By: Jean Johnson for Back1Part One
One of life’s greatest ironies is that just as our minds and hearts are finding wisdom, our physical health often declines. In some of us it’s a slow, almost imperceptible process. In others debilitation strikes with the speed of eagle in a fierce, plummeting dive.
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Did you know?
Spinal cord injuries occur in approximately 12,000-15,000 people per year in the U.S.
About 10,000 of people with spinal cord injuries each year are permanently paralyzed, and many of the rest die as a result of their injuries.
Most spinal cord trauma occurs to young, healthy individuals. Males between ages 15 and 35 are most commonly affected.
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The latter was the case for Constance Smith when the spinal injuries she had been nursing for a year sent her crashing down on a mid-summer afternoon. “I was getting some white sandals and my knee gave way. I fell face forward into my closet and just laid there for a couple hours before my ex-husband found me,” she remembered. “It happened around 10:30 because I always have coffee in bed and watch the morning news to get myself ready for the day. I’d just gotten up and pulled on a blouse and a pair of jeans. It happened when I was going for the sandals – flat ones with thin straps that go between the toes and a little white bow.” The blow knocked her out and when Smith came to, the sixty-year-old airline stewardess found herself unable to move. During the next weeks and months of her life she was at the mercy of care givers and increasingly concerned over finances. Still, she wound her way through the slow maze of recovery, cloaking herself in as much maturity and wisdom as she could muster. As her personal account reveals, some days her pluck worked like a charm. But on others her new, strange burden seemed more than a human being could bear.
By the time we caught up with Smith it was a sunny August day in Portland, Oregon. The vibrant grape leaf green sign affixed to her hospital room door shouted a boldface warning: Risk to Fall. Inside Smith lounges in a hot pink t-shirt and pajama bottoms with pastel stripes woven into the light cotton fabric. There’s a nervous good will about her, and the lines around her eyes and mouth show that despite all her efforts at cheerfulness, she’s exhausted – or at the very best, weary.
But Smith’s got pluck and she wasn’t about to let physical liabilities get in her way of rising to the occasion. “Oh my god, it’s a good day,” she quipped, once the introductions were over, “I got my tennis shoes on without the brace routine, made it to toilet, didn’t wet my panties, and was back in bed in five minutes.”
A bright coral hibiscus, yellow Dutch iris, and vase of purple asters sit in the sunshine amidst photos of her human family and a cat. “I also have three grand dogs,” said Smith, running her hand through a short crop of hair enlivened with blonde highlights. “My goal is by Christmas to live on my own. I’m going to move to Denver to be close to my children and grandchildren, and I just know there’s something out there for me to do. Something where I can contribute to society and be happy.”
She glances toward the photographs of her family nestled in among the flowers. “What happened was so totally out of the realm of possibilities, but the staff has been fantastic here, so I don’t feel like my life is over. Still there are lots of things to overcome. Things you take for granted every day like making your own coffee.”
Smith is walking now with a brace and walker, but she’s only 11 days out from surgery and confides that she expects more recovery. With a fiercely brave tone in her voice she takes us back through the nightmare she’s living been in for weeks.
“I was completely crippled after I fell, and for the first day or two my hands were knotted up into these horrible claws.” She squeezes her fists into small tight balls. “Part of the problem was that I lay there for three hours before my ex found me and called 911. That’s the thing with spinal injuries. You need help right away.”
She explains that she had been laid up for a year after a beverage cart she secured while working as flight attendant came loose and knocked her to her knees in a first class cabin. After that she experienced pain so severe she had to take pain pills. “It was so bad I started favoring one leg, and many times I had to sit on my behind and crab walk up and down the stairway. And once when I was vacuuming, my knee buckled right under me and down I went.”
“Since beverage cart incident was workman’s comp-related, it took a year to get the surgery approved. I also had trouble finding a neurosurgeon to even take the case since workman’s comp apparently strings them out so long. Anyway, I finally got through all that and was scheduled for surgery on L4 and L5 in mid-July just after I turned 60. I never made it though. This happened instead. One week before. And the reason I fell is because my injured leg gave out.”
Continued in Part Two
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