Once upon a time, I visited a hospital in the Marquesas Islands. It was one of the most beautiful hospitals I’d seen. The hallways were wide open to sunlight, fresh air, and colorful chickens, alike. I never saw a wild goat, but surely they must visit, too. The grounds of the Seychelles Hospital were similarly beautiful, even if the Emergency Department was a bit less so. Ask me how I know this?
Believe me when I say: I tried everything.
Ice. Heat. Every physical therapy protocol I know and the internet offers for managing disc related back issues: The McKenzie Method, The McGill Method. I did lunges, I did cobras, I did shoulder press, there were towels and bands involved. I attempted three different adjustments with a very French Osteopath who gently attempted to release spasming muscles and realign my spine while saying “Don’t worry, Madame.”
I consulted with pharmacists and an orthopedic specialist they gave me pills, potions, and intramuscular injections, I tried to force myself through yoga and somatic movement exercises, I dangled from hatch windows and countertops to try to decompress my spine. I found an acupuncturist in town, and I was working up the courage to forget the traumatic Chinese Elbow Torture I experienced in Malaysia. And yet, my pain and mobility spiraled downward.
Eventually, I begged Andrew to take me off the boat and find me a land apartment. Living on a boat has a number of functional movement demands that a normal land abode just doesn’t require: Lifting the lid on the refrigerator, bending and leaning forward to reach pans in their cupboard behind the stove, the weight of unfolding the dinner table, the need to bend to enter and exit the companion way and duck beneath the dodger, even just climbing the stairs to get out of the companionway, squatting down and bending to climb down from Sonrisa to Grin, or Grin to the dock. Whatever this latest back injury is, the constant rocking in the waves and movement challenges aboard Sonrisa seemed to make it worse and worse.
Accepting our fate as a two-abode family, Andrew scooped me up, poured me into Grin, and took me ashore to sleep a few morning hours in the back seat of the rental car until we could find somewhere else to put me. Andrew, Pete and Jen, together, found me a lovely spot. Jane, our new landlord, set us up that very day and by two in the afternoon I had my very own land bed, land couch, land shower, land kitchen, and land patio. Luxury!
I was certain this would be the the thing that would help me turn the corner.
For the first few nights, Andrew stayed at the apartment - traveling back to Sonrisa to check on Katherine Hepburn and the rest of the crew during the mid-day. But, at night we both would lay sleepless as we could hear the palm fronds blowing in the jungle outside our window, with deluges of rain bucketing from the sky. “Do you think Grin will make it through the night without sinking?” I ask.
Neither of us knew the answer to that question.
We were both worried about everything.
Besides that, my nights were still sleepless and filled with pacing and ice packets. There really was no point in both of us staying awake all night. So, I sent Andrew home to sleep with Kitty on his feet, Sonrisa's anchor alarm set, and Grin’s bailing cup at the ready. Each night Andrew arrived home, Katherine Hepburn greeted him at the top of the stairs with a chorus of “Meyows" to complain of her loneliness and thank him profusely for returning home to her.
(Meyow translation, thanks to our new favorite app: Meow Talk. No, we aren’t peddling the thing, Andrew just likes to think he knows what Kitty is saying.)
It soothed me to know my family was all safe, and I was free to work through my issues on shore, at least until this particular night. I'd been laying on the couch trying to close my eyes for as many minutes as my body would allow when I realized I needed to use the restroom. Tipping myself up from the curled fetal position, using my arms rather than my back to bring myself to a seated position, I placed my feet on the floor, hands on my knees, and attempted to stand as all back patients are taught to do. Except my right leg just collapsed. I almost fell off the couch, surprised as I was to find my right leg would not respond to my demand for motive power.
“Shit." I whisper, re-balancing myself on the arm of the couch and trying again. Still, my right leg would not respond. With the couch located like an island in the middle of the room, there was nothing around to help me. I lay back down for a while - maybe I could wait for Andrew to come by later?
But that was hours away.
Soon, I realized this is not a reasonable possibility.
I decide what I need is some momentum, so in one great shove I thrust my body to vertical, attempting to position myself over my left leg, leaving my right on the ground no more than strictly necessary to maintain balance. This gets me to standing but the pain takes my breath away and I realize now there is no way to move. I consider hopping on one foot, but with the most feeble attempt I realize hopping was out of the question. It's not just too painful to hop, my body’s muscular system could not cause a hop to occur. There would be no “hopping.”
Until this moment, I didn't realize how much of my my self-identify is wrapped up in my ability to hop.
I clamor along the structure of the couch, tip myself across the gap between couch and wall, then hang myself against the wall to shuffle toward the restroom. The distance feels like a ten-day passage at sea. Each step brings bright lights, a narrowing tunnel of darkness, and that strange feeling of cloud-like mist falling heavy from the crown of my head downward to my stomach until nausea takes hold.
“You are not this body. You are not this body." I repeat over and over again, willing my soul to hover at some more comfortable distance.
Luckily, I had tucked my phone into the squeeze between my bra and my body, knowing I really might need to call someone. My hands shaking, I poke my finger at my phone squinting at the screen through stars of pain. The tone rings. It’s 4:30 a.m.
“Hello?” Andrew's voice is groggy. “Leslie?"
“Andrew....” I pant into the phone, pausing to let another wave of pain pass under me. “Andrew, I think.....I have to go... to the emergency room.”
With back injuries involving nerve compression, the risk is that whatever bone or muscle that is pinching or rubbing the nerve will squeeze so hard that the nerve is permanently injured. It is possible to sever the nerve so completely that you lose some important functions in your lower body. This is not ideal. One of the symptoms that take a back injury from a painful annoyance to this more substantial risk is when your foot/leg stops responding to normal signals to move.
Andrew was on his way.
Then, I use the forty-five minutes it takes for Andrew to arrive to try to get myself out of my pajamas and into something dignified enough to meet perfect strangers. This project, too, fails, but at least I get myself back to the couch to wait. Until Andrew knocks at the door.
“We're here!"
"Who is 'we’?" I ask, my horror deepening at this prospect.
“Pete is here to help!”
“Oooohhhnoooooo!" I groan, “He can't come in, I'm not wearing any pants!"
Andrew lets himself in while Pete remains in the hallway ringing his hands in fretfulness over the state of my condition. Andrew is forced to acquire some pants and dress me like an oversized doll programed to complain aloud when you bend her leg back in a funny way.
Once decent, my second rescue knight is allowed into my chamber, and we develop a strategy to drag me up the flight of stairs and tuck me into the back seat of the car inside a cloud of pillows. I engage in manic and mostly senseless positivity while Pete pilots us through the narrow and steep jungle roads. Andrew comments on how insane I sound from the perspective of the front row of this vehicle.
I laugh, “So funny! Must be all these I'm on, hahahahahah!" But really, it’s my mode of distraction from despair. If you've been following our blog the whole way, you know this injury officially kicked off in 2013 when I fell off my mountain bike and seems to return without much reason or warning. It’s scary. Long haul passages require reliable bodies. I have sailed us exactly halfway around the world from home; what if I can’t finish the return? What if I can't be Andrew’s SCUBA buddy or hike or ride my mountain bike? What if I can’t even pick up Kitty in her Taco Box for a few pats when she requests? If I think too much about it, I start to panic that this injury will eventually swallow all of the capabilities I feel define “me”.
Therefore, manic positivity from the backseat of my rental chariot it will be.
Arriving at the Emergency Department Andrew drags me through a dark hallway, lined with empty metal beds from what must have been an uneventful night. A bevy of doctors explore my situation with accents so unfamiliar neither Andrew nor I can quite piece together. “It isn’t French or Kreole, it almost sounds Spanish." Andrew says in a moment alone.
“Are you from the Seychelles?” we ask as the radiologist leads us to a room with cold and beeping machinery.
“No, Cuba.”
Ah-hah! Cuban!
The Seychelles is a rather small community. With a total population of only about 90,000 people spread across three primary inhabited islands, it doesn’t always have all the people with specialized skill that a community might need. So, apparently, many of the medical practitioners come here from Cuba.
A whole Cuban cohort ran me through an X-Ray and a CT Scan which mostly confirmed what we already know: I have a few discs out for a wander. They doped me up with a shot of morphine to calm the pain and release some angry muscles enough that my right leg decided it was back in the game. The doctors then sent me home and instructed me to return on Monday, just after Christmas (of course these things only happen on the weekend, just before a holiday) “to the Yellow Roof House” to consult with an orthopedic specialist - no name, no appointment, just arrive at the Yellow Roof House and someone will help you out.
This saga to be continued...