I wasn’t too keen on signing over this potentially life-changing or -ending surgery to a medical student. Granted, there might be some in the group who would become tomorrow’s leading doctors, but they weren’t there yet, at least in experience.
I asked the nurse about the clause, and she stated that it was standard because they were a teaching hospital. I responded that I understood, but that I also had some issues with it and needed to talk to someone about it. Mind you, I didn’t find this easy to do. I didn’t want to be perceived as difficult or confrontational or challenging their expertise, but I pushed aside those feelings and remained insistent.
A few minutes later, an intern arrived and I re-explained my issue with the clause. Naturally, because the intern was part of this teaching-hospital experience, he downplayed it and simply said that that’s the way things are done there, and that it would be fine to sign the form. Sure, fine for him, but all I could imagine was that in the middle of the operation, some overeager student, who believed they were ready to take on this level of surgery, was going to ask if they could be the one to put the screw in place. And then, one tiny mistake later, Susan’s paralyzed. I realized I wasn’t being particularly fair or gracious in my assumptions, and much to the dismay of the intern, I asked to speak to the surgeon about it. He looked at me and said, “Really?” like, “You really want me to call one of the busiest and most prominent neurosurgeons on staff about the authorization form?”
I answered flatly, “Yes, please.”
The staff was getting visibly nervous. Susan needed to be prepped, and I was not only holding that up, but I think they were afraid of the repercussions they were going to face over not having this form signed before now. They paged the doctor, and I waited several minutes before he finally called.
“Hi, Dr. Baron. Listen, I’m sorry to be a pain in the ass here, but they want me to sign this authorization form that gives permission for students to participate in the surgery, and I have to say, I’m just not comfortable with that.”
There wasn’t a second of hesitation. “Don’t worry, Mr. Segal,” he responded, understanding exactly my concern. “I’m the only one who’s going to be touching your wife on this one.”
“That’s all I needed to hear,” I said. “So I can cross out that clause on the authorization form?”
“If that makes you more comfortable.”
“Okay, thanks, Dr. Baron.”
“It’s all going to be fine,” he assured.
And with that, we hung up, and I exhaled, relieved. I crossed out the clause on the form and signed it, the guilt and awkwardness of making such a big deal of this firmly replaced by the feeling of satisfaction that it was going to be handled exactly the way I wanted it to be handled, leaving as little to chance as possible, while also eliminating the potential regret of looking back and wishing I had insisted on something that I hadn’t.
If Susan was going to fight as hard as she could, so was I.
day 15
Until I saw her move her hands and feet myself, I couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief.
But now I have, and now I can.
Susan finally went into surgery at around 7 p.m., and two and a half hours later, when the nurse called me to say that they were finishing up, the veil of anxiety and dread started to lift. I told the kids that Mom was just about done, and while we all knocked on wood, we also breathed a little easier.
The neurosurgeon called about a half hour later. He reported that the surgery had gone well, but then added news that reminded me of the danger of getting excited too quickly. He told me that when he got inside, he saw that her dura (the membrane protecting the spinal cord) was pretty badly torn, and she was very lucky to be alive (something I think we recognize all too well). He informed me that he cleaned it up, and didn’t think it would present a problem in the future, but it’s too early to tell for sure. It might account for some weakness on the right side, and she would have to remain in the halo for at least six weeks. He then added that because of the swelling in her limbs, he wasn’t able to neurologically monitor her during the surgery, but didn’t see any cause for concern that her condition worsened.
He may not have had concern, but I did. It’s not like I enjoyed seeing my sweetheart in pain, but if pulling back on her sedation was going to make her move her limbs, I would be happy to see it. And later that night when they performed the assessment, boy, was I!
But this was the end of the day. Now I’ll tell you how the day began:
From the moment I entered her room this morning, I could immediately sense a difference. What a change having that ventilator tube removed has made. Her eyes were open and when I took her hand and moved into her field of vision, she squeezed my hand, really looked into my eyes and smiled. She was resting more comfortably, though still active with her left hand, so much so that she completely knocked the dressing off, exposing the stitches that run up both sides of her forearm.
I went through my mantra, “You were in an accident, but you’re going to be all right.” I could see that she was trying to speak, struggling to force a sound out of her vocal cords. I said, “Sweetheart, you can’t talk because of the tube in your throat.”
And then she mouthed the words, “My babies…”
They still hadn’t been allowed to visit, but I told her that Michael and Alyce were both fine, and they love her and miss her. And then she smiled again.
I went over to the wall where I had taped a photo of the four of us sitting on the beach in Cape Cod. I pulled it off and told her that Alyce had printed it out for her. She looked at it, smiled, and mouthed the word “sweet.” And then with tears I couldn’t hold back any longer, I told her I loved her and she mouthed back to me, “I love you, too.”
Despite all the pain, the broken bones, the distress and confusion, completely in character, her first moments back came with love, joy, and a smile. Part of my worry through all this has been, How might this whole ordeal change her? But judging from her limited communication, the X-rays have been exactly right…her heart hasn’t been damaged at all.
And then she began talking in a big way, mouthing things I struggled to decipher, kind of like I was deaf and had just been dropped into a foreign country without knowing the language. I really couldn’t follow much of it at all and resorted to figuring out a communication system. “Okay, squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no, understand?” She squeezed my hand twice. Did that mean she didn’t understand or was just giving my hand a little extra squeeze? Ultimately, it just became exhausting, and she closed her eyes…but with a smile.
This was the “pleasant” part of the day, which quickly shifted when the medical team decided it needed to pull way back on Susan’s sedative and pain medication in order to give her a neuro exam prior to the surgery. Within minutes, her joy transformed into agonizing pain. I’ll spare the details of that, but suffice to say, after nearly an interminable half hour of this, they dialed her back up again and prepared to take her away. I spent the rest of the day anchored in the waiting room as 1 p.m. (her scheduled time of surgery) came and went, then 2, then 3, and so on. Hours and hours in a room weighted with worry.
Throughout the past couple of weeks, while camped out in the waiting area, I’ve met some other very nice people dealing with crises of their own. One such
person is a man named Kevin, who has been here for his friend of thirty years whose liver has failed. Yesterday, when we were together, he told me that later that day they were going to take his friend off the ventilator to see if he could breathe on his own. If not, well, then that was going to be it. Today, Kevin’s spot is conspicuously empty.
Another woman is here for her sister, who’s been in the hospital for a month waiting for a liver transplant. Her sister is on a ventilator, dialysis, and some other machine that keeps her blood coursing through her veins. Tomorrow, the woman will be letting her sister go, resigned to the inevitable. And as she told me this and squeezed my hand in hers, she hoped that her sister’s strength and spirit would help Susan heal. She and I, relative strangers, bonded over concern for our loved ones.
Their stories, however, are ending with the heavy heart of defeat.
And as I sit here now, on the other side of this surgery, I think back to what feels like so long ago…to this morning when I woke both Michael and Alyce with a kiss, their cheeks warm and smooth, grateful to see them smile as their eyes opened. Then later, when I arrived at the hospital and was blessed to see Susan’s smile as she looked at me and mouthed the words “I love you.”
It was a brutally long day, but mine ended with a heart full of hope.
day 16
First thing this morning, Susan’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Baron, said to me, “Wow, she seems even stronger than before the surgery. I’m very pleased.…” I had to keep myself from getting too happy, envisioning the proverbial dangling shoe. And though it didn’t drop, he did go on to tell me something that definitely made me stop and again count my blessings.
I was aware that, prior to the surgery, he had decided to bring another surgeon on to join him. Dr. Baron is extremely highly regarded, and this other surgeon, his mentor, is considered one of the best spinal cord surgeons in the world. Dr. Baron told me that, in all his experience, he has never seen a fracture as bad as Susan’s (without disastrous consequences), and that his mentor, in his twenty years of experience, has seen only two or three, reiterating again how very lucky Susan is.
When I told this to my sister, she very aptly remarked that it’s incredible that someone could be so unlucky and so very lucky at the same time. Which left me thinking: What if the surgery had gone through as planned ten days ago? I was disappointed when it didn’t happen as scheduled, mostly because I had wanted it behind me and hated the idea of it hanging over my head, looming in the future. But now as I look at it, I remember that Dr. Baron was initially planning a different surgical approach and was going to perform the surgery alone. What if Susan hadn’t gone into respiratory failure, which at the time, of course, was so awful? Would Dr. Baron have been as successful going through the back of her neck versus the front, which was the original plan but wasn’t the way it ultimately went. Would there have been a different outcome without the mentor there? We’ll never know.
Everything happens for a reason.
Maybe…maybe not. It’s one of those ideas that, even though it’s impossible to empirically prove, does resonate with me, particularly in times like these. And believing that it might be true helps me stay focused on where we are right now, rather than where we were yesterday or where we’re going to be tomorrow.
My conversation with Dr. Baron raised once again something I’ve pondered many times over the past two weeks, the whole question of What if? The first was on the morning of the accident when I was doing my work and the phone rang and rang and rang, the answering machine that lived downstairs not picking up, until finally I did and heard Alyce’s tearful voice. Why, on that day, was the machine suddenly off? We never turn the machine off. But what if it had been on? I would never have heard my frantic daughter’s message. I would have continued working, then taken a shower, gotten dressed. An hour would have passed without me knowing anything about the accident. I’m not sure I would have even checked the machine before leaving the house, because the messages are always for Susan. But not on that day. That day the machine was turned off, and I thankfully picked up the phone.
What if, what if, what if?
I don’t know, and I’ll never know. But where it leaves me now, as I face each uncertain day, is trying not to judge, or make sense of, the past, just holding on to the idea that maybe the “sense” of yesterday just hasn’t revealed itself yet.
I guess that’s faith—Alyce’s middle name—which lives adjacent to hope and comprise a well I’ve returned to many times over during this ordeal. We need them both. Because even when times seem darkest, faith and hope are the bits of light we can hold on to.
day 17
Susan had an up-and-down day, which is consistent with the ride we’re all on. It began with her resting pretty well, less agitated on her new medication but also fairly unresponsive. That was okay with me. I’d rather her rest and not be in pain than be present. She was still running a low fever, which the team now believes is due to pneumonia.
And then as the day progressed, so did her fever, rising past 101, 102, 103, and finally peaking above 104. She became far more restless, and as her heart rate climbed, so did mine. Finally, after hooking her back up to her personal air-conditioning unit and getting the antibiotics going, thankfully her fever broke.
Once her temperature was down, Dr. Allison, her orthopedic surgeon, who is a lovely, gentle, and caring man, arrived to check on her. He removed all of her dressings and checked to see if there was any sign of infection that might be contributing to or causing the fever. He is just one of the many good people looking after her, just as there are a lot of good people looking after me, too.
Case in point: For some strange reason, this morning the electronics in my car went screwy and the car wouldn’t engage into gear. It also wouldn’t turn off. In fact, it wouldn’t do anything. So Michael and I sat in the garage, eight minutes away from his bus, which would be leaving in ten. I kept trying to get the car going, but as the minutes continued to tick away, it quickly became apparent that he was going to miss his bus. Great.
However, with this incredible support group we have, I quickly made a phone call and within minutes, had a friend of Susan’s at the house to help Alyce get to school. I then called AAA, but before they arrived, my car finally decided to cooperate, so Michael and I headed directly to his school, having now missed his bus.
After I dropped him off, I sat in the parking lot and read a couple of morning emails and texts, drinking in their love and support before heading home. As I was driving on the congested, rush-hour freeway, I thought about those messages as well as the many, many others I have received. I thought about the sheer numbers in this support circle, which I know goes well beyond the names that are on the updates’ cc list. I then started to think about the people I’ve encountered while in the hospital, praying for their loved ones. I see them with their families, embracing each other as they cry, offering their sympathy and condolences to me despite their own tragedies.
And tearing up (which is basically an hourly event in my life these days) over all of this compassion from so many different sources, out of my driver’s side window, I looked across the congestion to a woman in the lane next to mine, also stopped in traffic. She was a complete stranger, but as our eyes met, I thought, I wonder what pain she has in her life? I mean, so many of us have something or know someone who has something, but is everyone as fortunate as Susan and I are to have the same support and care? How many have to face their pain with no one there to lean on, no one to provide that compassion and help? And wondering if perhaps this stranger was one of those people, as traffic started to move again, I gave her a small friendly smile, which she acknowledged, and then we drove on, never to meet again.
We see it in the face of tragedy, and lately it has been proven to me over and over again: people are good, people are kind, people are giving. Despite how cynical we might have become, it’s these times that melt that cynicism away and just leave care…pure, loving care. And I’ll go to slee
p tonight knowing that when I open my electronic mailbox again tomorrow, there will be more messages of love and support. And they will make me swell, in my eyes and in my heart, and then hopefully, I’ll remember to share that compassion with others.
Xxoo to all of you.
the unposted: part 4
I still have zero focus when it comes to work.
I tried to stay involved with the show I was in post-production on, promising to review cuts when I had time and to do notes, but I just couldn’t. The production company was completely understanding, told me not to worry about it, and that they would finish it on their own. My job for Disney required just a few little rewrites, and those I was able to do. They were happy, and I didn’t hear back from them about any other changes. The movie I had shot was in edit, so there wasn’t much I could do there. It was the pilot I had sold that I was most worried about. Not that the other jobs weren’t important, but this was a potential TV series, which could be a career changer for me.
I emailed my producer to see if there was any feedback on the draft I had submitted the morning of that fateful day. He told me that I shouldn’t be thinking about that right now. “Focus on your family,” he said. Which I was, but I also wanted to hear what the network’s thoughts were, knowing that a loss of momentum on the project would surely kill it. I have to admit, though, I was concerned, given my mental state, how I would be able to address those notes, as all of my energy, creative and otherwise, was going into Susan’s care, the kids, and into writing the updates. The entries had become a lifeline, not only for those who were following Susan’s progress but an emotional one for me, given the unbelievable amount of support I was receiving.
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