(Continued from Fall From Grace - Part I)
Luckily, the area of Papago Park where I fell was only several hundred meters from a paved road that carves its way through the park.
Even more fortuitously, out of the park’s 22,000 acres, a Park Ranger happened to drive past my exact position not 5 minutes after I fell. As a result, there was an ambulance on the scene within 10 minutes.
During that brief period, however, I was able to figure out to some extent that which would be confirmed by a cadre of doctors several hours later – I had shattered my pelvis, broken a number of ribs, torn several ligaments in my feet, and fractured my skull.
The doctors and I later deduced that I had essentially fallen in a modified sitting position. I fell feet first, which absorbed some of the initial shock of impact. But doing so twisted my feet backwards, tearing the ligaments in both.
Next to hit was my ass. And while the human buttocks is designed to absorb a certain amount of shock, the forces waged upon mine that day were just too excessive to handle. The result was that my pelvis absorbed the brunt of the entire impact, pushing it upwards in the middle and breaking it in five (5) places, thereby splitting my pelvis into two distinct "hemispheres." That main impact also pushed my tailbone upwards and backwards, causing me to lose about an inch in height which I’ve never regained.
Next to hit as I fell backwards was my torso, breaking several ribs to the rear of my rib-cage.
As I had apparently turned to look left at some point, the next place to hit was the left-rear side of my head. By that time, however, the rest of my body had already absorbed much of the impact. Nonetheless, the resulting blow to the head was still enough to cause a concussion and some significant swelling to the side of my face and head. (Ironically, much of the attention paid by both myself and those initially attending to me centered on the obvious broken bones and such, not on any potential brain damage).
As a result of all this, I had the distinct feeling that someone had dropped a Mack truck directly onto my lap. The pain was crushing. Not so much a sharp pain, but more of a "heavy" pain akin to the feeling of someone standing on your gut.
Right about then, I was extremely grateful to possess what my parents have described as an absurdly high pain tolerance. It is an attribute which often borders on the comical. Indeed, at times of extreme pain, I tend to have debilitating giggle fits. From what I’ve been told, it’s a trait that can be a bit disconcerting to those around me, as I come off looking like a bigger psychopath than normal.
In this particular case, however, the laughter was appropriate – at least at the outset of my "rescue." Indeed, the descent from the area where I landed was absolutely comical.
As noted previously, there is a hiking path leading up to and around the base of the rock formation from which I fell. However, as you can see in the above picture, the path nearest to where I fell extends upwards along a slow incline.
As a result, in order to reach me, the Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) had to hike up that sloping hill and around the rock formation, carrying a variety of medical supplies and a backboard onto which I would be strapped down, immobilized, for them to carry back down to the ambulance.
Given my situation, I paid little attention to the EMT’s progress as they made their way up the slope towards me. However, after they determined my condition and successfully loaded me onto the backboard, I was forced to pay somewhat closer attention.
It was about halfway back down the slope that one of the EMT’s carrying me lost his footing.
Needless to say, I felt more than a little like Wile E. Coyote at that moment. What's next," I thought, "rocket-powered skates?"
Thankfully, I had apparently used up most of my bad karma for the day. I stopped skidding down the slope after only a couple feet.
Whereas I was only able to muster “Oh Shit” when I actually fell, I was able to formulate several other expletives when I started skidding down that slope tied down atop a flat wooden board.
“Huh,” I thought, “so that’s what the downhill luge must be like? Ehh, that’s not so bad.”
The medics picked me up almost immediately.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry about that,” said the culprit. “Are you okay?”
“Oh sure, sure,” I said. “Besides the fact that I just fell off the side of a fucking mountain, you mean?”
“Oh, he’s okay,” said the second. “He’s still got his sense of humor.”
Then to me, he added, “that’s good, you should stay positive.”
It’s ironic how roles can reverse so quickly. Just minutes earlier, I was eternally grateful to these gents for rescuing me so quickly after having suffered such a debilitating injury. But at that particular moment in time, I wanted nothing more than to beat that EMT motherfucker about the head and shoulders with a baseball bat.
After that, the actual trip to the hospital was somewhat of a blur. I mainly recall the siren and the speed of the ambulance, facts I took as both comforting and disconcerting at the same time. It meant that I would be cared for very soon, but it also meant that they still considered my condition significant enough to halt traffic.
Although there were no further mishaps before reaching the hospital, our arrival at my new home for the next couple weeks would bring with it a whole new set of issues.
I have never been what one would call a “cooperative” patient. Never was this more apparent, however, than during the initial diagnostic stage I underwent in the trauma ward at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital.
Obviously, the medical staff needed to diagnose the full extent of my injuries. I had fallen approximately 60 feet, I was bleeding profusely from various parts of my body, and I was unable to make any significant movements. This I completely understood.
So what better way to treat a patient in this condition than to assign a first year orderly to take x-rays. That part, I didn’t understand so much.
I was already pretty certain that my pelvis was in a shambles. Notwithstanding, this orderly placed me into positions atop the x-ray machine I STILL would not attempt even today.
I felt like I had stumbled into some deranged game of Twister.
“Okay, your turn, Mr. Kish – disjointed right foot on blue. Uh-oh, looks like somebody needs to take some yoga classes. Let me just move that leg for you.”
So again, for the second time in less than an hour after barely surviving this major calamity, I was in dire need of a baseball bat.
And then came “the cleaning.” Oh my, I will never forget “the cleaning.”
Allow me to explain.
During the fall, I had unconsciously attempted to slow myself by reaching out to grab the rock as it was falling upwards away from me. As a result, the palms of my hands were absolutely decimated.
Being left handed, much of the meat had been ripped from the palm of my left hand adjacent to my thumb. Similarly, the tips of the index and middle fingers on my left hand had been ground off down to the bone.
I also had accumulated a variety of other deep scrapes, abrasions and lacerations all over my body. The deepest of these wounds, however, were reserved to those parts of my body which had not been covered – my legs, my arms and my head.
But my hands were the worst.
My hands were also covered in all type of dirt and debris. Indeed, I actually had a small pebble lodged in between the flesh and the bone of my index fingertip. And all of that dirt needed to be cleaned out immediately in order to prevent infection.
The trauma staff, however, was not about to waste precious time picking out this dirt with tweezers. Instead, it was far easier to scrub down all of the wounds using a disinfectant and abrasive “sponge.”
After my ordeal with the x-ray technician, I thought it entirely possible they would simply hand me over to the maintenance staff: “Hey Jimmy, after you get finished with the toilets on the third floor, could you scrub down the patient in ICU 3?”
It was not the most pleasant of experiences.
By that time, several hours had passed. My roommates, having finished their finals, had already started partying. As a result, when they were alerted to my condition, my roommates were irrevocably stoned.
But god bless ‘em, they still made the trip to the hospital.
Ostensibly, they came to lend their emotional support. I was touched, truly. However, the very first thing I noticed upon their arrival was their encumbered condition.
In particular, I remember the look of utter astonishment in the eyes of my friend Stacey (a guy). Whenever Stacey was high and confronted with an amazing situation, his eyes grew to the size of platters, echoing the dimensions of his widely dilated pupils.
Because of his reaction, I realized immediately that Stacey was really wasted.
And that I must have looked absolutely horrific.
Until then, aesthetics were the last thing on my mind. Although I am fairly vain, I had not even considered asking for a mirror previously. That changed when I saw Stacey’s drug-induced reaction to my face.
I asked the nurse, “Excuse me, can I please see a mirror?”
“Uhh, you may want to wait until we’re done stabilizing your condition and getting you admitted into the hospital before …” she replied.
“Please?”
She relinquished, holding up a mirror.
For the second time that day, I was completely unprepared.
The entire left side of my head was swollen, bloody, and torn. My left eye was blackened and swollen shut, there were huge patches of skin along my hairline that had been scraped off, and my jawline was swollen beyond recognition.
“What a fucking mess,” I said to myself. “Jeez, you’re a dumbass.”
And then, of course, I started to laugh hysterically.
Concerned looks were traded between the nurses. I could tell what they were thinking: “Maybe we should get him checked for additional brain trauma.”
Sensing the nurses trepidations, my roommates chimed in. “No, he’s okay. He just does that sometimes when he gets hurt.”
Now it was my friends’ turn to receive the incredulous looks. I could almost hear the nurses thinking, “Err, maybe we should get his friends checked out for brain trauma.”
Upon receiving adequate confirmation that I was okay, the nurses apparently saw my laughing fit as a good opportunity to get back to work.
“If the patient is laughing,” I could see them thinking, “maybe he won’t mind if we start grinding down the remainder of the meat from his hands.”
So they broke out the cleaning kit, at which time I could have sworn I heard a German-accented voice in the background asking me, “Is it safe?”
That's when the true fun began.
To this day, I really have no way to describe the exquisite pain associated with this particular nightmare. The nurse began digging and scrubbing into the exposed meat remaining on my hands, trying to remove any dirt particles from the injuries. Raw nerve-endings were being ground down by sterilized steel wool, over and over and over again.
And that’s when the cursing began. This beautiful young nurse who, in any other situation, I would have tried to bed, bore the brunt of one of the most vicious verbal attacks I have ever witnessed, let alone initiated.
As an aside, years later, watching “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” I had a flashback to that day. For a moment, I was unable to figure out just why that movie reminded me of the day I fell. And then it hit me. My experience in the trauma ward was almost exactly like the scene in that movie where Steve Carell curses out the attendant waxing his chest while his friends stand watching, mouths agape.
After the initial shock of the situation wore off, I naturally started giggling again. This, in turn, set off my stoner friends, who themselves started laughing hysterically. Which then re-ignited my giggle loop.
This was apparently too much for the nursing staff. My friends were unceremoniously booted from the ICU. Upon leaving, each of my roommates took their turn wishing me well.
From Mike, “Dude, if you need anything, you know we’re right here.”
“Matty, you’re gonna be fine,” said another. “I’m not worried.”
Then Stacey, looking around until the nurses were distracted, came closer. “Bro, take this.”
“Take what, Stac?” I asked. “I can’t use my fucking hands.”
“Shut up, just take it,” he said, shoving a can of Coors Light under my elbow.
I looked at the beer. Then back to him. Then the beer again. Then Stacey.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I asked. “Stac, I’m on about 25 different kinds of pain killers right now and you want me to drink a beer?”
Stacey nodded grinning ear to ear, “Yah dude. We were gonna bring the pipe too, but decided it might be a bad idea.”
“Ya' think?!?”
The nurse returned to continue with the interrogation, at which point Stacey backed away.
“Thanks Stac,” I said, sighing. “I really do appreciate you guys coming down. I’ll see you in a while.”
They headed out, grinning like a bunch of school children who just snuck a frog into the teacher’s desk drawer. Ahh, my friends.
By then, the pain medication had begun to kick in. For anyone who has never taken a Demerol cocktail, it is a fantastic party drug – for about 30 seconds before you pass out.
I woke up some time later, all of my wounds mercifully cleaned and bandaged, in a private hospital room. Despite the fact that I was still of significant importance to warrant my own room for the time being, it was an encouraging sign.
I began to relax a bit. I was going to be okay.
By then, the doctors had figured out the majority of my injuries were apparently non-life threatening. They had pegged down the ligament damage and broken bones right away.
The main concern they had was with my pelvis. Remarkably, my gymnastics session with the x-ray technician notwithstanding, the various bone fragments that had once been my pelvis had not shifted much. As a result, there was a distinct possibility (which later proved to be correct) that I would not need to wear a full body cast while my pelvic bone repaired itself.
I had still received a serious concussion though. But I had made it through the first several hours with no apparent repercussions, and the doctors at the time were confident of a full recovery.
The next step after recouping for a couple days was physical therapy.
I had no idea just how much I would come to despise those two words – physical therapy, or PT for short.
(continued … in part, here).
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