A Really Bad Bar Fight

Mob of motorcycle gang members cheering on a fight with a nerd
April 9, 2024

When Dr. L asked me to bend forward, backward and sideways, it was no trouble for me to touch my toes, reach back or slide my hand down the side of either leg.

“The pain is at its worst at night. I’m getting no sleep,” I said.

“Go to emergency at Sunnybrook. Ask for an MRI.”

She hadn’t thought to fax a referral form to the hospital. I blindly followed her instruction and asked my dad to drive me to the hospital.

On top of the elevated bed in one of the cubicles in the hospital’s emergency department, I attempted to convey the story of my back pain to Dr. P. The resident doctor directed me to lay on my back and once I did that, he lifted my right leg.

“Any pain?”

“No.”

He bent my leg and pressed on it.

“Pain?”

“No.”

He repeated the same with my left leg.

“Anything?”

“No,” I said, “I’m flexible. Doing this never hurts, but when I sneeze, cough or laugh, the pain rattles my spine. It’s sharp like an elastic is being snapped against at my bones.”

I said the pain was keeping me awake at night and I was sleep deprived.

“I can’t find anything,” he said.

“Neither could Dr. L. That’s why she said I needed an MRI.”

The doctor’s tone sharpened. “A person can’t just walk in here and ask for an MRI. You need a referral. And there’s a wait list. ”

I didn’t tell him that my G.P. had not been at her best. It was her first week back to work after being t-boned on the driver’s side when she was taking her daughter to a singing lesson. After losing her hand, she moved from her own practice to work in a medical centre. At my appointment, I watched her struggle to open drawers and cupboards. She told me she was being fitted for a prostatic and things would get easier. I wondered if she came back to work too soon.

“I’m not getting any sleep,” I repeated to Dr. P, like it meant something.

“Backs take time.” He pushed aside the curtain to leave the cubicle, and added, “Sitting is the worst thing you can do. So don’t do too much of it.”

I eyed the small stool that could help me get down from the elevated table. Anticipating pain, I didn’t want to jump.

I called out, “Doctor?”

He poked his head back into the cubicle and his tone was icier. “Yes?”

“Do you mind passing me that stool?”

With his foot, he slid the stool toward the bed and left again shaking his head.

There was no way I could have attended classes at the university without help from my writer partner who pushed my wheelchair up and down curbs and in and out of elevators. I rented a TENS machine from a specialty drug store and lined the small rubber pads along my spine. I adjusted the machine’s intensity so pads would pulsate and ease the pain. For a short time the little machine helped me power through.

Woman push woman in wheelchair

No meeting with my doctoral advisor was harder than the time he said, “It looks like your back isn’t getting any better.” He sounded angry. “You need to obtain a medical leave from the doctoral studies program.”

He told me to go to the business office.  I mistook his direction to mean that I didn’t have what it took to complete the program.  I thought he had given up on me.

“There is a schwannoma on your spine.”

“A what?” 

A large mass of tissue at the bottom of my spinal cord was growing through the bone and pressing against my bowel and bladder.

“It has to come out,” said the sports medicine doctor.

Envisioning the time I was belted into a machine for the archaic purpose of pulling my bones apart, I asked, “So it’s not a herniated disc?”

Apparently not.

Dumbfounded, I asked, “Y-you mean I have to be cut open?”

The naivety of my question did a lot to turn the doctor’s tanned complexion pale.

He told me about his urgent call to a longtime colleague, a renowned neurosurgeon.

Prior to my appointment with the neurosurgeon, I brainstormed thirty-two questions.

Noticing the paper in my hand, the surgeon asked, “What do you have there?”

Questions about the surgery.”

“Let me have a look at that.”  He smiled.  “You’re more thorough than most.”

Between questions and answers, I learned that the two doctors played hockey together.

“Number eighteen, ‘is it cancer?’  Most people ask that question first.”

Cancer wasn’t top of mind, I was all about getting back to school.

“We won’t know for sure until we biopsy it.”

He gave me my paper back. “Your thesis is on hold.  My buddy knows he screwed up.  I’ll do the surgery and he owes me one.”

The night before my surgery, Jack and I visited with in my parents’ kitchen.

“All surgeons are drug addicts,” said my mother.

“Thanks Mom, that’s a very comforting thought.”

Under the table, Jack’s foot touched mine.  It was code for, “Leave it.”

But I didn’t.  “Where did you get your information, Mom?”

“Oprah.”

“Okay then –“

On the way home, with Jack driving, I muttered under my breath, “My mother is a fear biter.”

My surgery lasted nine hours, longer than the surgeon had expected.  The tumor had grown into bones and close to nerves.  His team worked hard to minimize damage.  He took out the bottom of my spine and told me not to worry because the bone would grow back.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Jack sitting in a chair beside me wearing his glasses and reading a book.

“Did they do the operation?”

He laughed, “Yes.”

“Did they get it?”

“Yes.  Dr. W said it was complicated but they got it all.”

Gingerly I moved my hips.

“There is no pain.”

I remember his warm smile. “Could be because you’re on morphine.  See that pump?”

A couple of hours later, my parents, sisters and my niece visited.  Mel brought fresh flowers in a purple vase.  Everyone looked relieved and my mother said nothing about drug addicted surgeons.  When I said my head was pounding, my sister Jacquelin, was quick to create a compress out of wet paper towels.  One of the priests from my church visited.  So did two research colleagues.  They brought along our doctoral advisor’s most recent book, signed, and they pointed to my name in the index, which was kind of fun to see.

Bouquet of mixed flowers in mauve vase

“Our health is a delicate condition. It can be snatched from any of us and when that happened to me, I was unsure about how to navigate the system’s misunderstandings and suppositions about back pain.

One in five Canadians suffer chronic pain, a highly misunderstood affliction. From my experience of chronic pain, the discomfort was more than physical. I was unheard, misunderstood and sometimes, second guessed. I detected judgement, doubt and impatience.

When Dr. W. came to my hospital bed at the end of the day, he was smiling. “I hope you didn’t have any visitors today.”

I pictured the people who had stood around my bed.

“Why?” I asked.

“Your face looks like you were in a really bad bar fight.”

Apparently, it can happen when you’re knocked out for a really long time.

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