And Oh, the Climb Back Up!

The news that my leg had not healed properly and that a bone graft would be required marked the beginning of the worst time of my life. The orthopedic specialist from Sacramento arrived in two days and I met with the two doctors to hear the plans. The surgery would be performed the next morning. It would entail placing a long steel rod down the center of my right femur and surrounding it with bone chips taken from my right iliac bone. (At least that was my understanding of what they were planning to do; it may lack medical accuracy, especially since I am writing this some years later.) Recovery would be slow because the bone grafting process is not rapid, but there was no reason to think the recovery would not occur.

This was the beginning of a nightmare almost ten months in duration. My general health was poor, and I was a mental and emotional wreck. My funds were gone; I had to be moved into the County Hospital a week after the surgery. Most of the time I was the only patient in that hospital under the age of seventy (I was not yet thirty at the time). My son was left in the care of friends and was moved from one home to another, confused, bewildered and lost. My heart ached for him, and I was so discouraged that I couldn't eat, so of course my condition became worse instead of better.

I weighed less than a hundred pounds and the doctor wanted me to gain, so he ordered the hospital kitchen to provide a meat-filled breakfast every morning. All this did was turn my stomach and make my appetite even worse, especially when one morning I was served a big greasy pork chop! Another morning I was given a venison steak. I found out later that the sheriff's department always brought the carcasses of deer killed on the highway to the hospital! Yuck! Roadkill for breakfast!

The patience and compassion of my friends and the hospital staff were monumental during this trying time, and slowly my courage and spirits began to return.

It was a big day, a real landmark, when I suddenly began to take an interest in the people around me, coming out of my shell of self-pity. I had never been around elderly people in my life, and I found them delightful companions when I made an effort to understand them. I shall always remember some of the friends I made there, and I think this association with the older generation sowed a seed that later bore fruit when I became a social worker for the county.

Excerpts from a Diary

September 26,1957: Last night as I was trying to fall asleep the thought came into my mind that I should have been keeping a diary all this time I've been in the hospital. So many things have happened that were worth remembering, and I know if I don't write them down I'll soon forget them.

The trouble I have when I write anything is that I keep hearing all the voices of the people in my past who have told me I should write for a living and I get so self-conscious that I feel every word I write to be stilted and trite. Triteness is a mortal sin, according to Mr. Jamison who taught me creative writing in high school. So, I try so hard to be original and unhackneyed that I can't get much writing done! It's too much of a mental strain...so I'm not going to worry about what kind of writing this is. It's not going to be submitted to any literary critics anyway.

When it comes right down to cases, I have always known in my heart that I can't really write, in spite of the poems and short stories I wrote while in my teens. My family and friends raved over them, especially my mother-bless her! She feels quite convinced that her only surviving daughter is an unrecognized literary genius. But to me, no writing is really good unless there is a beauty about the words themselves and the way they are put together. No matter how ingenious the plot or how masterful the characterization, it's not good writing (to me) unless the words are good words, strung together in such a way that I can fully appreciate and savor each one.

I have never kept a diary, although I have started to several times, but it seemed so pointless to jot down bald facts about each day and its activities. It can make such deadly dull reading. But now, you take a "journal". There's a romantic thought. So many books that I have read and enjoyed have been in journal form, so that's what this is to be...a journal covering my days in the hospital, so that I won't forget the little things I have laughed at and cried over and learned from.

So travel with me on this big trip back to health and a normal life. I'll try to make each story a short one for easier reading.