What’s On Your Wall?

by Ti Conkle

January 18, 2010

It’s been six years and when I stand up too quickly, it feels like yesterday. Cantering a gorgeous, spirited Quarab through fields flecked with fallen leaves, marveling at the sound and scent of saddle leather.

He was an eight year old gelding, a Quarter/Arabian blend named Cinnamon Twist and his owner was pretty sure he hadn’t been saddled for more than two years. Observing him from the fence rail of his corral, I watched him boss around even the oldest, bossiest mare. He had attitude in spades. My friend, Deb, had asked me to take a look and see what I could do with him. I had a history of gentling finicky Appaloosas and had never met a horse I didn’t like.

We started slow and easy, with small talk and handfuls of alfalfa grass and progressed to easing a halter over suspicious ears, and leading him in wide circles within the confines of the round pen. His gait was a beauty. Clean, long lines and a powerful stride that simply ate up the ground… Within just a couple of weeks, he was accepting a saddle and seemed to be recalling everything he had ever learned about tolerating humans (the apple slices probably didn’t hurt my cause).

Fast forward to the lovely autumn day… that I will always remember as the FALL of 2003…

Cinnamon Twist and I had spent 45 minutes working through paces in the round pen, and he was behaving beautifully. A need to escape confinement prevailed… I decided that it was time to take him out in the open fields. Deb saddled her horse and led the way down miles of quiet trails, opening to grassy fields. CT quietly took his place behind the lead horse and responded quickly to leg, voice and rein commands. I was thrilled. Overjoyed to be riding, really riding, again- as opposed to slogging through training commands between fence posts.

It happened so fast that at first I wasn’t even certain which end was up. Out of nowhere, a dog musher and team came streaking through the field, from the woods. The dogs caught the scent of the horses and went into full cry, running straight toward us. CT actually lost his mind, right on the spot. He bucked. He sun-fished. He reared. He post-holed. He managed to do several at once. And took the bit in his teeth… and ran. Long after the dogs had vanished, barking and howling, back into the woods… CT was a ball of exploding venom. Time seemed to stand still, and then, so did he. Abruptly. From a dead run to a complete stop-and-buck. My “Velcro” came loose and over his head I went. With one foot still secured in the stirrup, I sailed past his head and heard the melon-pop of my cranium cracking the ground. And then he was dragging me. By one foot. In an ever-tightening circle. Determined to be rid of the alien source of his suffering, he jerked and reared and cut me loose with such force that I’m pretty sure my leg bounced off my shoulder. I didn’t have time to contemplate, because he wasn’t done. The next thing I remember, grinding, searing, crushing pain coursed through my entire lower body. CT had come back around and actually stomped my ass. Crushed my sacroiliac joint and fractured my pelvis, too. Instinct drove to me to curl up in a fetal position, but the only thing I could move was my arms. I covered my neck and head and lay still. Silent. Black waves dancing in front of my eyes. He was circling back. Bloodshot eyes, ears pinned back, he was hell-bent on finishing the job.

I closed my eyes. I just didn’t have what it took to watch myself getting killed. I heard a rush of hooves, an angry voice, the crack of leather and bodies colliding. Deb had run her horse straight into CT, knocking him off balance, and driving him away from where I lay. I heard him fade into the field, running like he was possessed. And all went black and quiet.

When I opened my eyes, I was alone in the field. Nothing but sun and sky and grass and dirt, tilting, topsy-turvy and out of order. I wasn’t moving, and yet the whole world was rushing by. I couldn’t move my legs. Eventually, the medics came and with them a rush of backboard, straps, chocks and a gurney… I had worked as a medic, but never had need to call an ambulance. It was novel, being the one with the blood pressure monitor automatically inflating on my arm, the pulse oximeter beeping, the IV drip, drip, dripping. I kept wanting to laugh. But no sound came out.

Acronyms bounced me through the corridors of the ER: xrays, MRI, CT scans… the verdict came in on wings of muscle relaxants and pain killers. Pelvic fracture 2mm from my spine… “disrupted” (crushed) SI joint, internal bleeding, concussion… and worst of all, hospital-grade coffee. Not that I was allowed to have any. The great surgery debate was raging: one of the doctors wanted to operate immediately to pin the whole mess back together. Another argued that I was “stabilizing” and wanted to wait until some of the swelling subsided. Hours came and went in a drug-induced haze, occasionally illuminated by nauseating pain. The kind that tells you that you’re still alive. The moment that I recognized pain in my legs, I cried with relief. The swelling and the fracture so near the spinal cord had caused temporary paralysis, it seemed.

The next 20 weeks are mercifully blurred in my memory. I had started a new job only three months prior to the accident and had only a few days of paid leave available. Taking time off without pay would jeopardize my health insurance. I returned to work, in a wheelchair, unable to stand or walk. I refused surgery, on the grounds that the recovery time would require even more time away from work and the four college classes I was taking at night. Yep, I had signed up for a full semester of classes and was a month into the school year… in a wheelchair… in Alaska… with a three year old child to care for.

I quickly found that most things presumed to be “handicap accessible” are, in fact, a joke. Ever tried carrying school books, wheeling your chair through un-shoveled, snowy parking lots- up an icy ramp- only to try to figure out how to open a door that swings OUT?? Yeah… that was almost as fun as trying to wheel my chair through cubicle-world where I was working as a file clerk in a government office, supporting a staff of twelve case workers whose sole purpose in life was to generate paper files and throw them randomly on the floor. For me to pick up. And sort. From a wheelchair. Some of them even thought it was funny.
Somehow, I powered through. Sleeping in a recliner, at a 45 degree angle, was the only way to take the pressure off the screaming nerve endings in crushed sciatic nerve #1. After twelve weeks with the beast I had come to know as “The Chair”, I progressed to a walker. Ah, shuffle and slide. The goodness of standing erect again, sort of. Mercifully, I continued to heal. The doctor shrugged when I suggested that I wanted to pursue alternative medicine in lieu of the painkiller cocktail he had prescribed. The thought of medicating my life away seemed appealing, but a rather short term solution to a long term problem. I enrolled in physical therapy. Ground my teeth through massage therapy to restore circulation… felt like it was destroying my sanity, really. Went back for a six month check up… and the doctor x-rayed and hemmed and hawed and said, “Well, you’ll never carry a backpack again. Your structure just won’t take that kind of abuse. You might want to look at cycling on a recumbent bike or maybe power walking. And no more bench pressing, squatting, leg presses or running. Actually, no more sports at all. If you fall, even once, you risk a fracture that could result in permanent paralysis.”

I listened. I think I even heard and remembered the words. I inscribed them on my mind’s wall. And I shuffled to the gym. With my cane. Peddled a recumbent bike, put myself through physical therapy, and waited for the interminable winter to end. When winter ended, I put on a pack and hiked the Gold Mint Trail in Hatcher Pass. Past the mountain hut, past the tarn and the boulder field and sat at the top of the water fall… the source of Archangel Creek… and looked down the valley. For five days, I climbed and hiked and explored. Cautiously at first, then with abandon. There was pain- dull and insistent and constant, with occasional pangs like glass shards on cement. There was a sense of peace unlike anything I had ever experienced.

As to the doctor’s words? Next to their inscription on the wall (mostly brick) in my head, I’ve scratched some dates. My first 10k race. Hiking the Chilkoot Trail in Southeast Alaska. 100k bike races. Several of them. Hiking the Kalalau Trail in Kauai. Climbing in the Alaska Range on the Pika Glacier. Summiting Mt. Rainier.

It has been six years, and when I stand up too quickly it feels like yesterday.

–
Ti Conkle
is here,
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