Stick Season

I've heard this called " Stick Season" . The leaves are all gone but the snow has yet to arrive. You drive around or just look out the window and all you see are sticks. Trees reduced to the substructure .  A couple weeks ago I got back from the hospital , from the second attempt at this leg problem. My personal sticks have an infection. When I got hit this summer I landed in the dirt.  There was a full canal only about 20 ft further on but my trajectory was a bit oblique to the best flight path. And a bit uphill. I'd have likely drowned and might not have been found for quite some time . But I'd have missed out on the home IV ordeal. I landed in a patch of trees instead, with lots of dirt.
     From my window at home I can see, across the road and a field and a power line cut there's a ridge of hardwoods. Maybe a quarter mile away. When the sun hits right there's a glow of bright red from bud tips where leaves will sprout next spring. I'm not sure what kind of trees they are. It's likely a mixed stand as most are around here. The low angle of the winter sun hits these nearly broadside . The tiny red sparks glare bright on a curtain of gray sticks over a field of old grass and low brush. It's the liveliest thing out there. They seem not so much heart as seeds.
     Winter is just beginning and I have a long uncertain way to go . I need them to be seeds.

Back in the ER

Threre are places where fear starts at the door. Emergency Room is a mixed bag . I knew that the antibiotics I needed weren't emergency , more like urgent , but the nurse I was dealing with said to do it then , at 10 30 , now 11, so I wouldn't stagger my dose off schedule so much . My pic line was blocked, needed clearing , which the ER could do. So in we went, very tired, sleepy. 

   It was apparently a quiet though busy night , and I lay on a gurney in the hall, tended to well, by nice folks . I dozed . I had not been there since the accident that started the whole thing . And I'd been for a kidney stone , and I think some other stuff, long ago. I knew was going to be ok, mostly , I and we cleared out my clog with a three way blood gizmo. Pretty slick. And I lay there and dozed, and half dreamed.

   I remembered all the times I hadn't been there. But they looked the same as if I had. When the ceiling clouded as my vision dimmed . From someone else's stretcher, I saw the line of lights , a highway down the hall to what might be the last vision ever. Or the time I didn't lay there , next to a partner , hurt too, but not so badly, so they had to wheel me away while partner tried to express that there was a simple way to make it all so much better. But I saw the words fail in his mouth as I was wheeled away. And the idea die in his mind with his hand stretched over .  These weren't the times I'd been here. These were someone else memories, nudging their way past my closing eyes as I lay and drifted in and out, with the fluids flowing in my arm and the slow careful cleaners walked and walked, and all the blue scrubbed night shift workers walked with careful focus not to be distracted, so much desired need on every side. 

     But I slept and waked and dreamed and remembered , all those times I hadn't been there. And never could find , that time I really had. 

You are number 6

So it's a nice place . Everyone notices right away. A small house, antique cape,  with a sunny shop almost attached . It's about 20 feet uphill from a sweet pond.  An empoundment pond , a dam in the river .  Everyone likes it.  About maybe a couple percent over 50 percent say so right away. A few wait a sentence or two . But nearly all you can follow with your eyes on theirs. It's a nice place , nicer than theirs most of the time . You'd never want to leave .  Well, maybe never . It's pretty small though. It used to be , once upon a time , not too long after when they drug it up out of the meadow with oxen and levered it onto the shoddy  rubble cellar hole , with the muddy bottom , it used to be a blacksmith shop. Commercial property on the county road. No need for more land than you'd need to dump the coal ash and broken iron out back where the pond was. A blacksmith shop , opening in a new location in 1905. Within 20 years blacksmith shops would be pretty much obsolete . Because of electric welders . Built on the pond owned by the new electric power company that drowned the remains of the canal, built in 1823 that was obsolete within 20 years because of the railroads. I'm not saying there's a pattern or anything . Anyway there's not much land but it's a nice place. Like you might retire to a place like this say if you'd been a spy or something and needed to just quietly be inconspicuous and not be noticed and you wouldn't mind just staying home a lot. You could go canoeing till they came for you . It has a shop, you could build your own car. Couldn't drive it but you could build it.
     So anyway, as a place to be , first in a wheel chair and now a really really stubborn walker, one could find oneself in far far worse places. I have the hobble of the place. I've been out a couple times and  I have never once been toppled and twisted in a giant bubblegum ball.  I really don't care who is number one. But number 6 ? I flatter myself , I know.

Extra Added attachments.

The wheel chair releases you from the bed. Peter Pan flight . I have good shoulders so it's fast and safe. People tend to give you room . But most of the time now, you're at home so it doesn't matter .A smaller place than it was ,and your only territory. Two rooms and a bath . From the chair to the walker is more of  an even trade. People smile to see you standing and say something nice, but the pain is up again. These things are your legs now. They're slow and they're big and they stop you from actually walking .  And then here's the fearful thing, the thing that stabs and hangs on . Yes, it's temporary, this whole thing , you know that, you will walk again. Even With the chair , the walker, the cane . Sometimes you see a flash , small slice of fear when you joke with someone , " I'm practicing for old age, we're all going there." And they shudder just the tiniest subtle shiver there. Yes, it's temporary . But long enough to know exactly that. That the hold on your body is temporary , and that when you walk , and then maybe run, that that is temporary too. The cane , the walker, the wheel chair, can and will wait for you as long as it takes you to get back to them. They smile patiently like Norman Bates in his moms clothes. " wouldn't harm a fly". They just wait for you. And the real estate that has so diminished, that's like your Dad in Assisted Living.
    The sun stays bright on the ever moving trees. I'm glad it does. The quiet builds your own quiet. These are good, benevolent things.  The movement now  comes easier , but the pain never goes. Like the hardware, the aluminum and plastic walker and chair,  you can't move without it and you won't rest out of its sight. It tells you that it too is temporary , and its absence will also be temporary . And the sunlight on the trees is temporary, as the wind on the water. And the breeze on your face.

Coming home from the hospital with trees around.

I think the thing that attracted me most was the thought of the green. In the hospital the colors range from a cloudy black depth to yellowish shallow beige. ( just leave it ...). I guess they try to make it livable. In the rehab joint the window views were sharp and narrow. In one I saw a crow sit on a chimney . There was an angle and a triptych of concrete gray and lighter gray and darker gray. This would not help anyone. The crow did not stay. For two or three last days they switched me to a room where I saw the tops of trees. While they made sure I could slide on my longboard from my bed to the wheel chair, the wheel chair to the other chair , and back again. The consciousness of temporary ownership was over all , like a tarp at a yard sale . Lots of folks there making a permanent change , the wheel chair now the only motion. My luck was holding.

   So I thought about the green and the trip down Brighton to River Rd. I was warm and not prepared. I was coming from the dark and angular into to warm bright green tunnel that is our world here that we forget . As we forget the infinite range of shifts of shades of green , all of them , and the haze of one tree into another in soft round clouds of deep and light and hazes of green . All of it alive as you left it. Waving gently in a breeze that set your tunnel road moving and the light on every stretch just a split wavelength of subtle green , so many of them, never to have seen so many before. Where had I been looking for all those years? To never have seen this, every inch for all of us, every day and every minute a new world. I liked it. 

    When I ran , before , I ran through trees. I smelled them , breathed their oxygen. I put their leaves on my face, I crushed them to smell the small change from one to another. If there was no other gift for waiting, for staying alive when I didn't remember why I should, this was here now, as if it had been waiting , for one more small mammal. I fell into them all the way home. They surround me now. 

Waking Up in the Hospital Room

I don't really know when I woke up there. I didn't seem strange . I didnt know who was there for a long while. And then I recognized my friends. I don't know how long they were there. But there they were. Every once in awhile someone new would come in and say hi. It was nice. I had no way to interpret the looks on their faces. I wasn't trying . I was starting to understand there had been an accident . I was glad I wasn't driving , and wasn't in a car. And that no one but me was hurt. You see you never know about those things. I thought I must be hurt pretty bad to get my own room. Turned out I was just lucky. I was having a streak.
     There was this big window,  a northwest view. But I could only see the top half. Portland is still a very green city. I overlooked the helipad. But instead of the window, the bed faced this big black rectangle . I had tubes hanging out of me. Which made the drugs load easier. I never felt pain. At least I don't remember. And each by each my friends trickled in, who had given blood, and waited while I hovered and lived, and they hugged me. My girls and my wife and my dear dear friends . Who had given blood and waited. And I never cried. I saw tears and was glad they were relieved but I had no idea. I was still kinda foggy.
    My days all were still kinda foggy, as my swelling went down, and then my tubes went out. I realized eventually that there was no reason I had to stare at that black rectangle, and I asked if they could angle my bed toward the window, and they did, kinda, a bit. There was green , in different shades, and you could see the shadows swing with the sun through the August light . I could see houses, still and the stable lay of distant roads and the night time lights.
    Eventually they took all my tubes out and they taught me how to sit up and slide on a board into a wheel chair . They  left me alone for a bit and I wheeled toward the window , and could see the highway I couldn't see before . The cars and trucks moving . I remembered hitchhiking on the interstate when I was 19 and 20.  And that's when I cried. First time, but only a bit . I was saving up.

Two things happen.

Two things happened . I don't know if they are related , but they feel like it. I'm going to write what I know about them . But they are very different and so I'm going to separate them by paragraphs.  So as to be more expository. One thing is a foggy place in my head . Where things are almost taking form , it is irresolute , quavering , unsure and open to suggestion and leading . The other is Interventional Radiology . Where things are more precise. And clear vision is important .
     I know when they brought me in to the medical place, I was bleeding internally . I was bleeding to death. I was swollen in my middle because I was bleeding so much. Again, bleeding to death . That happens. My friends gave blood . Lots of it. All they could. I love them. I took either 15 or 20 units of blood. My friends gave 26. I hope you have friends like that. Even the scared ones gave. That makes me smile. I will give now because of them.
     In my head it was dark, cool, almost cold, there was a back ground to my vision. A gray white fabric ,light like silk, it was moving always, with breath and vision , a gray , white cloud. Not too far or close , but I could see that I was breathing, soft, in rolls of white, and the motion, my thoughts would follow, to small vortexes of small thoughts.
     Looking at me, giving me blood , looking for wounds , Dr Cheung worked for 8 hrs. Keeping me alive, the blood and breath. She found small wounds in my abdomen , nothing big, not the killers. Sh e kept me alive. She gave me blood and breath.
     And the fabric rolled and rolled , gray , in small vortexes . I found a hole , it was my size. I could hide in it, I knew. The noise would stop, did I mention the noise ? It was cooler around the hole and the motion would stop, it was quiet , peaceful. I knew where I was. It was quiet there, cool and always would be . There would be no bother, pain or trouble. Quiet and cool , cool cool. It as silver and smooth and just my size .
     Dr. Cheung turned me over, the swelling there too. She needed to see. So she called for the next crew of life savers . Whose names I am seeking now. The Interventional Radiologists. They could see inside me. My kidneys, lungs, all those little places. There was lots of blood . I was bleeding all over my insides, in back. They could see, and pieced me in a couple places with their tiny wires with the hot ends. The hot ends that fry up the spots that are bleeding. They knew I was bleeding to death, and had to find the spots that were spouting , as my friends were giving. They had pictures , but so many levels , and just had to start where they were.
     This hole I mentioned , the quiet one. I knew I could slide in there. It would be so easy. No one ever to give me shit about anything ever again. And another notion too. That this hole would always be there. Is there still. And will be filled eventually. But there may come a time, when you might see the hole beckon, and not be able to reach it, for years. The hole is always yours , but they might try to keep you from it. I could go there now, on my own I knew. My own power, and not be stopped. That might not always be true.
     So the crew upstairs , Interventional Radiology, they are finding blood, and places spouting blood and their little catheters are frying them up , spot by spot , and the see my kidneys and a messy place
there. Lots of blood , lots to do. Lots of spots to fry. And my friends are lying down and eating cookies and drinking juice and giving me blood. And the folks with the screens and catheters are busy busy busy. And they are finding plenty to do but there's more more more .
     On this flowing gray fabric, where I see the silver hole , the quiet silver hole. On the gray rolling fabric, I see a spark. A gold spark, and when it hits the gray fabric it turns to green, like an emerald . A shiny green star. And then another one . A golden spark that turns to emerald green there on the flowing gray . And another , and another. They are warm. And they turn to notes of music. And the notes they play are warm notes, there is love behind them, lots and lots, like the blood my friends are giving. It's strong.
     Interventional radiology finds the big damage near my kidney . They seal it with their wires, all,of it ,  and the bleeding stops.
     And the music starts.

Later that day...I

So I'm in the dark, in the warm , the light comes in by odd turns. When it's dark I sneak a feel of my wrists, their large plastic wrappings and the slim wires hooked to some dark rail. My mask imposed , projecting down my face I don't know how deep or why . I don't see it in the light , below my strapped field of vision. This has been my life for how long ? Since I awoke in this sphere of warm dark. Tell me where I am but leave me muzzled . Tell me there was an accident but leave me shackled . I don't know you , no one I know is telling me to trust you , you've left me shackled in the dark . I've heard the story, there's been an accident.

I'm no fool . I remember things . Among the things I remember, is how to make your fist into a wrist , some of you might remember? Hmmm? And out it comes like in it went, can you feel that tight and smooth ? Recall that native slide, and all I need is one hand free. Then I recall another thing , trapped in the sunken sub , the surface far above , through fields of dark water, you'll get no breath , no air until you break the surface . There will be no mistaking that . But you must not try to inhale until that revelation. You must not on penalty of true absolute death because you are here alone and in secret and if you ask for help its back in the cuffs . This must be done on one long exhale alone and truly done for actual life for even if they heard you choke would it be in time ?

Go ! And out goes the breath as you pull that muzzle off your face and you feel the tube come rising up your throat and do not stop that outward breath until Bang ! You break the Holy Black Surface . I don't remember getting hit by that damn truck but I absolutely remember this. This is the way you deintubeate yourself in the dark in the SCU . Finish up with a mega loogie on the foolish mask. Score one for the home team, when you come in next will you smile ?    More later guys ....

Presumpscot's New Venture

                               

    Good Day.

     An online essay is a new thing for me , I'm not sure how I will go about it. I'm taking this up now as part of a larger move on my part into newer ground for me, in my craft, my art and my music. I had one of those " game changing " incidents not very long ago.

    I went for a run in some time I had before supper and going to play for a class I ( love to ) play for. I don't know why I don't remember anything after my small pleasure of tying on new running shoes. On my return leg , running on the correct side of the road, I was struck by a pickup truck . I don't remember this. It was on a section that I always considered less safe than others because of a section of sharp curves . Most sane people take it easy on the gas here. This guy didn't . I may have been jumping away, he may have been swerving to dodge an on coming car. He had been drinking . He hit me and I flew. That was hard to write . I don't remember it. I woke up , kind of , in a dark place, with cuffs on my wrists , with webbing restraints. I could not talk. I could feel a round plastic muzzle on my mouth with a tube projecting from it. I was restrained in the dark, muzzled , and I didn't know why. There was no one touching me and no one with whom I could speak, there was lots of dark and some shadowy places of small flashes of light in my brain. At some point I saw figures , I could not understand them . Eventually someone came and asked if I knew who I was , where I was , and why . I didn't trust them. In fact, in some part of me , I still don't. Insanity was visiting , I knew insanity and I did not welcome it. I knew the heart that saw in men just doing a job for pay an evil heartless scheming vampire. Who saw in a nurse a lying thief of virtue and love . This is not an exaggeration . Every person screaming for the blood of an insane shooter needs to experience just a touch of actual insanity. There is no arbiter, no one to tell you where the lines are. Once experienced its never forgotten. Luckily there was just a flash , a few short stabs . Someone told me "you've been in an accident , you're at Maine Med. " and that was all. Things got slowly better from there. Well okay, there was the whole tearing out the intubation thing but overall...