Illustration by Doug Davis

One Room, Two Worlds


 

Illustration by Doug Davis
Illustration by Doug Davis

It was both distressing and a relief to be transferred from the acute care neurological wing at Stanford Hospital to the Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Center at Valley Medical Center in San Jose, Calif. It marked the beginning of the realization that there was nothing the doctors could do for my paralysis, but it also marked the beginning of my recovery. It was the summer of 2005, and there were about a dozen of us in the rehab wing, all trying to come to grips with our abruptly altered bodies.

There was only one other woman in that two-corridor first-floor wing. My roommate, Maria, looked like a teenager. She had been in a terrible car crash. Part of a large migrant worker family, she was one of eight passengers in a van heading to the fields early one morning. The van had been blindsided in an intersection, and Maria, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, was the most severely injured among those passengers. One person in the other car had been killed.

Maria had come through several surgeries and wore a neck and back brace and a metal “halo” while her spinal fusions took hold. She, like me, was paralyzed from the chest down and would use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Maria and her family spoke Spanish, and daily I would hear her talking through the drawn curtains with her many visitors, including her husband and her little boy, who was barely 2 years old.

As an educator I often reflected on and analyzed bureaucratic systems, the sophistication that is sometimes needed to navigate complex organizations, and how a lack of knowledge of English can make those navigational tasks even more challenging. Watching Maria and her family try to work within the rehab system confirmed my concerns. Valley Med had an elaborate interpreter service, and when it worked well it could be impressive. If a non-Spanish-speaking nurse or doctor or social worker needed to speak with Maria, he or she would call for an interpreter. Some of these requests were pre-arranged and some were impromptu; some were in person and some were by telephone.

The rehab staff seemed to have a list of objectives that each of us had to meet before we could be discharged. One of these topics was “Sexual Issues and Paralysis.” This educational unit included a social worker meeting us to discuss sexual functions and habits, pre- and post-injury. There was no privacy for this meeting as Maria, her young husband, the social worker and the interpreter walked through topics that would be embarrassing to anybody, let alone a young, soft-spoken, traditional Hispanic couple. Even more embarrassing for the young couple was the lesson that had to be translated for them, sentence by sentence, teaching the young husband how to manually assist his wife in what was euphemistically called a bowel program.

I remember the quick “yes” that Maria would answer when the social worker time and again asked if she understood a particular point. The husband’s “yes” responses were even quicker. I felt badly for them in so many ways. They were so young, and their lives had been so shattered. I was 58 years old and had already enjoyed a robust physical life; I was vigorous and healthy, had raised two children, enjoyed the successes of a substantial career and was relishing the role of Grandma. Maria and her husband were barely in their 20s. Sometimes in the evening I would hear Maria cry softly, and my compassionate partner, Shelly, would go over to her, hold her and help her to wipe away her tears.

Any one of us in the rehab ward would have turned back the clock if we could have, and none of us was above hoping that there was some cure or miracle that would make the neurons in our spines start talking to our brains again. Many well-wishers said they were praying for me and that they knew that my strength as an individual would see me through this ordeal. If anyone could walk again, I could, or so I was often told. My condition, an acute onset of transverse myelitis, did include the possibility of some recovery, but for some reason I knew from the start that the lesions on my spine would never be repaired. Maria’s condition was such that she, too, assumed that the wheelchair would be her companion for the rest of her life. These realizations, however, did not stop us from embracing any suggested intervention.

A friend of ours said that she knew of a spiritual healer who had experienced remarkable results. Knowing I had nothing to lose, I agreed to a visit from the healer. At the same time, Maria’s family was arranging for a prayer circle to convene around her bed. As it turned out, the healer arrived a few minutes before 7:00 one evening, and at the same time the prayer circle, consisting of Maria’s family and friends, started gathering on the other side of the room. There were at least 18 visitors, by my count of feet under the pulled curtain. Children ran in and out of the room, laughing and playing tag.

My healer seemed disconcerted by the noise as the Spanish prayers, with their call and response patterns, started to fill the room. Shelly and I said that the noise didn’t bother us at all, that any efforts to comfort were welcome.

The healer began by running her hands over my body from head to toe.  She didn’t touch my body, but kept her hands two or three inches above the skin. She said she was sensing where there were blockages that she could repair. As she came upon a blockage she would take in a deep breath and then burp loudly. We tried our best to be respectful of this seemingly odd technique, so we had to be careful not to catch each other’s eyes too often. The impetus to laugh was strong but — willing to admit that maybe this healer had some magic to impart — we kept quiet.

In the meantime the prayer session on the other side of the room was gaining in volume. The choral prayers were followed by singing and a long sermon from a minister. My limited Spanish told me that the speaker was calling upon the healing powers of God to visit Maria, to make her whole, to bless her and her family. Concurrently my healer continued to breathe and burp and breathe and burp. When she completed her 45-minute session, I thanked her and asked what she had “read.” There had been great stress, she said, and she hoped that her intervention would create new pathways of peace. When she told me that the session cost $60, I lost any trace of faith I might have generously granted her.

On the other side of the room, the prayer session went on for another 90 minutes. Participants started to file out of the room and the curtain was drawn back. A staff person rolled in a TV with a VCR. The leader explained to Maria that it would be most helpful for her to watch the videotape set that he was leaving for her. She should watch it at least twice a day, everyday.

Before going to bed, Maria used the remote control to start the first tape.  It was the “Video Bible,” complete with actors dressed in biblical clothing and a narrator whose deep voice filled the hospital wing. The tape series started with the Old Testament and a preponderance of scenes included shepherds and their flocks. “Baa, baa, baaaaaaa,” the sheep bleated.  Above that the narrator, in Spanish, went on with his telling of Bible stories. In the morning “Baa, baa, baaaaaa” greeted me. In the evening “Baa, baa, baaaaaaa” competed with the evening news or a baseball game or the hospital educational channel.

With any other hospital stay, I would have insisted that my roommate turn off the VCR, or at least I would have asked the hospital staff to intervene. I was tempted to do so, but Maria was just so young, and her husband was so young, and their little boy was barely 2 years old.

They had a challenging new life ahead of them, and it was clear they would need all the help they could get.

Cindy Hall Ranii, 64, is focusing on playing wheelchair tennis, swimming, yoga and writing after a career as a school administrator and educator. She splits her time between Santa Cruz and Pasadena, Calif.


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