Falling Realizations

We just wanted to smoke.  We went out there on our bikes with one thing in mind: a quiet place for Marlboro Lights.  It was a “No Trespassing” area, but everyone trespassed.  We’d been out there plenty of times before, and we knew it was safe. 

The old railroad bridge was settled in a lush area of pine and birch trees, cut through by a quiet, meandering stream.  To cross that bridge was almost to enter another world.  We loved to go out there—and we went there a lot.

September 16 was different though.  This time we decided to ride our bikes across the bridge.  I was afraid, but went ahead. What else could I do?

The old familiar bridge was at least 50 yards long, and as I slowly bump-bump-bumped along, I realized that the others were well in front of me.  I looked ahead at them, already halfway across the bridge while I was still starting out. I just wanted to catch up!

I never caught up.  As I struggled to keep my balance between the bridge’s rough, rotten, and uneven boards, it quickly became obvious that my bike was determined to tip over. And it did.  Only a few short yards into my ride, the bike’s front tire wedged itself between two of the bridge’s boards. 

Until that moment, I had never realized that it could take hours to fall only 25 feet. Hearing the “swish-swish” of the slowly rolling water under me and the gentle rustle of tree limbs around me, I watched, unable to look away, as my friends continued to ride cheerfully across the bridge while I was airborne.  They didn’t even realize I was falling, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them: Chris was first—almost completely across the bridge, Jenny second, and Matt following behind.  My arms flailing in every direction, I was powerless—trying to grasp something that would stop my fall, though I knew full well there was nothing to grasp. 

Thud.

Two support blocks of cement were in the path of my fall.  They knocked the breath out of me, and moments later I hit the ground.  Suddenly my friends realized what had happened. The support I received from these three friends whom I’d known since pre-school was overwhelming.

They laughed.

Then: “She pissed her pants!  Oh my God! She pissed her pants!”  Jenny Emanuel had been my best friend since kindergarten.  We lived across the street from each other, and not a day had gone by in our 15 years when we didn’t see each other at least once.  I had to smile when I heard her laughing about the wetness now so obvious on my blue jeans.

I lay there, completely oblivious to the fact that I’d broken my back.  I stared at an exceptionally blue sky on this exceptionally calm and sunny day, and was much too preoccupied with larger, more complex issues.  What if someone found out about the cigarettes?  What would Mom think about Jenny and me going into a “No Trespassing” area with two boys?  Why had I wet my pants?

Chris ran nearly a mile into town to get an ambulance. And while I remember very few specifics about the moments that came between my landing and the ambulance’s arrival, I distinctly remember becoming fiercely agitated.  I did not want or need an ambulance!  If an ambulance came, I reasoned, my parents would surely find out where we had been.  Why couldn’t I just walk home and lie down for a while?  If an ambulance really was coming, would Jenny please take the cigarettes and matches out of my pockets?

After many long hospital hours, I learned that I had permanently fused three vertebrae and shattered two others.  From this moment forward, my doctors told me, I would live with chronic back pain.  This injury, they said, would affect me for the rest of my life.  But when my doctors told me I was lucky, they never quite understood how lucky:

Mom never found out about the cigarettes.

Lots of people came to my house to visit and bring cards and gifts.  Almost every visitor quietly chatted with my mother before leaving, and almost every visitor remarked, “At least she’s young.  She probably doesn’t even realize what happened.”  I joked with these people while they visited, telling them that the accident was no big deal, that I’d be fine.  I told them stories about the cute young doctor I had. But I definitely realized what had happened.

I didn’t cry.  Not once.  I didn’t cry when I fell, in the hospital, or anytime afterward.  The intensity that comes with that kind of pain is indescribable, but I managed to spend most of my time worrying about the cigarettes and the fact that I’d soiled myself.  Even though I didn’t cry, though, I definitely realized what had happened.

Cigarettes, urine, and cute doctors.  People often laugh when I focus on these aspects of the story.  They chuckle, almost inevitably chalking up my attitude to youth and naiveté.  I don’t believe my attitude is funny, though.  I honestly believe this attitude saved my life.

I didn’t grasp the seriousness of my situation until years later. I was going to have chronic arthritis, starting in my back and slowly progressing through the rest of my body.  Would I still be able to play basketball?  It hurt even to sit down—could I still play piano?  Physical therapy would become a part of my life, and I was warned not to lift more than twenty pounds for any reason.  Pregnancy would pose significant issues; my chances of carrying a baby full-term were now very small.  And soiling myself?  Well, that incident would become just the first of many similar embarrassments—at work, at school, at bedtime…anywhere I might happen to be.  I was told to be prepared, but I never was prepared.  I did not believe my doctors, and I did not realize—at first—that my body would no longer consistently give me its normal warnings.  This would not go away.

It sounded awful to me.  I didn’t want arthritis.  I hated physical therapy!  And I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to lift more than twenty pounds just because some stupid doctor told me not to!

My first visit to physical therapy changed me in ways I cannot describe.  I met two other fall victims: Marcus was a 24-year-old paraplegic, and James was a 13-year-old with a broken neck.  Suddenly I felt almost guilty that my only consequences were going to be pain and arthritis.  I thought about these people and suddenly realized just how serious some situations can be.  These people were young and active, just like me.  While I exercised on the balance machines, they sat in wheelchairs. 

I was lucky.

Four years passed before I ever went out to that old railroad bridge again, and the area looked completely different.  Trees that formerly appeared lush and green now looked hollow and old.  And that quiet, meandering stream had somehow become a filthy pond.  The bridge’s wood looked more and more rotten.

The area hadn’t changed at all; my understanding of it had changed.  I’d crossed that old bridge hundreds of times before.  Sometimes we crossed on mopeds.  Sometimes we ran and jumped across.  This time, though, I literally got down on my hands and knees and crawled across that bridge—trembling the entire time—just to prove that I could cross it again.  And I did.

I was invincible before, but the bridge took that away from me—and as soon as I was back on solid, level ground, I definitely realized what had happened.