Comet's Tale

by Steven Wolf

  To help ease the pain from these interconnected problems, Dr. Frey would begin with an anterior lumbar interbody fusion. It was basically a modified gutting procedure. The patient is filleted from the front with a long slice starting below one side of the rib cage and continuing to the belly crease at the waist. Vital organs are moved out of the way and the spine is exposed. Tissue that is blocking access to the spine is dissected. Then the patient’s body is bent so far backward that the spine pops forward into the abdominal cavity for better visualization, and a flood of blood and dissected tissue is vacuumed. The goal of all this is to clear the way for implanting threaded fusion cages.

  Threaded fusion cages are porous miniature thimbles filled with tiny shredded pieces of bone and sponges that contain bone morphogenetic protein, or BMG. Two of these cages are placed in the disc space of each level that is to be fused. BMG helps keep the bone alive and promotes bone growth so that the new bone tissue will attach to the adjacent vertebrae, which have been scraped to bleed so the tissue more readily adheres. Eventually that part of the spine grows into one stable piece. In my case this would have to be done at five separate disc spaces, but only after what was left of each bad disc was sucked up like useless fish guts.

  That was one part of the procedure. I would also be having a posterior spinal fusion, which involved “segmental pedicle screw instrumentation.” The doctor would perform this approaching the spine from the back rather than the front. Dr. Frey would also scrape, sand, and dissect in and around the bones and nerves, then create a “bed” at each affected level, where more bone and BMG would be placed. After cleaning up the old fusion, decompressing the facet nerves on each vertebra, and freeing nerves in other passageways, wedges would be cut into the vertebrae. These wedges were similar to the ones foresters chop into trees to get them to fall in the right direction. Titanium screws would be implanted in the vertebrae so that two curved titanium rods could be attached, restoring proper spine curvature. While my spine would then have the proper lordotic curve, it would be permanently fused into that shape, one solid mass that would not bend or “articulate” back and forth like a normal back. There was something ironic about the medical profession giving a plaintiff’s lawyer a stronger backbone, but who was I to put up a fuss about semantics?

  While I was completing my homework, Freddie was doing research of her own. I knew we were reading from different material when she started scrutinizing the risks involved. “I can’t imagine that all this could be done in one procedure. And repeated surgeries increase your risks without increasing the odds of a good result. Your current doctors are already worried about your physical condition. I don’t know what they’d say about subjecting you to several surgeries.”

  “Freddie, you’re talking three or four hours at most. I don’t think he’d have any problem doing it all in one surgery.”

  Freddie laughed. “Wolfie. It takes that long just to fix a hernia.”

  During our follow-up conversation with Dr. Frey, he assured us that all the work could be done in a single surgery, possibly with more than one surgical team. But it would take much longer than four hours—how long, they couldn’t tell. It depended on the extent of the damage they found after I was filleted. Rehabilitation could take some time because of the years of nerve damage and pain, coupled with atrophied muscles that had compensated along different nerve pathways for most of my life.

  After this conversation I wasn’t exactly ecstatic, but I was resolute. “Freddie, I say we do this. What choice do I have? If we don’t take this chance I may be dead before the next one comes along.”

  To my surprise, Freddie was more enthusiastic. “It sounds like he can fix a lot of what’s wrong. Wouldn’t that be great? We might even go back to being a normal boring couple.”

  We scheduled the surgery for August 5. That would give us time to trek back to Omaha in late May for Kylie’s graduation from law school. While there, I would be able to visit my regular doctors and learn what I would need to do to get healthy enough for the operation. I would also have an opportunity to see Lindsey, who was now happily enrolled in a bachelor’s degree nursing program in Omaha, far away from any ocean.

  Not wanting to detract from Kylie’s big day, we had not yet told the girls about my surgical plans. The graduation ceremony passed in a haze. I was there, but I wasn’t, at once fantasizing about the future and falling back into the past. Now twenty-five, Kylie had been sixteen when I collapsed on the basketball court. She and I were similar in so many ways, from looks to logic to passion. Her decision to become an attorney made me feel as if I had passed something of value on to her. Sitting in the audience that day, however, I wondered how many of my not-so-wonderful traits Kylie and the other girls had absorbed. By refusing to acknowledge the extent of my problems and insisting on handling them by myself, I had alienated the people I loved the most. The whole time the girls were growing up, I had never allowed them to see me in a moment of weakness—until it all came crashing down. My behavior since then had often been baffling even to myself. I vowed that someday I would sit down with my daughters and ask them how they had felt about this whole long saga. But today I just hugged Kylie, told her, “I am beyond proud of you,” and stood up as straight as I could for the family photos after the ceremony.

  THE DOCTORS IN Omaha, with whom I had worked for years, advised me on how to prepare for the upcoming surgery. One concern was that I would be banking my own blood, which, thanks to my diet, was pretty much like liquid bacon. I never had gotten healthier in my eating habits. I would need medication to tame the cholesterol levels, a good diet, and other drugs to get the nerve inflammation down. I also was instructed to “do whatever you can, no matter how little, to help get your body in better condition before the surgery.”

  At those words, the triathlete in me perked back to life. Swimming, cycling, running—yes! I could do some version of that. On the return flight to Phoenix, I started to outline my planned regimen to Freddie. “Each morning I’ll swim for an hour, then hike with Comet. And I have my old weights and lifting equipment stored in the garage.”

  “Steve, please get those ideas out of your head. Just getting healthy enough to tread water for ten minutes would be a huge improvement. You don’t need a marine boot camp.”

  But I was on a mission. The day after we arrived back in Sedona I plunged into the pool and within two minutes had to be fished out by Freddie as I frantically struggled to keep my head above water. The next day I attempted to walk around the neighborhood without the help of Comet or canes. I lasted a half block and it felt like several thousand kilometers. The following morning I was glued to the mattress like roadkill.

  “Imbécile,” I thought I heard Freddie mumble, and then, “What good is exercise if it causes so much pain that you can’t get out of bed for the next two days?” Her voice was a monotone but her eyes burned with frustration.

  Compared to the last two days, a weeklong binge on questionable muscatel would have been a vacation. “Maybe I should take it a little easier?”

  “You think?” I felt Sandoz tense at Freddie’s tone. Comet had already retreated to the adjacent room. Freddie continued, “I have to leave for work. I was going to have the pool drained, but if you think that more than two of your brain cells are now working, we can tell the pool guy we don’t need him—yet.”

  As the weeks unfolded, we found ourselves laughing at the very thought of draining the swimming pool. The summer was shaping up to be one of the hottest on record. Despite the increasing heat, Comet never lost her enthusiasm for accompanying me on our walks, which slowly became longer and more frequent. It was during one of our early afternoon strolls that Comet once again demonstrated her extraordinary courage and devotion, not to mention a very strong stomach.

  I had finally conquered the short hill leading from our house to an elevated series of lots that offered a spectacular view of the nearby rock monuments. Through a thick corridor of juniper, manzanita shrubs, and prickly pear ca
ctus, a narrow dirt trail wound to the top of the hill. Over its crest, a gravel road led back to the neighborhood. The total walk was less than three-quarters of a mile, but the changes in elevation and the uneven dirt trail were as much of a challenge as I needed. Today, the oppressive heat added to the toll.

  “Let’s take a rest, Comet,” I wheezed at the top of the hill. I found a seat on a boulder while Comet investigated some nearby javelina droppings that were tinted the same bright purple as the prickly pear fruit. When I finally caught my breath, I urged Comet forward. “Okay, girl, time to go cool off at home.” The pathway tapered to single file. I was tired, my legs shaking from assuming the main duty of balancing on my burning feet. The paved roadway was less than a football field ahead, and I was determined to make it there without another rest. Comet was walking directly in front of me so that I could use her back for balance, when suddenly she stopped in the middle of the path.

  “Come on, Comet. Let’s go. I’m tired.” She wouldn’t budge, instead tilting her head and lifting her nose at something I was unable to detect. “Let’s go, girl. You can bark at the javelina tomorrow.” Comet ignored me. Irritated and hot, I walked alongside her, wedging my body through the thick shrubbery. She refused to make room for me to get past. Instead, she looked up at me and whined. After being with this dog 24/7 for years by now, I knew her warning when I heard it, but it was too late. Squeezed onto the loose dirt and rocks at the edge of the trail, I lost my balance and fell backward into the bushes.

  I wasn’t really worried because I knew the thick shrubbery would cushion my fall. Sure enough, when I hit the ground it felt like I had been caught by a sponge—a loose, lumpy, sodden sponge that exploded into a repulsive, stinking cloud. I had landed in a foot-deep pile of rotting corpses, hundreds of rats and deer mice that someone had trapped and dumped along the trail.

  I’ve been around a lot of wild animals and domestic livestock that have been gutted and cleaned for food, but I have never experienced such an appalling stench—putrefied rodents sautéed in the desert sun and left to rot in a giant heap of oozing entrails. And I could not get up. “Ayeeeeeeee! Ayeeeeeee!” I frantically thrashed, trying to push myself off of the decaying pile of rat, flinging guts and blood everywhere.

  Comet’s instincts had warned her of the danger. Those same senses were now shouting at her to flee, to get as far away from this mess as possible—there was disease here and she knew it. Not even the javelinas had disturbed this pile of crap. But instead of running, Comet slowly picked her way toward me through the gore—carefully, daintily, like a bride-to-be trying to protect an expensive pedicure. Her grimaced snarl, squinted eyes, and upturned nostrils were so humanly revolted that I stopped panicking and started to laugh.

  Comet has never liked people laughing at her expense. I knew her feelings were hurt and she wanted to run away just to teach me a lesson. Yet she leaned down so I could grab her collar and then stepped backward, hauling me upright to my knees and letting me lean on her until I could stand. Comet’s rear muscles popped as she pulled me from the sewage and onto the path.

  I often think about what would have happened if Comet had fled or refused to enter the putrid pit. It was bad enough that I was in that stench as long as I was. Within hours of returning home, I started to have trouble getting enough air into my lungs. Soon after, my temperature began to climb and I got a horrible headache. By nightfall I couldn’t stand without black dots from lack of oxygen dancing through my eyes. When my temperature hit 103 degrees, we went to the ER. They ruled out the flu and pneumonia and sent me home, in Freddie’s care.

  A week later I finally started to recover from what was likely a case of hantavirus, a pulmonary hemorrhagic virus humans contract from inhaling rodent urine and droppings. It can rapidly progress to life-threatening breathing problems. Without Comet I would have been stranded, breathing in that diseased stench for hours.

  There is no effective treatment for hantavirus, but if you live through it, neither are there long-term side effects. Since I was banking blood for the upcoming procedure, this was good news. Freddie wasted no time in making the most of a teachable moment.

  “This is what happens when you push yourself too hard. Now will you calm down?”

  For once I listened. Besides, after all the excitement, Comet and I had decided that the perfect way to pass our time was sitting peacefully by the pool, with an occasional perambulation around the neighborhood by way of sidewalks. If my blood and body weren’t strong enough to handle the operation by now, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I just prayed that someday I would forget the odor of rotting rat carcasses. So far, I haven’t.

  In the days that followed, I kept waiting for Comet to regard me with the skepticism I deserved for ignoring her warning on the trail. What I got instead was her usual gaze of adoration and love. Apparently, when she had first chosen to come home with me from Flagstaff, she had fully expected that I would introduce her to a whole new world of weird.

  True to form, when I told Comet that we had to go down to Scottsdale, into the Valley of the Sun—the very, very, very hot sun—she jumped into the back of the SUV as if she expected a visit to Santa’s Workshop. That summer, our second without the respite of the lake house, was already an unrelenting scorcher. Just the thought of going to a lower, hotter altitude drained whatever reserves of good cheer Freddie and I had left, but Scottsdale was where I banked my blood for the surgery, so we had to drive there once a week.

  As the SUV crept through an all-day traffic jam on the interstate that circled Scottsdale, we passed dozens of megamalls and shopping strips splayed alongside the highway. I thought about neutron bombs, how they make human beings pop like overinflated balloons but pass through buildings and cars without causing damage. In Scottsdale I saw buildings without one empty parking space and malls with armies of off-road vehicles, but no people. There was no one on the sidewalks, at the bus stops, or in front of the restaurants. At eleven o’clock in the morning it was 115 degrees.

  When I opened the door to pull myself from the SUV, moisture evaporated from every cell in my body. The thick cushions that I wore inside my boots were hot after two steps on the asphalt, which shimmered with water mirages only a few meters from where we stood. Comet exited the truck as cool as a Kentucky Derby mint leaf, landing at my side without a flinch although blisters had to be forming on the bottom of her paws. “Freddie, please take Comet inside right away. You can come back and get me.”

  But despite Freddie’s tugs on her leash, Comet didn’t move. I took the leash from Freddie and slowly made my way toward the building’s front door. Comet’s paws had to be searing, yet step by step, she stayed by my side. There was a job to do, and Comet didn’t have time for whining. I tried to follow her example, all the way to Denver.

  15

  AUGUST 2005—DENVER

  On the third of August, Freddie, Comet, and I drove west for the surgery. My mom, her husband of two years, Manny, and my sister, Debbie, were going to meet us in Denver and stay for a few days after the surgery. The girls had wanted to come as well, but I talked them out of it. Instead, they were planning on a visit a month later, a point in my recovery when I thought I’d be bored to death and need the company.

  “I hope you packed enough,” Freddie said as we pulled out of the driveway. “It’s hard not knowing how long you’ll be there. And I don’t know what I’m going to do; my boss wants me back in Sedona in a week, and if things don’t go well, a week isn’t …” Her voice caught, but before I could interrupt she held up her right hand, silencing me. When she spoke again, it was so softly that I thought she was talking to herself. “Kai said you would be staying no less than a month to six weeks, with the possibility of longer. Some of that time will probably be in a rehab facility, but still, that’s pretty indefinite.”

  One of Freddie’s sources of amusement over the summer had been my initial assumption that the operation would be only slightly more complex than a wisdom tooth extract
ion. The doctor’s office had quickly set me straight on that. Still, I had my own ideas about rehab. The advantage I had over most patients was that I had been learning the tricks of managing a bad back my entire life. It was already second nature to get in and out of chairs properly, roll in and out of bed, bend at the knees, and sit and stand correctly. My muscles were weak, but they had worked so much overtime in years past that I was confident in their ability to pick up right where they had left off. Plus I had a secret weapon to help me—Comet. As for the pain, it couldn’t get any worse.

  “Let’s plan on ten days for the hospital stay,” I told Freddie. “After that, it’s just a matter of where I’ll be.” I knew ten days sounded too brief, so I changed the subject. “I’ll need to concentrate on recovery, so Comet should go home with you. Besides, Sandoz will miss her after a week with the neighbors.” Freddie glanced over at me with slightly narrowed eyes.

  In the hotel room Freddie confirmed our presurgery appointments for the next day. I was lying on my back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, when I noticed that the only sound in the room after she hung up was the air-conditioner fan. I turned my head and saw her looking at me. “What?” I asked.