My War - Installment 47

"Does that hurt when I do that?" Jim Sargent asked, as he forced the foot forward while holding my leg tightly with his other hand.

"Of course it hurts. It would hurt your leg if I did that to you that hard."

"Does it hurt when you walk on it?"

"Right again Doc."

"We'll get some X-rays of the ankle and then do an intensifier study (Moving X-ray pictures) to verify what I believe to be wrong. You probably tore all of the ligaments in your ankle when you crashed, Sam."

"What are the prospects; what can be done with it?"

"With ligament damage, the sooner it's repaired the better the chances are for a good repair. But generally speaking, depending on the extent of the damage, we would more than likely choose a static repair using a tendon. The repair we would do is called a Watson-Jones procedure. We won't speculate any further, not until we see the films and do the study. OK?"

"In the interim let's measure his legs Jim. He could get a built up shoe and a short leg brace to help stabilize the joint until we decide what we are going to do."

"I believe your right, Rick."

I was given an order slip for the X-ray department and one for prosthetic services so that I could be fitted for a brace. One of the doctors would meet me at the X-ray department at about 1400 hours. I would have plenty of time to eat and get fitted before heading off to get my pictures taken.

The suspicions of the doctors were confirmed by the films and I would be scheduled for a Watson-Jones procedure. Rick explained the procedure in more detail. They would make an incision of approximately thirteen inches on the outside of the leg, open it up and drill a hole through the neck of the fibula, take a piece of tendon, he didn't say where from, insert the tendon through the hole and pull it across tightly and fasten it. Then sew it up, cast it and wait eight to ten weeks to see if all had gone well.

It would be a few days until my brace would be ready so I would have to continue to lay off my game of golf until I could get the added support of the brace.

There were some new patients that had come in, including another warrant officer pilot. I told myself that I would have to make it a point to go and meet him later on.

SECOND AID

I volunteered to help on the ward with changing dressings on wounds and other tasks. I had wanted to go into medicine earlier in my life and still courted the idea. I had started my rounds, changing dressings on some of the guys that I knew, Rick, one of the orthopedic surgeon was checking some of the new patients that had come in that morning. One particular patient had some very nasty wounds that had been packed in Vietnam before he was shipped home. The term packed refers to the physical wound being filled or packed with a material, medicated usually. The wounds had festered and were full of pus and dead flesh and stunk terribly, so bad in fact, that Rick could simply not stomach working on them. I was asked if I could help.

"If you can stand it, go ahead and unpack the wounds, then silver nitrate all the dead flesh and redress them. OK?"

"You got it Rick."

The worst damage was one spot on the left thigh of the man's amputated leg. It was a white phosphorous burn, about as big around as a coffee cup and had actually burned down to the bone. I had smelled various forms of rotten flesh of animals during my life, but none of them comes close to the putrid smell of rotten human flesh at point blank range. I had smelled it at a distance a number of times in Vietnam, but those times had only hinted at the overwhelming stench. I wondered if man's omnivorous habits and junk food had anything to do with the way that he smelled in death.

I removed the packing using large forceps, the hole seemed enormous. There were yards and yards and yards of packing material to be removed. The amount of dead flesh was so great that I had to scrape some of it out before I could cauterize it with the silver nitrate. It was not painful for the patient because there is no feeling in the dead flesh, but I am sure that the patient didn't much care for the smell any more than we did. Fortunately his stump was healing well.

There were others that had come in that day that I worked on. There was one guy with a large wound that was full of maggots. I asked what the doctor wanted me to do. He told me the maggots did no harm, they would only eat the dead meat and it would not hurt anything to leave them in awhile. He told me that I better clean them out though and cauterize it, it would make a better appearance if anybody came through the ward to visit, anybody like media people, or parents, or spouses, or Congressmen.

It was a very interesting morning with all the new patients. Rick had gained a new respect for me that morning, we would become good friends. I was glad to get the work done so that I could slip into some serious goofing off. I met Jim; he had been to the swimming pool. We talked for a few minutes and decided to try the mind reading bit on BT. We had not had a chance to try it out on anyone like we had originally planned. Jim went to his bed and took a fresh packet of playing cards from his night table while I waited in BT's room setting him up for our trick.

"Hey, BT, Jim's been telling me that he's got some ESP type abilities. He says that he has been practicing on developing his abilities or gift, what ever he called it, since he came to the hospital."

"So what does he want us to do?"

"He wants us to help him verify the Extra Sensory Perception. He thought that he could try reading cards and he wants us to help him in some way. He should be here any moment."

Jim showed up as if on cue. We ran the trick with its signals about fifteen times, not missing once.

"That's really something. Wow. Hand me my smokes, please. Could you do that a few more times?"

"Sure."

I played along pretending only to help concentrate on the selected card after Jim would return to the room. We were very convincing. I would show as much amazement as BT.

We couldn't keep the secret from BT, it had gone so well. He had bought our act so completely it amazed us. We felt we had to include him and have him play along with us the next time we would play our trick.

BT had been impressed during our performance and had continually expressed his amazement as Jim got card, after card correct. Of course Jim had been convincing in his part of the performance. He would enter, catch my first signal, close his eyes in pretended concentration, sometimes grabbing his forehead and massaging it, he would say something like: I'm beginning to see a color, the suit is a red one....ah.. It’s taking shape, it....it is a heart. He would then seem to concentrate harder for a moment, then relax for a moment, while continuing his talking. He would then sometimes open his eyes briefly, to peek between barely cracked eyelids, catching the next signal, then he would seem to slowly return to a state of rapt contemplation and begin another spiel leading up to the correct value of the already suited card.

When we told BT that it was all fake, he didn't believe us at first. We had to go into a short description of what we were doing and how we were doing it. He was still impressed, but was also a bit pissed that he had been so easily fooled. He did get interested and offered to go along with us on pulling the same type of trick on others.

With my newly gained mobility I went home for another weekend and visited my parents and Emily and some other friends from my high school days. The truth was coming out about Emily. I was being used to try and make another guy that I knew jealous. I suppose that our relationship or supposed relationship had lasted longer than expected, because it was not as effective with my being absence from the area. I was not around to be perceived as a direct threat. I had been as convenient as the mail until I was close enough and able enough to be present on weekends and so it ended. It all made more sense to me when it was over, the rumors of our alleged engagement and so on.

Most of the people that I had gone to school with were away at college or some other type of schooling, so it was only by chance that I saw some people that I knew who were attending a local community college or working. Not everyone went to college, I did have company.

The really funny thing was that I barely knew these girls when I was in school. One had graduated the year before me and one with my class. They were next door neighbors. The one girl had always acted kind of stuck up toward me when I was in school, so I was surprised when she was so friendly. They invited me to come by and visit the next time I got home.

I had called a friend of mine that I had kind of grown up with. There were four boys in his family, their ages did not exactly coincide with either my brother's age or mine, but we knew them all and I used to do a lot of camping and things with the fellow nearest my age. I lived next to a big graveyard, on one side and a stretch of woods behind us. We used to sleep outside all summer long, sometimes in the cemetery next to a large mausoleum and very often in my tree house.

We talked for a while on the phone remembering things from our past. Things like my Dad making me tear down my tree house the summer before I went into the service and how we use to barbecue on its front porch. Doug was still dating the same girl. She had graduated the year after me and he graduated the year after her. Doug and I made plans to go on a double date. He told me that Sue could fix me up with a blind date. I told him fine, but I secretly had reservations, remembering the fiasco in Denton, Texas. I told him that I would call him before coming home the next time. I didn't know when that would be because of the pending surgery.

After going to church that Sunday and then, eating one of Mom's good Sunday dinners, I returned to the hospital. Upon returning to the ward I was informed that surgery had been scheduled for my Watson-Jones procedure for early the next morning. It had been almost five months to the day since being shot down, I was making progress. Maybe it wouldn't be too much longer before I could get back to flying. I would even have to wait on my brace.

A group of us got together and decided to go to the club for supper that evening. I figured it would be a while before I would be able to get back there for another meal. The new pilot on the block came with us, his name was Marty. He was from Cold Springs Harbor, Long Island, New York and had an arm injury. He was close to my age, only being a year older.

We showed Marty around and introduced him to everyone we knew, at the club. I felt like a man eating his last meal before going before the firing squad. I was not actually, exactly scared of having the operation, it was a feeling akin to the nervousness I had when I first got to my unit in Vietnam. Nervousness derived from...a...a lack of understanding, of doing or being involved in something that....that was new, something that I had never done before.

We returned to the ward, late again, and I quickly fell asleep in spite of my nervousness. I was sleeping soundly when I was suddenly awakened by some person prowling through the darkened room and moving straight for my bed. My eyes were heavy with sleep and the a few drinks I had at the club. I watched as the shadowy figure came closer. I had acquired, in Vietnam, the ability to sleep through explosions and artillery pieces going off, and sending rounds out from our compound, but I had also gained a sense where I could be awakened by the slightest noise that was unnatural to my situation...any noise that was out of place would wake me up.

In my sleepy, semi-awake, state I had temporarily forgotten where I was at. I waited silently watching the figure get closer and closer. I was awake by then and knew where I was, so I just lay there waiting to see who it was. A flash light clicked on and was pointed at my face.

"Mr. Rollason, wake up," the voice said while shaking my arm.

"Yes, what is it that you want?"

"It's time for you to take a sleeping pill."

"Time for my sleeping pill, what for? You just came in here and woke me up from a sound sleep to give me a sleeping pill?"

"Yes, that's the rule. The night before someone goes to surgery they have to take a sleeping pill. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Remember, nothing further by mouth either, no water or anything. OK?"

"OK. What time is it anyway?"

"Twelve twenty."

"Great, is this pill guaranteed to put me back to sleep quickly?"

"That, I don't know."

I remained awake for what must have been hours before I dozed off again. It seemed as if no time at all had passed from the time I fell asleep to when I was awakened at 0530 hours, to receive two shots before going to the OR at 0600.

Two people came by and transferred me to a gurney for my short ride to the OR. Only about twenty minutes had passed since I had received the shots, but my mouth was dry and pasty and I felt slightly groggy.

I was wheeled into the OR and conveyed onto the waiting operating table. My heart thumped in my chest as I gazed around at the lights and all the equipment placed around me. Arm boards were attached to the table, my arms were taped down and IVs were hooked up to my arms. My leg had been prepped the day before, Sunday afternoon, after my return. The hair had been shaved off from my knee down to my toes.

The anesthesiologist was introduced to me; his name was Bill, a captain. I remembered looking up at his upside down face as he bent forward over my head. Ringlets of wavy black hair protruded from under his sterile cap, only his eyes were actually visible above his mask. He began to explained what he had done so far, and what he was about to do.

The last thing I remembered was his asking me to count backward from one hundred as he injected sodium pentothal into the IV tube. The operating room was alive with people, doctors, nurses, and others. I could hear all their voices as I drifted into my drug induced sleep.

As I began to awaken in the recovery room, I felt as if I were returning from the dead, maybe I was, I had heard of numerous accounts of guys dying in the OR and being revived. My mouth was very dry, my throat hurt from tubes that had been inserted. My head throbbed as if I'd been on a binge. I was hungry beyond measure and the stupid joke about dreaming about eating a ten pound marshmallow and waking up to find the pillow gone, crazily ran through my mind. As I drifted in and out of wakefulness the thought of eating made me nauseous. And then there was my leg. The cast went from just below my knee down and it felt as if it were a shoe that was four or five sizes too small and laced up as tightly as possible.

I felt a little better as time passed and soon there after my gurney was pushed back to ward 3AB. I was placed in a bed on the opposite wing from where I had been. I kept going from short periods of awareness to complete confusion, or sleep. I smelled vomit and figured that I must have puked all over myself a few times in the recovery room, somewhere, although I had no recollection of doing it what so ever. I was ravenously hungry again and I looked about for some staff member, to ask if I could have something to eat. I noticed that Doug's bed was just diagonally across from mine, but he was no where to be found.