My War - Installment 37

It was mid-morning, after I had taken a nap that they came with a gurney to take me across the hall to my new bed. I was pushed into my new ward and unloaded into an empty bed, between two guys that were in traction. I noticed that my new bed also had a traction frame, in fact, that entire end of the twenty or more bed ward was set up as a "traction patients only" section. I was told that a doctor would be coming by in a short while, to set up my traction; just another great new experience to look forward to.

After I was lifted into the bed, with much grunting and groaning from the corpsmen, the cast and I must have weighed a considerable amount, one of the corpsmen went for a plaster saw. He came back, plugged the saw in, and started cutting my body cast in half. The cast was being split so that the top section could be lifted off. It took quite a long time to go up the outside of each leg, up to just below my armpit and then down the inside of each leg. I was a bit concerned as the saw approached my crotch. When the saw cut was completed they took some pliers-like chrome plated spreaders and opened the top of the cast a little. Then they took bandage scissors and cut the cotton wrapping before they finally lifted off the top section of the cast. It was kind of like removing a mummy from his/her crypt.

"Don't try to lift your legs from the lower section of the cast no matter how strong the urge, Sir!"

"I won't promise, but I'll try not to. OK."

They pulled a sheet up to cover my nakedness, and laid back to wait for the doctor.

"I was told that they didn't pin your leg in Qui Nhon, Sir" said one of the corpsmen.

"Huh, what? Oh hello. What did you say?" I had dozed off for a few minutes.

"They didn't run a pin, of silver wire, through your leg for us to hook the traction clamp to. Normally it would have been put in the OR, when they put your cast on. We will have to get some K-wire and run it through your leg before I can hook up your traction."

"Sounds like that could be real fun, right? Tell me, when will all of this take place and where?"

"I'll get the stuff and will do it now. Here!"

"Wonderful,” I thought to myself.

He was back in no time at all with a nice little stainless steel tray full of sterile goodies, covered by a sterile towel. The men in the beds beside me all pushed themselves up on their elbows to watch the proceedings. The doctor pushed his wheeled table, with all his instruments on it, up between the beds on my left side.

"Well, Mr. Rollason. Have you ever had one of these before?"

"No!" I replied.

"Well, I've never done one either. We will do our first one together."

Very reassuring, I said. He marked a spot on the outside of my left leg just below the knee joint with a felt tipped pen. Then he put a mark on the inside of the leg opposite the first. He took a hypodermic, filled it with a local anesthetic, and injected some of the fluid into my leg at each of the pen marks. At least he looked like he knew what he was doing; I was impressed. The local was to deaden, or lessen, what was to come next. He reached under the sterile towel and withdrew a stainless steel hand drill and a straight length of, what he called, silver K-wire. It looked more like a thin silver rod as he fitted it into the drill's chuck.

"And what, might I ask, are you going to do with that, doctor?"

"Now that the marked areas are deadened we will, excuse me, I will simply drill the wire through your leg."

"Just like that, Huh?"

"Yes, just like that."

He placed the tip of the wire on the pen mark, as I placed one hand on each edge of the mattress, he started to turn the crank on the hand powered drill.

I didn't feel much, as some blood began to trickle from the drill hole. The poor black fellow on my left side fainted. I just squeezed the mattress when the drilling felt uncomfortable.

"I can feel it! I can feel it! The damn thing's going in crooked!" I said as calmly as possible.

"Ha, Ha." Nervously. You really can't feel it. The pressure is all that you feel. Don't worry."

"Pressure my ass, Doctor; I can feel that wire or what ever going in crooked."

As I spoke the wire popped out of the front of my leg below the knee cap. The doctor looked slightly embarrassed. He turned and we eyed one another up. We both raised our eyebrows. He reversed his cranking motion and withdrew the wire. He checked it, straightened it and began to drill a second time. Even after all that it came out a bit off target, but then nobody's perfect.

He proceeded to align the wire, with equal pieces extending from either side of my leg. He attached a clamp to the wire. The clamp was either a stainless steel, or chrome plated mechanism sort of "U" shaped that had a little toothed gripper device on each end to grab hold of the wire. In the center of the "U" shape implement, at the top, a weight line was attached, weights were added to the line, I was officially in traction.

The traction frame embraced the entire bed, coming up from the four corners of the bed to a height of about four feet. It was hard to judge the exact height lying down. To the uprights another rectangular frame was attached at the top. To this frame there were interconnected cross-members to which pulleys and other devices, such as a trapeze or pull up bar. which I could use to pull myself up into a semi-sitting position.

I raised my right leg from the bottom portion of the cast, placed my foot down beside the bottom section, placed my hands beside me and lifted my self up so that the cast could be removed from beneath me. Ah ha, at long last I was released from the confining itchy grip of the cast. I was free now to explore the entire breadth of my single sized mattress.

When I had first arrived at Alpha Troop I was asked to select a method of notification for my next of kin, in the event that I would either be seriously injured or killed. I had chosen to notify my parents myself if injured, that is other than some tremendously debilitating injury, like if my arms were blown off or something like that, where I could not write for myself. I figured that since I was free from the cast I would be able to write to them and tell them that I had been injured. It would be easier coming from me, I thought, than from some official, impersonal, telegram or what ever. All I needed were some writing materials.

I had been in luck, so to speak, my pay had been straightened out just about one and one half weeks before sustaining my injuries. It would probably take another couple of months, or longer, for it to catch up with me in the hospital. The luck I had was good, since I had not been paid the small amount that I would normally have received, my pay had ballooned and accumulated into a tidy sum. The sum of which was in my wallet at that time.

One of the corpsmen, and older Spec-six, had been very friendly to me and had offered to go to the PX if there was anything that I wanted. When he came by with my lunch I asked him if he would pick up some paper, envelopes, and a pen for me. He said he would be happy to. I was also informed that I could just wait and pay him after he had picked up the items; then there would be no question as to correct pricing and so forth. I was quite pleased with this arrangement.

I wrote to my parents that afternoon to inform them of where I was and what I was doing. "....I'm in Japan, in a hospital, the 249th General. I got hurt last week. All that happened was that I broke my leg, other than that I'm doing fine. I'll tell you more, when I know more... Love Sam."

I spent some of the afternoon writing other letters and chatting with some of the other men around me in this traction ward. One of the important letters that I wrote was to a girl that was going to the high school that I graduated from. I really don't know how she had decided that she liked me or that she loved me, but I wasn't about to argue with a girl as good looking as she was. Her name was Emily; she was a few years younger than I. I had known her sister, who was a year ahead of me in school. Both of them were good lookers, I had never dated either one. It was hard for me to fathom the sudden interest in me, but as I said there was no point in arguing over my good luck. I could see her in my mind's eye, long auburn hair cascading down over full breasts; dark, warm, brown eyes that made me yearn for her, full lips ready for kissing. I would definitely have to keep writing to her and see her when I got away from Vietnam and back to the States and Pennsylvania. Perhaps my luck with women was changing.

One of the men beside me was a captain, another helicopter pilot. He had been shot down in the 506 Valley the day I had discovered the NVA that were set up for the pre-truce ambush. He was in traction like everyone else around that end of the ward. I was hesitant at first to tell Captain Clark that I was the one that was, in fact, responsible for his predicament. But, then he wouldn't be able to get out of his bed to get at me if he had a mind to. He did not even hint at being angry or upset; instead he offered me a drink of his scotch. He told me that it had been prescribed by the doctor.

Scotch was not my favorite, matter of fact I do not believe I had a favorite, but I accepted his cordial offer. The prescription was probably one to help alleviate the obvious boredom of traction.

While we continued talking a fellow came on to the ward walking behind a self propelled, Rube Goldberg type, contraption, which turned out to be a portable X-ray machine. He drove the machine up beside my bed and said hello. Taking a large film holder from a cabinet under the X-ray machine he placed it under the area of the broken left femur. He fiddled with the machine adjusting it and exposed the film. He repeated the procedure shooting a few different angles before finishing. With the portable X-ray machine the doctors could keep weekly progress reports on all of us traction fellows.

After the X-ray technician left, Captain Clark and I talked some more. He was interested in hearing about the outcome of that day, in the 506 Valley, which had sent him to the hospital. He was a nice enough guy, in his mid-thirties, I guessed. His hair was reddish over his freckled narrow face. His constant smile was infectious, not to mention it was good for moral. We had another short snort before supper that afternoon while continuing to talk. It seemed to hurt him to hear of the outcome and the disaster at LZ Bird, it hurt me too.

I could see that the days here were going to be long tedious and extremely boring, with not being able to move away from the prison of my bed, traction frame, cables, and weights, which bound me. I would most certainly have to work on a system or regimen to cope with this down time. (A term used to indicate none flying time, like when an aircraft is grounded.)

My options for passing the time were few; the first and biggest obstacle being, getting use to total inactivity. When a person is accustomed to continual physical activity, since childhood, it is certainly a major adjustment when suddenly the most vigorous things he can do are to shave, brush his teeth and go to the toilet, the latter being the most strenuous.

Oh, yea my options. I could just lay there and watch everybody else just laying there watching everybody else. I could get the doctor to prescribe some booze and take up serious drinking. Maybe I could get the Spec-six to go out onto the common market, since I finally had some money, and pick up a little Sony TV for me and a cheap record player, stereo of course, and a bunch of records and... Whoa! Now there was a plan. I was too young to get serious about much. I could not get interested in things that required a lot of metal activity, I could not figure out why. Since I was totally inactive, I figured that I might as well get used to inactive things and become expert at them?

I tried reading a book that Captain Clark had loaned me, but I could not even start to get interested in reading it for some darn reason. I guess that I just had to do some more adjusting to my new situation. I had only been laid up for eight or nine days, and I was all ready losing track of time. I was so bored that I longed for anything different to happen, even for the doctor's rounds. Speaking of doctors I had not seen one since the guy who had drilled the K-wire through my leg the day after my arrival. Captain Clark had told me that they normally made daily rounds. Usually they told new patients what to expect, in the way of treatment, and how and where their treatment would take place.

Supper came and went and then the excitement of getting ready for bed, washing, brushing teeth-the whole works, crept up on us. The wash up time became more interesting when a female type nurse, nice looking, arrived with my wash basin and told me that she had come to give me a sponge bath. I was supposed to have had one right after the cast had been removed, but something had prevented my getting one. I was happy to be getting one then. I thought that it would help me to sleep better anyway, as well as something nice to dream about. I thoroughly enjoyed the washing that she gave me. She would lather up the sponge and then gently wash me, a small section at a time. It was unfortunate for me that she made me do some of the washing, but then too much is too much.

It took some time to accustom myself to sleeping flat on my back, at least I must have been getting use to it, I slept pretty well. I only had to call for a urinal twice during the night.

AND SO IT WENT

Breakfast was brought by at about 0800 hours each morning. It seems to always be the same, identical to the first one that I had at that hospital, even down to the hair on the scrambled eggs. When breakfast was over it was time for the bed clothing to be changed, another of the daily chores. An old nurse, a major, came by to change my sheets.