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Anyroad, my wife Anne and I have been there three days, since 6 March, and feel pretty comfortable walking around, even though there are literally about a million places where you can just jump or fall or slip or get pushed into the Canyon, and nothing can stop you--except the ground, and by then (about 12 seconds later) it's just a little too late. So I'm a little reckless, jumping around on the rocks and crawling down very small ravines and taking pictures, and then I see the mule path that people who don't like to walk and have some money use to get down to the Canyon floor and see the Colorado River up close. So I think I should check that out.
Well, we head down, me carrying the camera and stuff in my backpack,
and we're about 20 feet beneath the rim on this curving, five-foot-across
path, and I see this sign about 30 feet further
down the path: `Warning! Path icy! Use crampons.' (Crampons are
those spikes that proper hikers use to keep from slipping on ice and snow.)
Of course I didn't have any crampons, though we probably had a pack of
CraisinsTM, those sweetened dried
cranberries--but those aren't worth dick when you're on ice, anyway.
Now I suppose I could have taken that moment to reflect on whether
or not I was properly equipped to walk down this icy, muleshit-covered path,
but I didn't. It's a vacation! Plus I was hopped up on those dried
cranberries, so I obviously wasn't thinking straight. We came across three
Australian women taking a picture, and waited touristically for them to
finish. But something was wrong with their camera, and they turned to us
and said what sounded to me like `D'you wanna piss?' In a moment I
realized they were offering to let us pass, and so I stepped around the one
with the camera.
OK, my bad, because it was that precise moment
that the ice--the evil, sentient ice--leapt up and grabbed my foot and twisted
it, because I immediately fell on my ass. And in that splitsecond that I was
falling, I realized I needed to SAVE THE CAMERA! So I turned to the right so
the backpack would not completely get smashed under me, and I hit the ground
hard. But I didn't fall on my ankle, or get it caught on anything, and I
didn't hear it snap, crackle or popTM--I
just fell over, like I've done a zillion times for the last 30 years.
For a big punk who takes no care at all of his body (or hair), I have been lucky enough to never break a bone, have major surgery or become seriously ill. So imagine my surprise as I turned from laying on my right side to sit up straight and noticed my foot lying sideways and flat on the ground in frozen muleshit. Now, I'm no doctor, but even I know that my foot should always be approximately in front of me, not walking off my itself at some hideous angle.
The Australians flew into action immediately and surrounded me with their GoreTexTM jackets and soothing/scary accents, as I (reportedly) said `FUCK! FUCK!' a lot. My wife asked me if I was ok, and I said with quite surprising and surprised calm: `I think I've broken my ankle. Surely that's not right.' One of the Aussies ran to get one of the Park Rangers, who are trained in basic emergency care and also, scarily, carry sidearms, like Samantha Mathis in Broken Arrow. The Ranger arrived about five minutes later.
His name was Bob, and I know he was just following his training, but when he asked me (in order to see if I had hit my head, and had a concussion) `Where are you?'--I just didn't understand his question. I didn't realize he was checking my alertness, so I answered `What do you mean--where am I spiritually?' My wife jammed her elbow into my ribs and said, `He's asking you where you are!' `Ah,' I said, getting it, `I'm in the Grand Canyon, where you are. I didn't hit my head, I broke my ankle! Look!' And I pointed to my 90-degree foot. `Oh, I don't know about that, sir--it could just be sprained,' said Bob in his official don't-be-alarmed-citizen way. `Sprained! Look at it!' I screamed. `There's my foot--here's me! That's not right!' `Please calm down, sir--help will be here soon,' he said, unsoothingly. Then he cut my one pantleg off, and pulled my shoe off to reveal my giant, swelling foot and ankle. Insanely, I felt self-conscious that there was no blood spurting, and that I didn't have any bones protruding from my flesh. `I'm not faking!' was my thought.
Surprisingly, my ankle really didn't hurt that much. I mean, it HURT and it throbbed, but I wasn't screaming or passing out or anything. It was just an awful dull throb that, frankly, looked a lot more horrifying than it felt. As the Australian women continued to wrap me in their giant jackets, several people stepped over my sprawled form despite my warnings: `Hey! Look at the sign! Icy path! Look at my leg--don't let this happen to you.' Nobody cared. They just wanted to gawk.
About 15 minutes later, six Rangers and a trainee Ranger kid arrived to help. Well, except that the first one (who was also not wearing crampons) slipped on the same ice and PROCEEDED TO FALL ON ME! `What the FUCK?!' was my response. `Sorry, sir.' The boss Ranger took some vital statistics on me and radioed for an ambulance. Then they splinted my leg, strapped me into a gurney and put a helmet on me. `Am I being airlifted out?' I asked. `Well, we're going to lift you in the air, if that counts.' (`Please kill me,' I thought, `because your wacky Ranger comedy is already crushing me.') So they hauled me up on this big stretcher and slowly, carefully rolled me up the path and to the ambulance, which drove me about two miles to the Emergency Station.
Ranger Bob rode with me in the back of the ambulance, and kept talking to me, I guess to make sure I wasn't going into shock or anything. I wasn't in shock, though I was shocked to find out later that the five minute ride cost more than $220. All I kept thinking was, `Goddammit, I've ruined our vacation. We have dinner reservations tonight. Damn that ice--that shiny, candylike ice!'
On Saturday mornings there is always a crew at the Samaritan Emergency Clinic, because idiots like me are forever slipping and falling and snapping at the Canyon. Two very nice women came out and wheeled me into the x-ray room. I was cracking wise and trying to stay calm, but the situation was really starting to hit me, and one question loomed larger than all else: `Doc, can I still ROCK!?'
The clinicians were not actually able to answer that question, but they did rip off my temporary splint and hoist me up on the x-raying table, where I had to move my foot into four excruciating positions and wear a cool lead apron over my manly area. In about 20 minutes, the x-rays revealed that, yes, when your foot is at 3 o'clock and your leg is at midnight, your ankle is broken, broken, BROKEN. Mine turned out to be broken in four places, with the small bone (the `fibonacci') spirally splintered and the big bone (the `tilde') moved over about a quarter-inch, with some cool bone fragments floating around just for laughs. I was resplinted and a call was placed to the Flagstaff Medical Center, about two hours away by our own car, where a doctor was found who could operate on me that night. Then, joy of joys--a shot of DemerolTM for the road.
Total cost for the emergency clinic: $663.40, including the ambulance ride.
His name was Francis X. Mayer, and he was a Notre Dame man many years earlier. Why do I know that? Because he had `ND' monogrammed on the sleeve of his striped PoloTM Oxford and bowtie ensemble. Those shirts don't come that way--he had custom work done. You know, I'm not ashamed to have graduated from the University of Florida with three degrees, but I don't wear that fact on my sleeve. (It occurs to me as I write this that those initials could have stood for `Ned Davis', and that he wears a different monogrammed shirt with each of his patients, to make them feel special, but I guess that's a little unlikely.)
Anyway, Frank seemed a little distracted, but nice enough, and said that he had performed this operation about a thousand times before so there was very little to worry about. Of course, there was a very small chance that I could die on the operating table (`Oops! Sorry, Mr. Davis!'), and there could be some complications with the anaesthesia, and the bones might not take to the screws that they were going to put inside of me, or my body might reject the baboon heart... (it was time for some more Demerol TM by this point). But all in all, this operation was pretty routine, even for an ugly break like this, and in all likelihood I would come out of the operating room virtually alive.
`But, Doc,' I asked, leg aquivering, `Will I rock
again?'
`What do you mean, Mr. Davis?' Frank asked. `It says
here you're a writer for the State of Florida. Do you use your leg a lot
in your job?'
`It's not that, Doc. But my real identity is
RockStarTM, and
in fact, I use my leg all the time. There's a lot of jumping and thrashing
required. How long before I can do that?'
`Mmm, too soon to tell. But I'd say you'll need to be off it for
at least six to eight weeks.'
FUCK! Six to eight weeks. Six to eight weeks! FUCK! And FUCK! again. I passed out soon thereafter.
Around 6pm I met the anaesthesiologist and his
assistant. She was a delightful woman from
Manchester, England, and he was a big, red-bearded guy (kind of a John
Goodman type) who plainly practiced his anaesthesiologist's rap in front of a
mirror to get it `just right'.
`How are you, Mr. Davis? I mean, besides having a broken ankle
and all? Are you feeling dizzy?' (Then, to my wife: `Well, dizzier
than usual, Mrs. Davis?')
`Talk to me, Chuckles,' I said, `and Mrs. Davis is my
mother's name.'
`Well,' he said, taken aback a bit by me interrupting his
shtick, `I guess you'll need to be fully knocked out.'
`What are my options?' I asked, knowing that it didn't
matter--I did want to be completely out, no matter what. Why would I want
to be awake while a guy cuts my ankle open and jams some
screws in it? And Dr. Giggles said this, which
I am not making up:
`On one end of the scale, we can
hit you
in the head
with a big hammer--it knocks you out completely but the headache when you wake
up is a doozy. On the other end, we give you a bullet and you bite on it. I
don't recommend that. Thirdly--'
`OK, just knock me out. And do it now,' I begged, frightened
to contemplate further hilarity.
When I woke up, I had missed
`The Simpsons' and
`The X-Files' and had a
bigass cast on my right leg. Plus, it HURT! It hurt so much! It hurt
so much more than when I broke it!
`FUCK!' I said, using my
all-purpose
remark.
`Give me some drugs right now!' I screamed to the nurse.
`Would you like some
PercocetTM, sir?' she asked, not at all fazed by my
behavior.
`I would like ALL PercocetTM,
please!'
And so began my addiction to prescription drugs, which I would carry with me until my refills ran out about a month later.
The next 48 hours are kind of a blur of sleeping, pillpopping and snorting pure oxygen. Because Flagstaff is about 8500 feet above sea level, and I've lived in Florida all my life, any time I would cough or blow my nose I would squirt blood. So I lived with the little oxygen snorter in my nose for two days, and let me tell you--it was cool. I don't remember much else about my two days there, but I know that when I left, my bill was $8321.31. And let me take this moment to thank the State of Florida for offering such excellent health insurance coverage in lieu of paying a decent wage.
One other funny thing: as I was checking out, Dr. Frank came by to sign me out, and asked, `So, am I going to see you on that--whatsit?-- MTV sometime?' `Depends on your work, Doc,' I said, bitter and obnoxious even in a no-oxygen, drugaddled state.
To combat the stircraziness, we did go out on Sunday, but it wasn't a great success. I was still kind of weak and illprepared to jerk myself around on the crutches, so I bought an `energy drink' that I had never heard of before. It was some kind of Aztec sportsdrink--it had nutrients--and there was a catlike creature on the label, which read `Made with the blood of the Chupacabra!' or something... anyway, it didn't really pep me up. In one store as I was waiting for Anne to finish shopping, some old ladies came by and asked me, `Did your wife do that? Did she kick you?' Since I wasn't wearing any underwear (it was all I could do to put shorts on in my dazed state), I flashed the old broad my nutsack, and that was the end of that.
When we got back to the hotel after I posted bail, I stayed in the lobby, where I played a medley of three Thelonious Monk songs on their baby grand, and felt slightly human for about 20 minutes. At no time in the past 15 years had I ever gone more than two days without making music of some kind, and now it had been more than a week--and what was really frightening was that it didn't bother me that much. I was becoming unfamiliar to myself, and had trouble dealing with other people. Of course my wife was around at night, and was as nice and patient as possible under these extremely trying circumstances, but I was still feeling idiotically guilty about both ruining the vacation and needing care when she should be concentrating on her work, and was undoubtedly a little nasty to be around (sorry, dear!). I was also talking to friends back home every day, which helped a lot, and Alyson and David even sent a pizza one day (which I was too sick to eat, but thanks again!)--but it was so apparent that the immense suckiness had but barely begun.
We checked out on Monday and painfully made our way to the airport. But there are no direct flights from Phoenix to Orlando (from where we flew out), much less any flights from Phoenix to Gainesville, so I knew I had an exquisitely bad day ahead, what with the foot and the walking and the seats and the waiting and the cabin pressure...
I had no idea how bad...
At curbside we checked in and I got a wheelchair,
but it was one without an adjustable legrest, so I had to try to hold my
hugely encasted leg straight in front of me without hitting anybody, smashing
my foot or smacking anybody with my crutches. At the security check, the line
was very long, and I never got the chance to find out if the four stainless
steel screws in my ankle would set off the metal
detector, because some guy just patted me down very cursorily and waved me
through. If I had been sitting on a pistol, I could be in Havana right now.
Of course we went very early, expecting delays, and we ended up just waiting at the gate for about an hour. Then, because I was a `special needs' passenger, I got to board early, which sounds promising but really means I get to sit in the muggy plane longer than anyone else. I gimped my way really precariously down the amazingly uneven floor of that enclosed gangway thing, and when we got to the plane door, I explained that I'd had my original seat switched to the bulkhead aisle (the one at the front of the section with no seats ahead), so that I could keep my leg elevated throughout the trip--doctor's orders! But apparently, lying outright at the ticket desk is a job requirement, because I was in an aisle seat near the back of the plane, and the flight was full, and we're very sorry, sir...
So my giant, throbbing and now swelling foot was sticking out in the aisle and coursing with blood. I'd never really thought about the simple beauty of keeping an injured limb above heart level to prevent pain, but it really does work--blood still FLOWS through your body, but it doesn't PUMP and SMASH its way through your injury, yanking at your sutures and making you wish that you were unconscious. However, I thought a LOT about this while in the plane, because I couldn't get my foot up, and I'm 6 feet tall anyway, so planes already suck for me, and as that cabin filled with otherwise lifesaving pressure, I just thought my foot was going to shoot out of my cast like it was full of Ebola virus.
And I don't even want to get into the story of the woman five seats up who had on VULCAN EARS the entire trip, or the guy who had a seizure and started screaming and bleeding out of his non-Vulcan ears about an hour into the flight...
About a week later we got to Atlanta to change planes, and we had radioed ahead to make sure there would be a wheelchair waiting for me, so we could race to the next gate and make our connecting flight, because of course this flight was over an hour late. But I guess somebody was feeling a little tired or something, because not one of the FIVE wheelchairs that were ordered for the plane were waiting by the time I got off. I hobbled around for a while, ready to pop a cap in somebody's ass, but the place was just a madhouse. Eventually we talked to a customer service guy who told me he'd love to help us, but the one direct flight to Gainesville was just about to leave, and maybe if we'd gotten to him a little sooner he could have done something...
We left his body in one of the many conveniently placed dumpsters, and finally boarded yet another plane in which my giant erect leg stuck out in the aisle and made trouble for everyone. We got to Orlando around midnight, and I don't really remember much about the two hour drive back to Gainesville, but I bet it was awful.
I was so unprepared for so many things about recovery. I just never thought about how the anklebone was connected to the legbone, and the legbone was connected to the kneebone, and so on. And I never, ever thought about how much I used every one of my limbs and muscles--I could hardly be less athletic, or less interested in caring for my body. I prefer to think of my body as a kind of flesh car: fuel it up, wash it sometimes, empty the trunk, go somewhere, park it, repeat. So I was really pissed off at it when it wouldn't magically fly down the hallway without me having to really concentrate on it. The littlest things became so frustratingly difficult. If I dropped a pen, I would have to lean the crutches on something (taking great care to make sure they were together and not going to fall over and smack me, or fall elsewhere and break something else), lean myself against something that would support my massive and unsteady bulk, fall to the ground without busting my knees, crawl to the pen, then try to pull myself up, all without using my right leg or smacking it on anything.
Now I know I'm a puss, but I'm really not feeling sorry for myself. What I am feeling is pissed off at myself for getting into this situation, and mad at the world simply for being there. As soon as people saw my cast, invariably they would roll up a sleeve up and say something like, `Here's where I had my entire arm ripped off by a threshing machine when I was 16--boy, that smarts!' or `Wow, I had a similar thing happen to me a few years ago: here's a permanent dent in my calf. I was in a fullbody cast for six months.' So I know I'm a big baby--all I'm saying is, I realize things could have been incredibly worse for me, but I still don't think I was all that `lucky'...
I went back to work in the third week. My bureau made up a card showing cartoon renditions of the various beasts of the Canyon standing over my broken carcass, leg split completely open, bones exposed and blood spurting from the wound--very thoughtful. I immediately put my xrays up around my office so I could very quickly explain what happened to the many gawkers, and minimize hearing these expressions: `Have a nice trip?' and `See you next fall!' People were generally very friendly, however, but that didn't stop me from hating everybody or myself, and feeling really stupid.
Losing control of your self, your very person, and your mastery of your surroundings is what really got to me. Pretty quickly the giant purple cast (Go Artist! Go Artist! Go Artist Formerly Known as Prince!) was just an inconvenience--it was the loss of control that began to drive me insane. To have to think about EVERY SINGLE STEP I wanted to take is just crazy, and it really got to me about three weeks in. I knew I was looking at maybe three more weeks in the cast, and I had no idea how long post-cast crutch use would be necessary, or whether I'd be in another kind of leg brace or removable cast for a month, or really anything about just how long it would take to recovery sufficiently so I wouldn't fear falling over and snapping my leg off, or jumping up to rock and having my bone shatter beneath me. The not knowing was the worst thing. The WORST. I was just so mad and frustrated and weak and scared and tired and sick to my stomach all the time. Crikey, it sucked. I got so nuts one day I just left work and took a long drive on Paynes Prairie--no braking required. Driving is a little dicey with a giant cast on your foot, and braking is exceptionally tricky--I used my left foot most of the time, except for one day when I had to slam on the brakes and reflexively jammed my right foot into the pedal. Boy, that smarts. (I had been driving myself to work from the beginning--pigheadedly and in pain--both to prove to myself some ability, however ridiculous, to behave as if nothing serious had happened, and also to avoid having to go in two hours early each morning to accommodate my wife dropping me off.) I was a bit moody is the point.
But that passed in a while, or at least it wasn't gnawing me whole from the inside out--probably when I ran out of generic VicodinTM and started taking vitamin C, calcium and zinc instead. Kids, just say NO to correctly prescribed, legal prescription drugs, and stick to crack and ecstasy...
The mighty mighty PopCanon was still performing during all this, and rightly so--but my participation was a little awkward, to say the least. I couldn't carry anything, I needed to be driven around, and I had to sit in a special rocking chair to play. (That is to say, not an actual `rocking chair' on curved wooden rockers, but an armless chair in which I could sit, play guitar, keep my foot slightly elevated, yet ROCK!) Someone other than me had to take care of all their own stuff, then all of mine, then do it all again when we were done. It was really unfortunate and unfair to everybody, and it was really hard for me to be so dependent on someone else in such a public way...so a big shoutout to my personal beeyotch AC for all her help during this time: thanks--I really couldn't have played these shows without you.
And I can't even begin to thank my wife for her indulgence during this time--I suspect it might have been even harder to be around the person with the broken ankle than to be that person...
About ten days before I was supposed to have my cast off, I was so sick of it that I stuck it in the sink at work and cried, `Oh, no--my cast is wet! I'll have to get it removed immediately!' And so I did. I went to see my orthopedist's technician, Sherry, and she hacked it off with her spookyass vibrating bonesaw. And when we got it off, more bad news: one of my sutures wasn't healing right. I'd had a fiveinch incision made on my right side, and a threeinch cut on the left side. The big one was healing great--it looked like an odd, colorless tattoo, with a big line and dots flanking both sides where the staples were (not Pops and the other Staple Singers--you know, flesh staples). But the smaller cut was just gross and raw, and quite red when, while removing the SteriStripsTM, a bunch of my skin came off. So we decided I needed to air that boy out, and go without a cast for the home stretch.
So I'm an idiot is the point, because in my mad desire to be unencasted, I didn't stop for one second to think that, if I still can't put ANY weight on my leg, AND I don't have a cast on for protection, then I'm now TWICE as vulnerable as before. What was I thinking? Before I had a glass ankle, but at least it had a security cordon around it--now I just had a glass ankle, with a sign saying `Kick Me!' on it. D'oh! But the week passed fairly uneventfully, other than my everincreasing fear as I looked at my two legs--one stronger and healthier than ever before, the other shrivelly and weak, and sporting a gross injury--and thought, `Isn't this one foot at an angle? Did Dr. Frank put my foot on wrong?' My ankle and foot were still grotesquely swollen, and when I tried to sit and put my two feet flat on the floor and symmetrical, my right knee bowed in about 15 degrees. It was a little disconcerting, as you might imagine. Nothing that a surgical rebreak couldn't fix, though... FUCK! I think I'll just crawl inside a box and die, or at least sulk for a fortnight.
