Comet's Tale

by Steven Wolf

  As Mom and Manny scrambled to their feet, I did something really mean. I pushed Comet off the bed. I threw the thin bedsheet away from my body. Then I rolled over. I put my feet on the floor. I pushed myself upright. I was standing—by myself. Without Comet or canes!

  “Holy crap!” yelled my mom, never one to hold back on expletives.

  Comet pushed her body next to mine, expecting me to lean on her, openly amazed when I did not. I failed to notice that I was swaying like brittle prairie grass in the wind. Freddie rushed through the electric silence to give my weak body some much-needed support. She was clearly stunned. With a dramatic wave of my arm I proclaimed, “To the bathroom, Tonto!”

  16

  AUGUST 2005–OCTOBER 2006—DENVER AND SEDONA

  Dr. Frey, along with the entire hospital staff, was surprised at how quickly I was able to lift myself off the mattress and onto the floor on that first triumphant trip to the bathroom. But nobody was as shocked as I was. All my life, whenever I had approached an important peak, my health would send me plummeting back down the icy slopes. I would eventually pull myself together and resume the climb to the top, only to topple down and begin all over. Again and again and again … Despite my confidence that Dr. Frey could ease some of my pain, by the time I was slapped onto the surgical table, my expectations had been pathetically low. Just let me have one hour—one measly period of sixty minutes—where I feel anywhere as good as I used to. Just give me a memory of what feeling good was like.

  During the first week after surgery, I attributed the twenty minutes that would elapse between stabs of leg pain to anesthesia and all the other drugs swimming through my system. When my feet didn’t burn as if someone were scorching them with a cigar lighter, I didn’t allow myself to believe the pain could actually have diminished. When I stood up from bed, accepting Freddie’s help to the bathroom, I was scared to give voice to the nagging notion that I felt pretty damn good considering what I’d been through. If it seems too good to be true, it is. Don’t even think it. You’ll just be crushed tomorrow.

  At three o’clock in the morning, six days after surgery, I was on my feet and walking the halls hands-free for the first time in eight years—no canes, no walker, and no dog—weeks earlier than anybody had anticipated. Every incredible step down that long corridor caused a fresh round of gleeful sobbing, although I tried to stifle my tears, not wanting to tempt fate. Could it be? Can this actually be happening to me? “Yes, yes, YES! Oh God, YES!” Until I started shouting, the floor nurses hadn’t even recognized me. My detour into the shower room caused an alert for “patient needing assistance,” but the nurse’s presence in the bathroom didn’t dent my spirits as I stood there joyously, water pouring over my stitched and swollen body.

  Freddie and Comet departed for Sedona early on Tuesday morning, planning to return to Denver in a week. Comet had to be physically removed from my bed, Freddie dragging her dead weight down the hallway while I listened to her nails scrape on the tile floor. Before she left, Freddie warned me, “Just take your time.” But not even her suspicions could dampen my determination to get out of the hospital as fast as I could.

  Dr. Frey’s office had not anticipated making physical therapy arrangements outside the hospital for another two weeks, but I skated through in-patient therapy in two swift sessions, so hospital protocol and insurance dictated that I be placed in an off-site setting for the duration of my recovery. I called Freddie to report my miraculous progress.

  “So I’m out of here on Friday,” I crowed.

  “What? You can’t be serious,” my wife sputtered. “Why can’t you ever do things the normal way? You … you …”

  Ignoring Freddie’s not-so-ambiguous response, I continued with my scheme to escape the hospital. Before she had time to plan her return, I was transported to a room in the long-term assisted living facility that had been designated as my rehab center. I lasted all of two days before calling a taxi. It wasn’t that the rehab people weren’t good at their jobs; it’s just that I didn’t want to stick around after the first Code Blue resulted in a sheet-covered gurney being wheeled past my room. And I can’t lie: the thought of giving myself the remainder of my required blood-thinning injections while enjoying a room-service rib eye and soft plush sheets appealed to me. I don’t think it helped Freddie’s state of mind when I told her I would be waiting for her at a hotel. She knew me too well.

  Freddie’s frosty mood during her three-day Colorado “vacation”—staying in the hotel while we completed my blood-thinning regimen—signaled that she questioned my sanity. Dr. Frey, though, believed my promises that I wouldn’t do anything foolish if he released me many weeks earlier than originally planned. He was reassured by the fact that Freddie had medical experience.

  “I’m back!” was my unofficial mantra on the drive from Denver to Sedona. Comet’s shining eyes and adoring stares told me that she liked my mood. Freddie did not share Comet’s enthusiasm.

  “Why do you always have to prove that you’re meaner and tougher, that you can do twice what the doctors order? Why don’t you feel like you deserve the luxury of taking your time? I’m telling you now, do not rush this rehab and then say you did it to make my life easier. Je te connais. Don’t do it.”

  Ultimately, however, my buoyant attitude was contagious. Even cautious Freddie caught the bug. I was walking again, and the truth was that my entire family desperately wanted the same result I did. Sandoz seemed both befuddled and overjoyed at the new me. Once we were back in Sedona, I launched into a regimen of physical therapy that included at-home exercises and sessions at a facility in Sedona. A blissful smile never left my face as I sampled the freedoms of walking on a treadmill or peddling a stationary bike. Comet was treated as a favored guest and provided with her own exercise mat on which to rest as she monitored my efforts. She seemed to be energized by the people who were helping me, going out of her way to greet the therapists. She had never before shown any inclination to express affection to strangers (unless they were uniformed).

  With the passing of each muscle-strengthening day, it became easier for me to believe that I was cured. On the surface I certainly seemed to be a different man. One of our neighbors, a kindly retiree named Madeleine, had been watching me stumble around ever since I moved to Sedona. We shared a fondness for books and I would often discuss them with her when she was in her yard. About three weeks after my return, I ventured out of the house for a walk around the block. Comet assisted with my balance, but I was not bent over my canes. Madeleine was the first person we ran into. She approached us and then stopped, squinting up at my face with a puzzled expression.

  “Hi, Madeleine.”

  “You must be Wolf’s brother,” she finally decided. “You sound like him, too, but you’re a little taller.” It was the first time in five years that any of my neighbors had seen me standing upright.

  “Madeleine, it’s me. Wolf.”

  Her lips pursed. After examining my face for several more moments, she murmured, “Yeah, okay, I’ll take your word for it,” and continued down the street, plainly unconvinced.

  I encountered similar incredulous reactions from the fraternity of people who had entered my orbit during my Sedona years. The first time Bill and Jana spied me walking alone, I thought somebody had just told them they had won the lottery. Rindy’s embrace when I stopped by her real estate office almost sent me back to Denver. Pam, whom I had avoided for almost a year as I became increasingly hopeless about my health, cried with happiness. Ben couldn’t hug me enough. Not one of these friends recognized me at first. It always took a double or triple take for them to be sure it was me. People started sticking around for celebratory dinners that covered all hours of the night. The misidentifications, astonished reactions, and subsequent compliments about my upright posture and healthy glow were like cotton candy to a kid. The buzzing high kept me revved up far more than was good for me.

  The increased speed of the world I now lived in just served as a reminder of ho
w much time I had lost, creating a manic circle—having more made me want more. Even though I was often exhausted, my muscles knotted from unfamiliar levels of activity, I considered those feelings to be a reward for hard work, sort of like the feeling that used to overtake me during football practices in college. By the end of September, I convinced Freddie that I was strong enough to fly by myself (without Comet) to Omaha to surprise Kylie at the ceremony for her admission to the Nebraska State Bar Association. It was my first solo flight in eight years. Kylie and Lindsey were dumbstruck by my appearance and good cheer.

  “Dad, I hardly recognized you! You look so … so … healthy!” Kylie had a lot on her plate that day, but her tears were for me. Lindsey’s eyes were moist, too, but her response was more reserved. “You look great, Dad, but how are you feeling?”

  “Like a million bucks!”

  “Really?”

  “Linds, this is the real thing. Dr. Frey is a miracle worker.”

  “If you say so.”

  I let her skeptical tone ride, preferring to assume that, like Freddie, my daughters now believed in this fairy tale. The frog was once again a prince!

  Judges, lawyers, and clerks who attended the swearing-in ceremony went out of their way to find me and marvel at my transformation. “I can’t believe it’s you! You look so good! I would never have recognized you!” Little did they know that their comments were fueling my unspoken desire to return to practicing law. After all, at age fifty-one I should be at the peak of my profession.

  I ignored the first inklings that it might be wise to take my expectations down a few notches. After flying to Omaha, driving another hour to the state’s Capitol Building in Lincoln, attending the ceremony and joining in several celebrations that followed, I was unable to sleep. That night my pelvis began to throb uncontrollably, almost in rhythm to the stabbing of my feet and toes. “Just inflamed nerves. It’s going to take a while for everything to calm down. It doesn’t happen overnight,” I mumbled to myself, prayerlike, while I massaged my feet. Three days of bed rest after my return to Sedona, and I was back—again!

  Comet was in the midst of her own adjustments. She had known me when she was simply a pet whom I thoroughly enjoyed as a companion and roommate. She had no expectations of me beyond trusting that I would walk her, be kind to her, and make sure the food in her bowl didn’t get stale. Comet then became one of my primary caretakers, a relationship that imposed enormous duties on her and transformed her role from friend to supervisor. As a service dog, Comet expected me to act less like a drinking buddy and more like a mature adult who cared about his own safety. For the past four years I had depended on her every moment that I was not in a chair or a bed.

  Now, however, I no longer required Comet to help me balance when I got out of bed. I could usually wrangle myself out of a chair without her assistance, and I could walk around the house unaided by dog or cane. Comet the service dog wasn’t needed as often. Then again, I occasionally still asked her to pull me to my feet or help me balance. Comet had a hard time figuring out what her role was supposed to be. Sometimes when I was upright and unassisted she would look utterly confused, her tail pulled up under her abdomen and her eyes pinched and worried.

  “Would you quit it? We’ve talked about this! Get out of the way!” After my return from Omaha I had been confident that I could walk around outdoors without dog or canes. Comet wasn’t buying it, and had begun bracing herself across the front doorway, refusing to budge and blocking me whenever I tried to exit.

  “I already told you. I do not need a crutch!” Squeezing my body past the rigid dog, I would depart. Comet would scrunch through the narrow opening before I could slam the door shut. I’m positive that the only reason she wanted to come along was so that she could revel in the exquisite “I told you so” moment that was usually only fifteen minutes away.

  “Don’t tell me I have to walk all the way back to the front door to get a cane.” Leaning on Comet, I would stumble back, muttering to her all the way, “Don’t act so cocky. I might just hook you up to the walker.”

  As long as I remembered cane and dog, I was soon able to negotiate my way around our oversized lot—for the very first time. My stroll around every vivid square foot of trees, shrubs, and flowering sage and cactus felt like a visit to a world-class botanical garden. As my mood improved, I went from admiring the landscaping to pruning, trimming, and irrigating. I had some understanding of the physical changes that were making my muscles sore and tired as they were increasingly challenged, but I also chose this period, over my doctor’s strong objections, to try to eliminate all my pain medications so I could determine my baseline of discomfort.

  As I dialed back the medications over the passing weeks, withdrawal symptoms stressed my already fragile systems. I was enormously fatigued from simple exercises that I hadn’t done by myself in years, such as walking, although admittedly the walks now covered far more distance than they should have. As my body cleansed itself, I started detecting throbbing and burning that I prayed was just temporary phantom pain.

  “Don’t you think you should spend a little less time gardening and more time getting some healthy rest?” This was Freddie’s daily refrain, eventually becoming more of a rote comment than a statement of concern as winter and spring passed into the summer of 2006. Freddie would return home from work to find me splayed on a chaise lounge, nearly comatose from the day’s efforts. At least I had the sense to situate myself on the shady patio and have a gin and tonic waiting for her. But she wasn’t interested. “I was hoping we could meet some friends at the Village Pub. There’s a jazz group playing tonight. But I guess you’re too tired. Again.”

  Kylie and Lindsey often called me in the early evening when they got out of classes or were done working for the day. Increasingly, however, Freddie had to tell them that I had fallen into bed at five o’clock. She would assure the girls that my recovery was progressing, but they were dubious. So was Jackie. The third time she visited from Flagstaff specifically to see me, only to find me oblivious to her presence, she told her mom, “From now on I’ll just call.”

  The stress of trying to produce a perfect recovery caused me to revert to bad habits. Instead of the half hour of daily therapeutic exercises prescribed by my physical therapist, I did two one-hour sessions every day. Walking became my own personal marathon. Pruning now included raking and lifting. Not even old clients were safe. My phone bill ballooned as I began setting the stage for my return to law. Because my mind had become as flexible as a steel post by the time my wife moved to Arizona, Freddie had been forced into the role of bookkeeper. She continued in that role primarily because we both still had doubts about my ability to deal with details. I was great on my big picture expectations, but the little things? Not so good. I waited for her to question the phone charges, but she said nothing.

  One morning, as I was trimming some overgrown sage bushes, I noticed smears of blood on the patio. I followed the trail back out over the rough red granite chunks that were spread over the backyard and then thought to look at the soles of my feet. They were cut up and bleeding from walking barefoot on the rock cover. I put on some shoes and kept working, ignoring the fact that my feet apparently had no feeling.

  I should have known something was up when my retorts to Freddie that “I don’t need to rest” started being met with a monotone, “Fine. I’m too tired to argue.” When I tried to tell my girls about my impressive recovery and they cut me off with, “Please, Dad, can we not talk about it?” it should have slapped me out of the fairy tale. When Freddie drove the entire way to Denver for my one-year checkup while I slumped in the passenger’s seat, I still didn’t get it. I wasn’t recovering. I was more like an overtrained quarterhourse, fit on the surface but dangerously fatigued and heading for a crippling fall.

  The visit with Dr. Frey started out swimmingly. “This x-ray looks wonderful. See all the white along here?” His pen pointed along boxy white outlines and distinct screw shapes that constituted w
hat now served as my spine. “This is new bone being formed in your disc spaces and along the outside of the vertebrae. It looks like it’s all filling in solidly. Barring anything crazy, you should have a good solid fusion along that whole area.”

  The good news gave me goose bumps. “That’s great! When do you think I’ll be able to return to work?” There was no point in wasting any more of the doctor’s time.

  Dr. Frey’s smile faded, replaced with a pensive look as he took a seat on the wheeled stool. He didn’t believe in wasting time either. “You’re not going to be returning to work. You’re not cured. We’ve just made your condition tolerable.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I’ve read plenty of stories on the Internet about people who go right back to their normal lives after these surgeries.” I didn’t care if there hadn’t been enough surgeries like mine to make that type of anecdotal evidence relevant.

  “It’s true that we sometimes release patients without restrictions once all of the bone grows in. We don’t like to set ceilings on what they can or can’t do. But your pain symptoms are still in the upper range, even after a year. I want you continuing to do whatever you can within reason, but I also want you to remember how bad you felt before the surgery. If I told you to go back to snow skiing or golf, would you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then you haven’t learned a thing. I’m afraid that a lot of your pain is chronic and will always limit you. I’m also confident that if you went right back to doing those types of things, whatever is causing your discs to degenerate would move up to the healthy part of your spine. Besides, you’re a long way from even being able to sit unassisted on the floor. Your rehab has been great, but you’re trying to overcome decades of damage.”