I Can Be A Damn Dummy

I'm sitting on my sofa. I go to stand up.

Nope.

I've stood up a zillion times before. I mean, come on. I've got muscle memory and a lifetime of perfecting the graceful art of lifting my torso.

But no. I fall. This is dead weight me. There I go, crashing into the unsuspecting floor. Can't be certain, but there might have been cursing.

The pain radiating from my spine connects to every part of me. It hurts so much I struggle to get back up on the sofa. Takes 41 agonizing minutes.

Finally, I'm nearly triumphant and, expletive me!, topside hurts every bit as much as the floor. Correction: it hurts worse. I thrust myself back to Hades. Expletive me!

I can't sit, stand, walk, bend, breathe, think, speak, or scream. Or, if I can scream, I cannot hear myself screaming. But I know myself -- I'm definitely screaming bloody murder. I am terrified I'll never walk again.

Primal fear punches its way out. I expect to pass out. I don't.

Instead, I sweat--each bead, a death sentence.

*

Eventually my husband comes home to find me balled up and writhing, a tangle of exploding nerve endings. I can't make sentences so there can be no explaining what happened, let alone what to do about it.

He wants to call for an ambulance, but here's the thing: I'm not thinking straight, and I can be stubborn. Worst, my full blown panic invites his full blown panic out to play. It's a party.

Next thing I'm death grip clinging to the passenger seat of his truck me. He straps me in and we're on our way — hitting every crack, pothole, bump and divot.

Specialists cycle me through tests, traction, medications, more tests. Can't agree on a course of treatment. Surgery is on the table. I've heard the horror stories. I decline the knife. It gets worse. It stays worse.

I'll skip the gory details.

***

Instead, allow me to share where riddled brain me goes while the medical community confers:

During my extended stay at Hospital Loop d'Loop, I mind meld with Evel Knievel, the 1970's era explorer turned self-promoting daredevil who, when I was growing up, sometimes overtook my TV. His self-appointed mission was risking life and limb performing long motorcycle jumps and other insane feats of daring for want of wealth and fame.

Evel Knievel holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the most broken bones. By the end of 1975, he'd suffered 433 fractures.

Can you count to four hundred and thirty-three, children?!

There I am in a flimsy hospital gown picturing myself hurtling high into the air, clown-like, straddling the Grand Canyon only to fall Wile E. Coyote me like an anchor.

I was never eyeballs stuck to the TV over Evel Knievel, but thinking of his adventures distracted me from my own private hell. If he could survive all that, surely I could survive this. He jumped canyons. I tried to stand up.

***

Eventually I get released — in a wheelchair. Possibly forever.

Doctors say we need to take a wait and see approach. They smile that doctor smile that makes me want to punch a padded wall, or a doctor.

*

I'm home, wheelchair-bound, terrified and flooded with do not crush tabs of happy-happy joy-joy-joy. My pain is not diminished in any way, but I sure care a whole lot less.

As a newlywed working full-time while finishing my undergraduate degree, I'm fiercely committed to earning that expensive piece of paper, on time, with a perfect GPA. But there are hurdles: I can't think straight. Can't stand. Can't walk. Can't drive. And worst, I'm dime store kite en route to Mars loopy me and no one's holding the kite string.

I have no regrets about taking my education seriously. I'm alive to learn.

What I do regret is sending away the wheelchair delivery guy without getting instructions on the chair's use. I think, how hard can it be? I've been in chairs. I've used things with wheels. I know what I'm doing.

May I remind you, I formerly thought I knew how to stand up. Look where that got me.

*

I convince my loving husband to get me into the passenger seat of his truck--cuz last time went so swimmingly. And off we go, heading to my campus armed with notebook, pens, water, meds, and a whole lot of misplaced certainty.

"I've got this."

*

We arrive on campus. I'm happy. We park in a lot with which I am unfamiliar. Of course my husband pulls into the handicapped lot, because that's his wife's life now.

He carefully drops the wheelchair out the back, unstraps me from the truck, loads me into my freedom rocket, and asks if I’d like him to wheel me to the classroom.

"Nah, I've got this."

“Okay. Be safe."

He double-checks that I'm sure about this. "Can't change your mind?"

"Nope, I'm fine."

He thinks, she's been in chairs. She's worked with things with wheels. She's dead set on attending class, and she can be stubborn. She's got this.

Off he goes, planning to retrieve me four hours hence. What could possibly go wrong?

*

I start wheeling bull-stubborn hubris-anointed delta kite me across what turns out to be a much hillier campus than I had realized. And there are stairs -- as far as eyes can see.

Right about now I notice the blur of my husband's green Toyota Tacoma merrily rolling along. I'm Little Jackie Paper saying farewell to Puff the Magic Dragon. May he rest.

Naturally, cell phones have yet to be invented so there's no chance of calling my husband back. I'm committed.

All I can do is slowly, tediously, push the wheels round and round.

"I've got this!" I tell myself.

I am wrong.

Suddenly I’m electric lawnmower me wolfing down high-octane fuel charging at a cape, thrice-stuck Spanish bull me mulling down everything in my path.

Weeeeeeee!

I slalom through concrete patios, metal stairs, working fountains and ant farm students paying no attention. I tumble through tuffs of grass and slippery spreads of newly watered landscaping. This is completely out of control me. I'm headed directly for the corner of the Administration Building. And these blasted wheels. Will. Not. Turn.

I go rogue. Jump the path. Thrust forward, hurtling toward exposed bricks.

Delta kite me finds this hilarious. I can't stop laughing.

I'm sailing straight for the sharp edge of Good Night John Boy. And I'm gonna miss class. "Help!" I shout. "Help!"

Or at least I think I do. Honestly, I could have been asking the Lollipop Guild to share bananas with Mr. Andrews as he stares down the frozen clock on the doomed Titanic. Cut to the brave lads playing violin on deck.

I hit the brake. Nothing changes.

I've lost muscle strength. I'm not stopping.

I plant my palms atop the wheels and close down hard, bare hands absorbing heat and energy. The stench of burning flesh stings my nose.

I brake again. Hard-hard-hard-hard-hard. With everything I can muster.

//

Those who know about wheelchairs might have caught my mistake. I hit the brake. Singular. That's a problem.

It doesn't occur to me until I'm back in the hospital, in traction, on stronger than strong meds, about to go under the knife, that I needed to hit both brakes. Plural.

But let's not skip ahead.

//

I'm launched into the air, Evel Knievel incarnate me, flying without a net. I'm desperate to stop myself from smacking into every awaiting source of pain.

I'm doing my own stunt work!

As Evel could tell you (without so much as an ironic smile, because he wasn't paid to smile), soaring isn't the hard part. Sticking the landing is.

I travel six body lengths, easy. Then I hit the ground. This is bug splat smushed on the windshield of life me.

*

I come to a halt tangled up in a boxwood. That shrub keeps my brain from splitting into northern and southern hemispheres.

I'm face down, spread eagle, pants torn open, exposing my, ahem, stupidity to the gathering crowd.

I can't lift myself. Can't get back into the chair. Naturally, one wheel still spins, mocking me, pinning me down.

Can't feel my arms, fingers, or legs. My spinal pain floats away. Paralysis finds a foothold.

What is working for me? Drugs.

Evel Knievel would have been proud. He'd have yelled at me for failing to secure a retainer, but otherwise he'd have placed a fatherly hand on my shoulder. High praise from that one.

*

Through an upward facing eye, I see a column of bricks inches from my cornea.

Is she dead? Should we call an ambulance? Anyone see a pay phone? Is that blood? Oh, this is bad.

What they see: A 32-year-old coated in broken branches, spackled with tears, blood and concrete, crowned with blades of wet grass. She's partially pinned beneath a dented wheelchair, crying, screaming and laughing, blowing snot bubbles, a thicket of matted ash blonde hair hiding damage to mouth, nose, jaw, cheek, eye, eyebrow, ear, and forehead.

Soon they'll notice my palms, skinless bloody monsters those are.

*

I convince these lovely people to help me. It takes a minute, but I do get help. Entirely reluctant help.

Wonderful strangers deliver me to the classroom.

Naturally, we failed to factor in how long it takes in the world of physics to get me up three flights of stairs without legs weighed down by a heavy-heavy broken metal chair.

My helpers can't run away fast enough.

*

So there I am in class, Bless My Heart me, wheeled into an open space at the absolute front, interrupting the lecture, nearly 30 minutes late. You might say I cause a bit of a distraction.

Someone plucks bark from my noggin. Someone else shoves a pen in my raw hand, then stuffs a notepad on the desk. A third someone riffles through my stash, palming the good stuff. I hold no grudges.

I should have had the good sense to be humiliated.

No, I should have had the good sense to seek immediate medical attention.

But no. I have class.

*

During the next several hours I scribble something akin to notes as my professor ascribes meaning to Shakespeare's King Lear while Evel Knievel and I float high above the white cliffs of Dover.

I haven't exactly endeared myself to the other students. No more cutting class on account of a cold.

You're welcome.

***

One year later...

***

That lovely professor who managed to deal with Bless My Heart me gets to select a student to study abroad. She thinks of me. Guess you could say I left an impression.

By then I had willed my way back, one painful step after the next. I was walking again, albeit lacking grace.

Of course I enthusiastically accept the offer!

Thanks to that prof, the last coursework of my degree takes place in Cambridge, England. I study Shakespeare, perform Richard III on the Globe stage, visit The Rose, and research The Bard's works using the archives at Stratford-upon-Avon (but that’s a whole other story!).

I lived an aspiration I had held inside my heart since I was a forth-grader. This dream had never been whispered to another living soul.

And there I was walking the manicured lawns of my dream school, discovering myself through Shakespeare, finding friends I'd keep for life. It only cost me a world of pain, my dignity, a mountain of will power and dogged determination. But I made something out of a situation that could have ended me.

I can still be a damn dummy, but to quote Shakespeare: “Pain pays the income of each precious thing.”

Maybe, just this once, Evel Knievel puts it even better: "If you don't know about pain and trouble, you're in sad shape. They make you appreciate life."

***

Copyright © 05/23/2021 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.