CHAPTER THENTY
It was another five weeks of lost time and hopes. When I got home, I found an emotional disaster.
Sabrina was used to having her way with her daddy, and in some ways, she resented my coming home. She'd been the mama these five weeks, and now I was back to undermine her position. I had a hard time reestablishing positions. She couldn't accept no from me. Old junky was home, interfering with her routine. She felt I was an outsider who visited occasionally, and she resented it.
There were more trips to Dr. Asin's office, more shots, dope, and heartaches. Dr. Asin scheduled me for an enucleation.
The eye was useless, but I couldn't accept losing it completely. The day of the surgery came. Dr. Asin said the eye removal might not end the pain.
My hopes pushed me forward. I wanted to see my eyeball before they sent it to the laboratory.
I was so drugged, I couldn't feel any pain, but I wasn't asleep. I heard everything they said in the operating room, and saw the shadows of the scalpels, tweezers and needles coming at me. I didn't care. I felt I wasn't in my body, I was observing the procedure being done on somebody else.
The little oxygen tubes moved away from my nostrils, and I was suffocating. I moved my head and tried to untie myself.
Dr. Asin fussed at me. "How can I work if you keep jerking? I've got scar tissue back here, and it isn't easy to remove. Calm down, it'll be over soon."
The last few minutes of surgery were the longest of my life. Finally, they removed the sterile packing covering my nose and mouth.
"I see why you couldn't breathe. Your oxygen hose moved off your nostrils." He put the eye in gauze and showed it to me.
I was disappointed. I expected it to be much bigger. Thank God, they got me off the torture table. I was doing so well, and was so awake, I was taken directly to my room.
Before the evening ended, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I lifted my bandage to see the wound. I was surprised. There was redness and swelling, but the eyelid was closed. I tried to open it, but couldn't. It was paralyzed. I lowered the bandage and went to bed.
Frank and Sabrina visited me morning and evening. I was released the fourth day after surgery. My family treated me like a cripple. "Mama, you can't do this, you can't do that."
There were things to be done. They didn't want me doing anything, yet they wouldn't help. I hated it.
Two days later, Sabrina and Frank went to a school meeting. When they left I called Horace. I needed to drive a car right away, before the fear nabbed me and erased my self-confidence. Frank was afraid to let me drive, because I might injure myself.
Horace handed me his car keys. I was shaky at first, but I calmed down and we drove downtown for coffee and pie. I knew if I didn't drive then, I'd never drive again. I did it, and I was proud.
We received a note from the Social Security Office giving us a court date. We asked our lawyer to accompany us and be our speaker. The meeting lasted forty-five minutes. I was extremely nervous. They recorded everything we said.
When the meeting ended, the judge said he'd give us a judgment in fifteen days. We returned home with high hopes.
The lawyer called me and said we won the case, but it would be about fifteen days before we received the written notice.
God, I was hoping something good would happen. We were already one month behind on the mortgage, and we'd accumulated a pile of bills which wouldn't fit into our potbelly stove.
People think military hospitals are free, but they aren't. They're extremely economical, but when I stayed in them, I received bills in the thousand dollar range.
The lawsuit was still in limbo, awaiting a definite medical report. Meanwhile, the lawyers took depositions from different people and doctors.
The wound healed well the first few days, but infection attacked the eyelid and socket. Removing the eye wasn't the answer. I still had the same pain behind the orbit, and I felt pressure building.
I went to Dr. Asin daily. The swelling increased into the cheek-bone and forehead. Soon, I was back in the hospital for two weeks, being treated with antibiotics and pain shots. I felt something growing behind my socket, but all the tests were still negative.
"Infection of unknown etiology," the doctors said.
I broke out terribly on the right side of my face. Dr. Asin thought it was an allergy to Tolwin. He called in a dermatologist who said it wasn't allergy, but he didn't know what it was.
The dermatologist recommended a biopsy. "We need to take a big hunk of flesh and run it through different tests to see if we can pinpoint the infection," I heard them say. They left the room.
I envisioned myself hanging up-side down, tied like a pig, with a butcher removing a big hunk of meat from my face with a big knife. That hunk of flesh expression disturbed me terribly. I grew tired of hearing unknown etiology. If I kept going like this, I'd become an unknown.
Dr. Asin made an appointment with another ophthalmologist, Dr. Bank who was the oldest and most reputable in Montgomery.
Dr. Bank thought my body was rejecting the Iowa implant put into my socket after the enucleation. "Mrs. Hartley, this implant needs to be removed soon. I'll recommend it to your doctor."
Dr. Asin didn't want to perform the surgery, so he sent me to the Eye Foundation Clinic in Birmingham. They kept me overnight. The flesh removed from the eye, was so minute, it was impossible to tell where the eyelid had been touched.
My eyehole smelled. The smell of rotted flesh kept my stomach upset constantly. The pain got so bad, no matter how many injections of Demerol or Tolwin they gave me, the relief didn't last long.
The biology results came back, "Etiology unknown."
It cost another thousand dollars to hear unknown again.
I returned to Dr. Bank and asked him to remove the implant.
"Mrs. Hartley, you'll have to go back to the source."
"And where would the source be, Dr. Bank?"
"Dr. Asin, of course. I'm sorry, there's nothing more I can do for you.
I wondered what changed his mind so drastically.
I called the doctor at the Eye Foundation Clinic, to see if he'd remove the implant. His answer was the same. I couldn't live like this any longer.
Horace picked me up one morning at eight-thirty to take me to the office. I was in too much pain to work. I dialed Dr. Asin's number and a secretary answered.
"Mrs. Hartley, I'm sorry, but he isn't here. He had emergency room duties last night." I called his home, because I needed care immediately.
"Hello, Dr. Asin residence."
"May I speak to Dr. Asin, please?"
"Hi, Tina, how are you doing? his wife asked pleasantly.
Not worth a damn right now, and I need to speak to your husband."
"I'm sorry; he's holding the baby right now."
"Damn it, tell him to put the brat down and come to the phone. This is an emergency."
He answered the phone, and I heard his wife fussing in the background. "What's wrong, Tina?" he asked.
"I'll tell you what's wrong. I've got gangrene in my socket, and I need something done immediately."
He got a little excited. "Come on, that's not true. I never smelled gangrene on you."
"You might not smell it, but its right above my nose and the smell is making me sick. It hurts like hell and the orbit is turning blue. Dr. Banks and the other doctor, who did the biopsy, said you were the only one who could help me. What the hell's going on? Why are these doctors refusing to help?"
"Well, Tina, I called to advise them about your lawsuits."
"Oh yeah? What gave you the right to present me as the suing kind?"
"You have a lawsuit pending, don't you?"
"Yes, and so would you if your wife was involved in an accident. Wouldn't you?
"Yes, but your case is different!"
"Why, because it isn't your case? You mean I'm not sick? I'm just trying to get money from somebody, right?"
"I didn't say that."
"You might as well have. I expect you to come to the emergency room, and do something about this rotten thing in my head."
"I'm sorry, Tina. I'll be there."
Horace told me I was too rude. "Tina, you catch flies with honey, not with a whip."
"I'm afraid my honey has run out, Horace," I said. "Why don't you take me to the emergency room, I'll call Frank to meet us there."
"Okay, let's go."
Dr. Asin met us. We followed him into his office. He examined my eye closely. "You're right, Tina, the implant needs to be removed immediately. If you want, I'll put you to sleep for it."
"No, never mind putting me to sleep, do it right now."
He got his tools and probed, pulled and pushed. I bit my lips to keep from screaming. Blood ran down my face. He finally grabbed the implant and pulled it out. I felt instant relief.
He meticulously cleaned the hole, and stuffed it with antibiotic-treated gauze. "Come back first thing tomorrow morning." He said.
I went to the hospital every day so he could check the orbit and make sure the infection wasn't spreading.
The lawyer called to discuss a possible settlement. The amount offered was just enough to pay our debts and break even. Frank wanted to accept it, so we'd have one less worry. I agreed, hoping, with the lawsuit settled, the doctors would concentrate on my illness. The antibiotic treatment stopped the fevers, but the socket was still red.
Being an outpatient, I enjoyed my family and my house a little. The house needed a thorough cleaning. I was tired of tasteless hospital food and canned vegetables, so we planned a garden.
Frank hired a boy to break the ground with a tiller. He and I managed from there. I could only work fifteen or twenty minutes, or I'd faint. Whatever grew in my head felt like a big watermelon. I couldn't make any sudden movements or tolerate sudden noises. At times, I couldn't talk because my voice magnified in my head and make me dizzy.
After weeding and fertilizing, we planted five different vegetables and a few tomato plants. I played with the garden every day. When the seeds sprouted, I watched the miracle of life. I was convinced there could still be a miracle which would heal me.
The doctors pampered my socket, so I wouldn't get infected again.
We staked the tomatoes one hot afternoon. When I bent over and straightened up, a whiff of rotten flesh filled my nostrils. I asked Frank to see if we had a dead animal in the bushes. He searched the yard but couldn't find anything. We decided it was the fertilizer, evaporating after the rain. Frank couldn't smell it.
The following night was rough for me, but I thought I probably overdid my gardening. During the night, I smelled rotten flesh. I checked the entire room to see if Bad Check, the cat, had left a lizard, mouse or whatever lying around. Bad Check usually brought his prey to show off his hunting prowess. He'd leave it there for us to admire, and get angry if we threw it out. I couldn't find anything.
When I saw Dr. Asin, I told him my nose was going bad, because I smelled rotten meat, everywhere I went. He cleaned the eye, smelled the old gauze, sniffed the eye, and y face. "Tina, I don't smell anything," he said.
Although I was doped up from my pain pills, I couldn't shake the awful smell, which seemed stronger every time I moved my head. I asked everybody, who visited, to stand near me, and see if they smelled anything peculiar.
Nobody smelled it. Maybe they were being polite. After all, is not everyday that somebody asks you "Do I smell bad?" or "Do I stink?" It's even less common for somebody to answer. "Yes, you do." Dr. Asin mentioned necrotic tissue, which meant gangrene.
Soon it was luggage-packing time, with a return to Walter Reed. At least this time, I walked straight. Nature solved that problem for me.
I discovered they finished the new hospital in Washington. The idea of a new, fresh-smelling place, was more cheerful.
Chapters one-twenty in a file pdf to download.