Joni (6 page)

I was grateful when P.T. became a part of the daily routine, for it offered an additional element of variety to my life.

At first the physical therapist, Barbara Marshall, came to my room to exercise my paralyzed limbs. After a few weeks, I was taken to the P.T. center for two hours of therapy every day. My first impression of this big room was that it resembled a strange torture chamber. There were bizarre machines and devices for stretching, pulling, and bending useless arms, legs, and bodies. But as strange as this room appeared, it had positive overtones for me—I was going to learn to walk like the others I saw moving with crutches and walkers.

Joe Leroy, a brawny therapy aide with great patience, took me to the P.T. room to show me what would happen when the therapist put my limbs through the full range of potential movement to keep them from becoming atrophied.

“Look,” he encouraged, “all this flat-on-your-back ballet really does have a purpose.” Joe then proceeded to explain how twisting, bending, and stretching my legs, arms, and limp body in arcs, circles, and all kinds of angles would help me.

“It keeps your muscles elastic,” Joe explained.

“But I can’t feel anything. Why does it matter if they get stiff?” I asked.

“Makes problems for the blood—circulation gets bad. Also, when your muscles go, your body gets stiff, your limbs shrivel up, and your body gets all twisted up,” Joe said as he pointed to other patients being pulled, pushed, and lifted.

The physical therapists worked with me twenty minutes each day, putting elasticity back into my muscles, even though they would never function again. Next, they began to work with me in order to get me out of my Stryker frame and into a regular bed.

Then came grueling exercises to try to enable me to sit up. They fastened me to a tilt-board and lifted my head and lowered my legs. As they slowly raised me past the horizontal position, I felt blood rush from my head and waves of nausea sweep over me.

“Wait. Don’t go any higher. I can’t take it,” I cried.

Even just a few seconds with my head elevated was too much after nearly six months in a horizontal position.

“Oh, Joe,” I sobbed, “I thought I was going to faint! Won’t I ever be able to sit up?”

“Sure, Joni. Just takes time. We only had you elevated about 45 degrees. We’ll try again for a little bit longer. When you can take it for several minutes, we’ll increase the angle of the tilt-board. By Thanksgiving you should be sitting up in a chair,” Joe said brightly.

Earl, another aide, nodded and said, “You see, your body is so used to lyin’ flat that your circulation has adapted to this position.” Earl punctuated his explanation with wide, sweeping arm gestures. “When we raise your head, the blood leaves your head, and you feel like you’re gonna black out. But if we do it slow’n easy, your heart will ‘remember’ and begin to do its job again. Your circulation will pick up and blood will be pumped to your brain again.”

So we worked out longer and longer each day until I could “sit up” on the tilt-board without blacking out or getting nauseous.

We took inventory of my muscle capability and feeling. Doctors and therapists determined I had full feelings in my head, neck, and shoulders to the collarbones. There was a slight tingling sensation in my upper arms and chest, making it feel as if these parts of my body were asleep.

Diana came by after I was making progress in P.T. and offered her encouragement. Her optimism was contagious. Each time she came to visit, she’d have new encouragement from the Bible. “Listen,” she exclaimed, “it’s from John 16:24: ‘I assure you that whatever you ask the Father he will give you in my name. Up to now you have asked nothing in my name; ask now, and you will receive, that your joy may be overflowing.’ Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah, it really is. Hey, maybe God is doing something special. Did you hear about our church?” I said.

“Church?” Diana asked. “No. What’s happening?”

“Our church is having an all-night prayer service for me. They’re going to pray for my healing and recovery,” I explained.

“Oh, wow. That’s neat! ‘Ask now, and you will receive,’” Diana repeated.

I was further encouraged because my P.T. had by now brought a tingling feeling to my fingers. While they were still numb and paralyzed, I could feel a remote sensation in them. I knew God was beginning to heal me.

On the night of the prayer service at church, friends from high school, teachers, parents of friends, and friends of friends crowded into the Bishop Cummings Reformed Episcopal Church. And I went to sleep that night expecting to awake the next morning fully healed.

It didn’t happen that way of, course. So I rationalized that the Lord was testing our faith and that the healing process and full recovery would come slowly and not in some sudden, supernatural way.

When Diana, Jay, my parents, and
Young Life
friends came by for a visit, I gave the outward impression that everything was under control, hiding my disappointment and impatience.

“The Lord’s going to heal me,” I promised them. “Let’s keep praying and trusting.”

“Oh, Joni,” someone would gush, “you sure are brave. I wish I had your faith.”

I’d smile sweetly and pray under my breath for God to hurry up and heal me.

B
y December I was still weak, thin, and covered with bedsores, but my physical therapy gave me enough sitting-up time so I could go home for one day. I chose Christmas day and began to get excited planning for it. The night after they told me I could go home for a day, I was too thrilled to sleep. I lay in the darkness of my room and tried to recall all the memories of my last Christmas before the accident—walking in the snow with Dick, Christmas Eve at the cathedral, making angels in the snow, drinking hot chocolate beside the fireplace, singing carols as I played my guitar. What would it be like this year?

Christmas Day finally came! Jay helped the nurse dress me for the trip home. I wore the pretty, dark suit I had bought on the trip our family had taken out West just weeks before my accident; it hung on me like a sack. Jay also brought me a lovely blond wig to wear over my own hair, which was still not long enough to style.

Dad drove up to the door and waited while Joe and Earl carried me to the car. They instructed my family on how a quadriplegic should ride in a car.

“It never occurred to me that just riding in a car is dangerous,” I said, adding, “unless, of course, we crash.”

“You don’t have to be in a wreck to get hurt,” Joe cautioned. “You see, a quad can’t sit up alone. If the car swerves, stops suddenly, or just turns a corner, you’ll be carried by momentum. You’ll spill—maybe crack your head on the door or smash your face on the dashboard or windshield, if you’re sitting up front.” He explained how to use the car’s shoulder harness to strap me in but also cautioned to be aware of holding on to me, especially on turns, starts, and stops.

Nothing happened on the way home, although the drive seemed exciting and full of interesting little pleasures.
It’s winter now,
I thought.
Two whole seasons have slipped by since I was home.

“Well, we’re almost there now,” observed Jay as the car turned at the familiar triangle intersection. I looked up the street—the high school, the house of my piano teacher, the drugstore—everything as I remembered it. A twinge of homesickness swept over me.

In a few minutes, we had driven up the steep avenue in front of my folks’ home and pulled into the driveway in back. Dad and Jay gingerly lifted me from the car and carried me inside.

The feelings of homesickness were real by now. The house was decorated for the holidays, and a big, fragrant pine tree had been set up in the dining room where I was to stay.

Mom had somehow obtained a hospital bed and set it up in the dining room. I thought of my old room, just above this one, keeper of so many of my secret thoughts, prayers, and hopes. Of course, my family couldn’t carry me up the narrow, twisting staircase to my old room so, for this one day, the dining room would be my room.

Mom had pushed the huge dining room table alongside the wall to make the room more comfortable. Dad must have known when he built the house that we’d entertain a lot, for the room was huge—two or three times the usual dining room size, about
eighteen by twenty-five feet—with a large table able to seat fourteen with ease.

A crackling fire in the stone fireplace, beautiful and fragrant Christmas decorations, candles, and lights filled the room with happiness. It was almost too much for my senses. The smells, sights, and sounds were intoxicating. During my hospital stay and confinement at Greenoaks, my spirit had suffered as well as my body, for my spirit had suffered sensory deprivation. Now the room reeled as all of these sweet sensations assaulted my brain in a feast of pleasure.

I was able to sit up only a little while before tiring, so the hospital bed proved useful. I half-sat and half-lay on the bed. Dressed in the suit and blond wig, I looked “almost human,” but I was still self-conscious about my appearance. Especially my legs. It seemed to me they were sticking out awkwardly, disgustingly.

“Please, will you cover me, mom?” I asked.

“Are you cold, dear?”

“No. I just want to be covered. I look awful.”

“Nonsense,” she replied. “You look lovely. Doesn’t she, Jay?”

“Of course,” answered my sister.

“But I still want to be covered. Bring that brown blanket and put it over my legs. I don’t want people coming over to stare. Please!” I was insistent.

“All right, Joni. As you wish,” sighed mom, as she spread the blanket over my legs and tucked it in. The real reason I wanted my legs covered wasn’t because others would be offended by my useless limbs. Rather, it was because they were a constant reminder to me of how different this Christmas was. I couldn’t bear to look at them.

Dick, along with friends and family, came to visit that day, and the time rushed by. At first, I resented this swift passage of time. Then I was grateful, because as my mind recalled former Christmases, I was saddened and depressed at the changes in my life.

No more could I spontaneously run out in the snow or sing carols for the neighbors; these and other pleasures were gone forever, and everyone seemed to sense it. There were no tears, at least not now, but the air of sadness was awful.

It wasn’t until I was back in my bed at Greenoaks that I allowed myself to cry. Then there was no stopping. B.J., Betty, Denise, and Ann had also gone home for a one-day Christmas visit. But for those who went and for those who had nowhere to go, Christmas was the same: a sad, depressing reminder of better times and happier places when we had been whole.

I tried to evaluate my feelings about what had happened at Christmas. I was happy and thrilled about going home; but, I was sobered by the experience of having to relate to familiar people and old surroundings in strange, new ways.

When the nurse came by the next day, she examined me and said, “Joni, I’m sorry, but that will have to be your last visit home for quite awhile.”

“Why?”

“Because it opened all the sores on your back and hips! Your bone protrusions are rubbing the skin away. They won’t heal at all unless we put you back in the Stryker frame,” she said simply.

“But can’t I sit up at all?” I begged.

“I’m sorry, no. Sitting up is what stretches the skin of the wounds and breaks open the sores. Let’s wait until they heal.”

Dick came by as often as he could, hitchhiking the sixty-mile round trip from the University of Maryland. I could tell that my accident was really taking a toll on him; his emotions were as frayed as mine.

“Dickie,” I told him one day, “we’re holding onto the past. We can’t do that. We can’t go back to high school times.”

He looked at me sadly and nodded. “But things will get better. Soon you’ll be—”

“No!” I cried. “They won’t get better. Don’t you understand? I’m not going to get better! Don’t you see that?”

Once again, I desperately wanted to kill myself. Here I was, trapped in this canvas cocoon. I couldn’t move anything except my head. Physically, I was little more than a corpse. I had no hope of ever walking again. I could never lead a normal life and marry Dick.
In fact, he might even be walking out of my life forever,
I concluded. I had absolutely no idea of how I could find purpose or meaning in just existing day after day—waking, eating, watching TV, sleeping.

Why on earth should a person be forced to live out such a dreary existence? How I prayed for some accident or miracle to kill me. The mental and spiritual anguish was as unbearable as the physical torture.

But once again, there was no way for me to commit suicide. This frustration was also unbearable. I was despondent, but I was also angry because of my helplessness. How I wished for strength and control enough in my fingers to do something, anything,
to end my life.
Tears of rage, fear, and frustration only added to my despondency.

There was an added complication to my lack of well-being. The sores, caused by my protruding bones, did not heal. In fact, the doctors insisted surgery was the only way to correct the problem. So, on June 1, 1968, I was driven back to City Hospital for bone operations, further confirmation that my injury was permanent. The doctors would not shave the bony protuberances from my hip and tailbone if there was any hope of my using my legs again.

The surgeon, Dr. Southfield, explained the operation.

“Since you have no feeling, it will not be necessary to anesthetize you. But if you’re squeamish about the sight of blood and tissue—.”

“Never mind,” I said curtly. “I’ve been through it all. I’ve been here almost a year, remember. There isn’t much I haven’t seen. And there’s precious little they haven’t already done to me. Carve away!”

I listened as Dr. Southfield’s hands guided the scalpel through the flesh on my hip. Blood spurted behind the blade as he laid back the skin and muscle tissue. Assistants gave him various surgical tools as he called for them.

In a few minutes, I could hear a strange rasping, scraping sound as he chiseled away on my hip bone, filing down the sharp, jutting joints that caused my bed sores.

In spite of my earlier bluster, I didn’t like the sights and sounds of the surgery. I felt queasy, so I began to sing, taking my mind off the operation. I sang loud and long, going through a terribly depressing assortment of pessimistic songs.

“Can’t you sing something else—something brighter?” asked Dr. Southfield.

“No!” I snapped, and kept up my “concert.”

After awhile, I was turned over, and the surgeon began to operate on my tailbone. He shaved and chiseled more bony protuberances. Finally, he sutured all the incisions. Then I was bandaged, examined, and driven back to Greenoaks for recuperation.

When the sutures and bedsores healed, I was allowed to sit up slowly. Earl carefully placed me in bed and tried to help me sit up.

“Here we go, Joni,” he said. “Take it nice and slow. Don’t want’cha to get dizzy and pass out. Right?”

“Right,” I echoed.

“Easy now.”

“How’m I doing, Earl? I’m sitting up! How about that!”

Earl did not reply. Soon he quietly carried me back to the Stryker frame.

“Hey. Leave me in bed, Earl,” I commanded. “I’ve waited to sit up again. If you’re worried about me passing out—.”

“Sorry, Joni. I gotta put you back. The operation didn’t take. Your backbone just busted the incision open again. You’re bleeding.”

As I lay in the Stryker through the following long weeks, I finally gave up ever hoping to walk. But I began to strain every atom of willpower into getting back the use of my hands. If I had my hands, I wouldn’t be so helpless. I wouldn’t have to depend on Jay or Diana to wash or brush my hair. Or put on makeup. Or just feed myself. If I could only do something—anything at all—I wouldn’t feel so helpless.

“You can use your mouth to do some of the things you’d normally do with hands,” suggested therapist Chris Brown one day after learning of my feelings. She added, “You’ve seen people in O.T. (occupational therapy) learn to write or type by holding a pencil or stick with their teeth. You can learn too.”

“No,” I said. “It’s disgusting. Degrading. I won’t do it!”

Chris did not press me. “Maybe some other day,” she said.

Later, Jay came to see me. Although she smiled and seemed in control, she’d been crying again.

“Hi, sis,” she said.

“You’ve been crying, Jay.”

Jay nodded. She never wanted to worry me with her own problems and often hid her feelings from me, but I had eventually learned of the difficulties she was having with her marriage. Now her divorce had become final.

She said evenly, “It’s over. And it’ll be all right, Joni. Don’t worry.”

“But—”

“Really. Don’t worry.” Jay changed the subject. “Here, I’ve brought you some goodies.” She opened a bag of doughnuts and held one up. “Your favorites, see?”

We spent an hour or so chatting and reading through a
Seventeen
magazine she spread out beneath the frame.

Then, as she prepared to leave, she looked soberly into my eyes and said, “Joni, I want—I want you to come and live with little Kay and me when you get out of the hospital.”

“Let’s think about it, Jay,” I replied. “We’ll see, okay?”

She kissed me on the cheek and ran the back of her hand across my forehead. Smiling, she left.

The significance of Jay’s visit slowly sank into my consciousness, and I pondered her comments and offer. I promised myself not to make any plans, although the thought of living with Jay was reassuring.

When Dick came by later, he wheeled my Stryker to the game room and sat on the floor under me so we could talk. We were trying out a new relationship—being friends only. While neither of us had really discussed such a change, we each had assumed that we had no immediate future together as husband and wife. First, I’d have to get my hands back. Then I’d have to be rehabilitated, and that would probably take a long time. So neither of us talked about things like love and marriage.

His visits consisted mostly of friendly encouragement—and reading to me, usually from a modern New Testament translation. The message was there, loud and clear: faith, hope, trust. But I dismissed this as being too superficial. Fine for the ordinary person on his feet dealing with life, temptation, and doubt. But what was God saying to me, encased immobile in my Stryker?

Diana read to me from the Old Testament, and I began to identify with many of the prophets. Like Jeremiah, I thought perhaps God’s wrath was being poured out on me in judgment.

I read the poetry of the Book of Lamentations and identified fully with the sorrows about which Jeremiah had written:

“She weeps bitterly at night, the tears flow always on her cheeks;

no one of all her lovers now seeks to bring her comfort.”

Oh, God, how

true. And I can’t

even wipe my own

tears away!

“For the Lord has afflicted her because of the greatness of her transgressions.”

Yes! I broke His moral

commandments.

Now punishment.

“Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is being dealt out to me,

which the Lord has inflicted in the day of His fiery anger.

No one else is being

punished like this. Why

did God do this to me?

“From on high He sent fire into my bones, and it has subdued them.”

Diving accident…

paralysis…

“He has given me over to frustration and faintness all day long.”

rage…

weakness and fear.

“He has made my strength to fail.

The Lord has delivered me into hands which I am unable to withstand.”

In bed for a year,

completely dependent

on orderlies and nurses.

“My eyes are exhausted with weeping; my emotions are deeply disturbed;

my grief is poured out on the earth.”

How much more can

I take? I’m at

the end of my rope!

“Surely He has turned away from me;

He has turned His hand against me all the day.”

Why, God…

why?

why?

“He has made my skin and my flesh turn old: He has crushed my bones.”

The bedsores, stitches,

bone surgery…

“He has piled up against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and distress.”

and I’m still

surrounded by canvas,

catheter tubes,

and urine bags.

“He has caused me to dwell in dark places, as the dead of former times.”

I’m trapped in this

gloomy hospital where

we sit like zombies

waiting to die.

“He has built a wall around me, I cannot go forth; He has weighted me down with chains.”

I’m trapped!

Stryker, straps,

and Crutchfield tongs…

“Even when I cry aloud and call for help, He shuts out my prayer.”

and God doesn’t care.

“I have forgotten what enjoyment is.”

He doesn’t even care.

(Lamentations 1:2, 5, 12-14;

2:11; 3:3-8, 17 B
ERKELEY
)