After the surgeon determined the hip bone — used to patch together the four levels of my spine splintered by the rock on which I landed — had bonded in my place, I was sent to Rancho Los Amigos (Ranch of the Friends) in Los Angeles, California. A local ambulance service drove me from Bakersfield Memorial Hospital to the huge campus.
Looking out the window of the ambulance I saw disabled people everywhere. It was a bewildering moment. Never had I realized there were places like this. I was sure I would learn a great deal from the patients and the staff. Yet, I was overwhelmed and more than a bit frightened.
Called simply “Rancho” by patients and their famillies, the huge rehabilitation hospital had a well-trained and deeply dedicated staff. It is a hospital for treatment of chronic disability, rather than a hospital for acute injuries and disease. I soon noticed the difference. Patients at Rancho see therapists and counselors. Patients receive a lot less attention from nurses and nurses aides than in an acute facility.
A few days after I arrived it became clear that all I’d been told at Memorial Hospital in Bakersfield was true. I wasn’t going to walk again. Likely, I wouldn’t have much wheelchair tolderance. My ability to do housework for my kids, my ability to enjoy most forms of athletic activity was gone, going to work would be extremely difficult. My friends would be different. Even my sexual expression would be different or perhaps nonexistent.
In a room of strangers, I burst into tears. It was the first time I cried and the last. But this once, I gave in to my tears. For an interminable period, maybe a couple of hours I sobbed my heart out.
After the storm had passed, I got a prickly feeling this wasn’t done. No one spoke to me. No one comforted me. I was embarrassed and curious. I thought perhaps I had broken an unwritten taboo … no crying with or about spinal cord injury. I never did it again.
I never saw anyone else cry, so I came to the conclusion most people never cried … at least no while they were at Rancho and not when other people on their ward could hear them. Eventually the women in the room that day went home and I found myself with new roommates — who didn’t know I had even cried.
The room held eight women, all complete spinal cord injuries. Much of the time we were alone. We all struggled with our inability to do for ourselves. Many times one of us would be up in our wheelchair. This would automatically become the “designated” person to go to get a nurse if someone had a serious problem, or make a run down the hall for coffee and a snack.
We were all complete spinal cord injuries, but we were paras and quads. Everyone of us helped the others. Well, there was one who didn’t, but there is always one.
One by one, we told our stories. What had happened, what the doctor had told us we could do in the future. To my unpracticed ear, none of us had a great future. Again, I was wrong.
The biggest surprise was the great affection I felt for the other spinal cord injured and the warmth of the group. None of us had much in common, except our injury. Yet, leaving them was gut-wrenching. We had a bond as strong as family. We cared so deeply about each other.
One was Gully a woman in her 50s from Kansas. She was a para, a victim of a reckless driver who had broadsided her care. We came to enjoy her rough sense of humor and her demand for “hot” coffee in the morning. I don’t think she got very far with her demands. Rancho kitchen was famous for its lukewarm coffee and limp toast.
The most remarkable was a frail, beautiful girl from Los Angeles. She had been in an accident. Her sister was driving when they had been hit on a freeway off-ramp by a driver going the wrong way. Sometimes paralysis confined her to bed. Other times she showed little sign of paralysis and could walk on her own. At other times, she shook uncontrollably, sometimes for hours. All that would help her was a strong dose of diazepam. One of us would show up on her behalf at the nurse’s station and plead for a diazepam shot for her. No one seemed to understand her condition. I still pray for this frail little girl.
Another was a lovely brunette girl, about 16, from the desert (Lancaster, If I remember correctly) who had been injured on prom night and now was a low quad. She could breathe on her own. She had a radiant smile, a warm encompassing personality. Visibly and emotionally, her family and friends loved and cared for her. She too, received prayers from everyone, including her roommates.
The saddest case was a woman in her 50s who had been riding in the car with her husband, an alcoholic. She spent a great deal of time alone. Her husband did not have the courage to come to the hospital often. She said little. I don’t believe she was still there when I left.
At the time, I had little curiosity about the incomplete spinal cord injured patients who were kept in another ward. I remember visits by some of them on a couple of different days. Now I am much more curious about the differences between complete and incomplete injuries.
At the beginning of my stay I found myself in the middle of a debate between physicians. It was obvious, even to me, that my body was responding differently to different response tests. I’d overhear doctors in heated discussions about my level of injury and whether or not I was a “complete.” It was a puzzle not solved for 12 years.
Initially, the doctors determined the injury to be at Thoracic Level Eight. After years of chronic pain, I traveled to Duke University Hospital in North Carolina where Dr. Nashold performed a surgery (the Drez procedure) which made the pain level manageable. The surgery changed me to level four. i will go into detail about this remarkable surgery later in my narrative.
Each physical therapist worked hard to help me rebuild upper body strength, maintain joint flexibility and all the necessary skills necessary for independent living, ie. cooking, nutrition, getting in and out of bed alone, bathing, managing my body wastes and much more. They attempted to cover all the medical realities and special hazards of spinal cord injury.
The psychologist (was her name Margie?) was especially helpful to me, even though she cautioned me she couldn’t help very much. She and I were too much alike. She, too, was divorced, supported herself and had children who worked for a living. In the astonishing atmosphere of Rancho, she was very much like me. Still, I remember her remarkable empathy and excellent advice.
While I spent only a little time with Margie, I felt as though we were friends for a lifetime.
They taught me to fix meals and attend to kitchen details with a board on my lap. I’ve gone through several and found an eight-sided wooden tray is best. Another lesson was to call the fire department if I slipped out of my wheelchair and couldn’t get back in alone. I’ve called the fire department four times in 38 years. Only once have they been a little bit cranky with me.
They taught me the mechanics of repairing a manual wheelchair. After the lessons, the teacher told me I had a gift for mechanics. Frankly, I was open-mouthed astonished. I guess I’d always believed only men could do mechanical things. Oh the things you learn at Rancho!
They tried hard to teach me how to get back into the wheelchair and how to climb out of the bathtub alone. I failed. Many times, I failed. Just couldn’t make it out of the bathtub.
The final verdict was that I was a weak paraplegic. I accepted that. All around me were paras who were stronger than I was.
Overall, the Rancho experience was pleasant — not the lukewarm weak coffee and limp toast — but most other things. I began to regain a little of my confidence.
After four months at Rancho, in August, 1972, I felt strong enough to go home to Bakersfield and my children. The staff had done wonders transforming me from a bedridden state to wheelchair mobility.
I missed my children desperately. My brothers found themselves too busy or too uncaring to bring the kids to see me as did my ex-husband. My mom died a year before the accident and my father died three years before. I was alone, fearful and more than a bit lonely.
As with some other people i’ve met since, my brothers just weren’t up to the task of learning about the life-changing implications of this condition, nor did they have the courage to help out. They couldn’t help themselves. They had gone through the great depression and the war. The small farm each owned was more important than life to each of them. If I had had an accident and suffered paralysis I’d just have to find a way to deal with it. They didn’t intend to try.
In a way that few others would understand, I accepted their attitude. My kids and I would find a way to cope. I didn’t know how, but I knew we could.
During Rancho rehab I was told that my old friends would fade away. They have. Over the years I have found new, much nicer ones. I consider every one of my friends a gift.
Since then, to my joy, many generous, supportive people have come into my life. Their compassion and concern makes all the difference. Erin has devoted his time and energy to helping me find ways to contribute to others, to develop new skills and to remain part of the larger community.
Finally, in August of 1972, I told Rancho staff I urgently wanted to go home. I felt I’d reached the end of my emotional rope. They wanted me to have enough strength to pull myself back into the wheelchair whenever I fell out. “No,” I said. “it is time to be with my children. I’ll figure out how to solve that problem later.” They reluctantly agreed and I was soon on my way home, nine months after I started out for work and landed in a ditch.
That particular feat of strength, pulling myself from the floor to my wheelchair, still eludes me. When I find myself out of the chair, usually the Bakersfield Fire Department comes to assist me. Over the 36 years I’ve only needed them three times. They have always been warm, helpful and full of jokes to ease my embarrassment.
Just before the injury I’d gone apartment hunting. This turned out to be a piece of good luck. The one I preferred had no architectural barriers. We had little furniture, but an acquaintance took me furniture shopping soon after I moved in. It was a small place with several built-ins. All we needed was new beds and a few things for the living/dining room.
About a half-mile or mile away a shopping mall offered supermarket shopping. My sons, 9 and 12, soon learned to walk the distance and bring home necessary foodstuffs and supplies.
From the first day we moved into the apartment we realized we were on our own. If we were going to make a home we would have to do it by working as a team. Very soon we had our little place on Easton Drive running very smoothly, with only the occasional heated discussion about whose turn it was to wash the kitchen floor or scrub the bathtub.
Erin, the youngest child, was so concerned about me he often would run home from school to make sure I had lunch. He took over the laundry and quickly was doing it very well. When his daughter turned 9 years old a few years ago, I told her of her father’s childhood responsibiities. “Grandmother, I don’t think I could have done that,” she said. Smiling, I reminded her we do what we have to do.
Courage and capability comes when we need it.
What was waiting for me at home? I would soon find out.