Beauty in the Broken Places

by Allison Pataki

  After that treatment, slowly and steadily, under the loving and diligent care of her husband and loved ones and her outstanding medical team at the University of Chicago, Louisa grew stronger and began to feel better. Her hair began to grow back. She could eat and began to rebuild her muscles. A former triathlete, Louisa was not quite fully back to herself, but she was once again able to take long walks, so we enjoyed walking Penny together, talking about books and life and her excitement that she was going to become a grandmother for the first time as the air turned crisp and the colors of autumn began to touch the leaves.

  By the fall, Dave and I were settling into some sort of rhythm in Chicago, but I was getting close to my self-imposed deadline to either jump into this writer thing full-time or make a responsible back-up plan to ensure that Dave and I would be financially stable during the years of his medical training.

  I’ll always remember the date: November 17, 2012. It was my mother’s birthday, and I was flying out east for the Yale–Harvard football game, to be played that year at Harvard. Dave could not get off of work, so I was going to meet Marya and go with friends. When I landed in Boston, I turned my cellphone on. Immediately, it began to chirp at me.

  I had a text message from Lacy, my literary agent: “Can you talk?”

  A subsequent message repeated the same question, but with additional question marks. “Can you talk???” I also had a voicemail from Lacy. I listened to it.

  Marya stood by the curb, waiting for me outside the airport. When I saw her, I was still listening to Lacy’s voicemail, so I smiled at her, gestured that it would only be a minute more. I listened to the end of the message and hung up the phone.

  I turned to Marya with a smile. How perfect that it was Marya—my former roommate and the first friend who had ever read my fiction, the first person to tell me that I could do it. “Mar, I sold my book,” I said, incredulous. “Simon & Schuster is going to publish The Traitor’s Wife.”

  Chapter 28

  As Dave continued to excel in PT, his incredible RIC therapy team decided that we needed to come up with something to challenge and motivate him, something ambitious toward which he could work during sessions that might otherwise get boring. Exercise is beneficial for everyone, but for Dave, it was crucial for neuronal plasticity. All of the blood flow of the movement and exercise was good for Dave’s brain as it worked to rebuild neurons. Plus, it was good for him to work on balance, and exercise is always a mood lifter. So his physical therapists did exercises with him that targeted both his body and his mind; he would balance on a plank while also answering trivia questions about orthopedic surgery, for instance.

  It became clear that the treadmill and ordinary PT exercises were getting old for Dave, so his lead physical therapist, Liza, proposed that he train for a race in downtown Chicago called the Ditka Dash, named after the colorful Chicago Bears football coach Mike Ditka.

  When Liza called me to suggest that Dave sign up for the race, I looked at the calendar with some concern. First, the race was less than a week before my due date. If I went into labor early—a distinct likelihood given how big I was measuring—then Dave would have to forgo the race. That was a small matter compared to my second concern: Was Dave ready for this? October would be just four months out from a stroke that had nearly killed him. He was weakened by the stroke and by his extended stays in several hospitals. In September, we had gone back into the hospital for a procedure on Dave’s heart, during which they had closed his PFO, the hole that had likely contributed to the stroke. Long periods of bed rest and inactivity had sapped his strength.

  Plus, Dave still fatigued so easily. A 5K would have been nothing for him before the stroke—he could have hopped it on one foot—but if he wasn’t able to do it now, would he be disappointed in himself? Were we setting him up for defeat?

  Dave agreed to do the race and began to train. He worked his way up from fatiguing after just a short walk to taking brisk walks on an incline to eventually jogging for a few minutes at a time on the treadmill. September turned to October. My belly grew bigger as Dave continued to train.

  The day of the race was gray and chilly. Dave and I had stayed in our apartment downtown the night before—Dave’s first time sleeping there. We drove over to Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears, early that morning for the race.

  Everyone running in the race was invited to show up in his or her finest Mike Ditka attire, so, naturally, we were equipped. Dave wore a vintage Bears sweater that I had found for him on eBay one year as a Christmas gift. He had planned ahead (evidence of some executive functionality!) and had grown enough facial hair to give himself a cheesy Mike Ditka mustache. He paired those lovely details with aviator sunglasses and a sweatband around his forehead, and it was actually quite disturbing how much he resembled Ditka.

  Dave’s entire team of therapists showed up to run with him. That they were all there so early on a cold, rainy Saturday morning shows just how dedicated they were to Dave, not only as a patient but as a person.

  Dave’s brother Mike had also signed up to run the race with him. Mike had not run much since a knee injury had required multiple surgeries years earlier, but he wanted to do this with his younger brother. We joked about who was worse off: the stroke patient or the guy with the bum knee.

  Dave’s parents were there for the race, as was Mike’s wife, Marie, who was herself seven months pregnant and also toting around their fourteen-month-old. Marie and I waddled along, watching the runners go by. We made our way to the finish line and awaited Dave and Mike. We spotted them about twenty-four minutes later at the finish line. They ran by, big smiles under gross Ditka mustaches. Dave looked absolutely ridiculous, but he looked happy. His cheeks were flushed, and a sheen of sweat and October drizzle slicked his rosy skin. He had run the whole way.

  I think I was happier than Dave was that he completed that race. I had wanted him to cross that finish line. Now, I thought, we are ready to have this baby.

  Chapter 29

  Our due date, a Monday, came and went—so much for going into labor early. Five days later, on a Saturday, I awoke in the middle of the night with back pain. I had heard from everyone that early contractions felt like intense lower abdominal cramps, so it did not occur to me until about six A.M. that this back pain was coming and going in regular intervals and that I might in fact be having back labor.

  We hung out that morning at home, waiting to see if this was the real thing or not. When I had to stop our pancake breakfast every few minutes to contort and writhe, hands pressing to my lower back, we decided that it was in fact real. Since Dave was not able to drive, my mother-in-law drove us down to Northwestern Prentice Women’s Hospital, and we were admitted to the labor and delivery floor by midday.

  Our baby girl was in no rush. The epidural worked its magic as I had contractions all day, FaceTiming with relatives and trying to wrap my head around the fact that we were about to become parents.

  The Chicago Cubs were playing that evening for a chance to go to the World Series. It would be their first time playing in the World Series since World War II. They had not won a World Series in over a century. That they might now be on the verge of going to the World Series was a big deal; I cannot overstate how momentous this was for Dave and indeed for all long-suffering Cubs fans. The entire city of Chicago was in a postseason tizzy of red and blue. Our labor and delivery nurse told us: “I just moved to Chicago and I wasn’t a Cubs fan, but now I am!” We put the game on in the background in our hospital room, Dave turning his attention toward the TV in between contractions.

  The sun set on a beautiful fall day. Night fell over an entire city watching a baseball game. My baby was still taking her time, but finally, by nine, it was time to start pushing.

  Our incredible rehab doctor at RIC, Dr. Harvey, had told us on Dave’s first day there: “I suspect that Dave will be able to participate in the birth of your daug
hter.” I had not really believed him at the time. Sure, I had wanted to believe, I had hoped that he was correct, but at the time I had doubts; I just could not see how Dave would be in any shape to participate in the birth, much less the tasks of caring for a newborn.

  But he did, he was. Dr. Harvey had been correct. Dave sat by my side the entire time. He monitored my contractions, he cheered me on, and he brought me damp washcloths to swab the sweat from my face.

  At one point, the nurse’s attention was pulled to something across the hospital room and Dave jumped right in, counting down for me as I pushed through a contraction. The Cubs lost. It was an ugly defeat that, on any other night, would have crushed Dave, but on this night it was an afterthought.

  After two hours of pushing, Lilly emerged and was there in the room with us; a part of this world, a part of our family.

  It was not until a few weeks after the birth that my father-in-law admitted to me how nervous he and Louisa had been through the late months of my pregnancy and indeed throughout my labor (they sat in the waiting room for the entire day and night). They had been deeply concerned that the stress of the stroke and recovery might have had some adverse consequences on Lilly’s health in the womb.

  But when Lilly came out, she was perfect. I remember those first few moments so well: Lilly’s first cry, the medical team clamping the cord and allowing Dave to cut it, the doctor and nurses whisking her across the room to the scale. Lying in the hospital bed, I watched, unable to rise and participate in the huddle around the baby, but I remember seeing Dave as part of it all, leaning over the scale, his eyes fixed on Lilly’s soft, pink little body. I saw it in his face: he was completely smitten.

  I thanked God for Lilly. And then I thanked God for the fact that Dave was there with us, that my daughter would know her father.

  Chapter 30

  Chicago

  Winter 2013

  Let’s just say this: residency is a trying time for a marriage.

  There were half a dozen other wives whose husbands were going through the orthopedic surgery residency with Dave. We called ourselves “the Rush Widows.” These women understood how much it absolutely sucked, but no one else really could. I cannot tell you how often I heard some variation of the refrain from my friends and family whose husbands were not in medicine: “I could never do it!” or “I could never be married to a doctor!”

  Well, I’d think, I don’t really have a choice, do I? The man I fell in love with happened to choose medicine—surgery—as his career, so I either leave him or go along for this difficult ride. So there we were. And it was definitely a difficult ride.

  I realize that there are many difficult and even dangerous jobs out there. I have two brothers who have deployed to combat zones with the military, so I realize that there are jobs in which men and women put their lives on the line every single day. I also realize that there are many, many people in this country who struggle to find work and to feed themselves and their families, and that a surgeon in a white coat is not a member of society likely to earn anyone’s sympathy. I acknowledge and respect that, and I do recognize that once the training is done, orthopedic surgeons are more than generously compensated for their work.

  But I do believe that medicine deserves its place in the pantheon of highly difficult jobs, particularly during the training years and particularly when you consider the strain it puts on the family balance. The length and rigors of training alone would send most sane people running for the hills: there are four years of premed courses, then the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), then four years of medical school, then for most people a few years for research or private-sector work to round out their résumé at some point in there, then a five-year residency (give or take), and then a fellowship or two after that. While the rest of the people with whom you graduated from college are likely focusing on first jobs and then making their ways up in their careers and salaries, medical students remain in school and in training—very difficult school and training—for their entire twenties and then some. All the while they are getting paid an offensively low salary (if they’re getting paid at all—for many of those years, they are paying exorbitant sums for training and schooling; many medical trainees begin their careers with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt). The schedule and the lifestyle are punishing; Dave once computed what his residency pay came out to when his salary was distributed across the many hours he worked, and it was well below minimum wage.

  Then there’s the culture. The institutional ethos of so many senior doctors is, “Well, when I went through it, it was so much harder, so you should have to go through it, too.” Doctors in training are junior members of the team, dues-paying underlings on the lowest rungs of the totem pole well into their mid-thirties, and that’s if they take no time off between college and medical school.

  Then there’s the stress. I remember in the newsroom, the refrain we often used to calm ourselves when it got really hectic was: “We’re reporting news here, not saving lives.” But Dave could never fall back on that refrain because, well, he was tasked with saving lives. If I made a mistake at my stressful job in the newsroom, a typo slipped through onto live television. If Dave made a mistake at his job in the hospital, a life hung in the balance. That kind of pressure cannot help but weigh on you day in, day out.

  Physically, Dave held up a lot better than I would have in his place. He would roll out of bed fifteen minutes before he had to leave for the hospital. He usually got no breakfast or lunch; dinner was often cold leftovers after I was fast asleep. He fueled his body with energy drinks and coffee. He was perennially dehydrated (which was sort of a good thing—he would not have had time to run to the bathroom on many days, anyway). Chronic sleep-deprivation was the norm. I remember one day when Dave woke up with the shakes and a fever of 103.9 and he still insisted on going into work. I remember thinking: What about this situation is OK? I often wondered why doctors are expected to take care of everyone else’s well-being, yet they are not ever allowed to think of their own. It felt, at times, not only nonsensical but unconscionable.

  A phrase that I once heard has stuck with me: Medicine makes a most demanding mistress. That is what it feels like so much of the time. When you are married to a doctor, you are sharing your spouse. Your time together is not your own. The pager goes off at all times—holidays, weekends, the middle of the night. You thought you could go home to see family for Christmas? Ha! You thought you could celebrate your anniversary? Rookie mistake! Oh, and that wedding you wanted to go to—the one in which your wife’s sister is getting married? Yeah, well, it depends on whether we have a case that day. There’s a reason why the divorce rate among doctors is so high. It’s so much more than a job. As the late Dr. Paul Kalanithi wrote, “You can’t see [medicine] as a job, because if it’s a job, it’s one of the worst jobs there is.”

  It’s got to be a vocation, a calling, the work for which you are willing to sacrifice so much else. Dave believed that if he could only make it to the other side of this grueling training, his work as a surgeon would always be something in which he could feel a deep sense of purpose and fulfillment—he was giving someone not just a new hip or a new shoulder, but a renewed ability to live life to the fullest.

  But the years of training are trying.

  All of those years, I could not help but look at my life and see the ways in which Dave and I were being, well, ripped off. How I was being short-changed as his wife. There were long hours logged at home alone. My friends could enjoy their weekends, could bring their spouses to weddings, could exchange Christmas presents on Christmas morning. Even on the few Christmases when Dave was home, he was not really able to enjoy it, being so tired or still fielding emails or pages or the threat of being called in at a second’s notice. True, some of the other nonmedical professionals I knew worked as hard when they were on a specific project or account or case, but eventually the case ended, and us
ually brought with it sizable financial compensation. The stock market closes on holidays, legal cases eventually get resolved, schools close for the summer—but people never stop needing doctors.

  I did not always excel in acknowledging how difficult it was for Dave. I am human and I wanted my husband around. I thought that having moved to his hometown for him awarded me some appreciation. He told me over and over again that I was his priority, but it often did not feel that way. And I often reminded him that that was the case.

  And the stress and the lack of sleep got to him. How could it not? Being that perennially tired and overworked will take a toll on any personality. One midwinter night in his second year, Dave’s car died at the hospital, after many long hours of being parked in the well-below-freezing temperatures while he remained inside, working a never-ending series of cases. Dave called me, his voice tired and stressed, telling me I needed to drive my car over to the hospital so he could jump-start his car. I was in my pajamas ready to get in bed, so this was not a call I was thrilled to get. I pulled on my snow boots, threw my heaviest down coat on over my pajamas, and headed out. When I got to the hospital, we hooked up the jumper cables. Dave’s car sputtered to life, and my car promptly died. Dave and I were cold and tired and frustrated, and neither one of us was in a good mood. I remember thinking just how un-fun it all was.