Comet's Tale (17 page)

My surgery and recovery time had taken up the entire day and night of Thursday. By Friday evening my body started to register the train wreck I had been in. Before the actual operation, I had anticipated that the initial postsurgery pain would be due to the incision from my front rib cage to my waist. If not the stomach, I assumed that the area along my spine, from just below my shoulder blades to my tailbone, might fire off jolts of pain wherever a rod or cage had been inserted. Instead, my first discomfort was from neither of those areas. An aching throb and burning stabs radiated from the muscles in my midback around to my front ribs.

“What's wrong?” Freddie had been stationed at my bedside in the ICU for most of the day, but because my tongue and mind still hadn't fully synchronized, I hadn't said a word to her. Now she saw me grimace and warned, “Wolfie, you are not going to pull that macho-macho routine this time. If you're in pain, the nurses need to know so they can get you something. What's wrong?”

“Smy bhhoth,” I mumbled.

“What?” I could tell that Freddie was trying not to giggle. She had the wide-eyed look of innocence, but her lips twitched like a cat's.

“Smiiii buuth . . .” My words were longer but no more intelligible. I lifted my right hand a few inches from the blanket. “Ubth thah!”

Freddie's giggles started as a soft huff, but squeals soon took full possession of her. She held her hand up, signaling that she was trying to stop. But I didn't want her to; the sound was wonderful. Then my laughter, still hoarse from the throat tubes and the effects of anesthesia, loudly joined in. God, it felt good!

The noise pulled my nurse into the doorway. “Is something wrong?” she asked. We spurted out another round of laughter while the nurse stood grinning at us. Freddie was the first to regain her senses. “I can tell that he's in pain, but he's having trouble explaining it to me.” Freddie wouldn't look at me, afraid that she'd lose it again.

With Freddie acting as interpreter, I was finally able to communicate the source of my pain. I could tell from the way she squeezed my hand that she was relieved. Freddie needed everybody, from doctor to nurses to her husband, to get their act together so she could leave for Sedona with some peace of mind. Guilt wouldn't haunt her if she knew my care was on automatic pilot. So it was no surprise that by Saturday Freddie had made giant strides in bringing my pain under better control, convincing the doctor to prescribe my usual fentanyl suckers and instructing the nurses to bring those disgusting treats to me at regular intervals—Freddie knew I wouldn't be smart enough to ask for one until the pain had already escalated.

Comet spent most of her time with Mom and Manny that week, although Freddie took long breaks away from me to walk her and assure her that the hotel was just temporary lodging. But by Saturday morning, Comet's patience was gone. She wanted to see me, and when Freddie opened the SUV's door Comet jumped in and refused to move.

“Out of the car, Comet,” Freddie commanded. The greyhound fixed her with the same stony glare she had used during my surgery. Comet got her way.

All intensive care units discourage visitors other than next of kin and very close friends. “I don't think she can be here,” warned the floor nurse when she saw Comet and Freddie approaching the door to my room.

I heard Freddie cheerfully respond, “Oh, she's my husband's service dog.”

“Service or not, I don't think animals are allowed in here.”

“Why?” Freddie no longer sounded so friendly.

The nurse's softening tone told me that Comet had entered the discussion by simply standing there. “Good question. I don't know. There are people who are allergic to dog hair . . .” The pause in the discussion sounded promising. “If she stays in your husband's room, I can't imagine there would be a problem.”

By that time Mom had arrived with Manny in tow. Comet led the group into my room. Until then I had been spinning in and out of reality, wrestling with irksome gaps in memory as I attempted to calculate how much time had elapsed since my surgery. A day? A week? For all I knew it could have been either.

However long it had been, it was too long for Comet. Her fidgeting beside my pillow reminded me of a lovesick teenager who hadn't seen her boyfriend for a
whole day!
As everybody was settling into the space, the nurse entered and ripped the Velcro on a blood pressure monitor she was removing from a wall bracket. At the sound, Comet's eyes dilated and her rear leg muscles tensed. Freddie saw Comet's alarm. “Comet, don't you—”

A chorus of gasps circled the room as Comet's body shot off the floor. Then, as light as a Colorado snowflake, she landed on the six-inch length of mattress alongside me, not even ruffling the blanket. With a stern glance at the speechless nurse standing on the other side of the bed, Comet settled her lean body onto the narrow landing strip, eyes staring into mine, leaning just enough weight against me to let me know she was there. I was used to Comet's amazing knack of leaping onto a bed without disturbing me in the slightest, but from the openmouthed silence that filled the room, I could tell that the others were suitably impressed. Comet comfortably rested at my side during the remainder of the visit. Freddie finally pried her from the bed with the leash for a late Saturday night departure.

Comet resumed her bed-top vigil on Sunday morning after I was moved out of ICU and into a regular room. By then I was stringing enough words together to form fairly comprehensible sentences. Freddie was surprised at the timing of the room switch, but the doctor told her, “He's tolerating the pain extremely well.”

And I was. I didn't want to say anything yet, but I had become increasingly aware of a strange feeling since late Saturday. In spite of the aching and burning in various parts of my sliced and hacked body, I was feeling really good. I didn't want to jump the loading chute by telling anybody else so early on; the narcotics still floating through my abused body might have been inducing a false euphoria. But the pain radiating from the repair efforts was so much less intense than what I had been living with for eight years that I felt as if I had been in nothing more serious than a minor sledding accident.

It soon became apparent that my recovery was proceeding faster than anticipated. As other parts of my body began to catch up to my speech, I was rudely reminded that the three days since surgery was an eon to my intestines. “Freddie, the good news is that I'm finally over most of the effects of the anesthesia.” I pulled her down toward the bed so I could whisper into her ear. “The bad news is, I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh, good!” Freddie exclaimed. “Let me get the bedpan for you!” There are few things in life as obnoxious as the loud voice of a medical professional announcing the prospect of a bowel movement. When that person happens to be your wife broadcasting the news to the rest of the family, it's even more humiliating.

As Mom and Manny scrambled to their feet, I did something really mean. I pushed Comet off the bed. I threw the thin bedsheet away from my body. Then I rolled over. I put my feet on the floor. I pushed myself upright. I was standing—by myself. Without Comet or canes!

“Holy crap!” yelled my mom, never one to hold back on expletives.

Comet pushed her body next to mine, expecting me to lean on her, openly amazed when I did not. I failed to notice that I was swaying like brittle prairie grass in the wind. Freddie rushed through the electric silence to give my weak body some much-needed support. She was clearly stunned. With a dramatic wave of my arm I proclaimed, “To the bathroom, Tonto!”

16

AUGUST 2005–OCTOBER 2006—DENVER AND SEDONA

Dr. Frey, along with the entire hospital staff, was surprised at how quickly I was able to lift myself off the mattress and onto the floor on that first triumphant trip to the bathroom. But nobody was as shocked as I was. All my life, whenever I had approached an important peak, my health would send me plummeting back down the icy slopes. I would eventually pull myself together and resume the climb to the top, only to topple down and begin all over. Again and again and again . . . Despite my confidence that Dr. Frey could ease some of my pain, by the time I was slapped onto the surgical table, my expectations had been pathetically low.
Just let me have one hour—one measly period of sixty minutes—where I feel anywhere as good as I used to. Just give me a
memory
of what feeling good was like.

During the first week after surgery, I attributed the twenty minutes that would elapse between stabs of leg pain to anesthesia and all the other drugs swimming through my system. When my feet didn't burn as if someone were scorching them with a cigar lighter, I didn't allow myself to believe the pain could actually have diminished. When I stood up from bed, accepting Freddie's help to the bathroom, I was scared to give voice to the nagging notion that I felt pretty damn good considering what I'd been through.
If it seems too good to be true, it is. Don't even think it. You'll just be crushed tomorrow.

At three o'clock in the morning, six days after surgery, I was on my feet and walking the halls hands-free for the first time in eight years—no canes, no walker, and no dog—weeks earlier than anybody had anticipated. Every incredible step down that long corridor caused a fresh round of gleeful sobbing, although I tried to stifle my tears, not wanting to tempt fate.
Could it be? Can this actually be happening to me?
“Yes, yes,
YES
! Oh God,
YES
!” Until I started shouting, the floor nurses hadn't even recognized me. My detour into the shower room caused an alert for “patient needing assistance,” but the nurse's presence in the bathroom didn't dent my spirits as I stood there joyously, water pouring over my stitched and swollen body.

Freddie and Comet departed for Sedona early on Tuesday morning, planning to return to Denver in a week. Comet had to be physically removed from my bed, Freddie dragging her dead weight down the hallway while I listened to her nails scrape on the tile floor. Before she left, Freddie warned me, “Just take your time.” But not even her suspicions could dampen my determination to get out of the hospital as fast as I could.

Dr. Frey's office had not anticipated making physical therapy arrangements outside the hospital for another two weeks, but I skated through in-patient therapy in two swift sessions, so hospital protocol and insurance dictated that I be placed in an off-site setting for the duration of my recovery. I called Freddie to report my miraculous progress.

“So I'm out of here on Friday,” I crowed.

“
What?
You can't be serious,” my wife sputtered. “Why can't you ever do things the normal way? You . . . you . . .”

Ignoring Freddie's not-so-ambiguous response, I continued with my scheme to escape the hospital. Before she had time to plan her return, I was transported to a room in the long-term assisted living facility that had been designated as my rehab center. I lasted all of two days before calling a taxi. It wasn't that the rehab people weren't good at their jobs; it's just that I didn't want to stick around after the first Code Blue resulted in a sheet-covered gurney being wheeled past my room. And I can't lie: the thought of giving myself the remainder of my required blood-thinning injections while enjoying a room-service rib eye and soft plush sheets appealed to me. I don't think it helped Freddie's state of mind when I told her I would be waiting for her at a hotel. She knew me too well.

Freddie's frosty mood during her three-day Colorado “vacation”—staying in the hotel while we completed my blood-thinning regimen—signaled that she questioned my sanity. Dr. Frey, though, believed my promises that I wouldn't do anything foolish if he released me many weeks earlier than originally planned. He was reassured by the fact that Freddie had medical experience.

“I'm back!” was my unofficial mantra on the drive from Denver to Sedona. Comet's shining eyes and adoring stares told me that she liked my mood. Freddie did not share Comet's enthusiasm.

“Why do you always have to prove that you're meaner and tougher, that you can do twice what the doctors order? Why don't you feel like you deserve the luxury of taking your time? I'm telling you now, do not rush this rehab and then say you did it to make my life easier.
Je te connais
. Don't do it.”

Ultimately, however, my buoyant attitude was contagious. Even cautious Freddie caught the bug. I was walking again, and the truth was that my entire family desperately wanted the same result I did. Sandoz seemed both befuddled and overjoyed at the new me. Once we were back in Sedona, I launched into a regimen of physical therapy that included at-home exercises and sessions at a facility in Sedona. A blissful smile never left my face as I sampled the freedoms of walking on a treadmill or peddling a stationary bike. Comet was treated as a favored guest and provided with her own exercise mat on which to rest as she monitored my efforts. She seemed to be energized by the people who were helping me, going out of her way to greet the therapists. She had never before shown any inclination to express affection to strangers (unless they were uniformed).

With the passing of each muscle-strengthening day, it became easier for me to believe that I was cured. On the surface I certainly seemed to be a different man. One of our neighbors, a kindly retiree named Madeleine, had been watching me stumble around ever since I moved to Sedona. We shared a fondness for books and I would often discuss them with her when she was in her yard. About three weeks after my return, I ventured out of the house for a walk around the block. Comet assisted with my balance, but I was not bent over my canes. Madeleine was the first person we ran into. She approached us and then stopped, squinting up at my face with a puzzled expression.

“Hi, Madeleine.”

“You must be Wolf's brother,” she finally decided. “You sound like him, too, but you're a little taller.” It was the first time in five years that any of my neighbors had seen me standing upright.

“Madeleine, it's me. Wolf.”

Her lips pursed. After examining my face for several more moments, she murmured, “Yeah, okay, I'll take your word for it,” and continued down the street, plainly unconvinced.

I encountered similar incredulous reactions from the fraternity of people who had entered my orbit during my Sedona years. The first time Bill and Jana spied me walking alone, I thought somebody had just told them they had won the lottery. Rindy's embrace when I stopped by her real estate office almost sent me back to Denver. Pam, whom I had avoided for almost a year as I became increasingly hopeless about my health, cried with happiness. Ben couldn't hug me enough. Not one of these friends recognized me at first. It always took a double or triple take for them to be sure it was me. People started sticking around for celebratory dinners that covered all hours of the night. The misidentifications, astonished reactions, and subsequent compliments about my upright posture and healthy glow were like cotton candy to a kid. The buzzing high kept me revved up far more than was good for me.

The increased speed of the world I now lived in just served as a reminder of how much time I had lost, creating a manic circle—having more made me want more. Even though I was often exhausted, my muscles knotted from unfamiliar levels of activity, I considered those feelings to be a reward for hard work, sort of like the feeling that used to overtake me during football practices in college. By the end of September, I convinced Freddie that I was strong enough to fly by myself (without Comet) to Omaha to surprise Kylie at the ceremony for her admission to the Nebraska State Bar Association. It was my first solo flight in eight years. Kylie and Lindsey were dumbstruck by my appearance and good cheer.

“Dad, I hardly recognized you! You look so . . . so . . . healthy!” Kylie had a lot on her plate that day, but her tears were for me. Lindsey's eyes were moist, too, but her response was more reserved. “You look great, Dad, but how are you feeling?”

“Like a million bucks!”

“Really?”

“Linds, this is the real thing. Dr. Frey is a miracle worker.”

“If you say so.”

I let her skeptical tone ride, preferring to assume that, like Freddie, my daughters now believed in this fairy tale. The frog was once again a prince!

Judges, lawyers, and clerks who attended the swearing-in ceremony went out of their way to find me and marvel at my transformation. “I can't believe it's you! You look so good! I would never have recognized you!” Little did they know that their comments were fueling my unspoken desire to return to practicing law. After all, at age fifty-one I should be at the peak of my profession.

I ignored the first inklings that it might be wise to take my expectations down a few notches. After flying to Omaha, driving another hour to the state's Capitol Building in Lincoln, attending the ceremony and joining in several celebrations that followed, I was unable to sleep. That night my pelvis began to throb uncontrollably, almost in rhythm to the stabbing of my feet and toes. “Just inflamed nerves. It's going to take a while for everything to calm down. It doesn't happen overnight,” I mumbled to myself, prayerlike, while I massaged my feet. Three days of bed rest after my return to Sedona, and I was back—again!

Comet was in the midst of her own adjustments. She had known me when she was simply a pet whom I thoroughly enjoyed as a companion and roommate. She had no expectations of me beyond trusting that I would walk her, be kind to her, and make sure the food in her bowl didn't get stale. Comet then became one of my primary caretakers, a relationship that imposed enormous duties on her and transformed her role from friend to supervisor. As a service dog, Comet expected me to act less like a drinking buddy and more like a mature adult who cared about his own safety. For the past four years I had depended on her every moment that I was not in a chair or a bed.

Now, however, I no longer required Comet to help me balance when I got out of bed. I could usually wrangle myself out of a chair without her assistance, and I could walk around the house unaided by dog or cane. Comet the service dog wasn't needed as often. Then again, I occasionally still asked her to pull me to my feet or help me balance. Comet had a hard time figuring out what her role was supposed to be. Sometimes when I was upright and unassisted she would look utterly confused, her tail pulled up under her abdomen and her eyes pinched and worried.

“Would you quit it? We've talked about this! Get out of the way!” After my return from Omaha I had been confident that I could walk around outdoors without dog or canes. Comet wasn't buying it, and had begun bracing herself across the front doorway, refusing to budge and blocking me whenever I tried to exit.

“I already told you. I do not need a crutch!” Squeezing my body past the rigid dog, I would depart. Comet would scrunch through the narrow opening before I could slam the door shut. I'm positive that the only reason she wanted to come along was so that she could revel in the exquisite “I told you so” moment that was usually only fifteen minutes away.

“Don't tell me I have to walk all the way back to the front door to get a cane.” Leaning on Comet, I would stumble back, muttering to her all the way, “Don't act so cocky. I might just hook you up to the walker.”

As long as I remembered cane and dog, I was soon able to negotiate my way around our oversized lot—for the very first time. My stroll around every vivid square foot of trees, shrubs, and flowering sage and cactus felt like a visit to a world-class botanical garden. As my mood improved, I went from admiring the landscaping to pruning, trimming, and irrigating. I had some understanding of the physical changes that were making my muscles sore and tired as they were increasingly challenged, but I also chose this period, over my doctor's strong objections, to try to eliminate all my pain medications so I could determine my baseline of discomfort.

As I dialed back the medications over the passing weeks, withdrawal symptoms stressed my already fragile systems. I was enormously fatigued from simple exercises that I hadn't done by myself in years, such as walking, although admittedly the walks now covered far more distance than they should have. As my body cleansed itself, I started detecting throbbing and burning that I prayed was just temporary phantom pain.

“Don't you think you should spend a little less time gardening and more time getting some healthy rest?” This was Freddie's daily refrain, eventually becoming more of a rote comment than a statement of concern as winter and spring passed into the summer of 2006. Freddie would return home from work to find me splayed on a chaise lounge, nearly comatose from the day's efforts. At least I had the sense to situate myself on the shady patio and have a gin and tonic waiting for her. But she wasn't interested. “I was hoping we could meet some friends at the Village Pub. There's a jazz group playing tonight. But I guess you're too tired. Again.”

Kylie and Lindsey often called me in the early evening when they got out of classes or were done working for the day. Increasingly, however, Freddie had to tell them that I had fallen into bed at five o'clock. She would assure the girls that my recovery was progressing, but they were dubious. So was Jackie. The third time she visited from Flagstaff specifically to see me, only to find me oblivious to her presence, she told her mom, “From now on I'll just call.”

The stress of trying to produce a perfect recovery caused me to revert to bad habits. Instead of the half hour of daily therapeutic exercises prescribed by my physical therapist, I did two one-hour sessions every day. Walking became my own personal marathon. Pruning now included raking and lifting. Not even old clients were safe. My phone bill ballooned as I began setting the stage for my return to law. Because my mind had become as flexible as a steel post by the time my wife moved to Arizona, Freddie had been forced into the role of bookkeeper. She continued in that role primarily because we both still had doubts about my ability to deal with details. I was great on my big picture expectations, but the little things? Not so good. I waited for her to question the phone charges, but she said nothing.