At long last, time for deep resting/recovering from all the intensities/changes of the past year
including a most misadventure (at my parents' in Florida) that decapitated one of my baby toes; healing well.
Without the familiar grove around me, I’m discovering new and different signs of the season’s unfolding. In my little meadow the California poppies, morning glories and morning glory-like pink flowers are still blooming abundantly. This month they’re joined by lots of yellow wild mustard and huge patches of what are finally blooming into bachelor buttons.
A tree of privet is flagrantly in flower at the edge of the patio. And, as spring has moved into summer, the lovely green plantings left around the patio by my landlord have been revealing their identities. First yellow Dutch iris, then lovely delicate white and lavender cymbidiums. And, just now, lush blue Lily of the Nile. My pots of roses keep setting forth fragrant, brilliant blossoms. Even as they struggle to adapt to more full-day sun than they’d been used to at my old house. Still lots of pansies, blue salvia and petunias, joined this month by the flowerings of several species of geranium. And, at last, by the first gardenias of the year.
Everything in my garden is on such a smaller, more manageable scale here at the new house. All of it in one place: the wraparound patio. Every morning I pick small portions of luscious sun-warmed strawberries for my breakfast. Evenings, it’s sweet cherry tomatoes, pungent arrugula and baby bits of chard and purple kale to add to my summery salad dinners.
I’ve taken up my former landlords’ offer to still pick freely at the old orchard/grove. Apricots, plums and white peaches so far. Again, smaller more manageable portions. Not feeling the old pressure to either deal with or try to ignore the overabundant harvest. I go during the week when they’re not there so that I won’t have to interact with them.
It surprises me that being there seems not to stir any nostalgia. Nor any sadness. Even as I notice the many changes they’ve been making to the cottage that once was my sweet home. All of my emotional home-connection has been transferred here to my wonderful new space! The last interactions with those landlords severed my ties there. And, it seems that the long months of despondent searching were my time of mourning the coming loss.
Except for a major misadventure during my 2 1/2 day mid-month visit to my folks (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida), June has been a month of serious, much needed deep resting. I’ve spent most of each of the past few days of my early July unplugged time reading and napping in my hammock. Serenaded by all the sweet birds that have found my feeders. Stopping to watch the apples grow. Walking the nearby trail or streets in the cool of the early evenings.
An email exchange with the agent to whom I’d sent my manuscript let me know that she’s just ending a whirlwind 5 weeks of other busyness. Let me know, too, that she’s hoping to spend the next couple of weeks finally getting into my work. I find myself still quite curious and still not the least bit impatient.
I’m totally into spending my time in deep resting/recovery from all the intensity of the past year: The search, the deaths, the move and my recent misadventure. Puttering about my garden keeping up with watering and deadheading the gone-by flowers. Lazily and intermittently updating/winnowing/rearranging my files in this new space. Lots of reading, lots of napping, lots of gentle drifting. Such voluptuousness! So especially nourishing in this time that I seem to be working way more hours than usual. (So many of the women I work (or once worked) with are going through unusually challenging and difficult times, wanting more sessions that usual.) I love the work but love the resting equally well!
So to the tale of my misadventure. I had an easy flight (the usual roughly 13 hours door to door) to my folks in mid-June. Had a perfectly delightful first day and evening with my dad, step mom and sister. This, the first time in several years that she and I were there at the same time. (We only overlapped a day each time as we passed the torch on either end of our stays when my father broke his hip a year and a half ago.) My dear sister, a Physician Assistant by profession, is above all else, an incredibly outrageous comedienne. A female version of Seinfeld. She gets invited everywhere to provide entertainment and comic relief for all occasions. She’s relentlessly funny in wonderful ways, never overdoes it and can easily keep my folks (and me) laughing hysterically. It’s a very different, much easier time when we’re both there. Together we manage to weave between serious sharing and utter silliness. We work well together as we try to help them figure out better ways to cope with the medical stuff and the stress. (Not that they listen much to either of us.)
The second morning my dad and I were up early hanging out and having me start on some fix-it projects. Things he once would do for me whenever he came to visit, I now do for him. (Even as he enjoys my “handy-ness,” he sometimes feels really despairing over his increasing incapacity to do so much of what he used to do.) I'd been up a ladder fixing a loosened light fixture in their laundry room (off their kitchen). The teakettle started to whistle. I didn’t want my dad (who has Parkinson's) to try to hurry in from the family room to get it. And, I didn’t want it to waken my step mom (my sister sleeps like dead!). So, I called out to stay him as I hurried down the ladder–much faster and way less cautiously than I normally would.
This part is not for the queasy, be forewarned! Though I wound up on my feet at the bottom of the ladder, my flip-flop (not ever good ladder climbing footwear) skidded off at the third from the bottom step. My bare foot slid along the edges of the next two steps. My left baby toe got wedged between the side rail and the bottom step and the force of my weight sheared off about half of it! And, the cross brace below the last step lacerated the undersides of the next two toes. Such a shock!
Astonishingly, all I felt was incredibly intense pressure and some burning, no real pain. I hobbled into the kitchen, turned off the kettle, wrapped my foot in a towel, put it up on the table, pressed hard to stop the bleeding and began Reiki-ing it. (Actually there’d been very little blood.) I dropped into some deeply calm place after one quick, sickening look at my mangled raw flesh. I found myself totally fascinated with the way my body and my being were responding to the trauma, stunned by the absence of pain.
I was able to hold myself in the just-this-moment of it all. Able to stop all thoughts of what might come of this. Able, from this calm space to tell my dad to go slowly to wake my sister. Able to tell him that I’d done something bad to my foot, that we’d have to go to the emergency room. Pale as a sheet, he came through the kitchen on his way to get her as I reassured him I was doing okay.
Then, the drama began! My step mom coming in a wave of intense agitation and concern. My half-asleep, morning-grumpy sister arriving while pulling herself together to be there and alert. My so-shocked dad so worried and trying to find something to do to help. All of us trying to sort through whether to drive to the urgent care center or to the hospital ER or to just call 911. (We called 911.) My dad and my sister going to look for my severed toe in the laundry room. My sister yelling at my dad that he shouldn’t be moving the washing machine. (They thought it might have gone under there because it was no where to be seen.) Me hobbling out and finding the decapitated piece actually still wedged between the upright and the last step.
The paramedic crew of four arriving with lights and sirens. Struggling to get the gurney through the cramped right angled entryway. My sister having a stress attack of diarrhea that briefly (and horrifyingly) left me with the possibility that my step mom would be the one to go to the ER with me. (She’s very caring but an absolute nervous wreck, especially in hospitals. I’d have had to be calming her instead of coping with myself or having a helpful ally.)
Actually, once the paramedics got us out of the house, things settled down considerably. My blood pressure and pulse were their normal low (114/72 and 68) and we joked in the ambulance that I was probably the calmest of all of us. (The EMT’s were having an impossibly frustrating time trying to get an IV line in as we bounced and careened through town.) My sister rode up front with the driver. Beginning, I was sure, to weave the tale into comedic routines she would be doing for weeks to come. (Later, she told me that she’d been too worried to do much of her usual kibitzing.) I trusted that she was in her element (she loves things gory and medical). Trusted that I absolutely wouldn’t have to take care of her (such a relief to know this). Trusted that she’d be a fabulous ally and knowledgeable advocate in the process. I had a second, brief surge of panic when we were directed to a trauma center instead of the closer regular ER. This because that ER “wasn’t equipped for re-attachment surgery.” As soon as I realized that there was no way that I’d agree to let one of the Floridian bozos do any surgery on me and no way I’d consider staying in a hospital down there, I calmed back down. (They’ve already almost killed my dad, my aunt and their cousin–not very confidence inducing!) I really didn’t think the other half of my baby toe was necessary for balance. And, I remembered that it was I, not they, who was in charge of what I would let them do.
As we arrived at the hospital, they said they’d have to separate us till I’d been seen by the doctor. I gently but clearly told them that I didn’t think so! That she was my patient advocate and I wasn’t going anywhere without her. It’s startling how easy it is to “take charge” instead of caving into “being good and doing just what they say.” They’re completely surprised by this unexpected behavior and back down immediately.
It turned out to be a deliciously calm and peaceful 6-hour day with my sister in an extraordinarily calm and peaceful, incredibly low key trauma center. They stitched the lacerations, dressed my "stump" after x-raying, blood taking, a tetanus shot and infusing me with some heavy-duty IV antibiotics. All this with long waits between as we kept slipping to the bottom of the triage list. And, all this with lots of funny and sweet interchanges with a stream of dear, caring, and competent young technicians, nurses, and doctors and registration people.
It was such a treat to witness my sister doing her magic, schmoozing the people in and out of the room. Both of us are incredibly adept at relating to people in a way that gets us what we need and leaves them feeling good about the process. We schmooze quite differently but equally skillfully. I’d never seen her “in action” before. I loved it! We double-teamed them all. And had lots of laughs and shared stories back and forth with all the staff folks we met. I’d had my sister grab our books, my seat cushion and some bottled water before we’d left the house. And, she’d gotten the security guard (as well as his afternoon replacement) in the lobby to agree to let her come and go from the ER. She made countless trips out to send my folks home (after we missed stopping them from coming at all). To keep my folks and the rest of the family updated by cell-phone. And, to bring snacks once I was permitted to eat.
It was in the end, as she put it, an unexpectedly calm space for some sisterly bonding. My little sister big-sistered me all day! And, the only real pain all day came from the lidocaine shots they pushed too quickly into the ball of my foot before they did the stitching.
My aunt came to ferry us to pick up antibiotics and pain meds and then back to my folks. After a bit of chaotic intensity around having dinner as soon as we came in, we spent a relatively calm evening doing debriefing with everyone. Including, by phone, our almost 95-year-old great aunt with whom we didn’t get to have lunch because we’d spent the day in the trauma unit. We had some calmer time together again the next morning and early afternoon before my sister and I left for NYC and Ojai. I being wheel-chaired thro the airports and trying not to walk too much the first days.
I kept waiting for the shock to wear off, for the pain to begin. I kept thinking it might show itself once I was on my own, where I could feel it without having to also be dealing with everyone’s getting upset by it. It never came!
It was all so very weird! My main distress while sitting in the bed in the trauma unit was at having so upset my parents, my aunt and my great aunt. They all get so totally wrecked by stress. And, this visit of mine–rather than bringing them peace and calm and help with fix-it stuff–brought them some scary, agitating stress! I felt so sorry for that. But, there it was. There was nothing to do about it. It was an unfortunate accident. I talked lovingly and gently to myself, never giving myself any grief about the accident. Never, for even a moment, considering–the way I once surely would have–berating myself for the “stupidity and carelessness” that led to my hurting myself. For “creating such havoc for everyone.” This was no small miracle!
I saw my own doctor both as soon as I got home and a week later to remove the stitches. I seem to be healing uneventfully, without anything more than an occasional bit of discomfort. It's now 2 ½ weeks since the injury and I continue to be stunned by the absence of pain. This week I’ve started taking some modest walks around town and on the fire road trail in my toe-cut-out running shoe. I won't be doing any serious hiking for a while, but the new house is surrounded by wild and mountain views. These bring me deep solace even if they’re at a greater distance than they’d be were I on the trails.
No hot tubs till the stump heals over. (At the rate the new skin is growing that’ll probably be another 2 or 3 weeks.) I’d have thought I’d really miss both that and the hiking. That I’d feel deprived. But I seem surprisingly at peace with just being exactly in the moment that I am. Totally able to embrace how things are for now. No yearning after what’s not available.
It’s rather wonderful to find myself being in the space that I am with the whole of it all. I’m so delighted that it was so easy for me to let in my sister’s help. (She really was remarkably tuned into what would be right for me in the middle of it all. And, she gracefully intervened a couple of times to make sure I was given the best care possible.) I’m thrilled that there’s been no real pain. Amazed that I’ve been able to dress and care for my poor little foot with such tenderness, with no berating or blaming or agonizing over why this happened now. Such a relief from how I used to be with myself! And, I’m so pleased that I’ve been able, all through the experience, to stay just in the middle of what was in each moment. Being loving and gentle with myself every step of the way. Yes!
Originally published July 2005
