If Its Tuesday, It Must be Winter!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Last week-end Al and I were trekking in 20 degree weather.  A few days later we have 5 inches of snow and below 0 temperatures!  No wonder the weather is a hot topic for Manitobans.

A Walk in the Park

We live in a provincial park and taking a walk in the sunshine under a brilliant blue sky is invigorating .  It is also in the midst of hunting season, and walking along the paths through the forest can be risky.  Tomorrow we are going to buy whistles so we can announce ourselves every now and then.

I came across a gentleman at the marina and asked if I could take a picture because I wanted to depict a Gimli fisherman in the Interlake.  That story will have be told another day because he was a moose hunter just taking his boat out.  He was happy to report they shot a moose yesterday and he was now waiting to get his meat and sausage from the butcher.  Because he wasn't a fisherman, he saw no need to have his picture taken.

Apparently, in order to see the fishermen I would have to be up at sunrise to catch them before they go out on the water.  Somehow I think this is not going to happen as I am not a morning person.  So I took shots of the dock and boats and this will have to do.

Another Year Has Passed

No better way to spend the day than cycling in the north woods on a rainy day.  At least that is what Al had planned for me on my birthday.  It has been eight months to the day since my accident.  I have come a long way baby!!

The birthday Tshirt is very appropriate don't you think?

Recovery Ride

The day after a long distance ride, we go on a recovery ride. A light intensity ride usually around 1 1/2 hours in duration.  This means I use my mountain bike and ride on the gravel roads and through forest trails.  Because the pace is slower I get to do a little more sight seeing and we get to take pictures.  This time Al brought his camera so I can't take credit for the photography.

These pictures are of Little Grindstone Park Beach, which is about 5 km from where we live.

Reaching Goals

Today I cycled my first 100 km ride this summer and I feel great!!!!!!

On The Road Again

Yesterday was the perfect day!  The weather was warm the sky was beautiful and we went  trekking for the first time this year.  I wore my 10 lb vest and Al wore 20 lbs and we walked 10 miles in 3 hours.

I was pleased to find out I felt great apart from a blister on my little toe.  I am ready for the upcoming summer and further adventures.  Al is having a great time planning our next trip, will keep you posted.

What Could Be More Fitting?

My memories of the next five days are at times limited and confused. However, I know with excruciating clarity that my bed was hard and narrow. There I lay, feeling absurd, a cast on each arm, my front teeth ‘clapped in irons’, an intravenous needle deeply planted just above my left ankle - my state best described as one of living rigor mortis. I tried hard not to focus on my itchy nose.

It is interesting how things go. After three decades of nursing I would have expected to have felt comfortable and in control in a hospital.  However, in my ludicrous state and in this curious place (Were the nurses talking in a different language, or was it the drugs?) the time [was] out of joint. At one point, I noticed that there was no call bell in my room. This I thought was wrong.  How would I call the nurses? One needs a call bell for that. Stranger still, there was no oxygen equipment, or supplies like hospital gowns or towels. And what was Al doing here? Al hates hospitals and avoids them like the plague.  And why was he acting like my primary care giver? That was really weird! (Looking back, he did learn a lot of new skills - including how to deal with delirium.  In all, he did well.)

Al says that point of view is an important thing in writing. Well, my point of view was from my back. Although I am not very good with its walls or its floors I can honestly say that I am experienced with the ceilings of Moulana hospital.  In this I consider myself an expert.

As you can see, the views from the windows in our room and hallway were pretty good.

Still, I can say this much.  My ward’s hallway was cluttered. My brief glimpse of the wall at the far end revealed a sheet of plywood covering the space where the bottom of the wall should have been. Above the sheet there was a big window. If one were to charge at the wall -with you in the stretcher- it seemed that you could be propelled straight through, launched into space, soon to drop eight stories to the ground. We never tried it. I had had enough of falling. Al says the wall on the opposite end of the hall was the same. He had investigated.

Moulana hospital is a curious place.

To enter our ‘suite’, a nurse brought out a substantial key to unlock a very large, old style padlock inserted through a heavy latch.  Once opened - voilà - you were greeted by a spacious anti-room with a shiny marble floor, and two communicating settees separated by a large coffee table. On a paneled wall a flat screen TV invited viewing. Two big translucent, sliding glass doors separated this area from the hospital room itself. On the other side of them, old but formal, full-length burgundy drapes covered the windows. The room, large enough for four of them, had two beds. At the far end, there was a small dinette table and several chairs. It was covered with a red checker tablecloth and cluttered with tea bags, coffee, sugar, cups, glasses, jug and an electric kettle. Somehow it felt reassuring.

Nurses with lovely smiles would arrive in groups of two's or three’s to take my blood pressure or give my medications.  The doctors would visit on a daily basis to assess my progress. They were thoughtful and very well meaning, even taking the time to suggest the best airports from which we might return to Canada. The nurses were extremely polite and very curious, as I was the first westerner admitted to their care. Often, groups of student nurses would find some reason to come into my room and stand beside my bed smiling and giggling, and then nod and leave - that and no more. It was like I was a celebrity.

On her day off the matron made a special trip to see me. She wanted to say ‘hello’ and make acquaintance. She had come dressed in her Sunday sari….. just for me, she said.

The care I received was excellent. I was lucky to have landed where I was.  However, I was tired of a diet of chicken soup, and desperately wanted to return home.

By this point Al had turned a good part of his attention to worrying about what our hospital experience was going to cost. He knew we were expected to pay in full before being discharged.  Our travel insurance company (a very good one as it turns out) did not have direct billing with the hospital. Al stressed. 

Lauri, (we don’t think she will be annoyed that we used her name) from Adventure Centre, Calgary did a fantastic job making hasty travel arrangements for us to get home. Al stressed.

On the morning of my discharge we learned that the swipe machine in the hospital did not work. We were asked if we could pay in cash. Al really stressed!

As it turned out our guide was able to make arrangements through his office. They settled the account for us and we reimbursed them. Al didn’t stress after that.

I can’t resist the next picture. What could be more fitting? After all we had been through we arrived at this place for a quick lunch before getting on our flight.

Happily, we did not get on abad plane!

.  

Allison Wonderland

So much of what happened that day was surreal that being wheeled into Moulana hospital was like dropping down a rabbit hole, then falling out of myself, landing in a strange and curious place.

It had none of the outward formality, detachment, quiet or antiseptic atmosphere of hospitals I knew back home. It was a world less angular, less fragmented, alive.

Out of the ambulance I was in a throb of humanity - young, old, Hindu, Muslim- a constant sweep and swirl. Triage took place behind quickly drawn curtains just inside the open front entrance where traffic stopped, idled, and moved on. People gathered or walked past, billowing my curtain, my wall. Electric fans rattled and thrummed. Lying on my back I traced electric wiring that ran across the ceiling then entered, or moved around, open junction boxes before disappearing out of sight. I heard no bells, chimes, announcements, pages or codes, nor the beeping from sleek high tech machines so much a part of a familiar and distant world.

Later, I would see staff wearing flip-flops only to take them off before entering treatment rooms barefooted. Nurses carried large, rectangular metal boxes that opened to a pressure cuff and mercury tube. Sometimes, ponderous yet portable x-ray machines, dating from another era, sat parked in corridors.

Patients in wheelchairs or on stretchers were rolled into elevators packed tight with visitors, family, or staff. The operator, perched on a stool, would ring a bell for everyone to get off so that a patient could come or go. An old man pushed a cart with a big metal pot up and down my ward, loudly calling out something Al did not understand. Al thinks he was there to ladle out a drink, tea perhaps. Stairways were lined with waiting families, many Muslim, taking softly amongst themselves or asleep on thin mats.

Several times a day the power would go out, it was as if the hospital closed its eyes for a momentary rest before carrying on.

Efficiency or quality of care?  Second to none……second to none.

Within an hour and a half I had been admitted, taken for CT scans, assessed by an orthopaedic surgeon and a maxillofacial surgeon. My upper jaw was broken and I could no longer bend my elbows. X-rays showed that the right one was broken in three places, the left one had shattered. Fortunately, there was no spinal injury or head trauma - bike helmets work! I remember one of the surgeons telling me that I had good Karma that day. He was right.

The doctors conferred and decided to do all surgeries at the same time. Four hours later I went into the O.R. I was there for three hours.

Without going into details, the work the surgeons did was exceptional.

I would be in the hospital for five days – nearly as long as I was on the trip in the first place.

So there I was, Allison Wonderland, and I was grateful for that.

A Bad Day to Feel Good

January 6^th and everyone, sick or not, was riding. The morning was very cool. It was funny watching people scrambling to put on as many layers as they could dig out of their bags, only to peel them off a short while later under an intense Indian sun.

Once the day’s Difficult-To-Decipher-Map was handed out (by this time I had developed a rule: Doubt The Trip Notes & Worry About The Map) we were on our way.

I was feeling great. At one point I was behind Al and told him it felt like the rides we did together back home on Hecla Island. I loved the pace and was feeling strong. It was a pleasure cycling through a beautiful forest and catching glimpses of the deep green valley far below. I should mention that this was a longer ride (87 km), much of the first fifty-eight being a winding downhill (maybe that’s why everyone was riding, less pedalling!) to the Chambala tea factory where we were to stop at noon.

Too bad that I didn’t follow my own rule and worry a LOT about the map – or for that matter the omens and signs that, as of the day before had stopped talking and had begun to shout!

Omens? One of the riders went down on the hill-climb. He lost momentum and hit the ground hard, the handlebars coming off his bike, hitting his chest. He was in pain.

Signs? Three of them - each one louder than the other.

Difficult-To-Decipher-Map (Jan 6 ed.)? “Ride carefully we had 2 big crashes on downhill.” That message was written twice - and in bold nonetheless!

And of course, Dalrymple’s Rule.

 In case you missed it, that's a truck beside my right elbow!

As a matter of course, Al was on his guard.  I followed two very cautious and courteous cyclists who forever called out, or pointed to, road dangers. The three of us - indeed the whole group - descended at a safe speed. Al on the other hand took off behind the assistant leader (the official leader didn’t like cycling, admitted such on the first day, and often spent  time  in the support van.)

So there I was well back, and there was Al well ahead. Only the assistant leader was beyond him. And then, descending fast and coming out of a blind corner Al slammed on his brakes. In front of him, and no more than 50 meters ahead, the road was in ruins. Deeply rutted and strewn with jagged rocks the broken surface extended through the next blind corner and on out of sight. The assistant leader, who at this point was out of Al’s sight, simply kept going.  Al didn’t. He knew better. If he continued on his way and somebody fell he would feel responsible. Moving his bike off to the side he positioned himself halfway between the broken pavement and the corner he had just come through. He made himself visible, slowed each of us down, pointed out the danger, and showed the safest route through. He was there for nearly fifteen minutes until the last cyclist (ironically our leader who was out of the van and taking advantage of the downhill) got past. He did this again, a short while later.

When he caught up with the group at the scenic lookout where we had regrouped, he was greeted with hearty thanks. Someone called him the safety officer. Another agreed and said that he was really good at it. Al (yet another irony) said, “No one goes down on my watch!”

We were all in good spirits as we started off again.

At one point we waited as a parade of protesting school children crossed our paths. The Chambala tea factory was not far. We continued for a short distance. We entered the town and stopped at an intersection. 

When the light turned green we turned left. The tea factory was only meters away on the left. I saw cyclists turning in.  I was only 6 meters away. And then - I was down.

My original title for this post was the Kerala Curse, and for good reason.

The riders behind me never saw what happened, and I don’t remember. All I know is that I was on my side trying to figure out why I felt like Bugs Bunny. But I couldn’t understand that if I was Bugs Bunny why my front teeth were pointing inward towards my throat.

There is a song form the 70’s that goes:

Everyone one is helpful, everyone is kind

On the road to Shambala

Everyone is lucky, everyone is so kind

On the road to Shambala

And it’s true.

I don’t remember much, but Al knows.  Riders in our group ran to my aid. They were very kind as I lay, apparently an incoherent heap, in the middle of the road. When it arrived, one of the group, a dentist (J) ,who was determined to help, got into the ambulance with me. Her husband supported Al.

What happened next is the stuff of slapstick movies, except it wasn’t funny.

It took ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive. I was lifted in. Al, the dentist and her husband crammed in as well. Then we were off, me fading in and out of coherence. I knew that something was wrong with my teeth and that I had pain in the back of my neck. The ride was short and according to Al, excruciating for me. Happily, I don’t recall. He says the vehicle had the same cement shock absorbers we experienced on the bus ride from the airport to Mysore six days earlier.

From what he remembers, he says the hospital was like the medical clinics one sees in documentaries on third world countries. I remember next to nothing.  Apparently, “J” was insistent that I should have a CT scan and my jaw x-rayed. What surprised her and the doctor was that at one point I became completely coherent and gave my own clinical assessment as if I were talking to a doctor about a patient I was seeing in the emergency room back home. It was as if a switch had been flipped. Then once the message was delivered, the switch flipped off and I was back wondering if I was Bugs Bunny. Al told me this. He saw me do it several times later.

Bad news. They either didn’t do x-rays on accident victims there – Al is sure that is what was said - or they didn’t have the equipment. No matter. I was loaded back into the ambulance and the four of us were bashing off to a hospital that had an x-ray department.

When we arrived, I was taken out of the ambulance and met by staff in the parking lot. Across the lot Al saw what he describes as a dilapidated looking shed with the word X-RAY in big, faded blue letters. The machine was broken. I had to move on.

Instead of being loaded back into the ambulance from hell, a smaller ambulance with a much smoother ride was called in. When the driver closed the door my knees had to be bent in order for me to fit. Al perched beside me on the spare tire that was stored on the floor near the top of the stretcher. There was no more room than that, and there was no air conditioning.

Several minutes later we were back at the Chambala tea factory where the ambulance stopped momentarily. The group, waiting at the side of the road, some of them in tears, waved good-bye.

The third hospital was guaranteed to have an x-ray department and CT scanner. It was 80 km away.

Whether from heat, or fatigue, or head injury Al says I kept trying to go to sleep. He says his sole focus was in keeping me awake. By the way, there was no paramedic, just the driver and our official tour leader up front.

Apparently, even if you are an ambulance, Dalrymple’s rule prevails. Al says that he was shocked by the number of buses, trucks, cars, motor cycles that either didn’t yield or continued straight toward the ambulance before passing with mere inches to spare.

Maybe they just didn’t take the siren seriously. Apparently it didn’t make any of impatient, intimidating sounds that send us veering out of the way in North America – the vehicle’s horn was louder. But in a cacophony of horns what’s one more? That’s Al’s impression anyway.

So there we were zigzagging through traffic, bumping over speed humps, my feet shoved up against the door. With each new thump electric shocks shot up my arms. The pain in my neck no better. That much I remember.

Al says the third hospital was a bright modern looking building. He says there was a policeman directing traffic. He saw hospital staff in white saris waiting outside beneath a big gold sign that said “Casualty”. This time, I was left in the ambulance while conversations took place. They did indeed have an x-ray department and CT scanner, however it was the doctor’s day off, but I could come back tomorrow. Good thing I was left in the ambulance!

And then my luck changed. The fourth and final hospital was only 1 km away on the opposite side of the road.

Looking back on it now, I have come to believe that, ridiculous as this hospital hopping was, I was being steered to where I really needed to be. Whatever seemed to be warning me about this trip earlier on was operating in a different way.

Everyone is lucky, everyone is so kind

On the road to Shambala

I was lucky.

Next posting: Allison Wonderland