Man on the Ice (7 page)

THE CODFISH SEEMED TO
be getting more scarce as each year
passed, and I was having trouble with my back again. I wondered if I should get
another boat or give it all up. My son Denley packed up his family and moved to
Brampton, Ontario. He was done with fishing and told me to do whatever I wanted
to do, but he had a good job in Brampton waiting for him and wouldn’t likely be
back again. My son Corrie didn’t fish much with us, as he would get very seasick
during lengthy
periods of time in the boat, so he moved to St.
John’s where he got a job.

Now it was just my son Derrick and me. I ended up back in hospital with more
back trouble and, yet again, another back surgery. That made four, except this
time I didn’t recover like I had before. I had lost half the feeling in my right
leg. All the toes on my right foot were curled up, and I couldn’t keep my foot
off the floor properly, due to the extensive nerve damage. That fourth surgery
left me partially crippled, and I was sent to the Miller Centre in St. John’s
for physiotherapy. While in hospital, the doctor told me that I would never be
able to return to fishing. Devastated, I didn’t know what I was going to
do.

One night my brother Sherwin came to the hospital to visit me. He had a man
from the fishermen’s union with him and we discussed my physical injuries. He
advised me to apply for workers’ compensation. I didn’t think I would qualify
for workers’ compensation, as that program was developed for people who were
hurt on the job, and besides, I didn’t think I had paid into the program. He
explained how the union pays into it on behalf of the fishermen. I was optimistic
until I learned that I did not qualify due to this being my fourth back surgery.
The union representative pursued my claim and worked with the doctors in
submitting the necessary medical reports.

The fifth time I injured my back was in 1984. I was cutting logs,
along with my brothers Herb, Wade, Ezra, and Sherwin, to be sawed into lumber to
build a fish store, a place to store and repair cod traps and gillnets, along
with other things used for fishing. Herb, Sherwin, and I were taking a log off
our snowmobile sleigh when I felt something snap in my back. I sat on a pile of
logs for a short while, and I found I couldn’t get up. Herb suggested it was
time to boil the kettle and that I should go to the brook, fill up the kettle,
and light the fire in the small lunch shack we had there. I said I would try, so
I grabbed the kettle and started for the brook, about fifteen to twenty feet away
from where we were.

As Herb watched, he said, “If you can’t walk any better than that, the best
place for you to go is home or to the hospital.”

So my brothers, God love ’em, carried me to my car and I headed home. When I
pulled into my driveway, my wife and daughter watched as I struggled to get out.
I heard Trudy squeal, “Dad, what have you got done now?”

I explained what had happened as I crawled to the house. I couldn’t even stand
up, and one of my brothers suggested that someone take me to hospital. But, as
my true stubborn self, I said I was okay and that I would be feeling better in a
few days. Irene and Trudy helped me into
the house and onto our
chesterfield. It was obvious that the pain was too much for me to handle, so off
to St. Anthony we went.

Dr. Fitzgerald asked me about my injury and I proceeded to explain to him what
had happened in the woods. He included every detail in his medical report, and I
was approved for workers’ compensation. That was good. My remaining net income
wasn’t much, after I had paid my boat loan, for nets, traps, fuel, food, gas,
and insurance. But little is better than none. Shortly after, I underwent my
fifth back surgery, performed by Dr. Fitzgerald, and spent about a week in
hospital. It was now January and I had a long winter to recover.

After we sold the
Cape Dawn
to Mr. Oliver Fillier from Englee, I didn’t
go back to the longliners anymore. Denley and Corrie had already gone to the
mainland, leaving just Derrick and me. We bought a 26-foot fibreglass speedboat
and a 75-HP Yamaha outboard motor. We put a gurdy and a small wheelhouse on the
front, and we used her for sealing in the spring. Derrick and his friend Chris
Earle fished together, but they took me sealing with them.

One spring, we were about a mile or so off our hometown, St. Lunaire. It was a
lovely sunny day, no wind, and the ice was all scattered apart. Just the right
conditions for sealing. We were picking up a scattered seal here and
there until we had eight or ten on board. We saw a longliner off
in the distance coming toward us. It was the
Saunders Endeavor
. She came
up alongside of us and we all chatted with the crew for a while. My brother
Sherwin looked at me and said, “Rex, you should come aboard with us. Derrick and
Chris don’t need you. They’re soon going in home now.”

I replied in amusement, “You fellers could be gone for a week!”

Sherwin laughed. “We need a cook!”

“Now, b’y,” I said, “you’re making fun of me, aren’t ye?”

Then Derrick piped in. “Dad, b’y, if you want to go with them, get aboard, and
me and Chris will go on in home.”

Still hesitant, I replied, “No, that’s all right.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, two boys on the deck of the
Saunders
Endeavor
grabbed me by my shoulders and the back of the coat. The next
thing I knew, I was hanging over the side of the longliner. Sherwin had already
opened the motor full speed ahead and took me right out of our speedboat, and
the fellows lodged me right down on the deck. My brothers are good to me and
always have been, but no one can trust any of them. You never know what they
will do next. We just sat on the latch of the boat and had a great laugh.

Derrick and Chris returned home and told Irene what had
happened. With all of us brothers aboard, the
Saunders Endeavor
went on
down outside of Belle Isle. We got a few seals and we had a great time.

I had a VHF radio in my house so I could keep in contact with Derrick whenever
he was out in boat. I had to know where he was, even though he had completed a
course in marine navigation. Sometime after we had finished sealing for the day,
we tied up to a big flat pan of ice and began cleaning and pelting our seals. I
heard my wife over the VHF radio. “Have you still got Rex on board your
boat?”

Herb quickly replied, “No, maid. We put him out on Belle Isle. He’s going to
walk home if the ice goes tight together enough for him to walk on.”

Irene, being the quick-witted lady she is, quickly replied, “Good. By the time
he walks all the way home, I will be over it. But if I had him here right now, I
would give him a trimming!”

We got quite a few seals over the next couple of days. Irene was glad to see me
again by the time I got home, God love her.

Sealing season ended and Derrick and Chris fished with their gillnetting from
Cook’s Harbour, Raleigh, Quirpon, and around St. Lunaire. My back was giving me
trouble all
summer. Sometimes Irene would have to help get me out
of bed and put on my socks. I didn’t want to go back to the hospital because I
knew they would keep me in and I would be facing another back surgery. But,
there is only so much pain one person can take, so back to the hospital I
went.

I recall what Dr. Fitzgerald said during his examination. “B’y, you sure are in
bad shape.” I had already had five back surgeries, and I could not think about
staying in hospital for the sixth. Most of that winter and the following summer
I had a real bad stomach and I was being treated for what felt like everything
in the book, but nothing seemed to work.

Dr. Fitzgerald reported that he would not operate on my back until he was able
to diagnose the trouble with my stomach. After spending another week living in a
hospital bed, on strict bedrest, I wasn’t even able to turn over without the
help of the nurses. Irene was working at the fish plant in St. Anthony now, and
she would come to the hospital every night to visit me. I think she would work
just as hard trying to turn me from one side to the other as she worked at her
job as a hand cutter. I couldn’t rest, no matter which way I was laying.

One day, Dr. Fitzgerald came in and said he believed I had gallstones. “You’re
going to the operating room at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“The quicker, the better,” I replied.

When the morning came, the nurses were busy getting me ready for the OR. I
wasn’t aware of anything until sometime in the middle of the day, when I woke up
in the ICU. I had a big, lengthy cut on my belly, but the pain was all gone. The
doctor told me he had removed twenty-four large gallstones along with my
gallbladder. But my back problem was still there, and the pain was just as bad
as ever. I was recovering from the surgery when Dr. Fitzgerald told me that
there was nothing he could do for my back. There was too much scar tissue, and
he was going to send me to the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s. I asked if
they could do anything there for me. He explained that he was unsure, but it was
worth a try.

I was under the care of Dr. Shapter and Dr. Maroon. They had operated on me
twice before, and after doing some tests they too stated that there was too much
scar tissue from the previous five surgeries. They went on to explain that there
might be a small light at the end of the tunnel. They wanted to refer me to a
doctor at Scarborough General Hospital in Ontario. This doctor might be able to
perform laser treatment to remove some of the scar tissue, and if that was the
case, I would be able to return to St. John’s to undergo the surgery. I returned
home to wait for the call from Dr. Shapter with news about the referral to
Scarborough General. After what seemed to be a very long time, I
received a call from Dr. Shapter. He stated that his colleague, Dr. Chapman at
Scarborough General, would see me.

We scheduled an appointment and my wife and I headed for Ontario in May
of 1995. We stayed with my brother-in-law and his wife, Ned and Vivian Simms in
Scarborough, and on weekends we spent our time with my twin sisters, Isabella
and Gladys, in Brampton. We were in Ontario for two months as Dr. Chapman
carried out more tests and discovered that the results of the MRI and X-rays
revealed that he could not perform laser treatment. However, he reported that he
could perform the surgery on my back, by entering through my stomach. I said it
was all right with me, and I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to return to St.
John’s. I could just return to my home in St. Lunaire.

Dr. Chapman stated he might be able to correct some of the nerve damage in my
right leg during back surgery. When I awoke after surgery, though, he apologized
and said that the nerve damage in my leg had been there too long to be
corrected. However, my back felt good. He explained that a bone had broken
during one of my previous spinal fusions; I had been trying to get around with a
broken back! He had taken a partial bone from the top part of my
hip and fused it in place. He reassured me that the bone would not break again
unless I was in a serious accident. The doctor also noted that several other
bones bones in my back had broken prior to that large break. I was relieved that
it was all over and I was anxious to start my recovery and go home.

When we got back to St. Lunaire, I was able to do almost anything I wanted to
do, within reason. I didn’t lift things that were too heavy for me and I tried
my best to take care of myself. The following summer, Derrick and Chris went
fishing again, but in the month of June the government closed the cod fishery.
After about a year, Derrick decided to pack up his family and join his brothers
in Brampton. I felt all alone. Derrick and Corrie remain in Ontario today with
their families.

My son Denley and his wife moved back to Newfoundland in the spring of 2010,
and I still had my wife, our son Darryl, and our daughter, Trudy, with her
husband, Alonzo, and their daughter Leann. There was nothing more I could do, so
I started building small model boats in my shed. The first one was called the
Trudy Irene
, after the one we lost to a fire on the Labrador some
years ago. It was 6.5 feet and all fibreglass. The next model boat I built
was 5.5 feet and I named it
Martin S.
, after our youngest grandchild,
Martin. I built an even larger model
boat, seven feet long and
three and a half feet wide. I called her the
Four Boys
, after our four
sons and four grandsons. I put a 3.5-HP lawnmower motor in her and a remote
control system on her. She’s all fibreglass and she steams 6.5 kilometres an
hour.

My wife and I decided we’d like to spend some of our time camping, so we bought
a fifth-wheel camping trailer. We enjoyed that very much. We set it up by a big
pond or lake about halfway between Main Brook and Roddickton. It’s only about an
hour and a half from St. Lunaire. It’s a good place for fishing and there are
lots of campers there.

Everyone had a small 10- to 12-foot pond boat for fishing, so I decided that I
was going to build a 12-foot boat and fibreglass over the plywood. I decided to
put a glass bottom in her, so I ordered Lexan—it’s similar to Plexiglas, only
much harder, and not as likely to break. I thought I was going to be able to see
those big trout swimming through the glass bottom of my boat, and it worked just
fine. However, Irene was terrified when she got aboard my glass-bottomed boat for
the first—and last—time. She looked down and saw the water, and the rocks on the
bottom of the pond. She jumped up and squealed, “That’s it! You’ll never get me
aboard this thing, whatever it is, ever again!”