Warrior Pose

by Brad Willis

  “I don’t know how you managed it,” Dr. Assam says with dispassionate authority while comparing my current X-ray with the original from 1986, which my sister somehow got the doctor’s office in Boston to send out on time. “You’ve spent seven years with a mildly broken back, and now it’s a major break.”

  Like the first doctor those many years ago, he uses a pen as a pointer to trace the dark lines, comparing the X-rays this time, showing me the difference. In the first X-ray, the line is thin and runs part way through the pedicle bone on the left side of my fifth lumbar vertebra, which sits right above my sacrum. In the new X-ray, the line is thicker and runs all the way through the pedicle bone.

  “We might think of it like a small crack in a picture frame that suddenly splits across the glass,” Dr. Assam continues. “It’s very serious. If it opens further and impinges on your spinal cord, you could be paralyzed.”

  Dr. Assam insists, in his distant and professional demeanor, that surgery is the only option. The procedure is called a “fusion-laminectomy,” and it’s major surgery. There will be two incisions. The first one will be on my left side, near the iliac crest of my pelvic girdle. The doctor explains that this area of the pelvis holds a large amount of red bone marrow and is ideal for bone graphs. He will slice pieces of bone from the iliac crest, then make a second incision along my lower spine. The broken pedicle will be removed along with the discs between my two lowest lumbar vertebrae, L4 and L5. Next, the sides of these two vertebrae will be scraped down to expose their marrow. The chips of bone sliced from the iliac crest will then be “laminated” against the vertebrae and exposed marrow. Then they stitch me back up.

  “In time,” Dr. Assam says confidently, “the bone chips and shaved vertebrae will fuse into a bone mass that will stabilize your back.”

  I can barely follow him, but it sounds more like a construction project than a surgery, like welding iron rods together to bolster the frame of a building. I feel profoundly resistant to anyone cutting into my back, but what choice do I have? Dr. Assam is making it clear there is none. I close my eyes and a collage of images that have become etched in my subconscious float through the darkness.

  Kuwaiti torture victims heaped on top of one another in the morgue.

  A piece of a dead Iraqi soldier on my pant leg, my boots covered with thick, warm blood.

  Afghans missing arms and legs, third-degree burns covering what’s left of their bodies.

  Starving African infants with distended bellies and faces covered with black flies.

  Kurdish mothers in refugee camps with glazed eyes clutching dead babies in their arms.

  Palsied Bolivian kids slowly dying as they smoke basuco in holes scratched in a dry riverbed.

  Orphaned Filipino children living in a rancid garbage dump alongside snakes, vultures, and wild pigs.

  My chronic pain and this surgery are nothing by comparison. I have always feared missing work more than I ever feared war zones or injuries, but there’s really no choice. To pump myself up, I have a little inner conversation: This is great, I tell myself, I only have to miss three or four weeks and it will mean an end to all these years of pain!

  “The surgery takes at least two hours,” Dr. Assam says, breaking my little pep talk. “Then there’s a recovery process during which you’ll be in a large body brace. You’ll need to rest and relax, then, eventually, do some physical therapy. Depending on how quickly the fusion takes, you could be back to work in less than six months.”

  Six months! I can’t miss that much work. So I negotiate, pressing for the earliest possible date I can return to the field if everything goes perfectly. I’m still slurring my words and it’s hard to stay focused, but I push Dr. Assam hard even though I can tell he’s not used to this. When I have him down to a “best of all worlds” scenario of less than two months, I say, “Okay, let’s get it over with.”

  I’m flat on my back, watching Styrofoam ceiling panels whiz by as I’m wheeled down the hospital corridor into surgery on a gurney. The chemical smell in the surgical theater reminds me of the odor people in war zones exude when they’re gripped with fear. The atmosphere of the room feels tense. Monitors are buzzing and beeping. Black cords and plastic tubes are strung like tinsel everywhere. Surgical instruments click as attendants position them in perfect alignment on steel trays. Rubber gloves snap; bright lights glare. People in medical gowns with greenish masks and white gauze head-covers roll me onto my side to expose my lower back.

  The anesthesiologist slips a needle into a thick vein on the back of my hand and places an oxygen mask over my face. A few deep breaths now. The room sways. Voices dim. I close my eyes and drift off into the mountains of some far-off place where a revolution is underway, getting ready to go live on NBC Nightly News.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Dr. Assam says, almost breaking character and expressing emotion, after I awaken from the anesthesia. “I thought I would need to cut the broken pedicle out, but it was so loose I lifted it out with a pair of surgical tongs. It was even more dangerous than I thought, being so detached like that.”

  I have to spend a night in the hospital in case of unexpected bleeding or infection. The next morning, as a nurse’s aide pushes me in a wheelchair, my sister and I stop at the lobby pharmacy to pick up more prescription drugs, including another two weeks’ worth of morphine. As I lift myself from the wheelchair into my sister’s car, all I can think about is getting out of this place and on the road to recovery. But by the time we get to my sister’s home, all I can think about is lying in bed and never moving again. I feel like I could sleep forever.

  After a few weeks of bed rest, I’m fitted with a massive body brace. It’s a large Kevlar contraption called a Clamshell, with two thick, white plastic halves that fold around my torso like a clam, held tight by thick Velcro straps. It’s hard as a rock on the exterior with soft foam lining inside. A heavy electrical device called a Stim is buckled around the lower portion of the brace. It ticks like a windup clock, sending an electric current into my spine, which Dr. Assam tells me is designed to promote fusion. I’m weaned off morphine, but stronger doses of Vicodin are added to my regimen of Motrin and Valium. It’s my new form of meeting “deadlines”—popping all these pills at precise times throughout the day.

  My girlfriend, Pamela, flies in from Hong Kong and we settle into my sister Valerie’s guest room in Coronado. Pamela and I have been seeing one another on and off for more than a decade. Mostly off because of my career priorities and disinterest in committed relationships. She’s upbeat, adventurous, vibrant, and willing to put up with me. I now feel dependent on her and it makes me uncomfortable. Am I using her? Being selfish? I’m not sure and, anyway, I can’t really face it. The bottom line is that I need her support, physically and emotionally, more than ever.

  One month after surgery, with my new body brace strapped on tightly, I obediently follow the doctor’s orders and begin taking short walks through the quiet suburban neighborhoods of Coronado to strengthen my back and legs. Pamela steadies me as we go. I wear an oversized T-shirt to cover my Clamshell and Stim. It makes me look like a stiff, top-heavy robot from a B movie. I feel okay during these brief outings, but standing up without moving for more than a minute is excruciating and sitting for prolonged periods is out of the question. I’m forced to spend hours on the bed, my back propped up by fluffy pillows.

  Lying in bed, I devour the news voraciously, but every time a foreign correspondent comes on the air, it’s too much for me to handle. It should be me out there. Doing the only thing I know how to do. Pushing forward. Getting the story. Watching someone else in the field makes me feel helpless, worthless, and weak. I grab the remote, mute the TV, and default to the zombie stare.

  Every day I manage to walk a little farther, but I still feel tender, sore, and unstable in my spine. I expect the pain to be slowly diminishing, but I’m so heavily drugged it’s hard to tell if this is happening. Nevertheless, I stay meticulous with the schedule: w
earing the Clamshell and Stim all day long, removing the brace at bedtime, recharging the Stim overnight, strapping the brace back on every morning, hooking up the Stim again, taking all the meds religiously, never missing a walk, always pouring a glass of wine before bed. Maybe two glasses now and then. Sometimes three.

  Four weeks go by and nothing really changes. Before I know it, six weeks have passed. Still, no change. I’m staying devoted to the routine, praying that it all works. But my back remains terribly sore. Every time the drugs start to wear off and I feel the pain beginning to surge, I grab for the next dose as quickly as I can. It’s not the pain itself that troubles me. After so many years, I’m used to hurting all the time. It’s something deep down inside me that fears this might not work. There’s no way I can face such a possibility, and I have to shut that voice down any way I can. As I swallow the pills I silently say:

  It’s going to be okay.

  I’m going to make it.

  My back is going to heal.

  I’m going back to work soon.

  It’s been eight weeks now and still, not much change. My back remains unstable, and I can’t imagine walking without the Clamshell strapped on as tightly as possible. An occasional jolt of burning sciatica, which is caused by the compression of a spinal nerve, shoots down the back of my left leg. Eight weeks. This is when I should have been going back to work. Maybe it’s supposed to be this way. My back is healing, but the tenderness and instability will persist a while longer. When I see Dr. Assam, he confirms this possibility.

  “We can’t really tell what’s happening without a new scan,” he says in his usual distant tone.

  “Then can I go back to work?” I must sound like a broken record.

  “We’ll see,” he says in the same monotone. “Let’s get a new scan and go from there.”

  I can feel my anger and impatience starting to rise. I’m tired of all this. Could he have botched this operation? I almost confront him, but catch myself, stand up slowly, and trundle out of his office, unable to stop myself from slamming the door behind me as I go.

  The machine is a large, cream-colored, space-age device called a bone scanner. It’s much more sophisticated than an X-ray, capable of detecting the slightest sign of fusion in my back. I lie on a steel table as a substance called a radioactive tracer is injected into a vein on my forearm. The tracer, which feels like metallic ice water, flows through my bloodstream and eventually finds its way into my bones. The table electronically slides forward until I’m beneath the scanner. A special camera called a gamma detects the tracer, records images, and sends them to a monitor. Areas of rapid or new bone growth will show up as bright, hot spots. Dark or cold spots indicate areas with little or no blood flow. Any cold spots at the base of my spine, therefore, are indications that the fusion isn’t taking.

  When I meet with Dr. Assam afterward, I can see it on his face before he speaks a word.

  “It’s going to take more time,” he says, always deadpan, “maybe four to six more weeks.”

  It feels like a punch in the stomach and shakes my confidence. This isn’t part of the plan. If I have to wait any longer, I’ll explode.

  “Then why not go back home?” I can hear myself sounding frustrated and impatient. “I can start by working in the news bureau without any travel. I’ll wear the brace. Lean back in my chair or lie on the bureau couch. I’ll be careful.”

  The truth is, I’m furious with the doctor, blaming him for my lack of progress. But I have to be nice. Without his okay, NBC won’t approve my return. I persist, as calmly as I can, making my case that, aside from a long flight home to Hong Kong, it doesn’t matter where I am while the recovery process continues. “Alright,” Dr. Assam finally consents after giving it a great deal of thought. “Keep walking, use the Stim, don’t overdo it. Work no more than two or three hours a day at first, and only a few days a week. Get plenty of rest. Report in to me regularly.”

  I’m so thrilled about going back to Hong Kong that I can feel adrenalin rushing through me, but I’ve lost confidence in the doctor and have to be careful not to slam the door behind me again when I leave his office. The moment we return to Coronado, I book the next available flight to Hong Kong, and before the week is out, Pamela and I are in the air. I recline my first-class seat back as far as it will go, drink a glass of wine, and then dope myself up, deliberately knocking myself out for hours so I can endure the trip. When I finally come to, I look out the window and see the Hong Kong skyline glowing in the evening sky. I’m home. Nothing else matters. I’m home.

  As we drive to the end of Barker Road on Victoria Peak, my flat comes into view, glistening white against the lush, verdant background of the jungle foliage. I smile at the profound pleasure of being back in Asia and am already wondering what’s happening in China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and everywhere else in my region. I can’t wait to set foot in the bureau again, pitch a story to Nightly News, and have lunch at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, where I can catch up with old friends.

  Then I feel a small knot in my stomach as a voice flashes in my head:

  Can I really do this?

  How long will this be my home?

  Will I ever be pain free?

  I immediately shut the voice down and go into a state of complete denial, telling myself it’s impossible that the fusion will fail. It’s absolutely impossible.

  CHAPTER 13

  Pyongyang

  I LOOKED ODD enough hobbling down the sidewalks of Coronado in my body brace, but in Hong Kong I cause public scenes. I tower over most Asian people, and with my stilted gait I look like a giant robot from another planet. When someone bumps into me on the heavily crowded streets, which happens constantly because I lack the ability to maneuver, they’re shocked to hit my hard brace. They cry out with surprise and stare wide-eyed, thinking I might not be human.

  It’s the fall of 1992 and Bill Clinton has defeated incumbent George H. Bush for president of the United States. Domestic news has the upper hand at NBC and it’s all but impossible to sell a foreign story, so I’m off the hook at a perfect time. I spend most of my limited work hours at the bureau leaning back in my chair to keep the pressure off my back. I balance the keyboard on my lap and diligently track all the news in Asia on my computer, staying informed, keeping files on potential stories. Every hour, like clockwork, I lie down on the visitor’s couch by the bureau entrance and rest, then take another robot walk and scare the locals again. It’s frustrating, like being under the control of some invisible force that doesn’t have my best interests in mind.

  My growing anger, fear, and anxiety are worse than the physical pain. I hate the body brace, but I’m scared to death to take more than a few steps without it. I want to slam the Stim against a wall, but I keep hoping it’s going to work. I’m sick of all the pills, and yet I’m so dependent and frightened of what might happen without them that I never, ever miss a dose. I know I’m drinking too much, but I need it to release the tension. When I lunch at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club now, or anywhere else for that matter, I always have a glass of wine, or two. It’s a new habit, drinking this early in the day. I’ll do anything to numb my body and my mind.

  As I struggle to cope, a compelling story begins to unfold in one of the strangest, most forbidding countries in the world: North Korea. Longtime communist dictator Kim Il Sung runs a totalitarian dictatorship and rules his people with a brutal hand. Thought-police are everywhere. Critics of the regime are routinely tortured and killed. The economy is in shambles. People in the countryside are dying of starvation. There are rumors of cannibalism in remote rural villages.

  Kim’s only allies are Russia and China, and he even keeps them at bay, holding to a policy of juche, which is Korean for self-reliance. North Korea is highly militarized and a constant threat to stability in the region. Capitalism is vilified as the world’s greatest evil. But juche has proven to be a failure, and the regime is so strapped for cash that it has invited a group of high-ranking Ja
panese entrepreneurs for a historic tour. Kim is promising them workers, factories, and resources for next to nothing, hoping to persuade them to fund major industrial projects and get desperately needed capital in return.

  The Japanese have agreed to Kim’s offer, mostly because their economy is still on the rocks and an easy profit is appealing. Luckily, the businessmen insist that journalists be allowed to accompany them, which will boost their images back home. The story is a mustcover and, after some pleading and cajoling, I win Dr. Assam’s permission to make the trip, something NBC is still requiring. There’s one final catch: Journalists are rarely allowed into North Korea, and the Kim regime loathes Americans most of all. To ensure I get in, we submit our travel papers through my office in Tokyo under the names of my Japanese film crew. My name is at the bottom of the list like an afterthought. This simple ruse works, and I’m soon among the first American journalists ever to fly into the capital city of Pyongyang.

  I’ve seen a great deal of misery in the world, but never a place as strange as this. Kim has constructed a massive cult of personality, brainwashing his people into believing that he alone defeated the Allied Forces in World War II, and that he’s been worshipped daily throughout the world ever since. Americans and Europeans, Kim teaches his people, are subhuman and demonic. As the economy of North Korea nosedives, Kim funds more towering statues and colorful murals glorifying himself, while continuing to build his armed forces and periodically threatening to invade South Korea.

  Pyongyang is an extremely modern city with wide avenues, imposing monuments, and monolithic buildings. There’s a perfect replica of the Arc de Triomphe, intentionally built slightly taller than the original in Paris. The arch was dedicated on Kim’s seventieth birthday, with each of its 25,500 blocks of fine white granite representing a day of his life up to that point. It’s the epitome of arrogance and ego in the face of the plight of his people.