It's Been Ten Years ...and a day or two!
Barely
Back, ten years ago, on a Sunday morning, I was on the ice, playing a game of hockey. I'm no pro, and was keeping up in my town league. You know Joe and Jane 6 pack, playing at night or early mornings. I was skating back on defense, and the younger guy, who was clearly our league's MVP, was blowing by me. I made some moves, and ended up not falling but, between the spinning and flailing and generally looking like a newborn Giraffe, with deadly ice skates, I might as well have fallen.
Junior blows around me and ends up scoring. I was sore, and clearly twisted something. Some muscle. Who knows. It had a Latin name, but pretty sure, it wasn't important for our purposes. We lost the game... also doesn't matter.
Later that day, I was on the couch, watching TV. I stood up, and much of what happened next is pieced together from my kids' and my wife's memory, and my very spotty memory. I screamed, that much everyone agrees on. I called out for my oldest daughter. She called my wife and someone called 911.
EMT's arrive and pack me into the ambulance. Between the responding EMT's, my limited ability to answer questions and some words from my wife, they all assumed I ahd some sort of massive Kidney stones, or something.
I remember the ambulance ride. The driver swerved, left and right, and managed to find every pot hole. I know the ride took forever, with me fading and waking from passing out. The pain was obscene. As I say, it took forever, mainly, because, I believe the driver had some route mapped where he drove towns and towns away to find each extra pothole he could.
Off we drove and but for a few coincidences, I would be dead.
First, there was an accident ahead and it blocked a route into downtown, and any of the larger, more renowned medical hospitals in Boston. They diverted to a smaller teaching hospital in the suburbs.
Second, the ER doc on duty served in Vietnam, during the war, and was used to certain symptoms, and he immediately said, 'No... not kidney stones' On the table I went, sliced me, stem to stern, along my breast bone and put me on my side. Basically, a glorified garden hose, flushing me. Her recognized in me, similarities to gut shot soldiers in the jungle. Turns out, he was right, I tore my colon. He cleaned as best he could, and, he flushed, for good half hour, he says.
Oh, and that twisty, turny, hellish non-fall? It saved my life.
Seems, that fall? Well, I had a massive tumor in my colon, and the fall caused my very tumor penetrated, weakened insides to weaken even further. The merest act of standing put enough pressure on my gizzards, to rip, and tear me to shreds, inside.
So, what does all this have to do with Broken Promises?
Well, for a million reasons, I haven't been back on the ice, since that fateful day. I did however, make a promise, that one day, I would get back on the ice. I spent two years, with chemotherapy, killing so much inside me. And next up, even worse, another broken dream... time in radiation.
Recovery was hell. The treatments in particular, chemotherapy, surgeries, and the dreaded radiation. My oncology doc wasn't entirely optimistic. After all, I was shredded, and a disaster. The nastiness was spread everywhere, and who knows what else? So, I made a promise if... to myself, that, if...
If I could, and was around, I would get back on the ice. Over time, it became a promise I would get back on the ice January 8th. That ice. That day. 10 years later.
Well, it... didn't happen. I had sharpened my skates, and yesterday, I drove to that rink. And lo, it was closed for a repair issue. And again, today, another drive and repairs not complete.
I came home, yesterday, very upset. I mean irrational, I get it, but still, upset. As I drove home today, I started upset and then I realized... Hey? While in treatments, how many times did you see chairs go vacant? How many of the people you met going through this at the same time, simply get more frail and then, fail to appear one morning?
Yep, Broken Promises... but... fuck that! I am here today, against the odds, and typing this out, when, by all accounts, I was not expected to make it that first week, never mind 10 years.. And frankly, that brings a smile. And laughs, too... but that's something that never left me.
But, there's always tomorrow... I will get back on that ice!
Be Good To Each Other
Photos above Copyright by Bluefin Studios
