Recovering

S. has taken off work and driven up to help me through my hernia repair surgery and the first few days of recovery.

At the hospital after they have put in my IV and after all the nurses leave and we are waiting, I say to S. in a quivering voice “I’m scared of dying.” My voice has an intensity that I’ve never known.

“But you’ll be dead and won’t even know,” she replies, “What exactly are you scared about?”

 I admire S. because she genuinely is not scared of dying.

“I still need to finish hiking the PCT,” I say earnestly, “I don’t want to die yet.”

I can feel the fear rising up in my throat and S. must see it on my face because she pulls out her iphone and opens up Gaia GPS and starts asking me questions about map layers and topo maps and trails. It calms me down and I can feel the hope creep back into my heart. And then they come in and wheel me into surgery.

***
I wake up with a giant wound in my core. I am completely helpless the first few days. I sleep more than I am awake. The surgeon told me there would be a lot of pain but I couldn't have imagined this. Like a mountain lion ripped out my insides.

Getting out of bed to go to the bathroom is a major endevor and I can barely manage it. My brain is a fog from the anasesia and then the pain killers. I hate not feeling like myself so I try to come off them too early and my body reels from the pain, shaking.

S. brings me ice packs and food to take with the pain meds, waking up at at midnight and again at 4 AM.  Then all day she is making food, bringing more ice, making reassuring sounds to calm my fears.

S.

It feels strange to be so vulnerable and completely dependent. But also strangely comforting to be completely taken care of too. I know there is some deep life lesson here. One that I think might change me, if I pay attention and don’t allow myself to forget.

***
After four days of not leaving the house, S. gently reminds me that the surgeon says I need to walk. So I ask if we can go watch the sunset at the park. Getting out of bed still requires a huge struggle. Once I am finally upright I look down at my feet and they are so far away. My leg hovers a few inches above the ground but I can’t will it up any further.  “S. can you put on my socks for me?” I whimper.

Up at the overlook, I take slow, unsteady steps on the pavement in the parking area while S. walks across the slickrock. Then I have to go back to rest in the truck and watch the the pink sunset glowing on the La Sals through the windshield while tears trickle down my cheek. It is the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen.

 (Even though you probably think I say that about every sunset.)

***
My supervisor brings over flowers and I position them in my room across from my bed. I can’t manage enough brainpower to watch a movie so when I am awake I stare at the red-orange blossoms and broad green leaves. Keeping my heavy eyelids open is difficult. Like postholing in deep snow with a backpack going uphill difficult.


After living such an active life, it is mind-boggling to not even be able to even put on pants and socks, or to walk the few steps from bed to bathroom without major effort. I am reminded of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Waking up to find you’ve been transformed into a body that is not your own. Only this is my body. I'm stuck with it and must learn basic movements all over again.

***
I finally attempt an excursions down the street. My legs wobble as I weave down the driveway. I clutch the incision. My gait is tentative, my legs don’t respond properly, I feel like I may topple over. Finally at the junction of the driveway and the sidewalk, I pause to rest, before turning up the street. Each step is a major endevour. I make it to the next-door neighbors driveway, then the next house.

The epic adventure of the sidewalk.

 I turn around and gaze back to my house and the distance seems impossibly far. Full concentration is required for every single step. Like when you are climbing a mountain and you’ve gone up a several thousand feet of switchbacks but you still have a few more hundred feed of slippery scree left to go. Only this is two houses down, not even two blocks. Using all my willpower, I make it back again up driveway then across the living room and finally collapse back into bed.

***

I think about how glad I am to live in an era of modern medicine, antibiotics, anesthesia, and good surgeons. I try to imagine what it would have been like to get a hernia 100 years ago or a thousand years ago.

I think about how fragile and vulnerable we are as humans. It makes me realize how much I used to believe that if I take good care of my body and exercise that I will have good health. But I know that isn’t true. Things still happen no matter how much we exercise and try our best to be healthy. The surgeon told me repeatedly that there was nothing I could have done to prevent getting this hernia. Nothing except maybe staying on the couch or maybe picking parents better (my dad had one too). This is just part of being alive.

Maybe the most important lesson I am learning is how caring the people around me are. S. driving down here to be with me. My coworkers checking in on me. Friends from across the country sending me cheerful, reassuring messages. Thank you all. It means everything.

Thank you S.

More information

Here is a great informational video about hernias. The video explains how there are different kinds of hernias and also what it's like to have one. (Mine was indirect inguinal). Skip all the WebMD articles they are too scary. This pretty much explains it all.

https://youtu.be/X8Ow1nlafOg
"Living With a Hernia" by "Weird Al" Yankovic

That favorite place

What is your favorite place?

Is yours far-away and exotic? Perhaps where you once went on a fabulous vacation?

Or is your favorite place just up the road? Somewhere you go to all the time, anytime you need to?

My favorite place is a quick drive away (but it feels remote enough).

 It's beautiful (but not so stunning that it makes it into all the guidebooks).

It's got the usual favorite elements-- water, trees, silence. Butterflies, bats, beavers too.

I like it because you can go there to see forever (well... at least all the way to the La Sals), letting the expansiveness wash over you, feeling connected to the bigger picture with distant landmarks on the horizon.

You can also go there and be surrounded by trees and living things and enveloped by comforting, glowing warm redrock.

This is what it looked like last spring

Green bursting forth

Then in early summer, when the green seemed to take over

And the mourning cloak caterpillars loved it too

In this spot, you can pop between the two worlds, from the expansive to the lush, up and down. The two best feelings in the world.

***

A favorite place must be versitile. Last winter, I liked to go here to run around on the rocks.

Continuous rocks like a racecourse

When I started working here, I decided I needed to build my confidence for scrambling on rocks (so that I wouldn’t show any hesitation or fear in front of my students.) So I started coming out each day. “I’m going to go run around on the rocks,” I’d tell my roommate as I headed out the door after work. I’d test myself bounding up steeper and steeper terrain. Seeing the effect of momentum and sheer willpower. Practicing my skills until I could bound like a gazelle.

Other times I've gone here to be still.

I learned that rocks can feel soft and inviting. So another time I even got a permit so I could stay the night.

Sometimes I’d bring my computer out when I needed to write. One time I was sitting and writing at the canyon bottom and wild turkeys walked by and didn’t even see me.

Another time I was perched on top of the rim and a great blue heron flying above traced the arc of the canyon. Not one twinge to reach for the camera. It was just for my eyes only. 

Great blue heron time

There was a week we brought our students out here for field trips.  "Over there a bat was circling just last night," I would point as we played our bat and moth game. "Look at these tracks, I think a beaver was just here, maybe if we are quiet we will see him." And they would gaze expectantly.

Beaver dam, but the water always stayed still

After lunch we would dig in the sand and feel how cool it is beneath the surface.

I hardly ever tell anyone about this place. But for the students, we tell them all to come back here and bring their parents to show them the beaver dam and the places the bats live. "This is a special secret place," we tell them, hoping they will treasure it forever.

***
On a dark, mid-January day, I come back here and run around on the rocks for a while. Then I curl up in my favorite spot in the embrace of the slickrock and cry.

The sun feels so far away

It is two days before I have to get surgery to repair a hernia that I got in my groin. The surgeon says that if I don't get it patched up, then it might strangulate which could be life-threatening if it happened when I am backpacking on a long trip. Plus it's starting to hurt.

The idea of getting surgery makes me scared. I'm scared about how painful it will be. I'm scared of the what-if's. What if I don't wake up. What if something happens and I'm not able to backpack again.

So I lay on the rocks and feel the coolness of the earth supporting me. The La Sals are covered in clouds off in the distance and wonder if I will ever again climb their peaks. I run my fingers along the sleeping branches of a cottonwood, knowing that no matter what happens to me, that this canyon will wake up in a few months, that the leaves will expand, that the caterpillars will hatch from eggs and munch away. And it is comforting to know this place will be here no matter what.

Snow on redrock

Almost exactly a year ago, I started working here at this park. During my first week, my supervisor sent me on a scavenger hunt to learn the major landmarks and basic natural history. I hiked all the trails and took pictures of common plants and tried to learn the names of each rock layer.

Now, a year later, I'm still finding new spots to explore. Maybe that's why I love this place so much. There is always something new and surprising. A treasure trove for the inexhaustibly curious.

Last night there was a dusting of snow, maybe an inch. It transformed familiar landscapes and made the redrock even more mesmerizing.

Foggy morning

I used to think that the desert was stark and devoid of life. But now I know you just need to know where and how to look.

Cottonwoods

What a story all these tracks in the snow tell! Not just cottontails, but foxes or coyotes, and perhaps a bobcat. I wish I could see all these animals.

Desert cottontail

I make a few turns and end up somewhere I've been before. It was my first week of work and my new coworker came along to explore too. It was then that I learned what wonderful people I got to work with. Which is what makes all the difference in the world.

That one place I've been before, a year ago. Snow has transformed it.

Now, some of those dear friends are scattered across the country and I miss them with all my heart.

Just one set of tracks here

Today, I follow washes and make a few turns that I've never made before.

Scrambling up to get some perspective

Canyon walls get steeper

Snow gets deeper

Rocks under snow make footing tricky

More tree friends

Approaching the end of the canyon

The canyon gets even more narrow and the boulders get bigger and then there is a bit of scrambling and then bushwhacking through the mahonia which whacks back with prickery leaves. Finally steep walls are all around. There is a drip drip drip at the pour-off high above. Below, an ice skating rink and a tower of fallen icicles.

Icicles

I turn around and retrace my steps. The light has that soft, wintery feel that compliments the redrock especially well.

La Sals peaking through

Dance of shadows

I stop by the overlook to watch the La Sals start to glow. Tourists pull in, get out of the cars, take a few pictures, then leave. I want to stay here forever. This feels more like home than anywhere I've ever been.

I am grateful that I get to spend some more time here. Each day, every day, to be savored.