Frozen Teardrop

by Lucinda Ruh

  It was truly sad that this is what our relationship had become but I was improving so quickly on the ice that I was elated. In just those two months I was back to landing all the triples and triple-triple combinations. I loved training again with the Chinese team members and my mother even taught my coach’s other Chinese male student how to drive. It was fun and the experiences were raw and human. Memories of our time in China were awakened once more. To my dislike, so did my stomach illness I suffered from when in China, and it still caused many problems. My diet was so limited from my problems with digesting food and so lacking in vitamins and nutrients that it caused my bones to be more brittle and prone to injuries.

  Meanwhile, there was a Russian coach at the ice rink who took a big liking to me. She thought that I did not have a coach and wasn’t getting any lessons so she took my mother and me aside and said she would like to coach me as long as I was there. We innocently thought: why not try her, try a new experience and see what I could learn from her as long as we were already there? We always had a hard time saying “no.” We were ultimately “yes” people trying to please everyone and always wanting to be better and better. We were never satisfied with what we had or how I was doing. Now looking back, I think we should have just stuck with my Chinese coach, but greed is a dangerous trait and wanting more and more and wanting to be better and better always dominates and clouds judgment, so we decided we would try her. We thought there would be no harm in this. Later we thought about how wrong we had been.

  Nothing changed with the Chinese coach but I now had extra lessons with her every day. I did not listen to her jumping technique but soaked in the artistry and passion she had while coaching. Her daughter helped me with the choreography and I had a lot of support. They were Russian and their strong dominance did not quite suit my personality. I felt they talked too much and their energy was just over the top for me. However, they were incredibly accommodating and she even invited my mother and me to live in her house. So instead of staying at the campgrounds my mother and I took the opportunity to stay with her. It was wrong and overbearing, and in consequence made me feel suffocated, but at that time we took what we could get when we were feeling so lost. The Russian coach was lonely as well. I had given her a reason to teach again and I knew it. I wanted to please her and bring her happiness.

  The summer was ending and there were just a few more days left of the Chinese team’s presence before it would be time for us to return to Switzerland too. My Swiss coach had been calling in often to check on how I was doing. I started to feel exhausted again since the Russian coach was pushing me too much. I should have just kept the Chinese way that I knew worked for me but my coach let her ego get in the way, and was being greedy about wanting more and more from me. With all good intentions since she loved my skating and thought I would be her next Olympic Champion, she pounced heavily on her prey. There was a price for this that again I would have to pay. My downfall was that I would fall very quickly into over-working mode. I would push myself until I fell off the cliff. I never did anything in moderation.

  On the last evening before my Chinese coach went back to China, he and I talked. I was sad that I would not be able to go with him and I cried. I was also very tired. My Russian coach wanted me to skate the next morning because her son-in-law was back from his tour as a professional skater and she wanted me to be present so she could show off her new pupil. She said he would be instructing the class mostly about stroking and footwork. She said it would be fun and she wanted me there, ultimately but unspoken, for her. I hesitantly asked my coach his opinion about whether I should rest the next morning or skate. My Chinese coach was firm with me, saying he thought I needed to rest, sleepin the next morning, and maybe even take a few days off. Otherwise I might get injured again. I said my goodbyes and felt I would not see him for a very long time.

  Unintelligently, I did not listen to him. I had always done what he told me. Why not this time? It is nobody’s fault but mine. But at this time he was not my coach. She was, and the present coach was the one I followed. There was only one captain of the ship and I listened to that captain only. He was gone but she would remain. I see now that I needed to understand that I was the captain of my own ship. Listening to myself would have been a good idea but I was used to following other people’s orders. I needed to be stronger in life, take responsibility for my own body, and stand up for it. But I had never been taught that so why would I do that now? I was truly ignorant that day and it would be hard to forgive myself for it.

  The next morning, half awake, I dragged myself with my mother to the ice rink. My legs were feeling weak and wobbly. I laced up my skates and on the ice were the Russian coach, and her daughter and son-in-law who seemed like a pack of wolves waiting for me to arrive. I greeted them all and smiled meekly. I knew she wanted to show me off so the pressure was on and this skate would be for her. Everything was going fine and her son-in-law liked me. About a half hour into the session my legs started shaking. I was a little dizzy. We were doing some footwork and suddenly I fell to the ice and was frozen in pain. My knee was burning up. I had been doing a step and since I was so tired my body wasn’t as quick as my mind that morning. I wanted to turn but my blade got stuck in the ice. My upper body motion did follow through, but my legs had stayed still, and so my knee was totally twisted.

  I thought I had broken my leg. It was that painful. I am not one to complain or fake an injury. But this was a pain I never felt before. Her son-in-law carried me off the ice and with tears rolling down my cheeks we were off to the hospital. Not again, I thought! Always the hospital, always injured Lucinda. I feared that my skating career was over.

  My knee, after many tests and X-rays and MRIs, was diagnosed as having a big ligament tear and rip. My knee was so inflamed that it looked like a big hill on my leg. This diagnosis may not have sounded so bad but the pain was excruciating. The doctors told me I would need at least a month of staying completely off my leg. As a skater, resting and following those kinds of doctor’s orders never made sense. I would stay off the ice for the bare minimum time necessary to heal and rush back onto the ice as soon as I could walk a little. So a month was a month for the doctors but about a week for me even though I was on crutches.

  My mother and I stayed at the Russian lady’s house. The summer was over and we should have been headed back to Switzerland but something held us back in the States. We used the knee and the doctors here as an excuse. We also let the coach make the decisions since we thought coaches should instruct their pupils and she wanted me desperately to stay. At that time I also was no longer looking forward to returning to Switzerland. I had gotten a taste of the American life and liked it. We had to call the Swiss coach to tell him I had now an injury and we were staying over here for doctors’ care. My mother was scared to make the phone call and was not looking forward to that conversation to relay the bad news to him. But it had to be done and thank goodness my mother had to do it and not me. Maybe unconsciously we felt guilty and thought that we were doing something wrong and we felt we really should just stick to our word and head back, but nonetheless we succumbed to the situation and stayed in the states. My Swiss coach was devastated.

  A week off the ice became a month like the doctors advised. We stayed at my coach’s house and I went to doctors and rehabilitation for my knee every day. I slowly returned to the ice. My Swiss coach was furious we were not returning but I wanted to stay in America. To me it wasn’t even about the coach. Neither coach was my favorite, nor did I trust the techniques of either one. But I liked the American lifestyle better and I was too tired to go back. I was exhausted mentally and physically. The going back and forth was too much for me. I just wanted to stay where I was, wherever that was, and did not want to move. This feeling got worse in years to come, as I never recovered from my exhaustion.

  I was twenty years old and still had not gone through puberty and friends were not really a part of my life. Where we were in Connecticut was a lone
some city with nothing but the woods, the ice rink, and a supermarket. It was great for training since there was not one distraction other than squirrels and wild life roaming about. The woods were eerie and although in a way I loved them, there was something about them that just seemed to expel ghosts and evilness. Even the ice rink smelled of fear and disaster to me. Ever since the first day there I was scared of the whole area. Something seemed not right and it felt haunted.

  At this ice rink there was also a memorial for my all-time favorite team-pairs who I had wanted to visit in Moscow when I was nine years old. Their training home was in Connecticut but her partner had horrifically and unexpectedly passed away on the rink in Lake Placid, shocking the whole skating world. To be within its lingering memories made me feel very uncomfortable and I was spooked by the whole situation. My fifth sense was in overdrive here.

  As my knee healed, but would never again not be painful, I was getting ready for my next skating competition, a grand prix assignment in Russia arranged by my federation. It was the last skating practice in Connecticut and my last evening in Connecticut before flying off to Russia. I was excited and looked forward to continuing the success I had at the end of the last season and at the world championships a few months back. Why do things frequently happen on last evenings? Maybe it’s our desperation to fit everything in and fix everything in the last minute, or to give it our all one last time before a big event? It is greed again, I think — it is the greed for success, greed for wanting to leave the ice with a perfect practice before heading off to a competition. Greed for wanting good luck. It is never a good thing.

  That last evening I fell one time, very heavily right on my coccyx on a triple lutz. I felt a jolt all the way up through my spine and neck and up to my head. I got up and continued to skate, not thinking much of it. I have fallen so many times, so what was one more? I had banged my head on the ice so frequently and had heard my head crack many times before, so what was one more time?

  Perhaps I was clumsier than other skaters. I was also taller than most and had long legs. The higher your center of gravity, the harder it is to skate, let alone jump. Even when I did my spinning, I sometimes fainted right out of it when there was no oxygen reaching my brain. I used to hear my neck and my head crack all the time while in spins. I would get blood clots in and around my eyes, face, and all the way up and down both arms. I would look like I had chicken pox. So I was used to falling, and being banged up, and bruised and polka-dotted. As long as I was still alive I could skate through it.

  The next morning I boarded my flight to Moscow with just my coach. My mother went on a different route because she had to go back to Switzerland first and would then fly to Moscow. After takeoff I needed to go to the bathroom and stood up from my seat. But I could not move. My legs froze. I felt dizzy and both of my legs felt numb. I had no pain other than a knife life sharp pain in one specific spot in my spine. I could not move my neck or back. I sat back down. Usually when I had back pain, which I normally had every day, the pain radiated throughout my back around the area from the one spot it stemmed from. But this was different. The pain just dug into me from only one small spot in my spine. Then the rest of my body was numb.

  I panicked, as I thought, oh, dear God, no. Please no. I did not say anything to my coach. I was in fear the whole way there and the nine hours it actually took felt like forever. I slowly slid back down in my seat and thought I would try again in a few minutes to get up. I ended up trying many times but with no success. Luckily, I eventually made it to the bathroom without bending my body in any direction. I just moved in very slow motion. Finally the plane touched down and competition mode would need to set in. I was terrified I had broken my spine. I would have to work through it, I thought. I could not look weak now. I would have to compete. Then we could figure out what happened. I could not look foolish and say I was injured again. This could not be done. It would be a disgrace for me.

  My mother arrived at the hotel and I was so thrilled to have her by my side. I told my mother I was in pain but did not say more. I had my first practice and I was extremely cautious. Usually I just skated through the pain and ignored it, but this felt different and my gut feeling and intuition were telling me to be very careful. My coach noticed I was not doing much since I could barely move my legs, and she called me over. She asked what was wrong and if my knee was bothering me again. I said that it wasn’t and told her now my back was hurting. I felt so bad but I had to tell her. She got angry and said I better just deal with it and push through. It was a competition and this was not a time to feel sorry for myself and have excuses. She was in her home country and I was to make her proud. I was her prized animal on show.

  But I really could not move. I tried some jumps and just could not even pull in. I was too scared to fall again on my back. Something was really telling me this was a serious injury as I felt paralyzed from my back down and I was trembling inside. The practice ended and my coach was furious with me. She ordered the chiropractor to help me. That was the wrong thing to do but we tried it all. I got pills and cortisone injections to numb the pain. I wanted to pull out of the competition but the Swiss told us that if I did not compete here they would not send me to my next grand prix in Japan. How foolish of them.

  But orders were orders. I had already missed the Olympics in Japan and did not want to once again not be present for this one in my so called-home, so I forced myself to compete. I did nothing at the practices, absolutely nothing, except skating around a bit. The pills and injections were not helping. They were actually making it worse because now I could feel even less of my body. Almost everywhere was numb and I was scared not to feel the movements of my body and injure myself even worse. To counteract what I felt I was given more pills and more cortisone injections. Somehow I competed. I just went into the zone and did what needed to be done at my own expense.

  We were told much later that my spinal injury was so serious that I could have cracked and crushed my entire spine and been completely paralyzed, but at that time competing in Japan was too important for me. Luckily I did have angels looking after me. I was so in my skating bubble that I would literally have even died for it. Kill myself for it. Nothing seemed more worthy than getting on the ice to skate. After my short program, more injections were administered and after my long program I could barely sit at the “kiss and cry” bench. The competition was over and of course the Grand Prix competition in Japan was now out of the question because of the intense pain that I was in. So either way I would not have been able to go to Japan, but this way I was injured for life and the other way my career might have continued. The Swiss team did not seem to be of good guidance to their athletes. More tears were to be shed. Maybe it would become two gallons of tears by the end of the year.

  My Russian coach wanted us to return to the States and be treated by doctors there, but my mother was completely stubborn. She decided that the smart thing to do would be to return to Switzerland. She thought there I would have the support of the Swiss team doctors who would be able to help me the most and hopefully diagnose me properly.

  When we arrived in Switzerland we went straight to the doctors. Hospitals and doctors’ offices were becoming my second home and undergoing tests were routine for me. It is truly depressing going from one test to another but humor is needed. My mother went through everything with me, bless her soul, and we put brave smiles on our faces and did what was needed to do.

  After about a week waiting for the results we were called into the doctor’s office. By now my legs, toes, arms and some fingers were still numb and I could not bend backward, forward, or sideways at all. I was just in my bed at home lying down and not moving. My whole back from my coccyx to the start of my head was now as hard as a rock. No one could touch me because I would yelp in pain. You could also feel a bone protruding in the middle part of my spine and I quivered every time my fingers would feel it. My mother and I entered the office and sat down. We had not uttered a word the whole journe
y there. We could not think of anything to say. We were scared. The doctor looked filthy and disorganized. Papers and x-rays were everywhere, making his office look as if someone had raided the place. Everything was turned upside down and he himself looked like he hadn’t showered in a week! The hospital on the other hand was gorgeous, impeccable. Walls smelled like they had been freshly painted just that morning! It looked a five-star resort.

  The doctor sat down and from beneath the rubble he somehow pulled my file out. He put all my x-rays and MRIs on the board with the bright light shining behind them as if either grabbing our attention in a good way or with the light of death. I swallowed hard, not wanting to hear what was wrong. The doctor seemed strangely calm and had a “je ne sais quoi” expression on his face. It looked like he was amused at something. The words came out of his mouth: “It’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing is wrong, just a torn muscle. It’s in your head. All in your head, Lucinda.” He said it in such a condescending way and with such a nasty chuckle that I could have thrown his computer right in his face. How dare he belittle not only me, but my mother as well, and the whole situation. This was not a game. This was real, a skater’s life.

  The rest I did not hear. “All in your head, Lucinda” is all I heard repeatedly over and over again. This doctor was supposed to be knowledgeable and intelligent and he was the Swiss team Olympic-appointed doctor. And he said that all the pain, the bone protruding, etc., was all in my head?? Now, I have a great imagination but this was too much. Was I utterly and truly that delusional? Then he said something to the effect that I needed to exercise! Exercise? I couldn’t move. He said I needed to swim and have massages every day. Massage? No one could even touch me a little. Why in the world would I have someone massage me? I was outraged and confused and what the doctor said made absolutely no sense to me. My mother and I walked out of there with all the X-rays in tow. I never wanted to see him again. My gut intuition knew he was wrong and my good-girl nature of following people’s orders would not work here. My mother on the other hand seemed to want to persuade me to follow his treatment. I truly thought my mother was out of her mind!