After two weeks in the infernal contraption, I realized that there had to be a better way to do things. It took some thought, but I realized that I'd have to force the change by somewhat drastic measures. I hated the bedpan, and I wanted nothing more than to be able to sit up when I was in my wheelchair. Thankfully, the time on the standing table in physical therapy helped me out quite a bit. One Tuesday morning, after breakfast, the orderlies came in to help get me in the wheelchair for another session in therapy. After getting situated in the chair and wheeling around for a minute, I told them that I needed to go to the bathroom, and that the jug wasn't going to cut it. They didn't want to put me back in the bed, so I told them that I had an idea. I rolled myself into the bathroom, then stood up on my uncasted leg. With the help of the grab bars, I rotated myself around and managed to get myself situated on the toilet to take care of business. In a few short minutes, I was done and ready to move on with my day. I called for an orderly again to help me back into the chair and asked her to put the back of my chair closer to upright. She was a little concerned about my request, but did what I asked. When I finally made myself comfortable, my right foot was close to the floor and I was sitting upright. Carol, my morning nurse on the weekdays, was shocked to see me sitting up when I rolled in to the hallway!
It was great to be able to look people in the eye again, and the nurses appreciated the fact that I wasn't running over them anymore. I started moving in and out of the chair by standing up instead of sliding across, and my left leg greatly appreciated the workout. Two months later, my physical therapist would remark that it seemed to make my transition out of the cast much easier.
Amidst my progress, things weren't so happy back home. In Boerne, a five hour drive away, my grandmother's health took a turn for the worse.
Earlier in the story, I briefly introduced my paternal grandmother, Patsy. My sister and I had always called her Granny (as opposed to Grandma, which was reserved for my maternal grandmother.) We'd celebrated her birthday a week after my tonsils had been removed. She was quite a character. A florist for most of her life, she was diagnosed with leukemia in the months after I was born and her doctors told her she had maybe five or six years. In my early childhood, she closed down her flower shop in downtown San Antonio and became more of a recluse. Many of my childhood memories involve sitting at her house playing Uno, Skip-Bo, and Mille Bornes into all hours of the night when my parents were fighting or needed a break from the kids. Her morning coffee was of the instant variety, the Cafe Francais powdered stuff...with a shot of Old Smuggler scotch. The rest of the day, she'd drink nothing but scotch and milk on ice. She'd go through two to three packs of Benson & Hedges menthols every day as well, but I think she actually smoked about a pack. She'd light one in her bedroom, take a few drags, then set it in the ashtray and go to the bathroom. There she kept another pack, and she'd light one and smoke on it while she did her business. It too would burn in the ashtray when she was done. She'd repeat the same process in the living room and kitchen throughout the day. It's a wonder the house never burned down! But on the bright side, she always had interesting stories to tell, and she loved playing cards. I think if it weren't for those years of games, I wouldn't have nearly as many outlets for my stress today.
Moving on with the story, Granny was living with us in the house in Boerne. One afternoon in early July, my father came home from work to find her on the living room floor. Apparently she had blacked out and fallen down. Surprisingly, she had no major injuries, but she wasn't all there anymore. Her words were scattered and making no sense whatsoever. My father called for an ambulance to take her to Wilford Hall. It turns out she had suffered from a viral infection that had an effect similar to that of a stroke. I was deeply concerned for her, but being in the hospital myself, just over 200 miles away, there wasn't much I could do to help and I accepted that I didn't have a way to go see her. My father had other plans. He knew that I might not have much time left to see her, so he got on the phone with my doctor and my physical therapist. They came up with a working plan that not only would allow me to see Granny one more time, it would give me a day away from the routine of the hospital and allow me to see Michael, my best friend of many years. My father and sister drove over to Houston one night and slept at my dad's friend's house. Bright and early the next morning, I was at the entrance to the hospital ready to be loaded up for the trip. Fortunately, we had a van with plenty of room, and it just took a few pillows to get me situated with the cast and the seats. The first order of business was Starbucks, and then the open highway to San Antonio. My father even let me have a few cigarettes on the trip, which I didn't expect him to do. I'd refrained from smoking during my time in the hospital, but my nerves were shaken with Granny's situation. I'm glad he understood!
We arrived at Wilford Hall around lunchtime. Getting out of the van proved to be easier than I expected, and the staff at the hospital gave me strange looks as they didn't recognize me as a patient of theirs. I was wheeled up to my grandmother's room, where she was somewhat aware of her surroundings. Not being sure what to expect, I wheeled up next to her bed and took her hand. She looked at me and gave me a big smile, then started to mumble incoherently. I began to worry that she might be developing Alzheimer's, just as her father had in my younger years. Dad reassured me that it was a result of the infection and that the doctors expected her to recover most of her faculties. I spent a couple of hours sitting there with her, telling stories about my stay in the hospital and what the prognosis was on my newly fused hip. She smiled a lot, and seemed happy just to have me in the room. Sadly, it was time to think about going back to Houston. I stood up for my grandmother and tried to give her a hug...but failed miserably. I couldn't bend myself in the right direction with my cast, so I sat down, took her hand again, and told her that I would see her again soon. She smiled again, and we went back to the lobby and the waiting van.
I met up with Michael before going back to Houston. We had coffee at Starbucks while he teased me about my cage, although he stopped as soon as I told him how much weight I'd lost since the surgery. When I checked in to the hospital, I was 302 pounds. At that point, with the cast on, I weighed in at 274. I'm pretty sure the cast was fairly heavy, but we had no way to know for sure at that point. He gave me a hug and we loaded up again for Houston. It was another long journey, but fortunately the traffic was headed the opposite direction. We stopped for a Whataburger before I went back to the hospital and their bland food. That night, alone in my hospital bed, I realized that I'd done a lot that day and that it might be the last time I got to see Granny.
More to come soon! I promise! Life is what happens when you're making other plans, unfortunately, but now that my schedule has evened itself out, I plan to be posting MUCH more in the coming days. I'm even going to open up a CafePress shop as another way to contribute to the cause. Send me ideas for slogans or pictures to put on the merchandise!
Justin
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Chapter Eight: Confinement, Part Two
Still in the Step Down unit, I had a very tough time adapting to my situation. Changing the bed sheets was an ordeal in itself, and going to the bathroom was far worse. I won't go in to much detail there! I was also on respiratory therapy for the first two weeks after surgery. A week after surgery, my IVs were removed and my morphine pump taken away. Unfortunately, I was given vicodin as an alternative, and I started going through those like candy. After taking two on an empty stomach, I was bordering on delirious and turned on the TV across the room for some background noise. Not being able to see it or fully comprehend what was going made it just short of irritating. The doctor ordered another x-ray to see what everything looked like, and Tanya, the x-ray technician, wheeled her mobile unit in. I didn't even realize that the TV was tuned to the Maury Povich show, which, on that particular afternoon, featured a few transsexuals with the audience guessing who was born a woman and who was not. Tanya immediately noticed this, and from that day forward, teased me about it.
The x-rays were taken and I was left to spend the rest of the day mostly in solitude. All I wanted to do was see something other than the bars surrounding my hospital bed and the tiles of the ceiling. I tried to count them several times, but the combination of vicodin and almost no food left me fairly confused before I could count to 40. I was fortunate to have a few visitors during my stay, including some distant relatives from Florida whom I hadn't seen in years and the teacher who took me to Orlando and helped me acheive my fifteen minutes of high school fame. Knowing that people out in the world really cared and wanted to see me recover made the trials and tribulations worthwhile and encouraged me to work a little harder on my therapy.
Day 11
The doctors decided that I could leave the Step Down unit, as I no longer required constant monitoring. I was moved to the room next door, still alone for the time being. Knowing that in a few more days I would be getting a cast, the Physical Therapy department brought up a "standing table" to assist my preparation. This particular device, at first, seemed like it would fit in nicely with the private collection of the Marquis de Sade. It was a thin and hard board, barely padded, with an extension at one end for my feet to rest against and straps down the length of it, vaguely reminding me of the bed one might find in an execution chamber. Removing my traction rigging left me with an intense urge to scratch my leg, although, to my disappointment, I was unable to reach it! This feeling would pop up regularly during the next three months. I was situated on the standing board for the first time and given the control to slowly tilt the table up so that I could eventually stand and support my weight on my left leg. The first try left me dizzy, panicked, and in great pain. More vicodin to the rescue! They kept me on the board all day and told me to take it slow. Since my body had been accustomed to one position for almost two weeks, it would take some work to tolerate standing up again. By the next afternoon, I was standing straight up on the board and finally able to see the TV.
Over the weekend, I spent most of the daytime on the board standing up. The nurses told me that I would need to be standing for a while when they put the cast on and that once they began, it would be unlikely that I'd have a chance to rest. After hearing the doctor's description of the cast, I had too many questions run through my mind.
Day 15
The nurses managed to get me out of bed early and wheeled me, on the standing table, down to the Physical Therapy department one floor below. Apparently the level of planning for this event was somewhere between the Academy Awards and landing on the moon. Sheets were draped around a set of assistive bars for patients learning to walk again. I was wheeled up to the bars and brought up to standing once again. After acclimating to my vertical position, I was given a few minutes to rest my left leg as it would have a lot of work to do for the next few hours. During this time, I was given the opportunity to find out how it feels to have staples removed from my skin. It was a rather unique feeling, but what surprised me was the fact that I only felt every other staple coming out. After a few minutes with a small cloth, the minor bleeding ceased and it was time to get started. Given the plan of the cast, it was necessary for me to strip down to a small piece of cloth that offered very little coverage or comfort. Once it was in place, I was once again brought to a standing position and told to reach for the bars. The straps were released one by one, with my father standing alongside me to offer support if I needed it and give me a little encouragement. Trying to hop forward on my good leg without moving my right hip was a painful and serious challenge, but somehow I managed to make it two feet. Maj. Ross and Dr. Haynes began the casting procedure with help from two of the orthotics staff. They started at my ankle, positioning my knee and hip at the correct angles and adding steel support bars around my knee. After twenty or thirty minutes, my leg was encased from the top of my thigh to my ankle. The next step proved to be much more difficult, as my arms were close by my side, hands gripped firmly on the guide bars to take some of the pressure off of my left leg. My father and one of the orthotics staff came in on either side of me and each took an arm over their shoulder to hold me up. The doctors then began to wrap my abdomen in the cloth liner, then in the casting material. An hour later, I had two disconnected casts and wanted nothing more than a vicodin with a vodka chaser, but alas, our task was not yet complete. The next task was to fit the upper portion of the cast to my arms so that I could comfortably hold myself up to complete the procedure. It only took two cuts on each side and a few pieces of padding before I was holding myself up again. Maj. Ross grabbed another steel support rod and placed it alongside my right hip, taping it to the two sections of cast already on my body. His trusty tool for measuring joint angles ended up getting a lot of use as they aligned the two sections and added another two support rods on the front and back of the casts. Now the fun would commence as they padded the section around my hip and began to wrap the cast rolls around my waist, across my hip, and down around my thigh to complete the contraption. Another hour later, the cast was finished and drying. By this point, my left leg was about to collapse on itself and I was once again in tears, hoping it would all be over quickly.
A few very long minutes later, the cast had dried and I started to inch backward, expecting to get back on the standing board to be returned to my room. Much to my surprise, however, an extra-wide wheelchair was brought up behind me. Sitting down in the wheelchair took the help of five people, and when I was finally situated, I was in much the same position I'd originally expected to be in. The wheelchair had a reclining back, and the doctors insisted that I be put as close to flat as possible to elevate my casted leg. The next stop for the day was another x-ray to check the alignment of my hip in the cast, and I realized it would be quite easy for Tanya to reposition me in the cast as any movement of my foot would rotate my whole body. The doctors were pleased with the work, and I was taken to the cafeteria for a late lunch. Unfortunately, being in such a reclined position, I couldn't get close enough to the table to reach my food. I had to reposition to where the table was to one side of me, and even then it was quite difficult to eat. Half of my sandwich ended up on my shirt. It took several more days to master the art of eating from such an awkward position.
The most fortunate part of being in the cast was that I could finally raise the head of my bed so I could see my surroundings. From room 702, I had a view of a small wooded area and some of Houston's urban sprawl. With binoculars, I could see the traffic on highways in the distance and be thankful I wasn't driving in it. I also started going downstairs twice each day for thirty minutes on the standing board. Sadly, I learned what it must be like to drive a car with the driver's seat fully reclined. It was impossible to see what was in front of me, and within the first three days I'd bruised my foot on furniture and walls, and I'd bruised a few other people by running in to them. Moving from the bed to the wheelchair and back was also quite an ordeal, requiring me to lift myself up on the bars over the bed and slide sideways into the chair or back across to the bed. I'd also continued to suffer the indignity of using a bedpan and developed a new respect for the nurses and orderlies responsible for helping me with that ordeal every day.
The x-rays were taken and I was left to spend the rest of the day mostly in solitude. All I wanted to do was see something other than the bars surrounding my hospital bed and the tiles of the ceiling. I tried to count them several times, but the combination of vicodin and almost no food left me fairly confused before I could count to 40. I was fortunate to have a few visitors during my stay, including some distant relatives from Florida whom I hadn't seen in years and the teacher who took me to Orlando and helped me acheive my fifteen minutes of high school fame. Knowing that people out in the world really cared and wanted to see me recover made the trials and tribulations worthwhile and encouraged me to work a little harder on my therapy.
Day 11
The doctors decided that I could leave the Step Down unit, as I no longer required constant monitoring. I was moved to the room next door, still alone for the time being. Knowing that in a few more days I would be getting a cast, the Physical Therapy department brought up a "standing table" to assist my preparation. This particular device, at first, seemed like it would fit in nicely with the private collection of the Marquis de Sade. It was a thin and hard board, barely padded, with an extension at one end for my feet to rest against and straps down the length of it, vaguely reminding me of the bed one might find in an execution chamber. Removing my traction rigging left me with an intense urge to scratch my leg, although, to my disappointment, I was unable to reach it! This feeling would pop up regularly during the next three months. I was situated on the standing board for the first time and given the control to slowly tilt the table up so that I could eventually stand and support my weight on my left leg. The first try left me dizzy, panicked, and in great pain. More vicodin to the rescue! They kept me on the board all day and told me to take it slow. Since my body had been accustomed to one position for almost two weeks, it would take some work to tolerate standing up again. By the next afternoon, I was standing straight up on the board and finally able to see the TV.
Over the weekend, I spent most of the daytime on the board standing up. The nurses told me that I would need to be standing for a while when they put the cast on and that once they began, it would be unlikely that I'd have a chance to rest. After hearing the doctor's description of the cast, I had too many questions run through my mind.
Day 15
The nurses managed to get me out of bed early and wheeled me, on the standing table, down to the Physical Therapy department one floor below. Apparently the level of planning for this event was somewhere between the Academy Awards and landing on the moon. Sheets were draped around a set of assistive bars for patients learning to walk again. I was wheeled up to the bars and brought up to standing once again. After acclimating to my vertical position, I was given a few minutes to rest my left leg as it would have a lot of work to do for the next few hours. During this time, I was given the opportunity to find out how it feels to have staples removed from my skin. It was a rather unique feeling, but what surprised me was the fact that I only felt every other staple coming out. After a few minutes with a small cloth, the minor bleeding ceased and it was time to get started. Given the plan of the cast, it was necessary for me to strip down to a small piece of cloth that offered very little coverage or comfort. Once it was in place, I was once again brought to a standing position and told to reach for the bars. The straps were released one by one, with my father standing alongside me to offer support if I needed it and give me a little encouragement. Trying to hop forward on my good leg without moving my right hip was a painful and serious challenge, but somehow I managed to make it two feet. Maj. Ross and Dr. Haynes began the casting procedure with help from two of the orthotics staff. They started at my ankle, positioning my knee and hip at the correct angles and adding steel support bars around my knee. After twenty or thirty minutes, my leg was encased from the top of my thigh to my ankle. The next step proved to be much more difficult, as my arms were close by my side, hands gripped firmly on the guide bars to take some of the pressure off of my left leg. My father and one of the orthotics staff came in on either side of me and each took an arm over their shoulder to hold me up. The doctors then began to wrap my abdomen in the cloth liner, then in the casting material. An hour later, I had two disconnected casts and wanted nothing more than a vicodin with a vodka chaser, but alas, our task was not yet complete. The next task was to fit the upper portion of the cast to my arms so that I could comfortably hold myself up to complete the procedure. It only took two cuts on each side and a few pieces of padding before I was holding myself up again. Maj. Ross grabbed another steel support rod and placed it alongside my right hip, taping it to the two sections of cast already on my body. His trusty tool for measuring joint angles ended up getting a lot of use as they aligned the two sections and added another two support rods on the front and back of the casts. Now the fun would commence as they padded the section around my hip and began to wrap the cast rolls around my waist, across my hip, and down around my thigh to complete the contraption. Another hour later, the cast was finished and drying. By this point, my left leg was about to collapse on itself and I was once again in tears, hoping it would all be over quickly.
A few very long minutes later, the cast had dried and I started to inch backward, expecting to get back on the standing board to be returned to my room. Much to my surprise, however, an extra-wide wheelchair was brought up behind me. Sitting down in the wheelchair took the help of five people, and when I was finally situated, I was in much the same position I'd originally expected to be in. The wheelchair had a reclining back, and the doctors insisted that I be put as close to flat as possible to elevate my casted leg. The next stop for the day was another x-ray to check the alignment of my hip in the cast, and I realized it would be quite easy for Tanya to reposition me in the cast as any movement of my foot would rotate my whole body. The doctors were pleased with the work, and I was taken to the cafeteria for a late lunch. Unfortunately, being in such a reclined position, I couldn't get close enough to the table to reach my food. I had to reposition to where the table was to one side of me, and even then it was quite difficult to eat. Half of my sandwich ended up on my shirt. It took several more days to master the art of eating from such an awkward position.
The most fortunate part of being in the cast was that I could finally raise the head of my bed so I could see my surroundings. From room 702, I had a view of a small wooded area and some of Houston's urban sprawl. With binoculars, I could see the traffic on highways in the distance and be thankful I wasn't driving in it. I also started going downstairs twice each day for thirty minutes on the standing board. Sadly, I learned what it must be like to drive a car with the driver's seat fully reclined. It was impossible to see what was in front of me, and within the first three days I'd bruised my foot on furniture and walls, and I'd bruised a few other people by running in to them. Moving from the bed to the wheelchair and back was also quite an ordeal, requiring me to lift myself up on the bars over the bed and slide sideways into the chair or back across to the bed. I'd also continued to suffer the indignity of using a bedpan and developed a new respect for the nurses and orderlies responsible for helping me with that ordeal every day.
Chapter Seven: Confinement, Part One
June 7, 1998
Houston, TX
We drove to Houston the previous evening and once again spent the night at my father's friend's home. Every time I see their kids, I'm amazed at how fast they're growing and I realize that Hoppy must think the same about me and my sister. Sunday was not a very busy day for us. We relaxed and enjoyed the company for most of it, and later in the afternoon, we piled in the van and headed for the medical center. Houston traffic, as usual, sucked. I half expected a Sunday afternoon to be relatively peaceful, but I was mistaken, and part of me regretted that I insisted on driving as it would be my last opportunity for several months. Being checked in to the hospital seemed to take forever as well. There were several stacks of papers that required my signature as well as my father's. I settled in to room 708 and met my temporary roommate, a younger boy who enjoyed video games just as much as I did. We went back and forth playing Test Drive on his Playstation for several hours until the nurse told me it was time to get ready for bed. She reminded me of what I would need to do before surgery the next morning and offered me a sleeping pill. I took it, knowing full well that I'd never be able to get a minute's rest without it. There were far too many concerns and hopes running through my mind.
Five o'clock came quickly, and all I wanted was more sleep. There was some consolation in the fact that I'd have all the time I wanted for sleep over the next few days, but it wasn't enough to shake the grogginess as I stepped in the shower and bathed with the special sponge they'd given me. I dried off and fumbled with the hospital gown, and, not being able to get it right after three tries, enlisted the help of my father. He and my sister arrived just a few minutes after I awoke. The gurney was parked right outside my room, and as I approached it, my nerves went from zero to "HOLY SHIT!" in a time span not measurable by anything on this planet. I sat back on the gurney and was wheeled up to the nurses' station to wait for the surgical staff to arrive. One of the OR nurses arrived with two pills and a very small amount of water. I didn't think I could swallow anything with the few drops in the cup, but I managed. My father and sister reassured me that they would be waiting for me after surgery, and I began to nap for a few minutes. The movement of the gurney woke me up again as they wheeled me to the preparation room. The OR nurse charged with starting my IV and making sure everything was in order happened to notice my purple ankle and began to panic.
Both of the surgeons were called in to see my horrific sunburn and there was brief chatter about postponing the surgery for a few days to let it heal. Fortunately, it was decided that this was the best time to operate as they schedule was full for the next few weeks. The nurse injected the happy juice in my IV line, and again I had to question why it was given that nickname. Apparently it did something though, as I was told later on that my jokes got worse as they wheeled me to the operating room. I didn't remember much of anything after the injection.
Late that afternoon, I woke up once again, trying to figure out what had happened, what time it was, and who I was. I couldn't feel much of anything, and my vision was a solid blur. I quickly fell asleep, waking yet again to the moving gurney taking me to the "Step Down Unit", very similar to Intensive Care. I realized that my leg was hanging in a sling, suspended from a cage of bars around the bed. My father and sister met me in Step Down, and I was introduced to the evening shift nurse, a sweet older woman from Australia named Noel. She reminded me of my grandmother in Tennessee in many ways. My father and sister sat nearby as I drifted in and out of sleep, talking to me each time I woke up and wondered where I was.
At the time, my mother and her husband worked together driving an 18-wheeler across the country. They were able to arrange their route to be in Houston on the day of my surgery, although they didn't make it to the hospital until around 7 that evening. As my mother entered the Step Down unit, Noel was quick to stop her with the ferocity of a bear protecting her newborn cubs. I told her that it was OK for them to enter, and we visited for a few brief minutes. I was still drifting back to sleep every few minutes, and my mother decided it would be best for them to return next time they were in Houston. She said good-bye and attempted to hug me through the maze of the traction bars and IV tubes, but it wasn't easy for either of us.
I realized at that point that I was not going to be very comfortable flat on my back and pushed the button to call for Noel. My request to raise the head of the bed or get a few extra pillows was denied, however, as the doctors didn't want my upper body to be moved more than absolutely necessary so that I wouldn't change the alignment of the soft bone mush that was now my right hip. Thankfully I had a morphine pump, but it didn't seem to help that first night. I felt hot and sweaty all night and kept hallucinating that I was outside. Phil, the usual overnight nurse, brought in a fan, but it didn't seem to do much. I slept through breakfast that morning, but my sleep didn't last much longer. It was time for my first attempt at hanging from the traction bars so that an x-ray could be taken. I was still very weak from the previous day's anaesthesia, so every nurse and orderly in that section of the hospital came in to help get the x-ray film underneath me. After several very painful attempts, the pictures were complete. Dr. Haynes and Maj. Ross, the two surgeons who performed my operation, came in shortly after with good news. The x-rays looked very promising. I asked them how much longer I'd have to stay in "the infernal contraption", as I'd taken to calling my traction rigging. That news wasn't so pleasing, as I was told it would be at least two weeks, possibly three, until I would be put in my cast. Until that time came, I was to work with a physical therapist to build up strength in my arms and my left leg so that I would be better prepared for the creation of the cast.
The next day, my father and sister returned home. I was a little uncomfortable being so far from home with nobody close by, but I knew I would manage one way or another. I continued to complain about not being able to raise my head enough to even see the TV, a problem which would later create an ever-lasting joke with Tanya, the x-ray technician. It also made eating very difficult, and for the first week I think I managed to eat all of two bowls of cereal, not counting what I managed to spill all over myself in the first few attempts...
Houston, TX
We drove to Houston the previous evening and once again spent the night at my father's friend's home. Every time I see their kids, I'm amazed at how fast they're growing and I realize that Hoppy must think the same about me and my sister. Sunday was not a very busy day for us. We relaxed and enjoyed the company for most of it, and later in the afternoon, we piled in the van and headed for the medical center. Houston traffic, as usual, sucked. I half expected a Sunday afternoon to be relatively peaceful, but I was mistaken, and part of me regretted that I insisted on driving as it would be my last opportunity for several months. Being checked in to the hospital seemed to take forever as well. There were several stacks of papers that required my signature as well as my father's. I settled in to room 708 and met my temporary roommate, a younger boy who enjoyed video games just as much as I did. We went back and forth playing Test Drive on his Playstation for several hours until the nurse told me it was time to get ready for bed. She reminded me of what I would need to do before surgery the next morning and offered me a sleeping pill. I took it, knowing full well that I'd never be able to get a minute's rest without it. There were far too many concerns and hopes running through my mind.
Five o'clock came quickly, and all I wanted was more sleep. There was some consolation in the fact that I'd have all the time I wanted for sleep over the next few days, but it wasn't enough to shake the grogginess as I stepped in the shower and bathed with the special sponge they'd given me. I dried off and fumbled with the hospital gown, and, not being able to get it right after three tries, enlisted the help of my father. He and my sister arrived just a few minutes after I awoke. The gurney was parked right outside my room, and as I approached it, my nerves went from zero to "HOLY SHIT!" in a time span not measurable by anything on this planet. I sat back on the gurney and was wheeled up to the nurses' station to wait for the surgical staff to arrive. One of the OR nurses arrived with two pills and a very small amount of water. I didn't think I could swallow anything with the few drops in the cup, but I managed. My father and sister reassured me that they would be waiting for me after surgery, and I began to nap for a few minutes. The movement of the gurney woke me up again as they wheeled me to the preparation room. The OR nurse charged with starting my IV and making sure everything was in order happened to notice my purple ankle and began to panic.
Both of the surgeons were called in to see my horrific sunburn and there was brief chatter about postponing the surgery for a few days to let it heal. Fortunately, it was decided that this was the best time to operate as they schedule was full for the next few weeks. The nurse injected the happy juice in my IV line, and again I had to question why it was given that nickname. Apparently it did something though, as I was told later on that my jokes got worse as they wheeled me to the operating room. I didn't remember much of anything after the injection.
Late that afternoon, I woke up once again, trying to figure out what had happened, what time it was, and who I was. I couldn't feel much of anything, and my vision was a solid blur. I quickly fell asleep, waking yet again to the moving gurney taking me to the "Step Down Unit", very similar to Intensive Care. I realized that my leg was hanging in a sling, suspended from a cage of bars around the bed. My father and sister met me in Step Down, and I was introduced to the evening shift nurse, a sweet older woman from Australia named Noel. She reminded me of my grandmother in Tennessee in many ways. My father and sister sat nearby as I drifted in and out of sleep, talking to me each time I woke up and wondered where I was.
At the time, my mother and her husband worked together driving an 18-wheeler across the country. They were able to arrange their route to be in Houston on the day of my surgery, although they didn't make it to the hospital until around 7 that evening. As my mother entered the Step Down unit, Noel was quick to stop her with the ferocity of a bear protecting her newborn cubs. I told her that it was OK for them to enter, and we visited for a few brief minutes. I was still drifting back to sleep every few minutes, and my mother decided it would be best for them to return next time they were in Houston. She said good-bye and attempted to hug me through the maze of the traction bars and IV tubes, but it wasn't easy for either of us.
I realized at that point that I was not going to be very comfortable flat on my back and pushed the button to call for Noel. My request to raise the head of the bed or get a few extra pillows was denied, however, as the doctors didn't want my upper body to be moved more than absolutely necessary so that I wouldn't change the alignment of the soft bone mush that was now my right hip. Thankfully I had a morphine pump, but it didn't seem to help that first night. I felt hot and sweaty all night and kept hallucinating that I was outside. Phil, the usual overnight nurse, brought in a fan, but it didn't seem to do much. I slept through breakfast that morning, but my sleep didn't last much longer. It was time for my first attempt at hanging from the traction bars so that an x-ray could be taken. I was still very weak from the previous day's anaesthesia, so every nurse and orderly in that section of the hospital came in to help get the x-ray film underneath me. After several very painful attempts, the pictures were complete. Dr. Haynes and Maj. Ross, the two surgeons who performed my operation, came in shortly after with good news. The x-rays looked very promising. I asked them how much longer I'd have to stay in "the infernal contraption", as I'd taken to calling my traction rigging. That news wasn't so pleasing, as I was told it would be at least two weeks, possibly three, until I would be put in my cast. Until that time came, I was to work with a physical therapist to build up strength in my arms and my left leg so that I would be better prepared for the creation of the cast.
The next day, my father and sister returned home. I was a little uncomfortable being so far from home with nobody close by, but I knew I would manage one way or another. I continued to complain about not being able to raise my head enough to even see the TV, a problem which would later create an ever-lasting joke with Tanya, the x-ray technician. It also made eating very difficult, and for the first week I think I managed to eat all of two bowls of cereal, not counting what I managed to spill all over myself in the first few attempts...
Chapter Six: Preparations
August, 1997
I joined the work program during my junior year of high school, and managed to arrange a job with the school district as their main PC technician. The arrangement was decent...at the time, $6 an hour seemed pretty good when my friends were making $5.15 at Burger King. I was responsible for 5 campuses at the time, and our technology wasn't all that advanced. I was still driving "The J-Rod", as Mike had taken to calling it, although quite reluctantly. It was embarrassing to be seen in the car, but at least it was mine. About three weeks into the school year, I came down with the worst case of tonsilitis I'd ever had. I used to get it every year at the end of school up through sixth grade and hadn't had it since. When I was in fourth grade, the local Ear-Nose-Throat specialist, whom I'd been seeing for this problem every year since kindergarten, told me that if it came back the next year, he'd take my tonsils out. Sadly, Dr. Davis passed away six months later, and when it came back in fifth grade, the doctor we'd seen told me that they won't do a tonsilectomy unless it's a very severe case. I heard the same thing in sixth grade from yet another doctor.
My father found a new ENT specialist in San Antonio. Dr. Henderson was all too happy to take a look at my tonsils, but was in shock during the exam as they were the largest she'd ever seen. I left her office with the usual prescription and a tonsilectomy scheduled for two weeks later. The antibiotics helped as always, but by the day of my surgery, they were still swollen. Dr. Henderson checked them before taking me in to the operating room. I expected it to be a short operation and that I'd be going home that night, but I was sadly mistaken. Instead of the 45 minutes to an hour that they estimated, I was under for about two and a half hours. When they woke me up, I was told that I'd have to stay overnight for observation. Dr. Henderson visited me in my room later and brought a glass jar with her. When she removed my tonsils, they were still the largest she'd ever seen, and she wanted me to see why the operation took so long. That jar sat in her office for quite some time.
I didn't mind eating jell-o and ice cream for a week. The immediate problem was that I could not have a cigarette, but this paled in comparison to what happened the week after. It was my grandmother's birthday, and we all went out to dinner. (Warning: Shameless Plug ahead!) Po-Po Family Restaurant is a little place in the middle of nowhere with some of the best food I've ever eaten. The appearance from the outside, a somewhat run-down building with a neon sign saying "EATS", is rather deceiving, but the crowds tend to give away the secret. It just so happened that my grandmother's birthday fell on a Friday that year, which, back then, was all-you-can-eat fried shrimp night. I'm a sucker for fried shrimp, and there's something about theirs that is horribly addictive. Sadly, I hadn't made it to solid foods yet. Rocky Road ice cream was still a challenge for me and it hurt like hell! I was quite upset, but I opted for a bowl of mashed potatoes and some chicken gumbo. Carol, our waitress (every time we've been there since the late 80's), was kind enough to get me a real strawberry daiquiri instead of the non-alcoholic version my sister usually ordered. I'm not sure if it was the cold drink or all the rum, but my throat felt better! I stole a shrimp from my sister's plate and tried to eat it...small nibbles at first, but I failed and almost screamed from the pain. No more shrimp that night. I sucked down another daiquiri and enjoyed the rest of my mashed potatoes, then told my father he was still on the hook for some shrimp when I was healed up.
After my tonsils had healed, it was time to get serious about the Shriners and my hip. My first appointment was in early October. I've never cared much for Houston, but my dad's best friend since high school lived there and I hadn't seen him in ages. Dad and I made the trek on Sunday and crashed out at their house for the night. The next morning was a long waiting game. We arrived at 7:30 for an 8:30 appointment, but were far from being the first in line. I was called in to see the doctor around 10, then waited another hour to see Dr. Haynes, the main hip surgeon for the Houston unit. He informed me that they'd never done a hip fusion at that hospital, but he was very familiar with the procedure and felt very confident that they could help me. I was sent off for x-rays, then returned to face the hospital board. After a short discussion about my current condition and the alternatives, it was decided that they would accept me as a patient for the hip fusion. I had another pre-operative exam scheduled in March, and they would schedule the surgery at that time so I could have it done during the summer and not miss as much school. We finally left the hospital around 3 and were both starving. My father, always the tour guide, went well out of the way to show me a few things and get us lunch. We ate at Furr's, which is an all-you-can-eat cafeteria restaurant. For you San Antonio folk, think of Luby's, but you can go back for more. As we left, my father told me that back when they lived in the area before I was born, the restaurant used to be an adult movie theater! I was a little shocked by that, but it didn't really surprise me after considering the layout. We then drove up to Humble to see the house where I lived the first year of my life. It was right on the edge of Houston Intercontinental Airport, and apparently I got used to the sound of jumbo jets flying overhead sometime in my first month of life. To this day, it still doesn't bother me in the least.
We made the trek back home, and I began to worry. I wondered how I would be able to do even the simplest things with a hip that doesn't bend. I even tried to do various things without moving my hip joint and was quite afraid of how it would change my life. The doctors said that I would be able to walk, albeit with a limp (which I was used to anyway for the last few years) and that I'd be able to do most of what I was able to do at that time. I started walking more often, trying to build up the muscles before surgery for an easier recovery.
The J-Rod continued to fall apart. One Sunday afternoon in early December, Mike and I were driving back to Boerne from San Antonio and I heard an unusual noise. My engine sounded louder, and I thought I could hear something scraping along the pavement of I-10. We pulled off, and sure enough, my exhaust pipe had rusted through just in front of the muffler. I'd been dragging the muffler down the freeway for a couple of miles! Mike was quick to pull it off and throw it in the trunk, and I learned a new trick. I found out that I could force the car to backfire at will! This was particularly fun in underpasses and while driving down Main Street in Boerne. I left the disconnected tailpipe in the yard that evening so my father could see our next project. We met at a mechanic's shop the next afternoon to have a whole new exhaust system put on, and I was still able to backfire it afterward. The speedometer was the next to go. It worked up to 45MPH, then it would start bouncing to the top end and leave me no clue how fast I was really going. To make matters worse, after my second carburetor replacement, the car would no longer idle without stalling. I was forced to brake with my left foot, shift the car in neutral, and rev the engine any time I had to stop.
The J-Rod came to its death shortly after the Super Bowl. On the way home from the party Mike and I went to, the car started shaking violently. I wasn't sure what to think, and when I told my father, he suggested I not drive it until his day off when we could meet at the mechanic's to get it checked out. The car sat in the driveway for two days, and on Wednesday, I drove to school at very slow speeds. Anything over 30 and it would shake so bad I thought it would fall apart. I made it to class, and when I left to meet my dad, it stopped permanently. The U-joint blew and the drive shaft was hanging from the rear axle. My father finally decided to give up on the car and donated it to the school's auto tech program, and I was stuck without a car for the rest of the year.
During the next exam at Shriners, my surgery was scheduled for the second week of July. I was told to expect about three months in the hospital for recovery, and at least a year of physical therapy after that. We got a call in early April about moving the surgery up to June 8, which we gladly accepted. School wound down again, and we flew off to Tennessee for the last few days I could enjoy before going to the hospital.
My aunt and uncle had, over the previous two years, taken up sailing. They bought a new sailboat during the winter months and waited until we could join to take it out on the lake. That was one of the most peaceful days I'd had in quite some time! We drifted around a rather large lake, jumping in the water occasionally, and my sister and I learned basic sailing techniques. Unfortunately, though, with my light complexion, I'm an instant target for sunburn. I thought I'd managed to get everything covered with sunscreen, but there was a small spot on my right ankle that I couldn't reach because of my hip. It looked fine all day, but the next morning it was bright purple! We all worried about it affecting my surgery the next week...
I joined the work program during my junior year of high school, and managed to arrange a job with the school district as their main PC technician. The arrangement was decent...at the time, $6 an hour seemed pretty good when my friends were making $5.15 at Burger King. I was responsible for 5 campuses at the time, and our technology wasn't all that advanced. I was still driving "The J-Rod", as Mike had taken to calling it, although quite reluctantly. It was embarrassing to be seen in the car, but at least it was mine. About three weeks into the school year, I came down with the worst case of tonsilitis I'd ever had. I used to get it every year at the end of school up through sixth grade and hadn't had it since. When I was in fourth grade, the local Ear-Nose-Throat specialist, whom I'd been seeing for this problem every year since kindergarten, told me that if it came back the next year, he'd take my tonsils out. Sadly, Dr. Davis passed away six months later, and when it came back in fifth grade, the doctor we'd seen told me that they won't do a tonsilectomy unless it's a very severe case. I heard the same thing in sixth grade from yet another doctor.
My father found a new ENT specialist in San Antonio. Dr. Henderson was all too happy to take a look at my tonsils, but was in shock during the exam as they were the largest she'd ever seen. I left her office with the usual prescription and a tonsilectomy scheduled for two weeks later. The antibiotics helped as always, but by the day of my surgery, they were still swollen. Dr. Henderson checked them before taking me in to the operating room. I expected it to be a short operation and that I'd be going home that night, but I was sadly mistaken. Instead of the 45 minutes to an hour that they estimated, I was under for about two and a half hours. When they woke me up, I was told that I'd have to stay overnight for observation. Dr. Henderson visited me in my room later and brought a glass jar with her. When she removed my tonsils, they were still the largest she'd ever seen, and she wanted me to see why the operation took so long. That jar sat in her office for quite some time.
I didn't mind eating jell-o and ice cream for a week. The immediate problem was that I could not have a cigarette, but this paled in comparison to what happened the week after. It was my grandmother's birthday, and we all went out to dinner. (Warning: Shameless Plug ahead!) Po-Po Family Restaurant is a little place in the middle of nowhere with some of the best food I've ever eaten. The appearance from the outside, a somewhat run-down building with a neon sign saying "EATS", is rather deceiving, but the crowds tend to give away the secret. It just so happened that my grandmother's birthday fell on a Friday that year, which, back then, was all-you-can-eat fried shrimp night. I'm a sucker for fried shrimp, and there's something about theirs that is horribly addictive. Sadly, I hadn't made it to solid foods yet. Rocky Road ice cream was still a challenge for me and it hurt like hell! I was quite upset, but I opted for a bowl of mashed potatoes and some chicken gumbo. Carol, our waitress (every time we've been there since the late 80's), was kind enough to get me a real strawberry daiquiri instead of the non-alcoholic version my sister usually ordered. I'm not sure if it was the cold drink or all the rum, but my throat felt better! I stole a shrimp from my sister's plate and tried to eat it...small nibbles at first, but I failed and almost screamed from the pain. No more shrimp that night. I sucked down another daiquiri and enjoyed the rest of my mashed potatoes, then told my father he was still on the hook for some shrimp when I was healed up.
After my tonsils had healed, it was time to get serious about the Shriners and my hip. My first appointment was in early October. I've never cared much for Houston, but my dad's best friend since high school lived there and I hadn't seen him in ages. Dad and I made the trek on Sunday and crashed out at their house for the night. The next morning was a long waiting game. We arrived at 7:30 for an 8:30 appointment, but were far from being the first in line. I was called in to see the doctor around 10, then waited another hour to see Dr. Haynes, the main hip surgeon for the Houston unit. He informed me that they'd never done a hip fusion at that hospital, but he was very familiar with the procedure and felt very confident that they could help me. I was sent off for x-rays, then returned to face the hospital board. After a short discussion about my current condition and the alternatives, it was decided that they would accept me as a patient for the hip fusion. I had another pre-operative exam scheduled in March, and they would schedule the surgery at that time so I could have it done during the summer and not miss as much school. We finally left the hospital around 3 and were both starving. My father, always the tour guide, went well out of the way to show me a few things and get us lunch. We ate at Furr's, which is an all-you-can-eat cafeteria restaurant. For you San Antonio folk, think of Luby's, but you can go back for more. As we left, my father told me that back when they lived in the area before I was born, the restaurant used to be an adult movie theater! I was a little shocked by that, but it didn't really surprise me after considering the layout. We then drove up to Humble to see the house where I lived the first year of my life. It was right on the edge of Houston Intercontinental Airport, and apparently I got used to the sound of jumbo jets flying overhead sometime in my first month of life. To this day, it still doesn't bother me in the least.
We made the trek back home, and I began to worry. I wondered how I would be able to do even the simplest things with a hip that doesn't bend. I even tried to do various things without moving my hip joint and was quite afraid of how it would change my life. The doctors said that I would be able to walk, albeit with a limp (which I was used to anyway for the last few years) and that I'd be able to do most of what I was able to do at that time. I started walking more often, trying to build up the muscles before surgery for an easier recovery.
The J-Rod continued to fall apart. One Sunday afternoon in early December, Mike and I were driving back to Boerne from San Antonio and I heard an unusual noise. My engine sounded louder, and I thought I could hear something scraping along the pavement of I-10. We pulled off, and sure enough, my exhaust pipe had rusted through just in front of the muffler. I'd been dragging the muffler down the freeway for a couple of miles! Mike was quick to pull it off and throw it in the trunk, and I learned a new trick. I found out that I could force the car to backfire at will! This was particularly fun in underpasses and while driving down Main Street in Boerne. I left the disconnected tailpipe in the yard that evening so my father could see our next project. We met at a mechanic's shop the next afternoon to have a whole new exhaust system put on, and I was still able to backfire it afterward. The speedometer was the next to go. It worked up to 45MPH, then it would start bouncing to the top end and leave me no clue how fast I was really going. To make matters worse, after my second carburetor replacement, the car would no longer idle without stalling. I was forced to brake with my left foot, shift the car in neutral, and rev the engine any time I had to stop.
The J-Rod came to its death shortly after the Super Bowl. On the way home from the party Mike and I went to, the car started shaking violently. I wasn't sure what to think, and when I told my father, he suggested I not drive it until his day off when we could meet at the mechanic's to get it checked out. The car sat in the driveway for two days, and on Wednesday, I drove to school at very slow speeds. Anything over 30 and it would shake so bad I thought it would fall apart. I made it to class, and when I left to meet my dad, it stopped permanently. The U-joint blew and the drive shaft was hanging from the rear axle. My father finally decided to give up on the car and donated it to the school's auto tech program, and I was stuck without a car for the rest of the year.
During the next exam at Shriners, my surgery was scheduled for the second week of July. I was told to expect about three months in the hospital for recovery, and at least a year of physical therapy after that. We got a call in early April about moving the surgery up to June 8, which we gladly accepted. School wound down again, and we flew off to Tennessee for the last few days I could enjoy before going to the hospital.
My aunt and uncle had, over the previous two years, taken up sailing. They bought a new sailboat during the winter months and waited until we could join to take it out on the lake. That was one of the most peaceful days I'd had in quite some time! We drifted around a rather large lake, jumping in the water occasionally, and my sister and I learned basic sailing techniques. Unfortunately, though, with my light complexion, I'm an instant target for sunburn. I thought I'd managed to get everything covered with sunscreen, but there was a small spot on my right ankle that I couldn't reach because of my hip. It looked fine all day, but the next morning it was bright purple! We all worried about it affecting my surgery the next week...
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Chapter Five: Intermission
Dr. Stanley originally recommended the Scottish Rite hospital for my next step. Dr. Greenfield, my far superior specialist (whom I still utilize to this day) had suggested the Shriners. My father and I were both pleased with that recommendation. In 1952, the year my father was born, my great-grandfather was the Potentate of the Alzafar Temple in San Antonio. Although he had passed away several years earlier, we still had several connections with the Shriners. My dad's uncle, Johnny, was (and still is today) very active with the organization. As soon as he heard about my condition, he did everything possible to get me in to see the specialists in Houston.
My sophomore year of high school was, with only a few exceptions, uneventful. I was no longer in the band, and a majority of my classes were far too easy. The one class that actually kept my attention all year was chemistry. Chuck was an awesome teacher with a very unique sense of humor. I'm quite certain that my interest in the sciences would be far less than it currently is had I not taken his class. I also renewed my interest in bowling and joined the junior league once again. Sean decided to join as well, and we ended up on a team with Jason. Together, we were the "Three Fat Alley Cats", and while we didn't do so well during the regular season, we certainly turned up the heat that following summer.
I was a member of Business Professionals of America that particular year, and it was the first school club I'd been in with serious competitions (aside from band) that were further away than San Antonio. Regionals were rather boring, but I did take first place in the Management Concepts event, which consisted of a 50-question multiple choice test on common sense business decisions. A month later, we traveled to Arlington for the state competition. The test was just as easy as before, but I had placed fifth. I was the first alternate for nationals, six weeks later in Orlando. I also realized during that trip that I would probably never be able to enjoy a roller coaster again because it was just impossible to sit in one with my hip problems. Three weeks after State, my teacher received a call. One of the top four from Texas had failed a class and was ineligible to go to Nationals. I was on my way to Orlando!
Most of the time was spent playing around. EPCOT and NASA's Kennedy Space Center were the high points of the trip, until the events were all over. We arrived at the award ceremony early to get good seats, and the emcees called up the top ten to the stage for each event. I was more than surprised to hear my name called when they got to Management Concepts. Awkwardly, I made it to the stage and joined the nine other finalists. My fingers crossed behind my back, I stood there hoping to hear my name again. Third place? Someone else from Texas. Second place? Someone from Ohio. First place? "Justin Burdette, Boerne, Texas"
I was in shock. There were no words to describe how I felt at the time, and I think my teacher was on the verge of having a heart attack when they called my name as well. I stumbled forward to accept my plaque and ribbon, then we shuffled off the stage. Before I could even get a chance to call my father, Sam Champion, the high school principal, called my hotel room to congratulate me. I found out then that I was the first person from Boerne High to ever take first place in a national-level competition. The rest of the year flashed by, but not without a lot of recognition (and my name on the marquee until the last week of school!)
The last day of school came, and everyone celebrated. Sean, Jason and I loaded up in my dad's van for a trip to San Antonio. Our destination was the Columbia 300 bowling ball factory. My father had become friendly with the CEO through his job and was given an invitation for my sister and I, plus our teams, to come see the factory and get new bowling balls for the upcoming state tournament. Sean chose the Beast, Jason went with a Cuda, and I chose the brand new Pulse. At the time, my father was on the board of directors for the bowling alley in Boerne, and as such, he had the keys. We practiced with our new equipment almost every day until the tournament, sometimes bowling as many as fifteen games in an afternoon. Our averages at the end of the season were less than spectacular. I closed out with a 135, Sean with a 131, and Jason with a 127. As the tournament grew close, we were consistently rolling 180 and above. We were confident going in to the tournament, as we knew the lanes at the Boerne Turn Verein were considerably more challenging than almost any other center in the country.
Before the tournament, however, my sister and I had to make the annual summer trip to Tennessee. In most previous years, we would visit for a month, but because of everything else going on, we were only there for ten days. My aunt was disappointed to see the lack of progress with my hip, but she understood what was going on and didn't push too hard. Upon our return, my father and I had a little project to work on. I had earned my driver's license just a few months earlier and, until then, had been borrowing my dad's van when he wasn't at work. One of his co-workers had given me an old junker of a car that needed a lot of work. Apparently it had belonged to one of his kids when they were my age just a few years earlier. This magnificently craptastic automobile was a 1974 Plymouth Valiant...or at least that's what my insurance company called it. I'm pretty sure it was a pile of rust pasted together with raw shit. Our first project was to replace the tires and valve cover gaskets, which we did with almost no problems. I drove it in to town that afternoon for the inspection, and found out that it needed a voltage regulator as the wipers didn't work. One of my father's friends from the bowling alley was able to fix it, and later that afternoon my car was completely legal to drive. The next day, however, I was getting ready to leave Wal-Mart and it just wouldn't start. We tried for almost two hours. It ended up being the timing chain, and my dad's friend was all too happy to fix that as well. Unfortunately, it would take almost a week to repair.
I ended up not missing it most of that week. The very next day, my father came home from work and told my sister that we had to flip a coin to see who got the washing machine first, as our bags had to be packed and ready to go by 3:15 the next morning. At first, he wouldn't tell us where we were going...but he gave us a clue, underestimating my memory. The clue was "17", and I immediately knew what that meant! Amanda and I actually cooperated on laundry for once, and all I told her was to pack for the beach. At 6:05 the next morning, we were airborne and headed for DFW. My sister still didn't know where we were going, and I doubt seeing the bag tags marked "HNL" would have given her a clue. Imagine her surprise when, after breakfast at DFW, we walked to Delta's Gate 17 at DFW to wait for three seats on Flight 17, nonstop to Honolulu!
Traveling as a "non-rev" is not always fun. For the uninitiated, "non-rev" is airline slang for an employee or family member who is flying for free. It sounds nice until you realize that you can only fly when there are empty seats on the plane. Honolulu, being a popular destination year-round, is difficult to get to as a non-rev. We were fortunate, though, and got the last three of the 302 seats on the L-1011. My sister and I opted to switch seats to make things more comfortable for everyone, and in retrospect, I'd rather have been cramped in a window seat instead of what I had to go through.
The woman seated next to me in 24D was in her mid-forties and obviously had not traveled much. She seemed very nervous as the plane taxied to the runway. I generally don't strike up conversations when flying, but she had no problem with it! Over the next seven hours, I learned that she was moving to Hawaii for a job and was going to look for a place to live. She also revealed to me that she had never been married or had children, but she was very proud of her cat! I winced as she reached for her carry-on and pulled out THREE separate photo albums. All of them were pictures of her precious feline. I think that was the only point in my life when the idea of a free-fall from 37,000 feet into the Pacific Ocean was an appealing thought. Fortunately, I fell asleep. I woke up about 30 minutes before landing, now regretting not having a window seat.
Hawaii was amazing. We took in as much of Oahu as we could in the five days we had and did many of the usual tourist activities. Our plan was to go on to Maui for two days before returning home, but that plan was cut short by a phone call at 3AM. At first, I thought my grandmother was drunk when she called us.
"They're evacuating me! What do you want me to do with the dogs?"
"Huh?" I thought, not quite coherent thanks to the time difference. It wasn't a scotch-induced hallucination, the Sheriff and Fire Chief were on our front porch in Boerne with a rubber raft. The Guadalupe River had surged overnight and was ten feet from our front door, with indications that it would come even higher. Normally the river was a good quarter mile away and at least 100 feet below us. With this news, it was decided that we would fly back that afternoon. My grandmother was evacuated safely and was waiting for us, scotch and cigarettes in hand, when we made it back the day after.
It took a few days to get back to normal, but the tournament approached quickly. Arriving on a Friday, we thought it would be smart to roll a practice game or two at the center we'd be competing at the next morning. I thought I was doing quite well with a 196, but Jason surprised us all with is 244. We all went to bed early that night. The next morning proved to be just as great as we were hoping. During the team event that Saturday, we all bowled the best games of our lives, and not a single score on our sheet was under 190. It took me a few frames to really get in a rhythm at first, but I found my spot and closed out the first game with five strikes for a 229. The second game started off much better, but my nerves were being put to the test.
Nine frames down. Nine "X" marks on the screen next to my name. Three more strikes and I'd have my first perfect game. Several of my league members came over to watch and cheer me on as I took a deep breath and stepped up on the right lane's approach. I thought to myself, "Just like before. Right foot lined up with the second dot, focus on the third arrow. Wrist, perfect. Grip, dry...now push off." The ball's fourteen pounds felt like nothing as I came to the peak of my backswing. My slide was perfect, my toes stopping two inches from the foul line. Delivery was almost silent. The ball rolled directly over the third arrow, sliding closer to the right gutter and looking for a dry board to catch. Time slowed to a crawl as the ball gripped and turned left, aimed perfectly at the 1-3 pocket. The pins seem to fall in slow motion, but the sound of another perfect strike snapped me back to reality. Now my nerves were ablaze, as I'd never been this close to perfection. I stepped off the approach, grabbed my lucky towel and rosin bag, and continued breathing deeply. My teammates and fellow Boerne bowlers were cheering me on, and it was all I could do to get them to shut up so I wouldn't be so nervous. My ball came back, and I prepared for my next shot. Wiping the oil track off the ball, then drying my hands, I entered my routine again. Like a cruise missile, I was locked on to the third arrow and ready to go one step closer to perfection. The ball still felt lighter than air as I brought it to meet the lane, but something was amiss and it was too late to stop. Sweaty palms are always the bowler's worst enemy, and this time the sweat had caused my ring finger to lose its grip just a microsecond too soon. The ball rolled right across the third arrow, seemingly aimed at the gutter as before, and it turned to the left at the same spot...only this time, the turn was not as sharp. It entered the rack right between the 3 and 6 pins, taking out six of the ten I originally hoped for. The "wash-out", or 1-2-4-7 combination, remained standing, taunting me. Fortunately it was an easy spare to convert, and I ended game two with a whopping 286. The rest of the tournament went very well, with the lowest game among the three of us being a 194 on the second day.
Again, school approached...what would the next year bring?
My sophomore year of high school was, with only a few exceptions, uneventful. I was no longer in the band, and a majority of my classes were far too easy. The one class that actually kept my attention all year was chemistry. Chuck was an awesome teacher with a very unique sense of humor. I'm quite certain that my interest in the sciences would be far less than it currently is had I not taken his class. I also renewed my interest in bowling and joined the junior league once again. Sean decided to join as well, and we ended up on a team with Jason. Together, we were the "Three Fat Alley Cats", and while we didn't do so well during the regular season, we certainly turned up the heat that following summer.
I was a member of Business Professionals of America that particular year, and it was the first school club I'd been in with serious competitions (aside from band) that were further away than San Antonio. Regionals were rather boring, but I did take first place in the Management Concepts event, which consisted of a 50-question multiple choice test on common sense business decisions. A month later, we traveled to Arlington for the state competition. The test was just as easy as before, but I had placed fifth. I was the first alternate for nationals, six weeks later in Orlando. I also realized during that trip that I would probably never be able to enjoy a roller coaster again because it was just impossible to sit in one with my hip problems. Three weeks after State, my teacher received a call. One of the top four from Texas had failed a class and was ineligible to go to Nationals. I was on my way to Orlando!
Most of the time was spent playing around. EPCOT and NASA's Kennedy Space Center were the high points of the trip, until the events were all over. We arrived at the award ceremony early to get good seats, and the emcees called up the top ten to the stage for each event. I was more than surprised to hear my name called when they got to Management Concepts. Awkwardly, I made it to the stage and joined the nine other finalists. My fingers crossed behind my back, I stood there hoping to hear my name again. Third place? Someone else from Texas. Second place? Someone from Ohio. First place? "Justin Burdette, Boerne, Texas"
I was in shock. There were no words to describe how I felt at the time, and I think my teacher was on the verge of having a heart attack when they called my name as well. I stumbled forward to accept my plaque and ribbon, then we shuffled off the stage. Before I could even get a chance to call my father, Sam Champion, the high school principal, called my hotel room to congratulate me. I found out then that I was the first person from Boerne High to ever take first place in a national-level competition. The rest of the year flashed by, but not without a lot of recognition (and my name on the marquee until the last week of school!)
The last day of school came, and everyone celebrated. Sean, Jason and I loaded up in my dad's van for a trip to San Antonio. Our destination was the Columbia 300 bowling ball factory. My father had become friendly with the CEO through his job and was given an invitation for my sister and I, plus our teams, to come see the factory and get new bowling balls for the upcoming state tournament. Sean chose the Beast, Jason went with a Cuda, and I chose the brand new Pulse. At the time, my father was on the board of directors for the bowling alley in Boerne, and as such, he had the keys. We practiced with our new equipment almost every day until the tournament, sometimes bowling as many as fifteen games in an afternoon. Our averages at the end of the season were less than spectacular. I closed out with a 135, Sean with a 131, and Jason with a 127. As the tournament grew close, we were consistently rolling 180 and above. We were confident going in to the tournament, as we knew the lanes at the Boerne Turn Verein were considerably more challenging than almost any other center in the country.
Before the tournament, however, my sister and I had to make the annual summer trip to Tennessee. In most previous years, we would visit for a month, but because of everything else going on, we were only there for ten days. My aunt was disappointed to see the lack of progress with my hip, but she understood what was going on and didn't push too hard. Upon our return, my father and I had a little project to work on. I had earned my driver's license just a few months earlier and, until then, had been borrowing my dad's van when he wasn't at work. One of his co-workers had given me an old junker of a car that needed a lot of work. Apparently it had belonged to one of his kids when they were my age just a few years earlier. This magnificently craptastic automobile was a 1974 Plymouth Valiant...or at least that's what my insurance company called it. I'm pretty sure it was a pile of rust pasted together with raw shit. Our first project was to replace the tires and valve cover gaskets, which we did with almost no problems. I drove it in to town that afternoon for the inspection, and found out that it needed a voltage regulator as the wipers didn't work. One of my father's friends from the bowling alley was able to fix it, and later that afternoon my car was completely legal to drive. The next day, however, I was getting ready to leave Wal-Mart and it just wouldn't start. We tried for almost two hours. It ended up being the timing chain, and my dad's friend was all too happy to fix that as well. Unfortunately, it would take almost a week to repair.
I ended up not missing it most of that week. The very next day, my father came home from work and told my sister that we had to flip a coin to see who got the washing machine first, as our bags had to be packed and ready to go by 3:15 the next morning. At first, he wouldn't tell us where we were going...but he gave us a clue, underestimating my memory. The clue was "17", and I immediately knew what that meant! Amanda and I actually cooperated on laundry for once, and all I told her was to pack for the beach. At 6:05 the next morning, we were airborne and headed for DFW. My sister still didn't know where we were going, and I doubt seeing the bag tags marked "HNL" would have given her a clue. Imagine her surprise when, after breakfast at DFW, we walked to Delta's Gate 17 at DFW to wait for three seats on Flight 17, nonstop to Honolulu!
Traveling as a "non-rev" is not always fun. For the uninitiated, "non-rev" is airline slang for an employee or family member who is flying for free. It sounds nice until you realize that you can only fly when there are empty seats on the plane. Honolulu, being a popular destination year-round, is difficult to get to as a non-rev. We were fortunate, though, and got the last three of the 302 seats on the L-1011. My sister and I opted to switch seats to make things more comfortable for everyone, and in retrospect, I'd rather have been cramped in a window seat instead of what I had to go through.
The woman seated next to me in 24D was in her mid-forties and obviously had not traveled much. She seemed very nervous as the plane taxied to the runway. I generally don't strike up conversations when flying, but she had no problem with it! Over the next seven hours, I learned that she was moving to Hawaii for a job and was going to look for a place to live. She also revealed to me that she had never been married or had children, but she was very proud of her cat! I winced as she reached for her carry-on and pulled out THREE separate photo albums. All of them were pictures of her precious feline. I think that was the only point in my life when the idea of a free-fall from 37,000 feet into the Pacific Ocean was an appealing thought. Fortunately, I fell asleep. I woke up about 30 minutes before landing, now regretting not having a window seat.
Hawaii was amazing. We took in as much of Oahu as we could in the five days we had and did many of the usual tourist activities. Our plan was to go on to Maui for two days before returning home, but that plan was cut short by a phone call at 3AM. At first, I thought my grandmother was drunk when she called us.
"They're evacuating me! What do you want me to do with the dogs?"
"Huh?" I thought, not quite coherent thanks to the time difference. It wasn't a scotch-induced hallucination, the Sheriff and Fire Chief were on our front porch in Boerne with a rubber raft. The Guadalupe River had surged overnight and was ten feet from our front door, with indications that it would come even higher. Normally the river was a good quarter mile away and at least 100 feet below us. With this news, it was decided that we would fly back that afternoon. My grandmother was evacuated safely and was waiting for us, scotch and cigarettes in hand, when we made it back the day after.
It took a few days to get back to normal, but the tournament approached quickly. Arriving on a Friday, we thought it would be smart to roll a practice game or two at the center we'd be competing at the next morning. I thought I was doing quite well with a 196, but Jason surprised us all with is 244. We all went to bed early that night. The next morning proved to be just as great as we were hoping. During the team event that Saturday, we all bowled the best games of our lives, and not a single score on our sheet was under 190. It took me a few frames to really get in a rhythm at first, but I found my spot and closed out the first game with five strikes for a 229. The second game started off much better, but my nerves were being put to the test.
Nine frames down. Nine "X" marks on the screen next to my name. Three more strikes and I'd have my first perfect game. Several of my league members came over to watch and cheer me on as I took a deep breath and stepped up on the right lane's approach. I thought to myself, "Just like before. Right foot lined up with the second dot, focus on the third arrow. Wrist, perfect. Grip, dry...now push off." The ball's fourteen pounds felt like nothing as I came to the peak of my backswing. My slide was perfect, my toes stopping two inches from the foul line. Delivery was almost silent. The ball rolled directly over the third arrow, sliding closer to the right gutter and looking for a dry board to catch. Time slowed to a crawl as the ball gripped and turned left, aimed perfectly at the 1-3 pocket. The pins seem to fall in slow motion, but the sound of another perfect strike snapped me back to reality. Now my nerves were ablaze, as I'd never been this close to perfection. I stepped off the approach, grabbed my lucky towel and rosin bag, and continued breathing deeply. My teammates and fellow Boerne bowlers were cheering me on, and it was all I could do to get them to shut up so I wouldn't be so nervous. My ball came back, and I prepared for my next shot. Wiping the oil track off the ball, then drying my hands, I entered my routine again. Like a cruise missile, I was locked on to the third arrow and ready to go one step closer to perfection. The ball still felt lighter than air as I brought it to meet the lane, but something was amiss and it was too late to stop. Sweaty palms are always the bowler's worst enemy, and this time the sweat had caused my ring finger to lose its grip just a microsecond too soon. The ball rolled right across the third arrow, seemingly aimed at the gutter as before, and it turned to the left at the same spot...only this time, the turn was not as sharp. It entered the rack right between the 3 and 6 pins, taking out six of the ten I originally hoped for. The "wash-out", or 1-2-4-7 combination, remained standing, taunting me. Fortunately it was an easy spare to convert, and I ended game two with a whopping 286. The rest of the tournament went very well, with the lowest game among the three of us being a 194 on the second day.
Again, school approached...what would the next year bring?
Chapter Four: Operate, Recover, Repeat
Dr. Stanley was quite thorough on my first visit. He took a series of X-rays that kept me on the table for at least an hour. I think I scared a few other patients, though, when he tried to move my leg past a certain point and I let out the most horrific scream I'd ever heard. He explained in great detail what would need to be done. The first step would be to put me under general anaesthesia to test my actual range of motion and inject some kind of steroid into my hip. I'm still not sure what the reason behind the steroid was. The second step, if his thoughts were correct, would be a procedure known as a Kramer Osteotomy. Simply put, a wedge would be cut out of the top of my femur. The bone would then be rotated back in to place and held together with three surgical screws. Dr. Stanley was quite optimistic about it, but I wasn't sure what to think.
We opted to go ahead with the surgery. Meanwhile, things continued to sour between my father and The Bitch. She was sleeping on the couch next to her kids and was given two weeks to find another place to live. Almost a month had passed before my father decided he'd had enough. He left a simple note telling her to be out of the house before he got home from work or he'd have a deputy there to remove her. I had just happened to be sick and staying home from school that day. I'm quite glad I did, as The Bitch tried to take all kinds of things that didn't belong to her. She even tried to take the cookware my grandmother had given me for Christmas! Fortunately, my sister was up early between the time my father left and when everyone else woke up to start their day. We still had a pumpkin on the front porch that had been there since shortly before Halloween. Amanda snuck outside with a knife, cut open the pumpkin, and smeared the rotting innards all over The Bitch's car. After learning about this later in the day, I made sure to give her a high-five when she got home from school! The Bitch claimed that she and her little shits were living out of her car in the small park across the street, although we knew she was taking advantage of a single male neighbor's free space in exchange for...well, you get the idea. After a few days, she just disappeared and left most of her belongings with us. It took a while, but most of the clothes ended up at Goodwill and anything else that couldn't be used or donated went on the burn pile.
February 27, 1996
It was exactly two years after my grandfather had passed away. My grandmother, who normally worries for all of us, was wound up like a Swiss watch spring. My father and I arrived at Santa Rosa Childrens' Hospital at 5 AM. I was nervous as hell, as the only other "surgery" I'd had done was on my toes, and I was fully awake for that one. In the pre-operative ward, they attempted to start an IV and failed miserably. I've always been tough to stick, and I know exactly where I get it from. My other grandmother (on my father's side) once went through twelve attempts to run an IV before surgery. I remember getting the "happy juice", as they called it, and wondering why I still didn't feel all that great. I said goodbye to my father and they wheeled me off to the operating room.
The next thing I remember is waking up an hour later in recovery with my leg strapped into a machine. This machine would flex my leg up to a certain angle slowly and then lower it back to a flat position. It was horrendously uncomfortable, and when my body was finally able to feel pain, I realized that my hip hurt like hell when it got to the top! The doctor kept me in the hospital for three days to make sure I acclimated to the machine. After my release, I had a very busy schedule of physical therapy ahead of me. The doctor's hypothesis was confirmed, and my next surgery was scheduled four weeks after the first. My physical therapy went well. Fortunately, most of it was in a swimming pool, and it actually felt good to get in the warm water. I was able to move more freely than I had in the last six months, and I was very happy about that!
March 26, 1996
It was time for the second operation. I had a strange sense of deja vu as we entered the hospital again at 5 AM. Sure enough, it took two tries to run the IV again, and the happy juice wasn't. The doctor was in a better mood, which gave me a little reassurance that this would go well and perhaps I would be back to normal after a few months. This time, when I woke up (five hours later) I was not strapped in to the machine. I was somewhat relieved. It was only a few minutes later that I discovered the joys of the morphine button. By the time Leno started, I was high as a kite and watching Univision. Now, I don't speak a word of Spanish beyond the menu at Taco Cabana, but it was apparently the funniest thing in the world to me!
By the next morning, they had cut back my morphine and wanted me to try standing up with a walker. No weight bearing on my hip for at least two weeks. By my second day up and about, I was making it down the hall to the nurses' station and back with almost no trouble. The walker was easier than I expected. Five days after surgery, the doctor cleared me to go home and told me to start using the infernal contraption again, starting off at a very low setting. It was decided that, since my father's work schedule would leave me home alone most of the day, I would stay with my mother for the first two weeks. This had several down sides, although being able to get help whenever I needed it managed to counter all of them. I slept in the recliner for the first two nights because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get out of the bed. As things improved, I started walking around more with my crutches and was able to negotiate the stairs outside with almost no difficulty. The machine still hurt like hell, but that was to be expected. It was also at this time that I started getting serious about tinkering with computers. My mother had a 386 machine that had never worked properly, and with my downtime, a friend of hers let me borrow "The Computer Bible", which at the time was about six inches thick. One day my mother decided to go grocery shopping. I asked her to put the computer up on the dining room table so I could see exactly what I was reading about. A few minutes after she left, I hobbled my way into the kitchen and grabbed a screwdriver from the drawer. By the time she returned, the computer was stripped down to nothing with each piece labeled and sorted on the table. To say she was furious would have been an understatement. I told her that since it had never worked in the first place that there was no harm in trying to see what was wrong. Sure enough, when I put it back together, it powered on and loaded Windows 3.1! From that moment on, I was hooked.
I made it to my first follow-up with the doctor, and he was pleased with the results at that point. I began physical therapy three times a week and the doctor cleared me to go back to school. With Boerne High being so spread out though, the doctor thought it wise for me to finish the school year in a wheelchair. On my first day back, I had a miserable time trying to get through doors and make it to my classes. Most people ignored the fact that I was even there. When I made it to my locker, however, someone was kind enough to help me get my books together and get my belongings situated on the back of the chair. This guy had the locker next to mine. He was a sophomore at the time, a year above me, and had transferred to Boerne shortly after I originally broke my hip. We'd said hi a few times in passing, but this was the first time we really talked. Sean quickly became one of my best friends (and still is to this day) and I will never forget how he took the time to help someone he barely knew just because it was the decent thing to do.
With the end of school came, for the most part, the end of the wheelchair. I still kept it for going places like the mall and anything else that would have otherwise required a lot of walking. My physical therapy increased for the summer. I was now going in four days a week. With my father's schedule, we realized it would be easier if I went in with him at 3AM and hung out in the break room at the airport. For the first few days, I just sat in there and read for hours on end. I started with some computer books, then moved on to other topics that interested me.
By this time, my father had recovered from his relationship with The Bitch. He even started dating someone else, a co-worker from the airport. Cindy was tall, attractive, and very kind to all of us. She had five children, two boys that were a year off of my age in either direction, a girl a year younger than my sister, and two very young ones who were perfect angels compared to the two we'd dealt with just a few months before. The two boys and I hit it off rather well, and they would come in on my therapy days to keep me company. It was only two days before we decided that we couldn't find any decent trouble to get in at the airport, so we begged for bus passes so we could start spending our days at the mall. The walking turned out to be great therapy for my hip, and it was great to have a couple of friends that I could connect with. Unfortunately, my father's relationship with Cindy didn't go very far. She wanted more children, which my father wasn't too keen on (aside from the fact that it wouldn't have been possible anyway).
Physical therapy kept me busy for most of the summer, but no matter what I did, my range of motion didn't seem to improve like the doctor had hoped. Nothing showed up on the X-rays at my follow-up visits until December. By that time, I was walking and bowling again, although with a limp just as bad as before my hip had been broken.
At my December follow-up, the doctor conferred with other orthopaedic surgeons in his office, then came in the room to give me the bad news. Apparently, the surgery had been done too late after the injury for it to heal as he'd expected. It was a possibility he'd mentioned before, although the odds were not all that much to be concerned about at the time. He gave us a list of other hip specialists to see, and I realized that this would not be over any time soon, and it was time to make some new plans. My next appointment was for a second opinion from an excellent surgeon with a far better bedside manner than the last. He took his own series of X-rays and sadly came to the same conclusion.
We opted to go ahead with the surgery. Meanwhile, things continued to sour between my father and The Bitch. She was sleeping on the couch next to her kids and was given two weeks to find another place to live. Almost a month had passed before my father decided he'd had enough. He left a simple note telling her to be out of the house before he got home from work or he'd have a deputy there to remove her. I had just happened to be sick and staying home from school that day. I'm quite glad I did, as The Bitch tried to take all kinds of things that didn't belong to her. She even tried to take the cookware my grandmother had given me for Christmas! Fortunately, my sister was up early between the time my father left and when everyone else woke up to start their day. We still had a pumpkin on the front porch that had been there since shortly before Halloween. Amanda snuck outside with a knife, cut open the pumpkin, and smeared the rotting innards all over The Bitch's car. After learning about this later in the day, I made sure to give her a high-five when she got home from school! The Bitch claimed that she and her little shits were living out of her car in the small park across the street, although we knew she was taking advantage of a single male neighbor's free space in exchange for...well, you get the idea. After a few days, she just disappeared and left most of her belongings with us. It took a while, but most of the clothes ended up at Goodwill and anything else that couldn't be used or donated went on the burn pile.
February 27, 1996
It was exactly two years after my grandfather had passed away. My grandmother, who normally worries for all of us, was wound up like a Swiss watch spring. My father and I arrived at Santa Rosa Childrens' Hospital at 5 AM. I was nervous as hell, as the only other "surgery" I'd had done was on my toes, and I was fully awake for that one. In the pre-operative ward, they attempted to start an IV and failed miserably. I've always been tough to stick, and I know exactly where I get it from. My other grandmother (on my father's side) once went through twelve attempts to run an IV before surgery. I remember getting the "happy juice", as they called it, and wondering why I still didn't feel all that great. I said goodbye to my father and they wheeled me off to the operating room.
The next thing I remember is waking up an hour later in recovery with my leg strapped into a machine. This machine would flex my leg up to a certain angle slowly and then lower it back to a flat position. It was horrendously uncomfortable, and when my body was finally able to feel pain, I realized that my hip hurt like hell when it got to the top! The doctor kept me in the hospital for three days to make sure I acclimated to the machine. After my release, I had a very busy schedule of physical therapy ahead of me. The doctor's hypothesis was confirmed, and my next surgery was scheduled four weeks after the first. My physical therapy went well. Fortunately, most of it was in a swimming pool, and it actually felt good to get in the warm water. I was able to move more freely than I had in the last six months, and I was very happy about that!
March 26, 1996
It was time for the second operation. I had a strange sense of deja vu as we entered the hospital again at 5 AM. Sure enough, it took two tries to run the IV again, and the happy juice wasn't. The doctor was in a better mood, which gave me a little reassurance that this would go well and perhaps I would be back to normal after a few months. This time, when I woke up (five hours later) I was not strapped in to the machine. I was somewhat relieved. It was only a few minutes later that I discovered the joys of the morphine button. By the time Leno started, I was high as a kite and watching Univision. Now, I don't speak a word of Spanish beyond the menu at Taco Cabana, but it was apparently the funniest thing in the world to me!
By the next morning, they had cut back my morphine and wanted me to try standing up with a walker. No weight bearing on my hip for at least two weeks. By my second day up and about, I was making it down the hall to the nurses' station and back with almost no trouble. The walker was easier than I expected. Five days after surgery, the doctor cleared me to go home and told me to start using the infernal contraption again, starting off at a very low setting. It was decided that, since my father's work schedule would leave me home alone most of the day, I would stay with my mother for the first two weeks. This had several down sides, although being able to get help whenever I needed it managed to counter all of them. I slept in the recliner for the first two nights because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get out of the bed. As things improved, I started walking around more with my crutches and was able to negotiate the stairs outside with almost no difficulty. The machine still hurt like hell, but that was to be expected. It was also at this time that I started getting serious about tinkering with computers. My mother had a 386 machine that had never worked properly, and with my downtime, a friend of hers let me borrow "The Computer Bible", which at the time was about six inches thick. One day my mother decided to go grocery shopping. I asked her to put the computer up on the dining room table so I could see exactly what I was reading about. A few minutes after she left, I hobbled my way into the kitchen and grabbed a screwdriver from the drawer. By the time she returned, the computer was stripped down to nothing with each piece labeled and sorted on the table. To say she was furious would have been an understatement. I told her that since it had never worked in the first place that there was no harm in trying to see what was wrong. Sure enough, when I put it back together, it powered on and loaded Windows 3.1! From that moment on, I was hooked.
I made it to my first follow-up with the doctor, and he was pleased with the results at that point. I began physical therapy three times a week and the doctor cleared me to go back to school. With Boerne High being so spread out though, the doctor thought it wise for me to finish the school year in a wheelchair. On my first day back, I had a miserable time trying to get through doors and make it to my classes. Most people ignored the fact that I was even there. When I made it to my locker, however, someone was kind enough to help me get my books together and get my belongings situated on the back of the chair. This guy had the locker next to mine. He was a sophomore at the time, a year above me, and had transferred to Boerne shortly after I originally broke my hip. We'd said hi a few times in passing, but this was the first time we really talked. Sean quickly became one of my best friends (and still is to this day) and I will never forget how he took the time to help someone he barely knew just because it was the decent thing to do.
With the end of school came, for the most part, the end of the wheelchair. I still kept it for going places like the mall and anything else that would have otherwise required a lot of walking. My physical therapy increased for the summer. I was now going in four days a week. With my father's schedule, we realized it would be easier if I went in with him at 3AM and hung out in the break room at the airport. For the first few days, I just sat in there and read for hours on end. I started with some computer books, then moved on to other topics that interested me.
By this time, my father had recovered from his relationship with The Bitch. He even started dating someone else, a co-worker from the airport. Cindy was tall, attractive, and very kind to all of us. She had five children, two boys that were a year off of my age in either direction, a girl a year younger than my sister, and two very young ones who were perfect angels compared to the two we'd dealt with just a few months before. The two boys and I hit it off rather well, and they would come in on my therapy days to keep me company. It was only two days before we decided that we couldn't find any decent trouble to get in at the airport, so we begged for bus passes so we could start spending our days at the mall. The walking turned out to be great therapy for my hip, and it was great to have a couple of friends that I could connect with. Unfortunately, my father's relationship with Cindy didn't go very far. She wanted more children, which my father wasn't too keen on (aside from the fact that it wouldn't have been possible anyway).
Physical therapy kept me busy for most of the summer, but no matter what I did, my range of motion didn't seem to improve like the doctor had hoped. Nothing showed up on the X-rays at my follow-up visits until December. By that time, I was walking and bowling again, although with a limp just as bad as before my hip had been broken.
At my December follow-up, the doctor conferred with other orthopaedic surgeons in his office, then came in the room to give me the bad news. Apparently, the surgery had been done too late after the injury for it to heal as he'd expected. It was a possibility he'd mentioned before, although the odds were not all that much to be concerned about at the time. He gave us a list of other hip specialists to see, and I realized that this would not be over any time soon, and it was time to make some new plans. My next appointment was for a second opinion from an excellent surgeon with a far better bedside manner than the last. He took his own series of X-rays and sadly came to the same conclusion.
Chapter Three: Muted Screams
We move on to the following week. It's October 9th, 2005. Everyone is still talking about the OJ Simpson verdict, although I really didn't give a damn. My situation is about to get even worse...
My father's new girlfriend apparently had a chat with him over the weekend regarding my injury, and somehow convinced him that this was an elaborate scheme to get out of doing chores. I was still in so much pain that I could barely get out of bed or stand up, and *any* weight on my right hip brought me to tears. The chiropractor wasn't helping so far. On Monday morning, I woke up and struggled to get dressed for school. I missed the bus, so my father drove me to school. The whole reason I missed the bus was because he took away my crutches the night before, stating that I'd "been on them long enough and would never get better" if I kept using them. It took me five minutes to make it from my bed to the toilet across the hall, and almost fifteen to make it to the living room. I think I actually ran out of tears at one point.
My father got me to school well before the bus would have. I was dropped off in front of the auditorium (instead of near the building where my class was, almost half a mile away on the other side of campus) around 7:15.
Boerne High School is a fairly large and spread out campus, with ten separate buildings, two gymnasiums, and around 1200 students at the time. It was also very fortunate to have had one of the most amazing administrators at the time, Mr. Sam Champion. He made an effort to get to know every one of his students and always addressed them by name when he saw them. He had known me since my days in elementary school, thanks to winning the spelling bee and several other accomplishments. I'll write much more about him later, but it is at this point that he enters the story.
By 7:30, I had progressed about forty feet from where I got out of my father's van. Mr. Champion arrived and parked in the faculty lot directly in front of the auditorium. In retrospect, I was lucky to have been dropped off where I was. Still in tears, I tried my hardest to keep moving while carrying a heavy backpack and being unable to bear any weight on my right side. Sam approached me on his way to the office, and, having seen me on crutches for the previous week, asked me if everything was OK. One look at my face gave him the answer. He helped me hobble to the nearest bench, about ten more feet from where I was, and told me to sit down while he would try to make arrangements for some help. He wasn't sure if the athletic office would have crutches or a wheelchair that I could use for the day, but he was prepared to call just about anywhere to help find something for me. Fortunately, the athletic office had a wheelchair for injured players. He brought it to me, got me situated in it, and then pushed me to his office so I could bring him up to speed. I told him about the fall, what the chiropractor had said, and the argument my father and I went through the night before about my crutches. He must have called my father later in the day. When I finished with after-school band practice, my father was there again to pick me up and he brought my crutches with him. At the time, getting my father to admit he was wrong about something was only slightly easier than gaining access to Area 51. Sam must have been very persuasive.
My father relented on the crutches but still expected me to do "my share" around the house, which included carrying out the trash twice a week. Carrying a 20-30 pound trash bag down a rocky driveway is no easy task with crutches. To make matters worse, the little hellions I mentioned before managed to get away with everything and blame it on me. I became the whipping boy of the house.
The chiropractor gave me a series of exercises to do every day at home to help with my hip. I did them every day and wouldn't stop until the pain was so bad that I was afraid I would pass out. This played heavily into the arguments I would have with my father on an almost nightly basis. I begged him to take me to a real doctor because I wasn't getting any better, and he would always refuse with the same excuse:
"If I take you to a specialist, they're going to call the chiropractor. She'll say that you haven't been doing your exercises and they'll tell you that they won't be able to help you."
The argument would escalate, and my father would start ranting about how I didn't respect him or his authority. It would frequently end with me getting slapped across the face or shoved into a piece of furniture, causing me even more pain. One night I even threatened to call the sheriff...he told me "go ahead, they can't do a thing...and you'll regret it." Like a fool, I chickened out. All I wanted was to get some kind of real help, as it was obvious to me (and apparently, only me!) that the chiropractor was full of shit.
Elsewhere at home, things continued in the downward spiral. My dad's girlfriend (from now on, she'll be known as The Bitch) tried even harder to get my sister and me to leave and live with our mother. Her kids would frequently make messes that would later be blamed on one of us, prompting another argument. Many nights I would lay awake and wish for a quick and painless escape from all of it.
The holidays came, and I spent Thanksgiving at my mother's. It was only the second time since the fall that I had seen my mother, the first being the weekend that it happened. Even her husband noticed that something much more serious was wrong and that the chiropractor was not helping.
During the second week of December, my sister ran away from home. She didn't even ride the bus home that afternoon, opting instead to catch a ride with a neighbor who was a good friend of hers. She told me that morning that she would not be coming home and that I could find her at Kim's, but I was sworn to secrecy. I never said a word. The Bitch threatened to hit me with various kitchen instruments and at one point swung a frying pan at my head when I wouldn't tell her where Amanda was. She remained at Kim's all night and got on the bus from there the next morning. My father, for the most part, ignored it. He never knew about what happened just three days later. Fearing that I would be stuck without the ability to walk for the rest of my life, having every plea for help ignored or answered with abuse, and not having any other way out, I grabbed my crutches that Friday and left. I didn't tell anyone where I was going. I crutched my way over a mile to the Guadalupe River Bridge and stood at the edge. Over the guardrail was a drop of almost two hundred feet, with shallow water and plenty of rocks at the bottom. I stood there on the bridge for almost an hour and chain-smoked the cigarettes I stole from my grandmother's bedroom. I kept thinking that if I went through with it, maybe it would be a wake-up call to my father and, at the very least, things could be better for my sister. I cried as I contemplated the plunge. I had just finished my last cigarette as Mike and his mother were approaching the bridge to come home. They saw me there on the bridge and pulled over. Mike asked what I was doing there, and I told him that since I had no options left, I was going to do my damnedest to make my sister's situation a little better. He gave me a hug and told me to get in the van. We sat at his house drinking coffee for almost four hours, and I made it home just five minutes before my father. The Bitch was furious yet again, demanding to know where I was. I hit her in the stomach with my crutch and told her to fuck off as I had homework to do.
As we progressed toward Christmas, plans were made to send me and my sister off to Tennessee to visit with my grandmother, aunt, and uncle. During the last week of school, we made a visit to Wal-Mart and I left the group for the hardware section. My father finally found me picking out a locking doorknob for my bedroom. He asked why, and I told him "I'm not leaving for a week and giving those little shits unrestricted access to my bedroom. The door will be locked and the key will be with me in Tennessee." I think he finally realized how bad things had become when he wasn't around, and that night the plans were made to send the little hellions to their grandparents' for the same week.
Visiting in Tennessee was more of the usual. My aunt, however, jumped on the bandwagon about the exercises I allegedly wasn't doing. I made a point to show her that I was and that it had done nothing to help the problem. When we flew back, she still wasn't convinced. Fortunately, my grandmother flew back with us to spend two weeks in Texas. After my birthday, we went to my mother's for a few days to repeat the holiday festivities. During the weekend, my grandmother convinced my mom to take me to a real doctor before sending me back to my dad's.
January 2, 1996
We arrived at Dr. Mitchell's office early that morning. I was the first patient to be seen, and I was quite thankful as it turned out to be an all-day affair. The doctor was the only one in the small town of Comfort at the time, but was an excellent osteopath and family physician. After a brief exam, he sent me off to Kerrville for x-rays. Five hours later, films in hand, we were back in his office. It took him all of five seconds to fully process what he saw, and his first words were something to the extent of "And how is it you're even able to stand up without passing out???" He showed me exactly what the problem was. I broke the neck of my femur, separating the main portion of the bone from the ball in my hip socket. Over the three months that had elapsed since the original injury, the femur had attempted to heal directly to my pelvis.
I returned home that evening with my x-rays and an appointment set to see Dr. Earl Stanley, a local pediatric orthopedic surgeon, in a couple of weeks. I told my father to look at the x-ray films and decide again if I had been faking it all along. It took hours for the color to return to his face...
More to come again soon!
My father's new girlfriend apparently had a chat with him over the weekend regarding my injury, and somehow convinced him that this was an elaborate scheme to get out of doing chores. I was still in so much pain that I could barely get out of bed or stand up, and *any* weight on my right hip brought me to tears. The chiropractor wasn't helping so far. On Monday morning, I woke up and struggled to get dressed for school. I missed the bus, so my father drove me to school. The whole reason I missed the bus was because he took away my crutches the night before, stating that I'd "been on them long enough and would never get better" if I kept using them. It took me five minutes to make it from my bed to the toilet across the hall, and almost fifteen to make it to the living room. I think I actually ran out of tears at one point.
My father got me to school well before the bus would have. I was dropped off in front of the auditorium (instead of near the building where my class was, almost half a mile away on the other side of campus) around 7:15.
Boerne High School is a fairly large and spread out campus, with ten separate buildings, two gymnasiums, and around 1200 students at the time. It was also very fortunate to have had one of the most amazing administrators at the time, Mr. Sam Champion. He made an effort to get to know every one of his students and always addressed them by name when he saw them. He had known me since my days in elementary school, thanks to winning the spelling bee and several other accomplishments. I'll write much more about him later, but it is at this point that he enters the story.
By 7:30, I had progressed about forty feet from where I got out of my father's van. Mr. Champion arrived and parked in the faculty lot directly in front of the auditorium. In retrospect, I was lucky to have been dropped off where I was. Still in tears, I tried my hardest to keep moving while carrying a heavy backpack and being unable to bear any weight on my right side. Sam approached me on his way to the office, and, having seen me on crutches for the previous week, asked me if everything was OK. One look at my face gave him the answer. He helped me hobble to the nearest bench, about ten more feet from where I was, and told me to sit down while he would try to make arrangements for some help. He wasn't sure if the athletic office would have crutches or a wheelchair that I could use for the day, but he was prepared to call just about anywhere to help find something for me. Fortunately, the athletic office had a wheelchair for injured players. He brought it to me, got me situated in it, and then pushed me to his office so I could bring him up to speed. I told him about the fall, what the chiropractor had said, and the argument my father and I went through the night before about my crutches. He must have called my father later in the day. When I finished with after-school band practice, my father was there again to pick me up and he brought my crutches with him. At the time, getting my father to admit he was wrong about something was only slightly easier than gaining access to Area 51. Sam must have been very persuasive.
My father relented on the crutches but still expected me to do "my share" around the house, which included carrying out the trash twice a week. Carrying a 20-30 pound trash bag down a rocky driveway is no easy task with crutches. To make matters worse, the little hellions I mentioned before managed to get away with everything and blame it on me. I became the whipping boy of the house.
The chiropractor gave me a series of exercises to do every day at home to help with my hip. I did them every day and wouldn't stop until the pain was so bad that I was afraid I would pass out. This played heavily into the arguments I would have with my father on an almost nightly basis. I begged him to take me to a real doctor because I wasn't getting any better, and he would always refuse with the same excuse:
"If I take you to a specialist, they're going to call the chiropractor. She'll say that you haven't been doing your exercises and they'll tell you that they won't be able to help you."
The argument would escalate, and my father would start ranting about how I didn't respect him or his authority. It would frequently end with me getting slapped across the face or shoved into a piece of furniture, causing me even more pain. One night I even threatened to call the sheriff...he told me "go ahead, they can't do a thing...and you'll regret it." Like a fool, I chickened out. All I wanted was to get some kind of real help, as it was obvious to me (and apparently, only me!) that the chiropractor was full of shit.
Elsewhere at home, things continued in the downward spiral. My dad's girlfriend (from now on, she'll be known as The Bitch) tried even harder to get my sister and me to leave and live with our mother. Her kids would frequently make messes that would later be blamed on one of us, prompting another argument. Many nights I would lay awake and wish for a quick and painless escape from all of it.
The holidays came, and I spent Thanksgiving at my mother's. It was only the second time since the fall that I had seen my mother, the first being the weekend that it happened. Even her husband noticed that something much more serious was wrong and that the chiropractor was not helping.
During the second week of December, my sister ran away from home. She didn't even ride the bus home that afternoon, opting instead to catch a ride with a neighbor who was a good friend of hers. She told me that morning that she would not be coming home and that I could find her at Kim's, but I was sworn to secrecy. I never said a word. The Bitch threatened to hit me with various kitchen instruments and at one point swung a frying pan at my head when I wouldn't tell her where Amanda was. She remained at Kim's all night and got on the bus from there the next morning. My father, for the most part, ignored it. He never knew about what happened just three days later. Fearing that I would be stuck without the ability to walk for the rest of my life, having every plea for help ignored or answered with abuse, and not having any other way out, I grabbed my crutches that Friday and left. I didn't tell anyone where I was going. I crutched my way over a mile to the Guadalupe River Bridge and stood at the edge. Over the guardrail was a drop of almost two hundred feet, with shallow water and plenty of rocks at the bottom. I stood there on the bridge for almost an hour and chain-smoked the cigarettes I stole from my grandmother's bedroom. I kept thinking that if I went through with it, maybe it would be a wake-up call to my father and, at the very least, things could be better for my sister. I cried as I contemplated the plunge. I had just finished my last cigarette as Mike and his mother were approaching the bridge to come home. They saw me there on the bridge and pulled over. Mike asked what I was doing there, and I told him that since I had no options left, I was going to do my damnedest to make my sister's situation a little better. He gave me a hug and told me to get in the van. We sat at his house drinking coffee for almost four hours, and I made it home just five minutes before my father. The Bitch was furious yet again, demanding to know where I was. I hit her in the stomach with my crutch and told her to fuck off as I had homework to do.
As we progressed toward Christmas, plans were made to send me and my sister off to Tennessee to visit with my grandmother, aunt, and uncle. During the last week of school, we made a visit to Wal-Mart and I left the group for the hardware section. My father finally found me picking out a locking doorknob for my bedroom. He asked why, and I told him "I'm not leaving for a week and giving those little shits unrestricted access to my bedroom. The door will be locked and the key will be with me in Tennessee." I think he finally realized how bad things had become when he wasn't around, and that night the plans were made to send the little hellions to their grandparents' for the same week.
Visiting in Tennessee was more of the usual. My aunt, however, jumped on the bandwagon about the exercises I allegedly wasn't doing. I made a point to show her that I was and that it had done nothing to help the problem. When we flew back, she still wasn't convinced. Fortunately, my grandmother flew back with us to spend two weeks in Texas. After my birthday, we went to my mother's for a few days to repeat the holiday festivities. During the weekend, my grandmother convinced my mom to take me to a real doctor before sending me back to my dad's.
January 2, 1996
We arrived at Dr. Mitchell's office early that morning. I was the first patient to be seen, and I was quite thankful as it turned out to be an all-day affair. The doctor was the only one in the small town of Comfort at the time, but was an excellent osteopath and family physician. After a brief exam, he sent me off to Kerrville for x-rays. Five hours later, films in hand, we were back in his office. It took him all of five seconds to fully process what he saw, and his first words were something to the extent of "And how is it you're even able to stand up without passing out???" He showed me exactly what the problem was. I broke the neck of my femur, separating the main portion of the bone from the ball in my hip socket. Over the three months that had elapsed since the original injury, the femur had attempted to heal directly to my pelvis.
I returned home that evening with my x-rays and an appointment set to see Dr. Earl Stanley, a local pediatric orthopedic surgeon, in a couple of weeks. I told my father to look at the x-ray films and decide again if I had been faking it all along. It took hours for the color to return to his face...
More to come again soon!
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