My War - Installment 46

My leg was healing rapidly and I, remarkably, would be getting out of my body cast. The thought of not having to drag around all of the extra weight, being able to bend and sit properly at a table, being able to eat without having to scrape food off of my, shirt covered, cast were heavenly. I would have to use either crutches or a wheelchair, and would gradually be able to start putting weight on my left leg. I was not to put weight on the leg at all until I had been to physical therapy for a few days. That was fine with me I could hardly wait.

As soon as I had been told that I would be getting out of the cast, I ran, so to speak, to make plans with BT to go to the "O" Club to celebrate. He still had not received his electric wheelchair, so we would have to find at least one more guy to go along with us to push BT.

During those past weeks I had met Ralph a young Warrant Officer pilot and the Silver Fox (John), a captain in infantry. He was called the Silver Fox because, even though he was only in his late twenties or early thirties his whole head was covered with silver gray hair. Both of these men said they would go with us. They were both friendly, Ralph had an arm and hand injury, John had a leg injury that was being worked on and had been worked on for some time. Ralph was about five feet eight or nine inches tall had light brown hair, angular facial features and a friendly manner. He had been a Lift pilot in Vietnam.

The Silver Fox always seemed to be smiling and had very prominent dimples that emphasized his smile and attracted women, he said. He also had a reputation for having his way with them.

Speaking of women, we had some pretty fine looking nurses on our ward and we asked a couple of them if they would care to join us for dinner. Bonnie was a real fox, young, strawberry-blond, and put together. She declined because she had a date with a Lieutenant, which I had come to know a few weeks earlier. Jeff was his name; he had lost an arm, below the elbow. Jane, another real looker, had short coal black hair cut in a pixie style, a petite frame, beautiful eyes, smile, and legs and on and on, very desirable. I asked her, but she declined on the basis that she was committed elsewhere, a disappointment to all of us. The other nurses were either too old to consider, or were real bow wows, so we gave up on the idea of any female companionship for our meal that evening at the club.

I went to the cast room in mid afternoon the body cast was removed to my great relief. I had been doing isometric contraction exercises while in the plaster. Unbelievably, they had worked, so there had been very little deterioration of the muscles; almost no atrophy at all. As soon as I got into the wheelchair, I made a bee-line for the bathroom. For the first time in over four months a real bath was just moments away. Come to think of it that was the first real bath I'd had since before I had gone to Viet Nam. The first thing or one of the first things that I noticed was that my back still bothered me. It hurt when I bent over to ease myself down into the tub. Later it hurt as I stood on one leg and bent over the sink to brush my teeth, another first in months. Even brushing my teeth and being able to spit into a sink, rather than an emesis basin was a wondrous treat. Things were going well though, I had not been able to stand and bend over anything, for a great number of months, that part was great. But the sharp stabbing pain when I did bend over was causing me to hold tightly onto the sink every time I did. I would continue mentioning it to the doctors for months to come. In my mind I believed that I would be out of the hospital in no time and back to my love, flying. The way things were heating up in the Middle East some of us had started to speculate that it would be the next place we would be going, that is, after the hospital. Some of the men kidded me about doing recons over the sand dunes in the desert.

After bathing I put on some civilian clothes and then got back into my wheelchair to go to orthopedic services for my crutches. It felt really great, having the freedom of the wheelchair and being able to sit upright and everything. It was just overwhelming regaining that much freedom and mobility. I got my crutches and quickly took them back to my bed where I dropped them off. I felt that I would be too tempted to put some weight on my leg if I used them, exclusively, that soon after getting my cast off. I did not want that kind of temptation. That would have been almost like putting me in a room full of naked women, with me wearing a straight jacket.

I zoomed up through the ward, dodging around chairs and tables and people, throwing an occasional wave at friends as I passed along. When I arrived at BT's there was another guy there before me, he too was in a wheelchair. I didn't recognize him at first. It was Doug Marrow, another first lieutenant from across the hall. I had met him previously. He was a husky fellow, married, from upstate New York. He had an ankle that had been seriously injured and the doctors were planning to fuse the ankle to regain a stable platform for Doug to walk on. He and BT had been talking when I entered.

BT noticed me and said, "Hello Sam. Free of the white stuff I see."

"Yes. It's great."

"You know Doug, don't you?"

"Yes. We met last week I believe. How's it going Doug? When are you scheduled to go under the knife for that fusion you told me about?"

"Within a week or two, they told me. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the hold up is. In the mean time I'm just swimming and going to P.T. and goofing off."

"Swimming eh? I'd like to go with you next time. You can show me around, if you don't mind?

"No. I'd be happy to show you the pool area."

"Hey. You should go with us BT, your stumps will never toughen up with all the pussy foot'in around that your doing."

"Have you been talking to the doctors about me, their saying the same things that you are."

"Up yours BT! I haven't been talking to anyone about you. I just believe that it's a good idea to get out of bed as soon as possible, especially when it's OK with the medicos."

"You'll be getting out of here before too long, by the looks of it." Doug had changed the subject.

I hope so Doug. I'd like to get back to doing some flying, even if it is back across the big pond. By the way would you be interested in joining us for dinner this evening?"

"Sure. I don't see any problem with that."

"There is sure to be a high time at the "O" Club tonight."

"All we need now is one more guy to go along with us and push me then we'll be set," said BT.

"I'll check with Hank and Ben to see if either of them would be interested. Can you think of anybody else to check with Doug?"

"Doug is married, but we could try the nurses again Sam," croaked BT.

"Hey you two, I hear tell that some of the Red Cross girls aren't bad at all."

"That'd be fine, but I don't know any of them, how about you BT?"

"Me! Shit! I haven't been out of this ward since you took me to the club. I've hardly even been out of this room."

"Let's just look for another guy to help us out."

The Silver Fox went with us and pushed BT. We had a great time, along with a good meal. After we had finished eating we wheeled over to the bar area and watched the able bodied patrons dancing and carrying on. The Silver Fox knew most of the people, both male and female, from Al the bar tender to Zelda, one of the full time Red Cross workers stationed at the hospital. He joined in the dancing, slow dancing that is, and would bring girls over to meet us, which was good for our egos. It did us some real good to meet some of the girls. Linda, Mary Ann, Nonie, and Zelda were the Red Cross girls, we met them only briefly, then they rejoined the others in the dancing.

We met a few other girls, nurses, most of them I had at least seen before, either on or around our ward. Louise, a husky woman, probably in her mid to late twenties with short black hair and lips colored dark red. Jane whom I had asked to dinner before was there. Bonnie was there with Jeff. Ralph a male nurse from our ward was there with his roommate, another male nurse named John. They were mixing in with the others around the bar area.

Throughout the evening different people would pass by our table and visit for a while between dances, or stop by to have a drink with us before rejoining the others. We would joke around and talk for a time. We all started to get to know the RC (Red Cross) girls and the hospital personnel on a personal and social level, rather than just from a patient hospital staff relationship. It was quite refreshing.

I enjoyed being in my wheelchair, being able to move right up to the table like a normal civilized human. I learned that evening that BT would be getting fitted for his prosthetic arm in the morning and would soon have it to wear. He had been lucky in a way that his arm loss was below the elbow. His leg loss, on the other hand was an AK, above the knee, which was not the best, but then it wasn't the worst either, like a hip disarticulation (the total removal of the leg, including the hip joint).

We returned to the ward late that evening, which was becoming more and more of a habit with us. My biggest problem was maneuvering through the darkened ward to my bed after helping BT into his. There were definite advantages to having a private room. I told myself that I'd have to get on the waiting list for a room if I was going to spend much more time there.

The next morning Jim and I got together and talked, he had come up with, what I can only refer to as an act, a mind reading act, which he and I would perpetrate on otherwise unsuspecting fellow patients and staff members.

The mind reading scheme would use regular playing cards as a medium of convenience. The idea was: Someone, anyone, could choose any card from the deck, show it to someone else in the room for conformation, replace the card in the stack, shuffle the cards and then concentrate on the chosen card. All this would be done while Jim was out of the room. Jim would then be summoned and would stand in front of the person and concentrate. He would then proceed to, successfully, call out the chosen card. Later on Jim would even go as far as to fashion a turban for himself out of a hospital bath towel.

The way the act really worked was rather simple. When Jim would or rather as soon as… even better… while he was reentering the room, I would give him a signal for the suit of the card. There were only four signals; all were taken from natural personal movements that I normally exhibited. We worked these out together, beforehand of course. If I was scratching my earlobe, either one, it was a spade, wiping my forehead a heart, stroking my mustache a club, and scratching my chin a diamond. All of these movements were done in a most casual and natural manner and were the first thing Jim would look for when the door was opened, and while everyone's attention would be naturally drawn to his entry.

The next set of signals was again simple placements of the hands, which could easily be picked up in Jim's peripheral vision. With practice, people even trying to deliberately catch us were foiled in their attempts.

Jim, Doug and I went to the swimming pool for some exercise and while Doug was stroking around the pool, Jim and I decided to get a little more practice in, so that we would be able to try our mind reading act out on Doug and BT, later that day.

It was mid morning when I left the others at the pool to go to PT, (physical therapy). I hoped that I would be able, for the first time in a long, long time, to actually put weight on my leg without the use of any, extra, external support. At the direction of the Physical Therapist, I wheeled my chair up to the parallel walking bars and stood on my right leg. I grasp the wooden bars and moved my left leg forward in what was to be my first step. I gritted my teeth apprehensively, then eased the weight of my body down slowly onto the foot and started to walk in as normal a manner as possible, to the end of the rails. It went well; I only seemed to notice two small problems. The first being I was limping as if my left leg was shorter than the right. Second, when I would step forward with my weight on the left foot, the leg bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula would slide to the rear of the ankle joint about an inch to perhaps twice that. It was really weird and to top it off it hurt. It almost seemed to me as if the only thing holding the foot on was muscle and skin.

The PT people noticed my limp and measured my legs. I had lost over an inch in the length of my left one. As far as the foot problem, they agreed that something was wrong, but I would have to mention it to my doctors sometime, when they were making their rounds. I was also told to mention the shortness in the left leg.

I would probably end up with a built up shoe for my left foot, nothing that unusual about that. It made me think about another friend of mine a few beds away on the ward, within the same cubicle. Eddie was a black fellow, really good natured, always smiling, and balding slightly. We played cards together pretty often. Eddie had lost about six to seven inches of the femur of his right leg. He had a shoe with a sole of six to seven inches thick, to compensate for his loss, a real bummer. He was happy to be able to walk though, a lesson to be learned by me. Eddie and the doctors were discussing what would be best for him: to keep the huge built up shoe for life, or to amputate the right foot and make up the total loss with a prosthetic device. Eddie's right knee would always be six to seven inches above his left knee, but with the prosthesis he would appear more normal and it would be easier for him to control than the heavy built up shoe. The final decisions were Eddie's and Eddie's alone.

A few days later I sat on my bed waiting for the doctors to make their rounds. I had been practicing walking and even while using crutches the bones slide to the rear of my foot. I was ready and waiting when the doctors arrived.

I told them of my discovery and was asked to demonstrate the laxity, by walking, so that they could observe. I walked a short distance and was then told to lie down on the bed. One of the doctors examined the ankle and foot and discovered that he could easily move it every which way he desired.