--Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses
It had been an amazing two weeks, hiking the West Highlands Way in Scotland with my friends Jim and Dorothy. But wait! There was more to come. On Thursday, September 8, I flew from Glasgow to Milan, where I was to meet up with a group of Jim's relatives, and proceed to a house we'd rented on Lake Como.
I arrived late in Milan, checking into my hotel near the Milan Central Station at about 9:30 p.m. I'd been warned that my friends had already gone to bed; we were to meet over breakfast in the morning.
I bounced out of bed, full of excitement, the next morning. I took a shower in the room's deep tub, thinking about the day to come. I had to make sure everyone was gathered together -- Jim was flying in that evening, and Jim and Dorothy's son arriving early on Saturday, the tenth. We had to be at the station reasonably early on Saturday to catch a train to Como, connect with a ferry to Menaggio, and arrive at our rental house some five miles north of Menaggio by the 4 p.m. check-in time.
My hair washed and my body scrubbed, I turned off the water and stepped out of the tub. But I never quite made it. My foot slipped on the soapy bottom of the tub, my head hit the wall, I tried to catch myself on the floor outside the tub with my right arm. After that? My only memory after that was of excruciating pain.
Not just excruciating pain, as when you hit your finger with a hammer. Excruciating pain that remained excruciating at the same level as the minutes went by. It dawned on me, through my mental haze, that something had gone very wrong, something beyond twisting my wrist or shoulder. Finally, I contacted Anne, one of the friends with whom I had planned breakfast. She was alarmed by the sound of my voice, and sent John, her brother, to see what was wrong. I somehow had managed to pull on some boxers before he arrived.
I suppose that, even when dying, I'll want to comb my hair before the undertaker arrives.
John and Anne and their spouses leaped wonderfully into the breach. Somehow, an ambulance was summoned, my bags were packed while I squeaked out instructions, and we dashed to an orthopedic hospital, sirens wailing.
It's a cliché, but Italians do have a flair for the dramatic.
By now, I was well aware that I'd dislocated my shoulder. Full props to the ambulance personnel for treating me gently and with compassion -- although our speed on a rough road made an extremely uncomfortable ambulance ride. But, to be honest, I was beyond being able to distinguish between degrees of "excruciating."
I was admitted immediately at the hospital ER, and -- after a frustrating conversation about my travel insurance -- was subjected to numerous x-rays. I was then seen by an orthopedist who spoke quietly to me, held my hand, pulled my hand gently -- it felt good, the first improvement in my level of pain that morning. She gradually pulled more strongly until -- wow! -- I felt great. The pain almost totally vanished in an instant. I was given post-reduction x-rays, and my right arm was wrapped up in a sling.
Great moments in medicine, as MAD Magazine once declared it -- the presentation of the bill. I was expecting something in the order of several thousand dollars. But it was 340 euros -- at a time when the euro was worth almost exactly the same as the dollar. They didn't have enough information to bill my insurance company, and they couldn't take my credit card, so they handed me the bill. Have your bank wire us the money, they requested, trustingly.
Was my stay at Lake Como ruined? Hardly! But it was changed. My friends abandoned our plans for a train-ferry trip to the rental house, and hired a taxi. Less problem with moving me and my baggage about, although by the time I returned to the hotel, aside from having one arm hors de combat, I was back to being my usual excited, witty self.
I hiked (well, walked) long distances almost daily for the next two weeks, and did everything everyone else did, everything I'd planned on doing. I just did it all one-armed, with my crippled arm tucked under my t-shirt.
But I wasn't unaffected by my injury, even when the pain was minimal or non-existent. Before, I had been, mentally if not physically, a young guy up for any adventure. Afterward, I found myself considering each day's activities, asking myself if I could handle the challenge, and if I could do it safely. Thoughts that rarely crossed my mind before the Great Shower/Tub Incident.
Returning home, I learn that I may have torn my rotator cuff, which might well require surgery with a long period of recovery. I am scheduled for a shoulder MRI this evening.
Looking back, I keep pondering how my cheerful plans while showering, feeling excited about the day and capable of anything, were changed in an instant into extreme pain, and, worse, into a prolonged period of partial disability -- a period that continues today, and the full extent of which may not be known for months.
"One tiny miscalculation, one moment of distraction." A lesson many learn to their sorrow at a much younger age than I have. But a lesson that, whenever learned, changes one's sense of reality, of the continuity of life from one day to the next, from one moment to the next.
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