Home Now

In the end, there was nothing to do but pull out, fall back and retreat. Somehow, the last two days in London, which only amounted to 36 hours, drained something of my vital essence. Not that it wasn't worth every second, for visiting with my cousin's son Jake always lifts my spirits. And within the space of a couple of hours with Sandy, cousin and friend of 40 years, all sorts of frank and honest things got said...three introverts around a table at an Indian restaurant, bonded in curry, overcoming time and distance with spicy papadams. No, London was worth it in every spiritual sense. And I had given up worrying whether or not 36 hours in the Gloucester Road Holiday Inn was worth $600. It wasn't the draining of the coffers, but the draining of stamina and the general sense that I wasn't just a quadriplegic anymore, but a burn victim. Home was looking good.

And so on the final anxious morning, after my eyelids had sprung open like window shades at 4 a.m., and I was up and already worrying about the effects, that is to say, further effects of Provençal microbes on my gastrointestinal system...and thinking that it might be better to prepare for the 11 hour flight to California by checking my lower intestinal tract along with my luggage...and by the time we were actually sitting in a taxi and the cabdriver proposed that for an additional 10 pounds we could bypass the experience of Paddington Station and the Heathrow Express and just watch the A4 go by all the way to Terminal Three...well, we were easily persuaded. It was nice to see the load lighten near the end. Virgin Airways lightened the rest of the day with endless videos. And there we were, the afternoon lightened by global warming, staring at a mid-November San Francisco afternoon that felt a little too much like a Provençal summer. Naturally, SuperShuttle wasn't there. At least these people were consistent.

Jule Styne said it best: the party's over. But there's always something lingering...like the hangover. Like the bag the airline can't find. Or the shaver you left in some hotel. Something. In my case, it was my upper arm and left foot. After an accidental scalding in a French shower, I just didn't have the patience to deal with local doctors. I would deal with it when I got home. Even if home was still five days after the hot water burns in the shower. So what? Marlou was spraying my arm with all the right stuff, nothing looked infected and, no, no signs of fever. But there are always those intimations, small doubts about the body's indomitability. And serious questions about the scope of the blister that had formed along the left side of my foot.

"Oh, my." This from a nurse returning my call from the Palo Alto Medical Clinic. She had just asked about the size of the blister. Three inches was big, she said. Mine was running about 10, maybe 12 inches. Come in, she said. Now. Then she asked, "Any parts turning gray?" Gray? Aside from my hair? Ha ha. I had a grim wait at the Menlo Park Caltrain Station. My van was out of action for the day. I might be out of action forever if this gray area under my huge blister was the sort of gray the nurse was talking about. Delaying medical attention. Self-medicating. Dismissing my wife's worries. I watched the huge locomotive bearing down on me. Fateful, a harbinger of God knows what. And he does know. He knows what's going on in my foot, deep inside that blister. The gray area. He knows all about that.

There it was, Urgent Care, and there I was, inside a room, getting my blood pressure taken. Then moved to another room, where it was taken again. Low blood pressure. And let's have a look at those burns. The doctor, an Indian woman, asked the usual questions. Fortunately, I've got the medical lingo down fairly pat. Important to let these people know whom they're talking to. Me, a guy who can say quadriparesis. A guy who can describe foot swelling as dependent edema. And the discoloration on the right side, more burn? No. More foot. More paralyzed, blood-collecting, end-of-leg...foot. Had a tetanus shot recently? My face whitened. Don't know. Can't remember. Lockjaw. You can't talk. You can't eat. Gangrene. Amputation. I handed the doctor two bottles direct from actual French France, containing the latest EU approved spray-on and rub-on burn treatments. She eyeballed the bottles. Perfectly good stuff, but a little sulfa-impregnated ointment wouldn't be a bad thing. She smiled. The nurse would be in in a second to wrap and bandage.

Okay. The home stretch. In came the nurse, short and Chinese-American. She grabbed a large tongue depressor and a jar of white stuff and went to work slathering up my arm, followed by bandage wrapping, then a repeat performance on my foot. I watched the white bandage mass grow larger and larger. Piles of gauze pads, then more bandages than the average Egyptian mummy sees in, well, a lifetime. Wrapping and wrapping. Gosh. I cleared my throat. Gosh. I wonder how I will get on my shoe. The nurse shook her head. Oh, you won't be wearing your shoe. Oh, I said. Gosh.

Back in Provence, in a quiet moment in the car with my cousin Bob, I had lightly remarked on the general positive effects of my wife. Marlou, long an opponent of cold winds, was out walking in the full force of the mistral, currently bearing down on us directly from the Alps. I wasn't yodeling. I was staying in the car watching her. Oddly, so was the hardy Bob, veteran of cold showers in English public schools. We were both watching Marlou. Well, Paul, he said, you've learned diplomacy and compromise.

Which brought me directly here, to this moment with this nurse. You know, I said to her, I wonder if there isn't a way to redo that bandage. So I can get my foot in the shoe. Without the shoe, I'm kind of, you know, immobilized. Where's your wife? Can she drive you? Not with this 200-pound wheelchair, I said. Oh. She was unimpressed. Silence. More wrapping. My foot was now assuming the jolly holiday proportions of Frosty the Snowman's. Hippity hop. Gosh. This is really kind of important. She sighed, rolled her eyes and muttered something about talking to the doctor. Thanks. I appreciate that. This is really important.

Was it? Oh, who knows? I had more train-borne errands to run, and the bandaged foot with my yellow, aging toenails protruding, well it wasn't the prettiest sight. And it had that whiff of the invalid about it, not to mention a general aura of the street. The bandaged homeless man in the wheelchair. Disability is a great leveler. And I didn't want to go there, not now. The doctor wandered in. I was up to date in tetanus shots, she said. I smiled. Gosh, one small thing, one tiny detail about the terribly splendid bandage job of the nurse. I eyed the swaddling, pretending to admire it. You see, I said, inspiration flashing brilliant in the recesses of my jetlagged mind -- there's this ankle-foot orthotic on my right leg and to balance I need my foot to be in my left shoe. It's dangerous, otherwise. Activities of daily living, such as urination, require me to stand, you see. Frequently. And now, with one foot in gauze, to stand dangerously. I would hate to fall. To be discreet, I let my eyes slide away from hers. No sense in chewing the scenery.

She took this in, computing at the speed of someone working in an emergency room. Urgent care. Urgent thinking. Well, perhaps the nurse could try something. Great, I said, and perhaps with a bit of tape, instead of all this gauze wrapping. Too late, the doctor was gone. And the nurse, when she returned, wasn't hearing anything about tape. But she yanked off a few pads, cut the gauze bandage to shorten things, and gingerly moved my sock into place. Oh, how splendid, I said, cramming my heel into the back of my shoe. Things were feeling a little tight, but they were also a little open. Diplomacy. Compromise. Marlou. The end of a journey in a Palo Alto clinic. Was I home now?