My War - Installment 40

Next I pulled or rather slid the box containing the record player from the gurney and tore it open. It was made by RCA Victor of Japan. It wasn't fancy, but it looked fine to me and hearing it would tell the real story. I was not able to weasel it into position on the night stand by myself so I had to do a little more waiting so I put it out of my mind.

I clutched the last bag from off of the gurney. I tenderly removed the box containing my Ashai Pentax camera. I quickly removed it from the box and just admired it for a time. I had been interested in photography for years and had been the first in my family to buy a good camera at the age of eleven after I had earned and saved enough money. I had started doing darkroom work even earlier when my older sister, Judy, ten years my senior, had given me a darkroom outfit for Christmas one year. I had even built my first enlarger from an old view camera that I had found somewhere. I pulled myself back to the present and admired the very nice piece of precision machinery, the best camera I had ever laid my hands on.

A corpsman came by and I asked him to set up my record player. I donned my headset, put on a record and lay back to read the instruction manual for my camera. Fortunately, I had enough foresight to have carefully placed the camera on my table, because the next thing I knew it was morning again.

The days and weeks began to blur into one long agonizingly boring ordeal. Every day it was the same institutional green walls, the same exact routine with the staff personnel: doctors, technicians, and ourselves. I had never realized how much my freedom of movement had meant to me and how useless I felt without it. For me it was impossible to seem to do anything productive. I felt that way because I viewed the hospital and the broken leg as a temporarily debilitating set of circumstances, even if the doctors said it would be at least a year.

I would have much rather been confined to a wheel chair or at least in a sitting position where I would have some sort of mobility. I knew there were plenty of others that had lost limbs and I was pretty well off comparatively, I thought. My back ached constantly; I had mentioned it almost from the beginning of my hospitalization. None of my other multitude of continuing aches and pains seemed to mean anything to anybody but me.

"If it still hurts when you get to the States you can tell them to check it out there," I was told.

"Fine I'll do that!"

We had a number of instances of blood clotting on the ward at varying times since that first one. There were occasions when the whole ward was awakened, that is other than people that were sedated, by the, now familiar, hacking and coughing that was associated with the swallowing of a plastic tube by way of the nose.

STATESIDE EXPERTISE

One day while lazing about listening to records and playing cards with Jack, the doctors came onto the ward with an older looking fat man. We all decided that he must be a civilian consultant from the States. This man had a very pompous air about him and was very loud, to the point of distraction. He obviously wanted everyone to know he was there and what his opinions were. Everyone included every patient on the ward. I felt that if everyone had not been awake when he came in that this particular pompous ass would have shaken them awake individually so they would have to hear his “wonderful voice and astute and educated opinions.”

There were a number of men on the ward that had developed phlebitis (blood clots associated with inflammation of a vein), in an extremity that had been wounded or otherwise drastically traumatized. This consultant fellow started to tell everyone on the ward, both patient and doctor alike. That in his, thirty odd years, in the practice of medicine that he had never had one single case, not one single patient had ever developed phlebitis. He did not stop with that statement, he went on and on about it, and about how great he was. I was pretty sure that our doctors felt embarrassed by this, consultant, guy. But when the brass would send clowns like that in, there was very little, if anything, that anyone could do, except grin and bear it. I decided that I would take it upon myself to come to the aid of our doctors....in a small way. Even a dummy, like me, could see that phlebitis would be more prevalent in cases of severe trauma.

When the doctors, during their grand rounds (grand rounds were visits to every patient), came to my bed I asked Doctor Smartass, with great enthusiasm, "I am so happy to meet you Doctor, such and eminent doctor and scholar, as well as a specialist on Phlebitis. I’m sure your experience is vast sir. How many patients have you treated in your thirty years of practice that had sustained trauma from armed engagement, either gunshot, grenade, or mine type wounds, doctor?

"None," he replied.

I smiled and thanked him. Case closed. The other doctors smiled at me, trying to conceal their faces from the consultant. They had recognized my point, whether Doctor Smartass had or not. Apparently the good doctor took it as a question prompted by curiosity, because he believed himself to be above question. After he had given me his answer, he quickly continued rounds in his boisterous manner.

One afternoon I was lying quietly in bed, nothing new or exciting. The sky outside was a pretty blue with billowy cumulus clouds floating by behind the buildings out side of our windows. Strange how I had not been looking outside much, it depressed me, made me sad, knowing that I could not enjoy any of Japan first hand. Almost everyone on my end of the ward seemed to be awake for a change and aware of the beautiful day outside. There was only one thing wrong, everything was down right quiet. Suddenly, and without warning, a sickening quickness and silence came over the ward. On the outside of the building were heavy concrete structural beams, probably 12 or more inches square. These thick upright e structural members of the building began to sway back and forth in movements of what appeared to be two feet or more. I guess it looked like they were moving more than anything else, because they were an easy reference point. Actually the whole building was swaying and shaking and shuddering like crazy. The weights which applied the traction force on my leg, swung on their cords from the traction frame, back and forth like a pendulum on some grandfather clock; they continued to swing to and fro long after the quaking had ended and during the multiple after shocks.

"Nice earth quake, eh Jack?"

"Very interesting; I kind of expected to see things start to fall apart for a minute. There are supposed to be lots of quakes in the Japanese islands. They must build for them."

"I guess they do. There's no apparent damage anywhere, but then all we can really see is this ward."

"How about some cards, Sam?"

"Great. Let's do it."

"Doctors say that I'll be shipped out of here next week, Sam."

"That's great Jack, really. I'm sure your wife and kids will be pleased to have you close to home."

"Yea, I can't wait. It'll be nice; I haven't seen my kids in a long time."

Jack left that next week like others I had come to know at the 249th. Just like any other unit or place in the military you made friends, got to know them and appreciate them and then suddenly they were gone. In Vietnam the only difference had been that there were more ways to unexpectedly be gone.

I was lonely after Jack left. He had been the only other officer on the ward, not to mention his being a pilot. We had started our brief friendship with a lot in common. Oh well.

I started to use self hypnosis more often and read the Bible and other books more after Jack was gone. As I all ready knew, before I had acquired them, the articles I had bought would not satisfy me or make me happy. They had just been things that I figured I needed and could get cheaper in Japan. I was just taking advantage of being in Japan, since I had never had the chance to go on an R & R.

One day after "X-ray man" had made his rounds and the doctors had looked at my new pictures. (A patient's entire set of x-rays was always brought by before rounds.) I was informed that my turn to be packed for shipment had arrived. I would be put into another body cast from high on my chest down to the toes of the left foot, my right leg would be left out from just above the knee down.

"Hey doc, where am I to be shipped?"

"I believe that you’re headed for Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania. Yes, I think that's what I remember."

"Sounds great to me; how long till I leave?"

"Oh, about one week, I'd say. You'll be cast today and moved to a transient ward. You'll be shipped from there when they're ready for you."

"Thanks for everything."

"Take care, Sam."

"Right, I have no choice do I?"

My doctor turned and walked away, chatting to his colleagues. Thompson came in a few minutes later and began packing my belongings that I had acquired during my stay. The larger items would be shipped ahead of me. I kept my camera with me, not wanting it to be damaged by careless handling.

There was a publicity team that came through the ward right after the doctors, it was becoming a busy day. Two one star generals, General Doleman and General Felenz stopped in to visit on the ward. They stopped by my bed and talked to me for a few minutes, a photographer snapped their picture beside my bed while they pretended to show interest in me. It was nice talking to the brass and fun in a way. They told me that I would get a copy of the picture at some later date, turning they left my bed and continued to visit on the ward.

Some guys from the cast room came in with one of the orthopedic doctors, to prepare me for casting. A doctor would remove the pin from my leg, and then the other men would take me to the cast room for a fitting. The pin had been loose for some time in my leg. In fact loose enough that I was able to slide it back and forth, it had also been oozing a little puss. I had taken it upon myself to slip it to and fro in my leg. The doctor arrived and after wiping one end of the silver wire and the hole with some disinfectant, the doctor took some stainless steel, sterilized, side cutters and snipped the K-wire close to one side of my leg. As the doctor turned to replace the cutters on his wheeled table I reached down and pulled the K-wire out myself. It slipped out very easily.

Spinning around the doctor said, "I told you it would be quick, painless and easy. Thank you for your help. You know we'll miss you around here Mr. Rollason."

"Thanks, I really appreciate hearing that Doc."

He left and the cast boys took over, carefully lifting me onto a gurney for my first ride since my telephone calls.

I had not been awake for my last cast so it would be a new experience for me. It took the cast room people thirty to forty-five minutes to incase me in plaster, it could have been longer, I had been keenly interested. I didn't really keep track of the time because they had asked me to remove my watch, another of my recent purchases, an automatic winding Seiko. I had not been able to find a good watch in Vietnam after mine had been stolen. Even the “Timex” brand seemed to be of the counterfeit variety. The Seiko was a prime piece of jewelry in my mind.

I was rolled back onto my gurney after casting and pushed out into the hall way. The plaster was warm and moist and it felt sort of comfortable and reassuring in a funny way. I had made sure that this cast was equipped with a rear exit. The cast would soon turn cold and clammy before truly starting to dry out and harden completely.

Even entrapped in those many pounds of plaster, I had already started to feel more mobile. I was told that when the plaster dried completely that I could roll over, that I could be propped up on one side, and that I could lie on my stomach on a gurney and push myself around with canes or crutches. The idea of actually having some mobility excited me a great deal. I was not really sure how limiting the huge cast would actually be, but I would certainly find out my limitations within the cast.

I was wheeled to my new ward on the ground floor and placed in a bed off to one side of the room by myself. The cast would definitely take some time to get accustomed to, but then I had gained....some limited freedom; no longer confined traction. Everything in life is a trade off of some sort. I could no longer bend at the waist and assume a semi-sitting position, but I could live with that. I could put up with anything for a time.

The only possessions that I had with me were all stuffed in a little drawstring bag that had been made by a women's auxiliary group in the states. I didn’t know who they were, but they got together and made them up bags to send to military hospitals everywhere, to be given out to patients. I had some stationary, a book, my Bible, my toilet articles, my camera, my wallet, and some smokes. I still had an occasional smoke when I really got bore or depressed.

There were no people near me in the ward. The others were all enlisted men. I got the feeling that the staff wanted to keep any officer on the ward separated from the other men. The cast had dried out and had lost its warmth by the next day. I borrowed a felt tipped marker from one of the nurses and printed "MADE IN JAPAN", crudely, across my chest at the top edge of the cast.

I had forgotten how incredibly hard it was to eat and drink while flat on my back. It took longer and adjustments had to be made, I had to revert to the use of flexible straws to drink and slow sure movements with utensils to get the food to my mouth instead of my cast. It was all a continuing adaptive process. It would only be one more week and I would be going home. Short range goals were the key. I would face any problems at home when the problems presented themselves; one day at a time became my motto.