by Tilda Shalof
“I’ll hurt myself if I have to. I’ll do whatever it takes. I want to see the doctor so I can ask him how I can kill myself. What if I stop eating and drinking? How long would it take to get dehydrated?”
“You will feel the symptoms within twenty-four hours. Sooner if it stays hot.”
“Will that get me home?”
“No, it will get you admitted to the hospital. Hailey, I don’t see any way out for you. If you think you might hurt yourself, I’m going to have to keep you on constant watch. You’ve got three more weeks here. Isn’t there something – anything – you could do to get you through it? Isn’t there anything here you enjoy that you could focus on?”
She had no intention of considering the possibility of enjoyment. Her focus was now on escape. She stared at me in disgust as if I had gone over to their side and betrayed her. “There is no way I will enjoy this place. I hate everything and everyone here. Believe me, everyone hates me, too.”
“I like you,” I smiled at her. By then, I really did.
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it.”
“You wouldn’t if you really knew me.”
I had to laugh at that. “I admire you and I like your clothes. They must have a lot of meaning for you.”
She nodded thanks and looked away.
“It takes a lot of courage to be true to yourself, especially here at camp, where everyone is supposed to fit in.”
“You do understand! Then why won’t you help me get out of here?”
What Hailey couldn’t possibly know and wasn’t appropriate to tell her, was that I knew exactly how she felt. Hailey and I had more in common than she realized: we were both on the fringes, each for our different reasons.
I met Samantha’s mother, Veronica. She was absolutely stunning, model-thin in tight jeans, with manicured fingernails and wearing tasteful jewellery and makeup. She had difficulty manoeuvring around the grassy terrain of camp in her high-heeled slides, with her frail, skinny daughter hanging on to her. Of course she noticed Samantha’s dramatic weight loss (it had been only ten pounds, but Samantha was already so thin that she couldn’t afford to lose any weight), but her child’s appearance seemed to embarrass her. She blamed the camp food. “She’s a picky eater. Other than that, Samantha is a perfect child. She’s a champion swimmer. An A-student. She’s always been so easy. In fourteen years, I’ve hardly had to do anything for her. She says that something has been bothering her, but now she’s feeling a lot better and wants to stay at camp.”
I stayed quiet about my disagreement with that decision. Samantha’s condition was precarious and she desperately needed psychiatric help. Camp simply wasn’t the place for her right now, in this condition, but no one saw it as I did.
Wayne and his parents were easy to spot. The resemblance to their skinny, nearsighted son was uncanny, right down to the same stiff mop of hair. Despite so many difficulties he’d endured, camp had been good for him. He had withstood the bullying and survived. Did he realize how much he’d achieved, how strong he was? I wanted to go over and tell him but he was busy with his parents. They were very sweet and doting as they said their goodbyes, so I left them alone, especially when I saw Wayne holding back tears. Besides, if I’d gone over, I’d have started crying, too.
Visitor’s Day was drawing to an anticlimactic, exhausting close when I came upon two brothers wandering around aimlessly. Somehow in the commotion, no one had noticed that their parents hadn’t shown up all day.
“I told Jason, Mom probably won’t be able to come,” the older boy told me. “She’s an artist – enormously talented, everyone says so – and probably had to go to Paris, but Dad should be here any minute.” He kept scanning the path that led from the parking area at the entrance of camp.
I went to the office and called the father’s cell number. He was in Los Angeles working on a film shoot. “Tell the boys I’ll try to make it up this week sometime. That is, if Carson’ll let me in after Visitor’s Day,” he added. “Their mother, the famous artiste – she’s enormously talented, I’ll give her that – must have forgotten to tell me. Please buy them something extra from the tuck shop and add it to our bill.”
I went to tell the kids and they seemed okay with that.
The long day still wasn’t over, but it had begun to wind down as kids slowly accompanied their parents to their cars. Then, even some of the happiest of campers started losing it. Some clung to their parents and said goodbye reluctantly, with tearful faces. Others ran off, sobbing.
“I love camp,” one boy told me. “I do,” he added, as if to remind himself as he waved goodbye to his parents and wiped away tears.
Another boy hung back, looking shell-shocked. He had expected to stay for the entire summer, but now his parents had packed his bags and were taking him home.
“His father’s company went bankrupt and we can’t afford it,” his mother explained to me tearfully. They had sold the house and were moving into an apartment.
One boy stood in between his parents, crying. He had been perfectly happy at camp, but after seeing his parents he wanted to go home with them.
“You are working yourself up into a state,” his mother said as she headed for the car. “You know you love camp.” She rushed to catch up with her husband who was already starting up the car. He opened the window and the boy leaned in, sobbing. “I want to go home.”
“You brought this on yourself, son,” he said, shifting into drive. “You’ve talked yourself into it. Come on now, be brave.”
The scene was breaking my heart. I watched as the boy wiped his eyes and stumbled back from the car as it pulled away. The parents waved goodbye out their windows. They weren’t being cruel, and the boy wasn’t acting up on purpose. They were trying to teach their son a lesson, and he, in turn, was trying to deal with the difficult situation. It was hard all around. I went over to him and put my arm around him, but he shrugged me off and walked away, preferring to collect himself on his own.
I also saw just as many other children who had gotten their fill of whatever they’d been missing from their parents and who were very pleased to return to their cabin and counsellor and to be at camp. Some were even asking to extend their stay.
“Sure, I miss my parents,” one kid cheerfully told me after saying goodbye to his parents, “but I’m not homesick.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I’ve seen them. They can go. I’m good now.”
By the end of the afternoon, Visitor’s Day was officially over. It was just as well, as everyone was thoroughly overwrought, some laughing, some crying, some doing both. That night, dinner was quiet, and when the campers heard that there would be a dreaded e.t.b., they were too tired to raise their usual objections. Everyone was emotionally drained and down in the dumps. I wondered out loud if Visitor’s Day was such a great idea, after all. “Do we really need it?”
“Didn’t you see how proud the kids are of their camp, how they love to show off all they’ve learned?” Coach Carson said. “Besides, we have to have Visitor’s Day so the parents can sign up to guarantee them a spot for next summer. We have a ninety-four-percent return rate!”
“But there’s such a drop in everyone’s mood. How’re we going to pick them up?”
He smiled and patted my shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. It’s been taken care of. Just wait and see.”
* A Yiddish expression meaning a crazy-making mixture of excitement and emotions.
† A more recent coinage, meaning a crazy-making mixture of hormones and emotions.
9
COLOUR WARS REDUX
That night I was woken from a deep sleep by shouts and screams. I bolted upright in bed. There was banging and clanging and then, of all things, marching-band music! I jumped up and dressed quickly. What was going on? A parade? A carnival? Armageddon?
Counsellors ran past my window shouting, “Wake up! It’s Midnight Madness!”
I ran to the flagpole
. The children had been assembled, still in their pyjamas, dazed from sleep. The older ones were excited and seemed to know what was going on. We all looked up at a small propeller plane circling overhead. Suddenly, hundreds of leaflets were released and fluttered to the ground. Everyone raced around, grabbing at them, scrambling to collect them all. They were lists of all their names and teams! Clues and maps leading to buried treasure! Mysteries and puzzles to be solved! Prizes to be won! Coach Carson stood at the side beaming with pride. “We do Colour Wars right after Visitor’s Day but the kids forget and are always taken by surprise.”
The campers were led back to bed. A ferocious battle was about to be waged between all four factions – Orange, Red, Blue, and Green – and it would begin in the morning. Everyone was so pumped up I wondered how the counsellors were ever going to get them back to sleep.
Bright and early the next day, everyone was raring to go. The counsellors had transformed the dining hall into four colourful worlds: The Orange section was decorated in Looney Tunes, with Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, and Road Runner as the captains; Blue was covered in comic-book characters, caped crusaders like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman; Red was Disney, with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Winnie-the-Pooh; and Green was plastered with the Simpsons (Homer, Marge, and Bart). Breakfast was dispensed with faster than usual, including the Pill Patrol scramble, to allow the full-tilt, eighteen-hour day to get underway. The counsellors had planned every detail and activity and Colour Wars would be executed, right down to the second, like a military campaign.
Not surprisingly, no one showed up for the morning clinic. All discomforts were put on hold for such a thrilling day. Caitlin and I locked up, and I went out on my own to take in the action. Campers and counsellors alike were decked out in crazy costumes, waving scarves and banners in their team colours.
They started the day with the “cheer-off.”
“Let’s go gree-een, let’s go!”
“Blue’s the real deal! Yay, Blue!”
“ Yo – Orange talks the walk, walks the talk!”
“Red has the power! Red rocks!”
After each cheer, the team punched at the air, whooped, and hollered.
For the first time, I saw all the ages mixed together on each team. It was sweet to see the little kids trying to keep up with the older ones and the older ones adjusting their pace to accommodate them as they took them on scavenger hunts, ran relays and races, played touch tag, tug-of-war, and water polo in the lake. Later, the plans included the camp’s traditional buffalo stampede, treasure hunt, and Capture the Flag.
“Colour Wars is insane this year!” a kid yelled out as he ran past me.
“Yeah, it’s right off the hook,” his friend said.
A boy staggered along, huffing and puffing and clutching at his chest, pretending he couldn’t make it, though I could plainly see he could. “I’m gonna crash and burn.”
I was dreading the commotion in the dining hall that I assumed would be even more over-the-top that day. When it was time for lunch I popped a few pills myself to stave off a headache and headed over. Unexpectedly, I entered an oasis of peace and quiet. The Silent Lunch was a hallowed Colour Wars custom. However, I braced myself when I read on the schedule that after lunch was the infamous obstacle race (the one where “everyone gets hurt”). I knew where I’d be stationed the rest of the day.
That afternoon, Kitch and I worked together in the Medical Centre while Caitlin roved around camp with a walkie and a fanny pack chock full of disinfectant, bandages, and gauze so she could attend to minor injuries along the way. It was a steamy, hot day, so I was happy to stay in the air-conditioned comfort of the mc while I treated the steady stream of bumps, cuts and scrapes, twisted fingers and ankles. As the day wore on, kids with headaches and heat exhaustion started rolling in. By mid afternoon, the kids were lined up on the couch and the beds were full while I rested, iced, compressed (taped), and elevated arms and legs, and medicated the children attached to those sore limbs.
A boy lay on a bed, groaning after throwing up from the lemon-eating contest.
A counsellor was beside herself with disappointment because she’d lost her voice from screaming on the chant-a-thon and wouldn’t be able to lead her team.
A thirteen-year-old girl was in severe pain. Her likely fractured arm had been splinted and she was waiting to be driven to the hospital for an x-ray and probably a cast. She was moaning in pain because she couldn’t swallow painkiller pills and was slowly sipping a yucky liquid substitute, trying to get it down without gagging.
A CIT boy had a possible concussion from a whack over the head during a mud-wrestling contest (he couldn’t remember the injury, which was worrisome). He stayed under my close watch so I could check his vital signs and neurological status every hour.
Another camper lay on a stretcher recovering from the effects of unnecessarily injecting himself with his epinephrine syringe. What he had thought was anaphylactic shock was only extreme excitement during Human Battleship on the sports field. He’d panicked and given himself a shot in his thigh. His heart was racing and his blood pressure elevated, so I kept him for observation.
In the midst of all of this, a pack of sweaty kids barged in and rushed at me, begging for tongue depressors. I didn’t have a chance to ask what they wanted them for or why they all had miniature corncobs stuffed up their nostrils, making them look like charging bulls. As I handed over the booty, an ominous call came on the walkie.
“I need help! Someone, help!”
It was Trish, the kitchen supervisor. Her voice was trembling.
“Hi, Trish, it’s Tilda. What’s wrong?”
“Come quick … now!”
“Can you switch to medical and tell me what the problem is?” (That was the channel we used for confidential information or to avoid camp-wide hysteria.)
“Please, just get here! Now!”
Gotcha! I grabbed the “crash box” – not the everyday first-aid kit. I had a feeling I’d need it. I’d put this box together shortly after my arrival at camp so it would be ready in an emergency. It contained plastic airways to deliver breaths in the event of an obstruction or respiratory arrest, and face masks and tubing to administer oxygen. There were lots of syringes and resuscitation drugs such as epinephrine, intravenous equipment with large-bore needles to run large amounts of fluid quickly into big veins, bags of glucose and saline, and large, thick bandages.
Kitch was out somewhere examining a child so I was on my own. “I’m coming,” I yelled into the walkie. Just then, Eric dashed in and grabbed me. “Let’s go!” he shouted. I jumped onto his ATV waiting outside the door and we barrelled off to the dining hall.
In the kitchen, I walked into what looked like a murder scene. Blood was everywhere: splashed against the tiled white walls, splattered on the floor, sprayed on the white aprons of the kitchen staff and head chef like some abstract paint job. They were standing around, speechless, paralyzed with fear and shock, as a young man lay on the floor writhing in a pool of blood that streamed out from his hand – what was left of his hand – hanging off the end of his arm. He was a fifteen-year-old kitchen worker who had been cleaning the meat slicer when it accidentally got turned on.
For one infinitesimal second, I paused, playing a mind game. Even after all of these years of dealing with emergencies, I sometimes need to calm myself down and I have a little technique that’s very effective.
This is only a pitcher of cherry bug-juice spilled onto the floor, I told myself. It’s some joke, a Colour Wars prank from the Red team. These crazy kids are playing tricks on me!
That second was all it took for me to come to my senses and take charge of the situation. I pulled on two pairs of vinyl gloves and rushed to the boy, careful not to slip on the slicks of blood. By the bright colour I knew that arteries had been severed. Parts of each of his fingers were missing, but the thumb hung on tenuously by a piece of fibrous tissue. Chunks of fingers were strewn across the floor. I grabbed a dishtow
el and made a tourniquet on his arm. I grabbed a roll of paper towel and slapped that on the wound. Crouching beside him on the floor, I held his arm up, above the level of his heart to divert blood as much as possible from pumping out. All the while I shouted out orders, one after another, to the crowd gathered there.
“Someone, bring more towels!
“Buckets of ice, too!
“Call Kitch! Call 911 for an ambulance!
“Get the oxygen tank from the mc!”
I pointed at a gawker. “You! Gather up whatever parts of fingers you can find and put them on ice.” He looked horrified but did as I told him.
The boy was now cold and clammy and had begun shivering. “Bring blankets!” I called out. The roll of paper towel was drenched in blood. Quickly, I replaced it with a new one.
“Am I going to die?” the boy mumbled.
“No!” I told him firmly. “You’re going to be just fine. We’re taking care of you.”
I kept his hand raised high and maintained pressure on the wound, not even releasing it to check it. I kept talking to him, asking if he could feel what was left of his fingers. He couldn’t. He had no movement or sensation in his arm. His pulse was fast, weak and thready, getting more difficult to palpate: I got someone to take over applying pressure, while I started an iv in his other arm and then opened the clamp to let the fluid pour in to stave off hypovolemic shock caused by such massive blood loss. Kitch arrived and nodded that I was doing everything right. Soon, the ambulance came and then the paramedics took over. By this point, the boy had lost consciousness and I realized I didn’t even know his name. Trish told me it was Tom Adams. I looked at him lying on the stretcher, alone and without family or friends. I felt like a critical care nurse again, and all I knew was that I had to be with my patient and see him through to safety. I was tempted to jump into the back of the ambulance with him but decided I’d better drive my car there so that I’d have a way to get back to camp later.