Moving Forward in Reverse (13 page)

When the man of the hour arrived, he had me transfer to the massage-esque
exam table and we chatted briefly about the prosthetics and my past surgeries.
He particularly enjoyed the story of how Dr. Mixter saved my lower leg with
scraps of my other body parts.

‘This is quite impressive,’ he said examining the entirety of my
patch-work foot a la Dr. Mixter, two soft fingertips holding it in position.
‘Something you really have to see to believe, I’d say. But let’s have a look at
the trouble maker. Ah, here we go,’ he said as he sat in a maroon-topped,
rolling stool to get a better viewing angle of the bottom of my foot. ‘Mm-hm.’

I let him take his time, leaning back on my elbows without
comment. I could only hope what he would determine wasn’t going to be
life-altering. I’d had my life altered enough for one year.

After a moment of considering, he sat up and gently lowered my leg
onto the table. I met his eyes and waited to hear his verdict. I felt as if I
were clunk-clunk-clunking to the top of a roller coaster; every word he said
another thud upwards, another inch towards the top.

‘That’s definitely an infection, as you said,’ he began. I held my
breath. ‘It’s quite deep,’ he went on, dragging me higher, setting me up for
the fall. ‘You’ve had damage to both the skin and the underlying muscle tissue.
It looks like it’ll require surgery to correct.’

I could feel myself plummeting, frantically thinking,
I didn’t
sign up for this!
as I fell and fell and fell.

But I had signed up for it. I had kept walking on the foot in the
same poorly fitted prosthetics. I had known exactly how bad that hole was. It
should have been no surprise that surgery was the only solution. And yet, I
felt complete and utter despair – and perhaps a hint of betrayal – at hearing
the news spoken aloud.

I can’t have surgery now. Not in the midst of the season;
especially not when we’re doing so well.

‘Scott,’ Dr. Rucker said, making my name half summons and half
question. I looked at him and sighed, trying to muster a ce’est-la-vie smile.
‘You will need surgery.’ He was watching my eyes with such perception I
wondered if he didn’t also do optometric surgery. I nodded my head and cleared
my throat to say something – I wasn’t sure what, exactly, but something.

‘But,’ he interjected before I could muster any words, ‘it can be
postponed for a time. If you’d prefer, we could put you on antibiotics and keep
a close eye on it until the timing gets better.’

I stared at him, wondering what reason he thought I had for
ducking out of surgery. Then I realized it didn’t matter what he thought; all I
needed to hear was that there was an alternative – that surgery didn’t have to
navigate the course of my life anymore.

‘Okay, yeah –’

‘I want you to know I don’t recommend this option. The longer we
wait to perform surgery, the greater the risk of complications later on.’

I paused.
Complications.
I had a pretty good sense of just
how bad ‘complications’ could be. Was I willing to risk losing my entire lower
leg for the chance to finish the season? I had already lost so much. I mused.
There was a chance I’d lose my leg if I postponed, but I was guaranteed to miss
out on some – possibly the rest – of the season if I didn’t. I was even more
familiar with the endurance of rehabilitation than I was with the consequences
of complications.

In the end, I left with a prescription for potent antibiotics and
instructions to call if any changes occurred. I was taking a gamble, one that
could cost me my leg, but soccer was the only thing keeping me afloat for the
time being. I wasn’t sure I could stand to lose that and have to simultaneously
recover from another surgery. Not yet. Just, not yet.

15

I was handling it all fine: The long hours at work. The pressures
of the soccer season. The never-ending problem-solving my handicap required.

So why was I lying on the floor in a near panic as my heart beat
raced?

I was on my lunch break, had just finished eating and settled in
to watch a few more minutes of CNN”s Headline News. I hadn’t experienced any
new trauma. No side-effects to the antibiotics (I’d been on this type before,
so I knew I could handle them fine). The season was still going well, the team
performing above expectations. We were in line to be invited to the National
Tournament at the end of the season.

Then it stopped. My heart. I froze, waiting to feel it start up
again. In the span of a few breaths which I didn’t take, it resumed its
beating, this time faster than before, I felt the terror rush like ice down my
veins, chilling my bones and freezing my joints. After having endured a week at
170 beats per minute, I was sure my life expectancy must already be shortened.

So what would be the consequence of these heart palpitations? I
tried to breathe, telling myself to calm down; it was probably nothing to worry
about. But with my recent past, everything felt like something to worry about.

It’s stress,
a voice in my head said.
What with all that you’re doing,
you’re not giving yourself any time to relax.

I stared at the ceiling, huffing in rapid breaths. Relaxing wasn’t
in my schedule for a reason. When you relax, you give yourself time to think. I
needed to function, not think.

I pushed myself upright, standing on wobbly legs while the world
swirled before my eyes. After struggling to clean up the lunch dishes, I
hastily shut off the television and made my way to the Soccer Office.

The duration of the walk, the logical voice of reason in my head
refused to give me peace.

It buzzed and whirred, analyzing the choice I had just made.
Clearly something wasn’t right.

You should see a doctor, you fool,
the voice coolly scolded.
Hearts
aren’t supposed to do that.
I was pretty sure on most medications they list
such things under “serious side-effects” and direct you to ”contact your doctor
immediately.” But I also knew what he was going to say. I couldn’t allow the
handicap to beat me.

You’re being stupid,
was the last thing the know-it-all in my head said before I
unlocked the door to the Soccer Office and shut the one on going back. I had to
keep moving forward.

With only five matches left in the season, I couldn’t afford to
slow down now.

~~~

The first match after my heart-palpitation scare was against
Marquette, a Division I school. I had scheduled the match to prepare us for the
homestretch and hopefully an invitation to the National Tournament. Perhaps I
had been wrong to schedule such a difficult opponent, but our team was strong
and training was as good as ever. We had to see how far we could go, otherwise
what was the point?

Marquette scored five goals on us. We scored none.

Eight days later we had another away match, this time versus a Top
10 Division III university, Gustavus Adolphus. We managed to score a goal, but
one wasn’t enough to compensate for the four they put on us. It was
devastating. The result struck a blow to the team’s confidence that seemed
irrecoverable. On the tail of twelve wins, two ties, and only three losses,
we’d just lost two matches in a row. With only three more matches in the
season, we couldn’t afford such casualties.

I patted slouched backs and rounded shoulders as we loaded back
onto the coach bus at the end of the Adolphus game.

‘It’s all right,’ I kept saying. ‘Two losses doesn’t mean it’s
over. Keep your heads up! It’s not over.’ A few met my eyes and gave me a weak
smile, some tried to carry on the torch of optimism, but all knew over was
exactly what it was.

I was shattered. Deflated. Lost and exhausted. As I glanced around
at their sullen faces, I saw my own attitude reflected back at me.

I did this,
I thought, turning to stare out the window of the bus.

Me. I’m responsible for their defeat.

I had designed the schedule. It was most likely my outlook which
they had taken on, the fear of losing the ground we had gained eventually
eating them up. I had set the goal for us and I had failed to guide us to
reaching it.

~~~

Somehow, we managed to rally, pulling off a nine-to-one win
against the University of Wisconsin at Platteville, immediately followed by a
two-to-zero win against the University of Wisconsin at River Falls the next
day. Both were Division III teams like us, and neither win would be enough to
salvage our season. But at least we had rallied.

Unfortunately, devastation wasn’t done tormenting me yet. The
blows would kept coming, starting with my ‘bad foot’.

After un-bandaging it the night of the River Falls match (with our
last game of the season scheduled for the following day), I discovered that the
infection had returned; that repugnant odor was back. The hole had also
deepened so that now when I peered into it, I could see the pearly white of
bone showing through the dark red meat of muscle. I stared at it with vacant
eyes. How had this nightmare taken hold of me?

I gradually released the foot and let it fall to the floor, leaned
forward with my elbows on my thighs, and put my face in my hands. I recoiled. I
had been looking for the comfort of warm, human flesh; instead my face landed
in the cold rubber of the myos. Everything felt congested – constricted. It
felt as if all the pressure I had been denying for so long suddenly piled into
my skull, looking for release. I sighed, both weary and forlorn, then slowly made
my way to the phone.

Two weeks after our season came to a close with no invitation to
the National Tournament, Tom took me to see Dr. Rucker. This time when he
proposed surgery, I didn’t argue.

~~~

‘I need to dress you.’ she said.

Damn!
I thought and bit back a scowl. I was back to depending on others
again.

Thankfully there were crutches hanging off the edge of my bed. (I
was sick of wheelchairs.)

Once fully clothed, I took a crutch in each hand and situated them
beneath my arms.

Propelling the crutches in front of me, I leaned my weight into my
arms and began to hop-hobble my way forward. As the downward pressure settled
into the myos, the hands snapped open. The crutches careened out from under me
as I tottered towards the floor. I crashed against the bed, relinquishing the
right crutch to clatter to the floor in favor of stabilizing myself on the
mattress.
What the heck?

When the surprise and disorientation had subsided, I reached
tentatively for the fallen crutch. My brow pursed in consternation and
distrust, I resituated myself for forward progress. I set the padded bottoms of
the crutches on the floor in front of me, leaned onto the underarm supports,
and began to lift my left foot – whoosh! The myos opened and the crutches propelled
off course. I was better prepared this time and quickly pivoted so my butt
landed on the padded gurney rather than the tile floor.

Seriously?

I flipped the remaining crutch out from under my left arm and
watched it flop onto the floor with a dull thud. It was too perfect – too
exactly how my life seemed destined to be. I couldn’t use crutches because
apparently putting downward pressure on the myos would cause the muscles in my
forearms to fire and the myos, in turn, to open.

Damn it! Can nothing just
work
?

I sat in contemplative frustration, glaring sourly at the useless
crutches scattered on the floor by my feet until a nurse blew through the
curtains with a gust of antiseptic-coated air, a wheelchair plowing in front of
her.

‘Scott –’ she began, then forgot what she had been about to say as
her eyes fell to the discarded crutches on the floor. ‘What in the world?’
Realization dawned and her demeanor turned patronizing and disapproving.
‘Scott, you were supposed to wait for a wheelchair. Hospital policy –’

‘Requires that patients leave in wheelchairs, I know.’ I waved the
left myo at her and felt my back slump a little farther. ‘Doesn’t matter. I
can’t use crutches with these things, anyway.’

I waited for her to collect the crutches, muttering an apology I
was still too bitter to make sound genuine, and obediently flopped into the
seat of the chair when she wheeled it beside the bed.

‘There he is!’ Tom hollered when he saw me being steered in his
direction. He was propped against a wall of the waiting room, a magazine
spilling out of his left hand, and quickly straightened his posture and whipped
the glossy pages shut. ‘How’d the surgery go?’

‘Fine. No complications except with the damn crutches.’ I replied.

‘Yeah, well, those things can be a real pain,’ he offered
amicably.

Tom took over steering my chair. He took me out to his car where
he had to pull me up to the passenger side so I could pivot off my left foot to
get in. The wheelchair had to be left at the hospital. No chair meant I would
have to hop all the way to the apartment. When we arrived at the staff parking
lot outside Towers Hall, I looked despondently at the walk – excuse me: hop
that lay ahead.

‘Ready to do this?’ I asked when I’d swung myself from the car.
Tom had walked around to the passenger side to meet me and gazed at my
proffered right arm briefly. My thinking: use Tom as a human crutch and jounce
my way single-footed to the apartment. Tom’s thinking: jouncing takes too long.

He approached my side, slid under my right arm and in one quick
swoop hoisted me into his arms.

‘Oh!’ I exclaimed. I cleared my throat and repeated, ‘Oh,’ this
time a few octaves lower.

‘Don’t go thinking that you’re Debra Winger and I’m Richard Gere,’
he said, referring, I knew, to the famous scene from
An Officer and a
Gentleman
. I grinned and buried my face against his neck in mock-Debra
Winger style. When I heard voices nearby, I quickly turned away, but the grin
stayed put.

Tom stood me at the door of my apartment so I could pinch open and
remove the key ring from my belt loop. (I couldn’t use the pockets of my pants
anymore.) With his shoulder stooped low for support, I hopped my way over the
threshold and to the nearest seat I could find.

‘Thank you for your assistance, Officer Peck,’ I said with a
lopsided grin from the comfort of my sofa.

‘Har-har,’ Tom responded as he looked around my apartment. After a
moment of watching him scan the area, I sighed.

‘Looking for something?’ I asked.

‘Just noticing. There isn’t a lot of space around here, is there?’

‘Thinking about a wheelchair, huh? No, there’s no way.’

My solution was to spend the month-long duration of my recovery
moving about the apartment on my knees. My knees became scuffed, then scraped,
and finally scabbed over, but nothing was more painful than having to rely on
others for my shopping needs. I was right back where I had started when they
released me from the hospital, only this time I couldn’t even drive with them
to the stores. Instead, I had to pass lists and money to sympathetic recipients
and ashamedly send them off to see to my needs.

Before the illness, I had never realized – or never taken the time
to consider – how important independence is to one’s wellbeing. Each time I
lost my foothold on another aspect of my freedom, I slid lower. This time was
like being robbed of everything I had worked for in the past two decades: all
the hours spent coaching, working my way up the ladder; the endless days spent
out on the field perfecting my own game and then my players’ technique; the
time spent trying to devise the perfect season and then holding my breath on
the sidelines as we fought our way through. As I crawled about on my knees that
month, I felt the density of The Fog beginning to swell and grow. I was barely
present during most days and during the rare moments when I wasn’t completely
detached, bleakness dampened my thoughts.

After a while I stopped fighting the dank Fog in my mind, and
allowed it to be my shield until my foot finally healed. It was either that or
spend the next month in a torturous spiral of anger, misery, and melancholy. I
could survive the healing process, but I wasn’t sure if I could survive the
torture of being cooped up with the thoughts circling in my head. I had grown
good at stuffing my emotions into tight, dark corners over the past few months.
I could do it for one more. Then, when my foot finally healed, I’d reemerge and
return to my old self once more.

And things may have indeed worked out that way had they not gone
so awry.

~~~

Two days I’d been back on my feet. I had just made my first
grocery run since the surgery and was finally beginning to put it all behind me
when I was called in for a meeting with Chuck in the Housing Office. Rumors had
been circling about Housing wanting to split from Athletics, so I had a pretty
good idea of what this meeting was about.