Leggy Blonde: A Memoir

by Aviva Drescher

  While I recovered in the hospital, I had a consult with a renowned hand surgeon. He said, “I’m going to give you a gift on a silver platter. If you amputate your leg below the knee, you’ll have a totally new, better life.”

  I’d heard that before. Various experts over the years had suggested I get a BKA, a.k.a. a below-the-knee amputation. It would mean no more abrasions or pain, a slimmer prosthesis, and better mobility. I hadn’t opted for that surgery, though. It seemed insane. Why on earth would anyone elect to have her leg sawed off? I had horrific memories of my past surgeries. Missing a foot, I figured, was sexier than missing half a leg. I cared a lot about being sexy. Always had, always will. So much so that if a doctor had said years ago, “If you get rid of your leg below the knee, you’ll be way sexier,” I probably would have done it sooner.

  Something about this hand surgeon broke through the wall I’d built against voluntary surgery. If it would really get rid of pain and those hateful abrasions, maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea.

  “Would you do it?” I asked my friend Sarah. I knew she’d be completely honest with me. Historically, she had zero filter.

  “You would lose five pounds overnight,” she said. “Seriously, for quality of life, you should go for it. I’d do it in a second.”

  “I’m getting married in six months,” I said.

  “Which is why you should do it now.”

  Sarah had no ulterior motive. She wasn’t a doctor looking for a job. She was only thinking of what was best for me. More than anyone, she knew how much I wanted to start my life with Jonathan with my best foot—well, my only foot—forward. My worst fear was that the abrasions would prevent me from being a capable mother. I did not want to be a slave to my wounds when I had children to look after. I imagined myself failing to catch a child who dashed into traffic or ran ahead at the park. The abrasions had slowed me down for decades. I had to do whatever I could to be quick and strong before I committed to being Jonathan’s wife, and the mother of his children. I mustered my courage and scheduled the surgery.

  During the four weeks between scheduling and having the procedure, my reservations faded completely. When I was six, and I had that first amputation, I remembered thinking, “If it stops the pain, great.” This new surgery brought up the same anticipation. I’d been in denial about the abrasions for so long. I’d refused to acknowledge the pain. Once I could imagine a life without it, it couldn’t come fast enough.

  The surgery didn’t scare me. Anesthesia, however, was petrifying. As a child, being put under made me violently ill and disoriented. I’d developed a phobia about it, believing that if I were put to sleep (like Clever and Sandy), I would never wake up. I’ll be the one healthy twenty-six-year-old who dies on the table, I thought. The select few who knew about my panic attacks and hypochondria back then (pre–Real Housewives) called me “a blonde Woody Allen.” Actually, I made Woody Allen look chill. Here’s a running list of (some of) the things that freak me out:

  Small planes

  Heights

  Driving on highways

  Going over bridges

  Anesthesia

  Terrorists

  Rapists coming in through the bedroom window

  Factory-farmed meat

  Aluminum foil

  Teflon

  Drugs! Recreational, prescription, over the counter, pain killers. You name it, I’m afraid of it.

  Pesticides

  Inflammation, which can cause cancer; which reminds me . . .

  Cancer

  ALS

  Crossing against the light

  Leaving a hat on the bed (this shit is deadly)

  Some spiders (big ones are fine; it’s the little things that get me)

  The dark

  Prison

  Being trapped on an elevator with Ramona Singer (oh, I kid, Ramona . . .)

  Okay, several of those aren’t real sources of anxiety for me. But they could be. The point is, I don’t choose my anxieties. They choose me. If I could will them away, of course I would! But my neurological and psychological makeup can’t be changed. Medications would only work to a point, but it’s weirdly arbitrary how some things freak me out, and others don’t at all. The only way to handle it is to avoid panic attack triggers and be prepared with soothing strategies (like an iPod full of calming music). And laughing. I always joke about it, even mid-meltdown. Making light of a panic attack doesn’t cancel it out. But it does give me something to do in the meantime. One trick I’ve learned as a professional worrier is that you can’t feel fear and love simultaneously. Just kissing Reid and/or the kids really helps.

  In our presurgery consult, Dr. Elton Strauss, the orthopedic surgeon, and I talked about the procedure. He’d do the wet work, and then Dr. Chun, a plastic surgeon, would step in to make a special flap so I’d have extrathick skin on the bottom of the residual leg. I would never have another abrasion. It sounded wonderful. The surgery would take place back where I started, at Mount Sinai Hospital.

  I asked Dr. Strauss, “Can I stay awake for the surgery with an epidural?” I didn’t want to be knocked out, just numb below the waist.

  “You want to be awake for your amputation?” he asked. “Never heard that one before.”

  I explained my fears, and he agreed to do the surgery with an epidural—an injection of anesthetic directly into my spinal cord, the same thing women get for C-sections. That was a relief. I skipped home from that appointment, actually looking forward to getting rid of the chronically infected leg that served no purpose except filling a bulky, ugly prosthesis.

  I’d been researching a sleek upgrade. Prosthetics had made leaps and bounds since the seventies. I could get one with carved foam to match the shape of my right leg. I’d finally have a decent cushion that created more bounce and flexibility. My upgrade wouldn’t be cheap, but I still had plenty of insurance money. What better way to spend it?

  Surgery Number Five: Elective Below-the-Knee Amputation of Left Leg

  My presurgery bluster fizzled on the day of the operation. I was terrified about the whole anesthesia issue. As I was wheeled into the room, I badgered the anesthesiologist, a woman named Mary, with a million questions. She sized me up as an anxious basket case.

  “Get the Valium!” she called out to a nurse.

  This time, I took it. Mary gave me plenty. The Valium calmed me, but honestly, I didn’t like it. I flashed back to being drugged as a child, and feeling weightless and confused. Altered states of consciousness were not fun for me. I appreciated that everyone I knew enjoyed having a few cocktails or some pot. No judgment, but I couldn’t stand not feeling like myself.

  I lay on the table in the operating room, coming in and out of a drug-induced sleep. Mary sat me up and helped me lean forward to expose my vertebrae. She gave me the epidural, puncturing my spinal cord with a needle and injecting the numbing agent. I started to feel warm from the waist down. She helped me lay back down.

  Dr. Strauss appeared. “Okay, Aviva,” he said. “We’re going to cut off your leg now.”

  “Go for it,” I mumbled.

  I could hear everything. The whir of the saw, some crunching and squishing. I could smell cauterized flesh, bone dust, and hot metal. It was Surgery 101. Surgeons had been lopping off limbs with a sharp rock for thousands of years in tents on battlefields. In a modern hospital operating room, it took all of ten minutes. Dr. Chun stepped up to the table to start working on the flap. I felt nothing.

  “Can I call my mom?” I asked right there, while I was on the table. I was a big phone person at the time, always connected.

  Dr. Strauss said, “Go ahead.”

  I dialed her number from the OR phone. “Hi, Mom,” I slurred.

  “Aviva? I thought it was the doctor saying you died.”

  And I was the paranoid one? “Nope. Not dead. I’m calling to tell you everything is all right. I’m still on the table. Dr. Strauss just powered down the saw.”

  “Oh, good. I was worried,” she said i
n a small voice. She knew I was in the OR and she was really panicked to get a phone call during the operation. Understandably!

  And I was worried about her being worried. This was a pervasive theme in our relationship, my anxiety about her anxiety—that it might lead her to drink. I said, “I’m going to hang up. See you in recovery soon.”

  “That’s another first,” said Dr. Strauss. “Amputation without general anesthesia. And making a call during an operation.”

  He seemed flabbergasted. I’d given him something to talk about in the hospital cafeteria later.

  After surgery, I was wheeled into the recovery room. My fiancé and mother had to wait in another room. The Valium faded, but I was still paralyzed from the waist down, and completely alone. I couldn’t sit up to see my leg, so I didn’t know how it looked. I started to panic. And so another phobia was born: the fear of being alone in the recovery room. Finally, I was wheeled into a regular room and told that my family would be joining me soon. I looked down at the stump. It was so short. So abbreviated. I hadn’t thought I’d miss the leg that had given me so much trouble. But now that it was gone, I felt depressed. For the first time ever, I cried about my loss of limb. It was so unlike me.

  And then the epidural wore off.

  Now I really had something to cry about. The pain was indescribable. I writhed on the bed. Nurses offered to give me a morphine injection. I’d had morphine as a child, and it made me feel like I was losing my mind. I would float out of my body—a sensation similar to my panic attacks. I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t stand the pain. I’d been smug about not being afraid of the amputation, and looking forward to ending the pain of abrasions. But I hadn’t thought about the postop pain. I had no idea it would be this bad. I was overwhelmed, and couldn’t think of anything else. Jonathan and Mom couldn’t do much to comfort me, but they stayed in the room while I rode it out.

  When Dr. Strauss checked in on me, I complained about pain. He said, “So take the drugs.”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  A postop patient who refused morphine. Another first. “Either take the drugs or deal with the pain,” he said. Gee, thanks, Doc! I don’t know how it hadn’t occurred to me that those would be my only options, but now that I was in this predicament I searched desperately for alternatives.

  “Can I get another epidural to get me through the next few days?” For one reason or another, as he explained, that wasn’t advisable.

  “How about hitting me on the head until I black out?”

  He laughed. I wasn’t joking. I kept asking for alternatives. The doctor was sick of me by that point. And I don’t blame him; I was a major pain in the ass.

  Jonathan slept in the hospital room. My dad visited. A friend from college, Paul, now a very well known dermatologist, swung by. I’d always leaned on him with my hypochondria. He was in medical school then, and very cool about hospitals and surgery. In my room, he put his feet up on my bed and chatted like we were chilling at home. I loved him for that.

  Mom was jumpy and irritable. When I was little, she was 1,000 percent present and focused. This time around, she was distant and grouchy. She sat and read the paper testily, crinkling the pages with each turn. When I talked to friends and Jonathan, Mom acted annoyed and made rude comments or sighed heavily. It was obvious she would have rather been anywhere else. Being in the hospital with me again must have dredged up some terrible memories for her. Also, at the same time, her brother was dying with pancreatic cancer.

  In addition to all that, Mom was itching for a drink.

  I was so absorbed in my pain, I didn’t sort that out. All I knew was that my angelic mom was lacking compassion. She was not her warm loving self. I’d probably exhausted my lifetime allowance of maternal patience, comfort, and support years ago. Mom had taken me to hundreds of doctors’ appointments, and spent weeks beside my hospital bed already. I was no longer a helpless child. But at six or twenty-six, when you’re in pain and in the hospital, you just want your mother. As a mother myself, I can’t imagine not wanting to be there—physically and emotionally—for my children no matter how old they are. Then again, I couldn’t imagine what it is like to be in the grips of alcoholism.

  My fiancé, on the other hand, was a champ. He slept in the room with me and asked, “What can I do for you, Fever?” (My nickname. Jonathan used to say he had “Aviva fever.” Edith and his sister made it stick.) He proved at an early stage in the game that he loved me through thick and thin. This was decidedly a thick week. The whole gig was not pretty. After five days, I was released. I only took Advil and my wound healed beautifully.

  I still had to be fit for a new leg. In the meantime, I wore a postop prosthesis and used crutches. Jonathan and I flew to Los Angeles for a wedding during that waiting period. He helped me in and out of taxis, and always walked slowly at my side. He didn’t rush me or lose patience. In our hotel room, he hung up his shirts, and kept the bathroom clean. He looked sensational in his tux.

  I thought, What am I waiting for? The man had just gotten me through major, highly unsexy surgery. How could I go through that experience with him but not have intercourse? Edith’s waiting for the wedding night “rule” was ridiculous. I was under her spell—a good-witch spell, but still.

  That weekend, we did it.

  Afterward, basking in the glow, I heard Edith’s warning in my head. We were in love, engaged, the sex was good. What could be the harm in doing it before the wedding night? I laughed to myself. How did I let her warning get to me? I wondered.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  • • •

  The wedding would be at the Round Hill Club in Jamaica. Our three hundred guests had made their hotel reservations and booked their flights. Edith and my mother helped me plan the wedding. Mom’s mood rallied as the date drew nearer, despite her feeling anxious about the whole wedding. Decorating and taking care of her family were strengths. Big parties and traditions were not her thing. My father and mother were against big weddings altogether, finding them to be forced and tacky. Nonetheless, they were paying for mine, and went along with my dreams of a big, beautiful destination wedding.

  Jonathan’s father, on the other hand, was not a fan of the plan. He thought a wedding in Jamaica was ridiculous. (He was probably right.) More than that, he was against the wedding, period, regardless of the location. A bit of a playboy himself, he thought his son was way too young to settle down. Jonathan respectfully disagreed. They argued about it. His dad kept needling him and pressuring him to reconsider. One weekend when I was not around but Jonathan was, his father brought some hot young women home. For what purpose? It was really bizarre. The tension between father and son affected our relationship, too. I talked with Jonathan about his father, and found myself in the unnerving position of defending the man who was trying to break up my engagement.

  A brilliant real estate guy, Jonathan’s dad was gifted at negotiating. When words failed him, he broke out the heavy artillery. One month before the wedding, he delivered a prenup to my family’s lawyers. It said basically that if Jonathan and I ever divorced, regardless of how long our marriage lasted or how many children we had, I wouldn’t be entitled to a dime.

  Was he trying to run me off ?

  It made no sense to me. I had my own money. My parents had resources. I was in school to become a lawyer and would be more than capable of generating my own income. I never had a money mind the way some people do. I hadn’t really thought about the financial side of marriage, at least not until Jonathan’s father brought it front and center. Money was his wedge. He drove it between us with all his might.

  My lawyer begged me not to sign the prenup. She told me it was unfair and the most extreme prenup she had ever seen. “It’s a ridiculous document. Do you really want to marry a man whose father is trying to screw you over?”

  I signed it. I didn’t care about Jonathan’s money.

  Even then, his dad kept calling Jonathan
and encouraging him not to marry me. Why? Edith’s theory was that he didn’t want Jonathan to make the mistake of marrying at all. (Like I said, their divorce was vicious.) She also suspected that the father hoped that his son would be his single-guy buddy. I was standing on crutches in the way.

  Jonathan felt the pressure. We started fighting constantly. Anything I said came off as confrontational. He was in a foul mood, and fought any effort I made to turn it around. His temper came out. I hadn’t seen it before in nearly two years of dating. But I started to flash to Paris, with Alexandre.

  That scared me. I peeled back a corner of the perfect picture I’d painted of our life together, and found a blank canvas underneath. Just like with Alexandre, I started asking myself, What do Jonathan and I really share? What do we have in common? I was attracted to his outdoorsy lifestyle, but I didn’t participate in it. He’d been frustrated by my lack of interest in biking and hiking for a while, just as he didn’t see why he had to go to the Philharmonic and the Met with me. It wasn’t only our divergent hobbies and interests that started to bother me. I was seeing him in a new light. His newly revealed temper reminded me of the way his father talked to me and treated Edith. Jonathan had been loving and patient in the hospital. What changed? Now he snapped and seemed perpetually annoyed. I was the same person. But something changed between us. We’d been happy. And then, in the span of a month, we were miserable.

  Edith’s warning rose again in my mind. I realized with a jolt that things went downhill soon after we had sex.

  I’d given away the milk. And our relationship soured.

  We had yet another big fight. He hung up on me. It was the day after his bachelor party, and one week before the wedding. I went to his mom’s house where he was living and gave him back his ring. I couldn’t risk marrying a man with a bad temper. A rumor went around that I canceled the wedding due to a lewd bachelor party. Ridiculous.