Life disrupted in one step

By JoAnne Young

I took a step one night in September. I thought it was the right step. But just as I tried to take another, a step forward into my normal future, I discovered a second step, hidden in the dark, that stopped time. 

 

Here I was, missing that step, landing hard on concrete. My future, over there, where normal time continued with the second half of the Husker football game and pizza and chatting with friends, was lost to me. 

 

I entered a time warp, a painful one, involving a high stakes surgeon, lots of ceiling views, an existential stroll through the narcotics cabinet, and an apprentice’s introduction to new people, new ideas. 

 

Quantum physics all around me, acting on every scale. (Hmmm, is that the hydrocodone talking?) 

 

Long story short, when I crashed hard on the concrete my femur pushed through its familiar territory and into my pelvis, breaking it into Humpty-Dumpty pieces. Thus the need for the royal surgeon to put me back together again. 

 

Now, here I sit in rehab, trying to regain some hard-fought control and some faded strength and conditioning. Not waving the white flag, mind you. Learning the one-legged human role that has been assigned to me for 10 weeks. 

 

Along the way, I have been handed lessons. May I share some with you? 

 

* When you leave your home on any given day, with only your wallet or purse or backpack, you don’t usually consider you could be separated from your belongings – your clothes, your phone charger, your favorite books or teas – unexpectedly, for days or weeks. How would you describe to someone what you need and how to find those things to bring to you while you are temporarily cut off? Especially when you are a bit shaken. 

 

Maybe many of you are more organized than I am, but when I had to tell my husband what I needed and where it was, it took many more brain cells than I had available at the time. Clothes are scattered in a couple of closets and numerous drawers on two floors. While I know all the nooks and crannies I would look in to find things quickly, it’s a much bigger chore to explain it to someone else. 

 

* I have many caring friends and loved ones and while I know that, I don’t appreciate it often enough, like every day often enough. I know I need them, but I frequently forget they need me, too. Please don’t ever let that thought slip away. 

 

* I met so many good people, both experienced and just starting out, in health care. I spent nine days at Bryan Medical Center West, waiting a couple of days for my first major surgery ever and then recovering from that surgery.

 

During those days I talked to several dozen nurses, nursing assistants, health technicians, physical and occupational therapists, and several doctors. They were both women and men. Some were travelers, some students, others working to move up to higher positions. They talked about how nursing and hospital work has changed, especially in the past four years, to become more stressful and demanding, and how patients have become more disagreeable and at times combative. I found almost every one of those health workers to be caring and helpful and their stories to be compelling. 

 

They all start out with the motivation to help people. They learn far too quickly how much more complex the motivation must be to stay in the field. We, as patients, need to show them how important they are to us and to our daily lives. 

 

* When you spend hour upon hour in a hospital room, you have a lot of time to think about your life and the lives of others. In the predicament I found myself, my mind often drifted across the ocean to places like Ukraine and Gaza. How awful would it be if we were injured and in pain and did not have competent and available paramedics, doctors, nurses, well equipped hospitals, skilled surgeons, sterile operating rooms, ambulances, emergency rooms with immediate treatment options?  We are so lucky to have such good access to care in our city, our state. I spent more than a few minutes each night thinking about the people in those war zones who are suffering, and pondering the what ifs. 

 

* Lastly ... during my stay at Bryan West I was able to get a close look at the nine-foot mosaic pillars at the entrance to the hospital created by UNL’s Eddie Dominguez to commemorate the experiences of medical personnel, hospital staff, patients and families during the Covid 19 pandemic. In those pillars he recreated the reflections, efforts and emotions of all those affected by those years of connections and disconnections, suffering and fears the pandemic brought to our community. 

 

The feelings expressed in Dominguez’ art aren’t confined to the Covid years, but can be felt now, here and universally by those seeking and giving safekeeping and care. 

 

Those words he engraved in mosaic: “Exhausted, sensitive, sympathy, resilient, confidence, abandoned, challenging, overwhelming, friendly. Happiness. Amazing. 

 

We can turn these experiences into gratitude, into pieces of our personal narratives. 

 

I wish you all good health. And please, no quantum leaps. 

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