“Oh!” she said suddenly and then started digging around in her purse. “I forgot I have to take my drugs now. The time difference has me all screwed up.”
“Me, too!” I said. I had set my phone alarm for three times a day as a reminder.
We talked about the angst surrounding footwear and our sons’ future bar mitzvahs. We talked about camp and how most of the non-Jews we knew just couldn’t understand why we shipped our kids away for the entire summer. We talked Jew to Jew, woman to woman, disabled person to disabled person, and then it was time for Rich and me to go.
I was wearing a short black dress and flat gladiator sandals, legs on full display. I slid off the stool and took a moment to ease the stiffness out of my legs before taking that first step, always the trickiest one. Rich put his arm around me and I put my arm around him. As we walked away, I could feel Jersey Girl’s eyes pinned to my calves, which were back to being as strong and curvy as they once were—more cows than calves, really—and I felt self-conscious in a new way. I didn’t want to walk well—it felt show-offy, rude.
“Chinese for dinner?” I asked, once we were outside the casino.
“It’s Sunday night,” said Rich. “Of course Chinese.”
I resisted the urge to race back to Jersey Girl, to hug her, to tell her how beautiful she was, to insist, without really knowing anything at all, that everything was going to be okay.
EPILOGUE
A Rich Life
SPRING 2013
Everything was going to be okay.
Almost a full year had passed since I had gone into the hospital, which meant it was time for an MRI, which would tell me if I was tumor-free, or not. I went into the capsule, came out of the capsule, and then, hours later, it was time to get the results.
Meningiomas can be rascals. At the end of every egg-shaped tumor is a little dural tail, a tail that can complicate a surgery, a tail that a surgeon sometimes has to leave behind in order to keep as much of the nervous system intact as possible. If left to their own devices, however, these tails can grow into new meningiomas. Dr. Ginsberg was fairly confident he had been able to remove my entire tumor, including the tail, but he couldn’t be sure without an MRI.
I tried not to be afraid of the results. Not after what had recently happened.
I had returned to Lyndhurst for my final outpatient appointment with PT Mitch, wearing a new pair of bright blue Nikes. My feet continued to feel crazy but they sure looked happy. I signed in for my appointment with the sour-looking receptionist in the outpatient clinic who, as it turned out, was not sour at all. (At Lyndhurst, nothing was ever as it first appeared, except for the latex gloves.)
“You look so nice!” I told the receptionist, commenting on her sleeveless, belted sweater dress. “Going on a date after work?”
She snorted. “Does having dinner with my dad count?”
I smiled. Not really, I thought.
“All signed in, Ruth,” she said for the last time.
PT Mitch was already waiting for me in the small outpatient gym.
“Too bad the weather’s not better,” he said.
“Why? Were you hoping to go for a run?” I asked.
“I was, yeh.” He was sounding particularly Australian that day.
I leaned back so I could see out the window. A little gray. A little drizzly. A little windy.
“Looks perfectly fine to me,” I said with a shrug.
“Yeh?”
“Yeh. Let’s do it, Mitch! Let’s go for that run!”
We walked past the wheelies, past the cafeteria, past the leather settee by the elevators and through the automatic doors that led to the smoker’s gazebo. I passed the picnic table where I used to read my paper and eat my apples. I thought about how on weekends, while I waited for visitors, I’d position my wheelchair at the end of that table, then lock my wheels into place. I’d take my wipes and paper towel out of my purse and set them on the table with my apple on top to keep them from blowing away, then I’d take off my shoes and socks and set them neatly beside my right wheel. I’d eyeball the distance from me to the table and then make some adjustments with my wheels. I would pull my bum a little closer to the edge of the seat until, trying my best not to use the arms of the chair for support, I would stand up and dig my feet into the cold, damp dirt. I didn’t care how cold my feet got, or how dirty—that’s what the wipes were for. The point always was to feel feel feel, so I would dig dig dig. After, I would sit down to give my jelly legs a break, but only for a moment. I would repeat this exercise over and over again until grounding myself started to mean more than just grinding my feet.
In those early days, I’d often see Rei out there, working harder than anyone I’d ever known, every single day, no matter what mood he might have been in—and he must have been in a bad mood sometimes. He never stopped moving, no matter how feeble his right foot looked. He was my inspiration. He never failed to tell me how well I was doing, even when I knew otherwise.
I didn’t tell Mitch any of this. He was wearing his hoodie and worn-in chinos and hipster sneakers. His hands were thrust inside his pockets. It was cold, a little blustery, the wind delivering the occasional shpritz of spring rain.
“You ready?”
“Let’s do it!”
My gusto was not matched by my speed, which was so slow that Mitch finally gave up all pretense of running alongside me and down-geared to a pleasant walk. My arms were pumping and my legs were hopping up and down like a Monty Python imitation of someone running. I didn’t care. I ran down the slight incline toward the ravine where I used to watch all the dogs and their owners. There were days at Lyndhurst when I would get a burst of energy and roll down the path in my wheelchair, the path that Mitch and I were now running on. Getting down was always easy. I’d let go of the wheels and glide. Wind would blow through my hair. My chair would stop on its own close to the gates that opened up onto the ravine. At this point I would have only one choice: to get back up that hill. The problem was, I had very little arm strength to do so. On more than one occasion I had to swallow my rising panic. I dreaded the thought of one of the dog walkers or moms asking if I needed help. It was bad enough needing my own children to push me around; someone else’s child would have undone me for sure. Somehow, despite my skinny arms and blistered hands, I would make it up the incline to the picnic table where I had started, feeling both triumphant and deflated: all that effort and still in a wheelchair.
But a kind of magic was happening now with Mitch. Every time he asked, “Would you like to turn here?” I’d say, “Sure, Mitch! Why not?” I hopped over puddles, jumped up onto the curb, circumnavigated potholes and gravel. We ran out through the Lyndhurst gates and onto a full-fledged street. We dodged garbage cans and debris.
“You’re going faster now,” Mitch said and he started to run with me. And then, “Let’s turn back here.”
Maybe he’d had enough. Ha! I hadn’t. I picked up speed as I ran back through the Lyndhurst gates. In on a gurney, out on my feet.
We walked together through the lobby and back to the outpatient area. Amanda, my original PT, came out of her office at just that moment to meet us. She was beaming.
“So,” I said, a little breathlessly, “I guess that’s it, then.”
“I guess so, Ruth,” said Mitch, who was smiling proudly.
I put my hands on my hips and looked down at the ground.
“Thank you both so much, for everything you did for me.” I was crying when I looked at Amanda. Turns out that punky girl I had met was wrong: It wasn’t Neil who was the best PT for me, it was Amanda.
I gathered up my coat and my knapsack. I blew them both a kiss good-bye and then, for the last time, I left Lyndhurst.
•
As we sat in the neurology department of St. Mike’s awaiting the results of my MRI, an older gentleman came into the room with his wife. He was using his walker and moving at a decent pace. He took a seat and his wife folded herself down beside him and took up her
newspaper. She had a light smile on her face, prepared for all outcomes.
In the seat across from us was a youngish man wearing a baseball cap. He was sitting forward holding his cane, and every so often he’d wince and then switch positions.
“He doesn’t know where his bum is,” I whispered to Rich. “I can tell.”
Rich glanced over, but he seemed lost in thought.
His hands were empty. “Didn’t you bring something to read? Why don’t you go downstairs and grab a newspaper, babe?”
“I don’t need anything,” he said. “I don’t want to miss you being called in.”
I put my hand on his leg.
I opened my purse and foraged for a Werthers. I didn’t feel like writing or reading, either. I wasn’t scared. But in case Rich thought I was, I wanted to—in a relaxed fashion—suck on my candy and mull over the year. I thought about a walk I had recently taken with my friend Fli and her highly anxious dog, Nunu. The three of us moved in a tight little pack.
“People keep telling me how I must have been transformed by this experience,” I said.
“Have you been?”
“I guess so. I move differently—obviously—so physically, yes, I feel completely other—but ultimately, I’m the same old cow I was before.”
“Listen to me. Transforming means you’ve gone through something. It doesn’t mean you got stuck someplace in the middle, for Christ’s sake!” she said. The year had transformed Fli, I saw. She had grown protective and righteous on my behalf. “You went through this thing, you dusted yourself off, and here you are. Still you.”
It would have been nice to think that a life-changing event actually did change my life in some profound way, but it was a greater relief to see how much of my life remained the same. I was just happy to have lived to tell the tale, happy to report: I’m not dead, all good.
But the truth was somewhat more complicated. There was no denying a transformation of sorts had taken place. I had slowed down. I learned that not only was it okay to do just one thing at a time, instead of scrambling to accomplish myriad tasks at once, but that it made me feel calmer. Being slower was actually a gift, much like the wheelchair permit for my car. I didn’t take walking for granted anymore, either, but I looked forward to the day when I might again. I still had to work hard to keep my left leg from swinging out when I walked—the shuffle that Joel had alluded to while I was still at Lyndhurst—but my mirror told me that improvements were being made daily. And as far as I could tell, the kids had emerged from my absence not only unscathed, but happy. Rich and I had only grown closer.
I looked at him. He was leaning his right elbow on his thigh, two fingers pressed up against his lips, thinking about I could only imagine what.
“Rich,” I said. “Do you remember when Joey called me from his pal Ethan’s house while I was in the hospital and Ethan yelled out: ‘Tell your mom I send her my condolences,’ and I yelled back, ‘Thank you, Ethan, but I’m not dead?’ ”
Rich nodded his head and let loose a tiny laugh.
“Or when you worried that my roommate at St. Mike’s would yell ‘get a room’ if you got into bed with me?”
“Correction. I thought she would yell: ‘get a private room.’ ”
We laughed a little more.
“Did you give the nurses all the cards you wrote?” he asked me.
“I did. I was sad Rumy wasn’t around, though, to say good-bye.”
“You loved her.”
“I loved all of them.”
He leaned over to kiss me, but his phone rang in his pocket and he jumped and took the call down the hall. As soon as he left, Dr. Ginsberg called me in.
We had barely taken our seats when I said, “Guess what I did this morning?”
“What?”
“I went for a half-hour run.”
“That’s great!” he said with generalized enthusiasm.
I waited.
“Hold on. What?”
“I went for a run.”
He looked up at me with fresher, clearer eyes.
“That’s remarkable,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Rich ran into the room, breathless. Dr. Ginsberg and I continued to chat.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Rich said. “But have you told Ruth the results of her MRI yet?”
Dr. Ginsberg looked at his file. “No,” he said. “Not yet.”
I sat very still—stillness being a proven shield against bad news.
“It’s all clean,” he said.
Rich brushed his hands over his eyes, then reached for my arm.
“I knew it,” I said. “I knew it would be good. Told you I wasn’t scared.”
I was petrified.
Technical medical talk ensued. The MRI showed that the dura, the protective coating around my spine, was thickened but that was likely scar tissue and was not an indicator of anything sinister. There was no compression of the spinal cord, and, most significantly, the dural tail had been fully excised, which meant no residual meningioma. Rich had questions about the possibility of my getting a new tumor, but he didn’t use the word tumor. He stuck to the more precise “meningioma,” saying it over and over again. He leaned forward, his intense hazel eyes fixed on Dr. Ginsberg, pinning him. The office throbbed with Rich’s worry. One would think he couldn’t live without me when in fact the exact opposite was true. There was nothing Rich couldn’t do. Finally, it was my turn to ask Dr. Ginsberg all my unanswerable questions.
When will my bum get better?
When will everything about my bum work better?
When can I stop taking the gabapentin?
When will my left leg stop feeling thick and staticky?
When can I get my old feet back?
When when when?
He didn’t have any answers; I didn’t expect him to. His job as a surgeon was done. But I would ask him again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. I would need follow-up MRIs for the next ten years.
Rich and I walked back to the car. I was having a bad bum day and my legs felt like the inside of a garment factory during the busiest shift. I squirmed in my seat. As we drove away, I found my thoughts traveling back to—of all people—the neurologist, Dr. Shure.
She had called the house twice while I was still at Lyndhurst, left messages with Joey, asked that I please call her back. I didn’t. I knew she felt badly about missing the signs of my tumor. I knew she wanted to know how I was doing. I knew that, while she had tried her best, she had also been sidetracked by my skinny arms and big calves. But who knows? Had she been quicker off the mark I might have had the surgery sooner with another surgeon—one less patient, less brilliant than Dr. Ginsberg, one who didn’t have my worried cousin breathing down his neck. Maybe, if my tumor had been discovered sooner, I would have been living my life from a wheelchair permanently. In retrospect, maybe I should have returned her call: to thank her.
I thought about my beloved Dr. Zimcik and how hard it had been to say good-bye to her, even though I couldn’t wait to go home, how she had hugged me hard and given me her email address and told me to stay in touch. She must have known I loved her.
I thought about all my fellow patients whom I had planned on saying good-bye to: Arpita, Rei, Derek, even The Captain. But like so many patients before me, I’m sure, I left without looking back.
I thought about the hundreds of pages I had filled while I was at the hospital and later at Lyndhurst, about how I would sometimes look at my fellow patients and wonder: Are you writing it all down, too? I thought, since I’m not acting anymore, maybe I could do something with those pages.
“I have to call my folks,” I said to Rich. “Right now.”
Since I had been at Lyndhurst, a new routine had developed: I was not allowed to say a word until both my mom and dad were on the line. Every conversation now happened in stereo. “Mom?”
“Hold on, Ruthie. Larry, pick up the phone!”
“I’m here, I’m h
ere!” my dad said from the extension.
I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “I’ll keep it short,” I said, knowing they were waiting. “It’s all clear. No more tumor.”
“That’s wonderful/oh thank God/what did Dr. Ginsberg/are you on your/is Rich with/you’re yelling in my ear, Fran!/you’re yelling in my ear!”
After I hung up, I thought about how hard it was to be a parent, how it would never be easy—for any of us.
But still, the future looked promising.
I didn’t know then that within a year I would stop taking my gabapentin forever and learn to make peace with my new body, or that Erin’s prediction would be spot-on and that my buzzy bottom never really would quiet down but that I would make my peace with that, too—that I would say to myself exactly what she had said to me: so what? That I would stand tall at my son’s bar mitzvah—in flat shoes, yes, but beautiful flat shoes that would have made Dr. Zimcik proud. That I would finally, after months of fruitless searching, locate my second sit bone, which meant that sitting would become a far less precarious affair. That I would celebrate my fiftieth birthday with my closest friends and family and not once worry about falling over—and besides, there were enough people there to catch me if I did. That I would sometimes find myself thinking about that punky girl I met outside St. Mike’s and marvel at her prescience because I did love Lyndhurst and how could I not? Because of Amanda and Dr. Zimcik and Rumy and my chorus of fascinating and caring nurses I had been, in so many ways, reborn. That my MRIs would continue to come back clean year after year. That all those stories I wrote from my bed, in my private room, in Unit 2B at the miraculous Lyndhurst spinal cord rehab clinic, would open the door to a new career, one that my father had wished I had chosen all those years ago—and that I had secretly wanted for myself for about as long as the tumor had been growing on my spine.
I looked at Rich. He was my dura, my protective covering. My love for him was boundless. I hoped he knew that I was his dura, too.
Acknowledgments
I am no one without my extraordinary family and friends.
Walk It Off Page 21