4 THE CREEPING DEATH

4 THE CREEPING DEATH

A concerned doctor smeared plaster down the length of Nita's body, encasing her in a cast from hips down, effectively immobilizing her. The foot of the bed was elevated three feet, tilting her sharply. Then she was weighted with fifteen-pound ingots, to realign her damaged spine. The orthopaedic specialist Dr. Shanmugangham (or Dr. Shan as he was conveniently called) checked her every day. "Three weeks," he assured her, "and you will be all right."

Mrs. Edwards spent day after day by her daughter's bedside. She knew that Nita loved shrimp, so she took to feeding them to her one at a time. Nita could feel the fish travel upward along the crazy tilt of her body, to her stomach, but somehow the fun of munching shrimp soon disappeared.

Hospital aides sponged her every day, dressed her and undressed her, and dressed her again. Each exercise was doubly hard for Nita: each movement sent stabs of pain through her - but it was the incessant invasions of her privacy that rubbed her raw. The daughter of the late magistrate Edwards had never been a hospital patient before, and she had certainly never used a bedpan. Now her biological functions were observed and clocked and analyzed hour by hour. Again and again, Nita's pride was poked and punctured by the crass inquisitions of cold medical science.

Three weeks came and went. Dr. Shan continued his rounds, checking in faithfully every day and talking in hopeful terms.

Six weeks came and went. Dr. Shan kept visiting, but he said less.

More weights were added to the traction unit.

Nine weeks came and went. Dr. Shan missed a day occasionally.

There was no improvement.

Eventually forty-five pounds of weights pulled down on Nita's limbs.

"When am I going back to school?" she asked many times. "I still have finals to take, and they're going to select the hockey team without me if I don't get a move on!"

Beside her bed she kept a stack of fat psychology books. Every day she had her private attendant - a Buddhist girl her mother had hired - stand one of them up in front of her, just within reach of her fingers so she could turn the pages.

She also began exploring the Bible as never before, discovering the Old Testament virtually for the first time. "God is our refuge and strength," she read again and again from Psalm 46:1, "a very present help in trouble."

"Don't study so hard," the doctors would say as they passed by.

"The angle is bad," her mother warned. "You'll hurt your eyes."

Still Nita put in dozens of hours studying, eager to get out of "this stupid bed," determined to score well on tests she would never take ... dreaming of winning hockey games she would never play.

Week plodded after week, fading into a mist of timelessness. A kidney infection took hold in Nita's body, then a urinary tract infection. Elimination became painful, and she began taking medication for each new condition.

Every day she tried to wriggle her toes. She could see them down there, poking through the plaster - but they didn't move at all.

"It's just because of the traction," the doctor insisted. "You'll be all right."

Nita knew that soon the family could inevitably begin thinking of her as a commodity. This fear was amplified when they decided she could get better care in a general ward than in her private ward, because of the more consistent traffic of medical personnel - so she was moved. Hospital policy dictated that private ward patients could have their own linens - Nita's pillow case featured a pussy cat that she was very fond of - but general ward patients could not. The family had to pull strings to get an exception for Nita. By the weight of the Edwards name, and because several of the medical personnel at the hospital were relatives, she got to keep her pussy cat.

The move to the general ward also meant giving up one's private bedpan in favour of the "trolley", a cabinetlike unit stacked with a number of bedpans. It was rolled in periodically for the use of everyone on the ward. Nita was horrified. She cringed at the concept of a dozen bladders being forced to empty themselves on the same schedule, and was aghast at the corruption on the individual bedpans on the trolley. She came to call it "the gallows." But again, her prominent family connections saved her from it. The nun in charge of the ward gave her a brand-new sterilized bedpan, which she could simply turn over to the trolley each time it came around. Nita was still nauseated by the procedure, humiliated by the necessity of a bedpan in the first place!

Nita had no idea how little ground she had actually covered, nor that the worst was yet to come.

She had tremendous confidence in her doctors. After all, she came from a long line of medical people - even her mother was a top surgical nurse - and she knew she was in the competent hands of an orthopaedic gold medallist from London. All the doctors seemed keenly interested in her progress, and they were fond of telling her which of her relatives had called after hours the night before to check in on her. When a new nurse joined the staff, one of her first questions was, "Who's this Edwards in the corner that all the doctors seem so concerned about?"

And yet there were gaffes by the hospital staff. One night Nita was snapped out of her sleep by an incredible stabbing pain in her spine. The tension wire on her traction unit had broken - the technician who hooked it up had made an error - and her spine had absorbed the sudden shock.

No other traction unit on the ward ever failed, but Nita's snapped twice more. Each time she screamed with the pain.

"God!" she finally cried out in anguish after the third mistake. "Do you really care?"

Progress failed to occur. There were interminable gruelling sessions, as the medical people X-rayed and tested and counter-tested, squinting and sighing and "waiting and seeing."

But there was no improvement.

"God! Do you realise I'm suffering here in this bed?"

A vague new sensation crept in under the plaster one day, and Nita began to complain of a tingling sensation in her toes. The doctors peeled away a little of the plaster and pricked the bottom of her feet with a pin. No response. They pricked the toes, but there was no feeling. Nita's eyes searched the doctor's faces, but she saw no trace of hope.

Day after day, the pricking tests were repeated. After a time, Nita stopped watching their faces and just looked away instead. She felt distinctly like a joint being carved and sliced without care or concern, and she could not bear to look at the doctors directly without feeling angry. Her feet bled, soiling the sheets and discolouring the plaster. Nita never felt a thing, except in her heart. There, it hurt.

"God! Do you remember me?"

Three-and-a half months after her arrival at the hospital, the doctors decided that traction was not helping. The plaster could come off. Nita rejoiced. She imagined how wonderful it would feel to move her feet around again, to flex her legs and stretch and kick and exercise those long-wasted running muscles.

Aides cracked off the plaster in tiny bits. Underneath was the original sticky adhesive, which they washed off with alcohol. Nita could see that her once-brown legs were now a sickly grey-blue.

"Can I move now?" she asked them anxiously.

"Not yet," one of them said. "We have to lower your feet."

They eased the foot of the bed back down to floor level and Nita could feel the circulation of her blood swimming back down into her legs. After three-and-a-half months her body had adjusted to the awkward upside-down tilt, and now she felt a wave of nausea wash over her. Everything began to look grey, her head felt groggy ... and she blacked out.

When she woke up, she was instantly alert. Immediately she tried to lift her knees. They would not move. She tried to wiggle her toes. They lay limp.

"Why can't I move my legs?" Nita asked the nurses around her.

"Oh, you'll be all right," one of them assured her. "We have just removed the plaster."

Nita tried again - but nothing.

"The feeling will come back," another nurse told her soothingly. "It may take a little time, that's all. You just hold steady."

The nurses left, but Nita did not hold steady. She poured it on, struggling to make a single muscle move below her waist - to no avail. She lay there completely still, boiling over with frustration, trying to make even the slightest movement, until her neck ached from the tension.

Determined to get answers, she sent for her cousin Robert Benjamin, a specialist who worked one floor above her. He was in surgery at the time, but as soon as he finished he came down.

"Hey, big brother," Nita said, trying to sound lighthearted. "I can't move my legs. What's wrong?"

Robbie looked puzzled. "What do you mean, you can't move?"

Nita shrugged. "I can't move."

He grasped her leg at the knee and ankle and flexed it manually.

"Do you still have the tingling sensation in your toes?" "Yes, sometimes."

"How's the kidney infection?"

"The same, I'm still taking those pills."

Robbie turned around and walked out without another word. He walked back up to the operating room and found Dr. Shan.

"You've got Nita on that medication for a kidney infection?"

"That's right," the specialist answered, proceeding with his surgery.

"They've stopped using that stuff in England," Robbie

went on. "They think it causes loss of sensation."

Dr. Shan looked up momentarily, then back down at his work. "I'll take her off it then. Thank you, Doctor."

"Thank you, Doctor."

Nita looked at her statue-like legs and whispered Psalm 46:1 once again: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." But it was the next two verses that were so hard, "Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea: Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." She knew it must be true, but she wondered when the strength would come, and when the trouble would end. And it was so hard not to be afraid.

The next day was a bit brighter. Nita's sister brought her husband Rex, and a few ladies to visit. They had a good time chatting - it was such a relief to see Nita out of that awful traction!

While the women talked, Rex sat at the end of the bed and impishly pinched Nita's toes. She ignored him. He was not to be denied the satisfaction of a giggle, however. As the conversation went on, he tickled the bottom of her foot. Nita continued talking. Rex's face darkened. He knew something was desperately wrong. Nita had always been ticklish. Now he squeezed her toes one at a time. There was still no response. She had no idea that he was even touching her. She was completely, undeniably numb. The tingling sensation had faded, and in its place was nothing. Nothing at all.

Nita's inquisition continued as the numbness hung on. She had several other relatives working in Colombo General and other area hospitals. Each time one of them visited her, she asked the same questions: "What's wrong with me? Why can't I move my legs?" And to the doctors: "What are you guys doing? When can I get out of here?"

No one came up with any answers.

One day Nita's doctor cousin came to rub her down. While he worked he talked.

"Look, we don't keep you here because we love you and want you near us," he said directly. "You're not doing us any favours by staying here so long. We're just trying to help you get out of here and back on your feet. So you just quit the griping, will you? Shut up, and give us a chance." His voice was flat with frustration.

Nita looked at him evenly. She realized what he was saying by his tone. She was in serious trouble. The implications suddenly occurred to her: she might never be normal again. Instinctively she rushed to stave off the inevitable.

"Please," she begged him, "don't let them send me home in a wheelchair or on crutches. I'll stay a week, a month, whatever it takes to get well... but don't send me out a cripple and have the world staring at me and calling me a `poor thing!'"

Her cousin turned away quickly so she could not see the sting of tears escaping from his helpless eyes.

Nita's fate seemed to be already sealed. She watched as her legs began to warp and bend, and her toes started curling up under her feet. Each day the deformity grew a bit more severe, a bit closer to being grotesque. It was as if she were some horrible wooden puppet being slowly, imperceptibly pulled by some sadistic showmaster.

"Doctor," she demanded fearfully, one day, "How will I run again?"

"It will all work out," he responded softly, feeling no guilt for his lie.

She could see the lights dimming as the parade of medical men dwindled. They were all baffled - she knew that. They didn't want to be reminded of that wall of frustration they could not break through.

And deep within her spirit, Nita felt the creeping dread ... the fear that she would never run again, never outrace another tennis ball, never run another 1500. She said nothing, but every day she felt her despair deepening and knew it was the "knowing" that filled her with fear.

When she could no longer feel the icy metal bedpan against her buttocks, Nita knew for sure the doctors were lying. The traction had nothing to do with her toes not moving - her toes would not move because she was paralysed, and the paralysis was moving steadily upward. She was dying part by part. She touched her legs lightly. They were cold.

Nita continued plaguing the hospital staff and her family for straight answers, maintaining a relentless facade of toughness. But inside she was grieving already for her own demise. She was attending her own funeral. She knew she was in trouble from the day the traction was removed. At night she would lie wide-eyed, straining to move her legs, and watch them lie there, lifeless. During the day she lay in the huge bed, helpless and numb, with her eyes on the door, waiting and wishing for someone to bring the good news - a magic touch - that would restore the old feelings and help her move her legs. But there was no magic lamp and no such genie appeared.

She had trusted the doctors; but medical science had spent its tokens. Dr. Shan stopped dropping by at all.

She bribed a hospital aide to steal the medical records that no doctor would show her. They confirmed the worst.

"God help me," Nita whispered, alone in the night, leaning back on Psalm 46:1. "You are my `refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.' God, you are my only hope!"