I Tried Not To Cry. Michael Beattie
Dad was able to deal with this while ailing himself. His diabetes required the removal of a toe on his foot prior to this, which never seemed to heal very well. They wanted to cut more of his foot off to prevent it from spreading. His response was “No, they’re done cutting on me. I’m done.” “But you must promise to not put Mom in a home,” he insisted. He just wanted to live long enough to care for Mom. My sister and I made that promise and slowly watched him die a painful death from the gangrene, which eventually took him, as they tried to keep him comfortable with morphine-type drugs. Finally, in hospice he lasted three days.
“Where is he?” Mom asked. “Who, Mom?” She pointed to the chair that my Dad sat in for so many years in the living room across from her. “He’s in the hospital, Mom.” “Oh,” she said. I’m not sure if telling her that Dad passed away would register or not. “Where’s that guy that sits in the chair?” “He’s in the hospital, Mom.” “Oh,” she said. All day long, day after day, night after night. I blended ice cream and a nutrition drink in a blender for her food, as the tumors were cutting into her ability to swallow. She readily accepted that through a straw. “God, please take her,” I begged each night as we lay in bed. “You okay?” she asked me. “Yes, I’m okay, Mom.” Always a caring person who went out of her way to care for others, here she was worried about me, as she suffered through her final days. “You okay?” she asked. I think she thought I was her husband lying next to her. I guess I’ll never know.
My poor sister had to watch her gasp for her last breath of air, as the suffering finally came to an end while in her care. The tumors had basically shut off her airway. “No, I’m not okay, Mom.”
Shortly after we had a combined service for my parents in the stone church in Eagleville where they were married, my homeless brother Scott came to live with me. I set up a bed in my living room area and did my best to take care of him while he waited to die of liver failure. It was a slow, horrible way to die, and a most unpleasant sight to observe. A few months later, my other brother Edward also died of liver failure. Both of them died from years of drug and alcohol addiction. It was a tough year by any standards. After taking care of all the post-death affairs I had placed on me, my back was slowly starting to deteriorate once again. Continuing to hike as a stress relief mechanism, I endured the pain and tried to enjoy the hikes. It wasn’t long before I was back to the “sitting down as much as possible” game; my damn back was bad again!
This time I didn’t wait. I made an appointment to see my neurosurgeon in hopes that it might be a simple micro touch-up surgery, or something not as complicated as my last bout. My first idea was the pain was possibly coming from my hips, due to over-hiking, as the pain seemed to radiate out from that area. Well, after another MRI, I was floored once again when the neurosurgeon told me I had a condition called spondylolisthesis of the lower spinal vertebrate. He began to explain to me what needed to be done to try and correct it, and I couldn’t believe he was talking to me. This can’t be me! Inserting steel rods and screws into my vertebrate and lifting them apart so a bone fusion could be done to repair what was left of the nearly deteriorated discs. What are you talking about? I’m still feeling pretty good after all I’ve been through, and now this? I was in a state of disbelief, shocked!
My neurosurgeon stated that he didn’t perform this type of procedure but only assists in them, and refered me to a Dr. Krompinger of the Hartford Orthopedic Department. He stated that in his opinion he was the best man for the job. I was in total disbelief of this whole story! Being in shock, I don’t remember driving home that afternoon. I didn’t think I could make it through another major surgery by myself. At my visit to Dr. Krompinger’s office, I brought along my MRI results. He agreed with my neurosurgeon that a multiple-level fusion of my L4-L5-S1 was badly needed and continued on to explain the procedure. I had just recovered from a major shoulder operation where three screws had to be used to reattach severed tendons. And just prior to that, I had repairs done to my other shoulder as well, not to mention that both of my bicep tendons were detached and had to be severed. I was still going through physical therapy for all that, and now this? I made plans for yet another surgery with my apprentice at the shop, as my business was slowly deteriorating. So, it was yet another ride by my apprentice to the hospital!
The surgery went as planned, and the surgeon said he was successful in installing four rods and six screws in my lower back. Dr. Krompinger took bone from my hip to create a fusion in place of my deteriorated discs, which he thinks went well. I felt like I had been run over by a bus when I came out of recovery. This was a painful recovery. After three days in the hospital, and after I could walk again with the aid of a walker, I was sent home to basically care for myself, although I lied and told them I had someone to care for me. It turned out to be a tough recovery as I had to try and get my full back brace on and off by myself. There was no physical therapy prescribed, as the doctor told me to just walk as much as I could. I had to wear the back brace for three months, which I gladly did as the pain was so much lesser. Being very cautious, I started working my way back into hiking again. Shortly after the brace was shed and with Dr. Krompinger’s okay, my son Shawn (now out of the Navy) and I hiked to the summit of Mount Washington once again with a full backpack. This old man was back in action again, and it was good to have my son home. Dr. Krompinger, I love you!
Chapter 2
Was I Blind?
A couple of years passed after that spinal fusion surgery, and retirement was on my mind, as I was turning sixty-five and yearned to travel the United States. My plan would be to sightsee as well as hike as many mountains as my health would allow. I mended very well, but still had to be cautious about twisting and lifting any weights, and it would be like that the rest of my life. After turning over my business to my senior employee, I got myself on Social Security and Medicare, and then began making plans for travel.
Much research went into my travel plans, and a decision was made to buy an older camper to be used as my home on wheels for the one-year planned excursion around the United States. After plans were made for my house to be lived in while I was gone, Suzanne, my new partner, and myself departed eastern Connecticut on May of 2014 for parts unknown. It would be an adventure that would take a year of visiting national parks, state parks, provincial parks, and many mountains in both the USA and parts of Canada. We started off with easy hikes as I tried to condition Sue for longer, more extreme hiking, which would come at a later time. The camper served us well as a home base as we went from East Coast to West Coast and everywhere in between. Some major camper repairs left me stranded in the Las Vegas area for a month, at which time Sue returned home, as I stayed behind waiting for the repairs to be completed. While Sue tended to business at home, I continued on to do more extensive hiking. The Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, desert hikes as well as high-peak hikes all across the area. I got to the point that my knee braces were no longer needed, and life was good! Sue rejoined me in Florida, and we continued to hike our way up the East Coast on our way back to Connecticut.
While hiking in the warmer climate areas of the country, I couldn’t help but notice the sheer number of people holding signs begging for food, with a great deal of them claiming to be veterans. My first opinion of these types of citizens was that they were just lazy. I had to start working at a very young age if I wanted anything, and I couldn’t understand why these people just didn’t get a job. I would mostly turn my head away from these individuals as if I didn’t see them. After all, I know how both of my brothers ended up being homeless, drugs. Sometimes it’s hard to feel sorry for those who go down the wrong road, and in my brothers’ cases, it was their own doing, and there was nothing I or my family members could do to right the wrong, even though we tried everything we knew. They became not only a mental burden on us all, but they also wore us down financially.
One day while traveling alone through a small town in New Mexico, I stopped to get a coffee at a McDonald’s restaurant, as I have a weakness for strong coffee. As I went to enter the doorway, I couldn’t help but notice a man who was sitting against the building with a sign next to him that read he was a homeless veteran and would work for food. His head was sort of down between his legs as he sat there motionless. Something struck a nerve with me about this man, possibly because he appeared to be around my age. I went inside and decided to order the man a couple of burgers along with my coffee. When I