Caught in Transition (13 page)

We continued toward Monument Valley park, wowed by the sight of the enormous stone monoliths that seemed so near to the road. We followed closely behind the vehicle in front of us which helped us stay on the right side of the highway. The road disappeared then reappeared with coils of sinuous dusty sand weaving over it. The drive was tiring so we pulled into the parking lot of a building that seemed to be an information centre for Monument Valley.

The inside of the building was faced with large rustic wooden beams. We wandered around for a few minutes to find out what we needed to do to get access to the park. A stocky tribal man addressed us with a slyly friendly question.

“Are you ladies lost?” he asked.

We soon found out that nature had just brought heavy rains, unusual at this time of year, and that the park roads were not safe to drive. We
’
d discovered the day before that the rented Jeep we
’
d been driving was only equipped with two wheel drive. Therefore we wouldn’t be able to get any closer to Monument Valley on this trip, which was a huge disappointment.
 

After many hours of driving through dry desolate land, we tiredly entered the town of Tuba City. The city stood on arid Navajo land, on the border of the Hopi reservation. The homes looked impoverished, but tidy. The shops we planned to visit were out of business. The commercial centre was an intersection neatly surrounded by gas stations, two hotels, a Denny
’
s and a McDonald
’
s. Our hotel was there, and we found a parking spot. The hotel was clean but the staff were surly. The nicest part was getting to take a shower to get the sand off of ourselves from the storm. After having a boring meal at Denny
’
s we fell into bed happy to be out of the elements.

The Fall

After spending the first week travelling we looked forward to staying in a house in Sedona for the following week. When we arrived in Sedona we headed to the Barking Frog for lunch. It was nice to sit and relax over good food and a glass of wine until it was time for us to pick up the keys to our house. This house was approximately fifteen minutes out of town in the desert. We found the place and got settled in and then went back to town for some supplies and dinner. We had a lovely evening complete with more wine and went to bed.
 

This was a two story house with the bedrooms upstairs. It had a strange floor plan because the washroom was around the corner off the bedroom after you went past the washer and dryer and through a glass door. This is important to mention because during the night Sheelagh got up to use the washroom and went through the door beside the bed (which took her out into the upstairs hallway) and she walked until her foot went into an unexpected inset step throwing her off balance and over the railing, where she landed on a mat on a concrete floor. As she was falling headfirst her head struck a ledge on the wall throwing her counter clockwise and thereby hitting the concrete floor feet first which probably saved her life.

I was sound asleep through all of this until I heard Sheelagh yelling in pain, I ran downstairs and was horrified to see her lying on the floor in agony, surrounded by shards of broken pottery. I knew not to move her and the first thing I wanted to do was call 911 because I thought for sure she had to have broken her legs, or hip or something, but she said no. She tentatively tried moving her feet and her hands and found that she could. She wanted me to help her up and over to the couch. Again I said I thought I should call an ambulance and she said no
–
to just help her up. Against my better judgment I did and she walked to the couch and sat down. She looked white as a sheet and was in a great deal of pain. She sat there a while coming to grips with what had happened ,I asked her if I could drive her to the hospital and again she said no. I thought she should go but I couldn
’
t force her, so I asked if she thought she could walk up to the bedroom with my help.

She said she could, so we very slowly went up the very long flight of stairs and she gently lay down on the bed. She took some pain medication and just laid there. I thought if she went into shock it would be better to be lying down with covers on rather than sitting downstairs. She kept talking about what had happened over and over again. I think it was helping her to process what had happened.
 

Sheelagh finally told me why she didn
’
t want to go to the hospital. It was because her lower parts did not match her upper parts and she didn
’
t want to deal with people poking and prodding her and possibly treating her differently because she was a transwoman. She was more afraid of something being done to her in the hospital than she was of the pain from the fall. We spent the next few hours chatting off and on and then she fell asleep for a little while. I laid there watching her, thinking she could have died. If she had hit her head first she surely would have. She could have broken her spine and been left paralyzed
–
so many awful possibilities, but here she was still in one piece. Her guardian angel was definitely watching over her.
 

The next day she very slowly made her way down the stairs. She had sustained a tremendous amount of bruising, mostly on her right side. Her right eye socket and cheek were swollen and bruised and her right wrist and hand were badly swollen. Both ankles were so bruised they were almost black. She didn
’
t want to move very much because she felt her back had been wrenched.

Sheelagh felt awful, she felt like she had been cursed and felt the darkness inside and the pain she felt in her body flash from time to time. During this time we were both very worried that the right cheek implant may have separated from the bone near her eye. You could feel the edge of the implant with your finger. At that point Sheelagh was very worried because she did not know how she was going to get home or how she was going to get her face repaired.
 

One of the many interesting things about Sheelagh is she has an amazing ability to heal. During the following forty-eight hours the bruising changed to purple and then yellow, and the edge of the cheek implant could no longer be felt. Since she survived this unexpected brush with death, she felt that she was saved in order to fulfill some purpose that she sought but could not yet see. The clouds of depression that were brought on by the pain and the loss of a happy holiday were reduced by her recognition that she was on this earth to do something. Knowing there was something she had been saved to do helped her rise above feeling like a puppet of the universe. A moment of clarity inspired her to seek help in order to reorganize her life so that her life with me would be happier and more fulfilling. She resolved that she wouldn
’
t be overcome by the difficulties of her painful situation, her stress at work, or her nightly nightmares.
 

My heart hurt so badly for her because all of our plans for our time in Sedona were over before they got started. She couldn
’
t go hiking or sit out and eat in a restaurant. She could not stand the movement of the car against her body, because the pain was too intense. During the six days we had left in our holiday she only had the strength and want to venture out twice to do a little shopping. I spent the week going into town for supplies when we needed them and looking after Sheelagh. Not much of a holiday for either of us but at least Sheelagh was still alive. We flew home on Saturday and poor Sheelagh was so stiff and sore sitting still for over four hours. When the plane landed we had never been so happy to be back.

Sheelagh went to the emergency room the next day and was told by the doctor there to eat fresh pineapple because it would help to clear up bruising. That was it, after waiting five hours in Emergency. Unbelievable. On Monday she went to her personal doctor who prescribed some strong pain medication and set her up for a CAT scan. The results of that CAT scan showed five damaged vertebra in the middle and lower part of the back. She was off work for a week. After returning to work she found she could only work part days. The medication was lessening the pain but it felt like no healing was taking place.

Loss of Elmo

After being back home for nearly three weeks our little dog Elmo was eaten by a coyote
–
I should say this was really Sheelagh
’
s dog and his death affected her greatly. The sadness of that loss elicited bouts of crying that she hadn
’
t experienced for many years. She felt like she was going to be overcome by the losses in her life and that
’
s when she hit a depression so deep she wanted to die. Sheelagh went to her doctor and got her depression medication tripled, and took a few weeks off work; the pain was too much, the stress at work was too much and the sadness of losing Elmo was too much.
 

Time continued and carried us along in its wake and we both felt such emptiness in the house without Elmo. We began to discuss getting another dog to keep Holly company and fill the void we were feeling. Was that a really good idea considering all of the circumstances leading us up to this point? Probably not, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Tractor Wrestling

The month of November snuck up on us, and since we lived out in the country we plowed our own driveway. Every fall we have a ritual where we have to take the grass cutter off the John Deere tractor and replace it with the snow blower. This is not an easy task at the best of times and now the two of us were going to do it. Sheelagh had lost some muscle mass due to the transition and was suffering from pain from her fall in Sedona. I honestly had no idea how we were going to lift and move huge pieces of metal.
 

Let
’
s just say she
’
s as smart as she is cute because she bought a winch and with the help of WD 40 to loosen some bolts, we used the winch and we were able to get the cutter out and up and on the wall out of the way. In order to get the blower on she used leverage instead of brute force and it worked. The whole procedure took a little longer than it once did but we did it and I not only felt relieved but proud as well. I seriously doubted we could do it
–
but we did! The nice thing was the snow held off for a few more weeks.

Shay

On Sunday, November 24 2013 we went and picked up the new addition to our family. We had a little male Havanese puppy by the name of Shay. This little guy brought out all of Sheelagh
’
s mothering instincts. She had always been nice and kind to our dogs but this time she treated him like a baby. Having a new puppy in the house is like having a new baby; they need lots of attention and don
’
t sleep through the night.

After two weeks it was becoming increasingly apparent that our new puppy Shay was not going to be a crate puppy. He made ungodly noises when left alone. Sheelagh said we could bring him up to our bedroom and he wouldn
’
t be alone and then he
’
d stop crying
–
she was right. Shay had his bed beside Sheelagh and was the perfect puppy. It only took him about four weeks to make it up onto the bed, but he stayed on Sheelagh
’
s side and that worked for me.

Breast Problems

In late November, Sheelagh had been having burning pains in her right breast that were waking her up at night. She had a feeling there was a problem with the surgery because not only was the pocket wrong in the bottom, it was far too large at the top. If she bent over to tie her shoe the implants would move up to her collarbone. She sent some pictures to the office to illustrate the problem. She explained to them that the right breast was painful and didn
’
t look right. Sheelagh spoke with the doctor`s assistant by phone and was told the problem could be fixed with a relatively short surgery.
 

Sheelagh spent hours on the computer researching her problem and wrote to them again in early January to tell them it would require more extensive surgery to fix the problem. Now Sheelagh felt the left breast was being affected as well. She was told she had to go to their office and see the doctor. She set up a visit scheduled for February 5, 2014.

Scottsdale

Sheelagh surprised me by saying she felt badly that our time in Sedona was ruined because of her fall, so she wanted to go to Scottsdale over Christmas to make up for it. I jumped at the idea because the thought of being somewhere warm in December sounded wonderful! I knew going through airport security was extremely stressful on Sheelagh. The possibility of being singled out for having an unusual shape for a woman was always there, so it meant a lot to me that she
’
d go through that again so soon.

We actually breezed through security and had a wonderful time in Scottsdale. I still missed that feeling of solidarity when we used to go out holding hands, but knowing she almost died, I felt good just to be able to be with her. We definitely showed no public displays of affection, but our private displays were pretty good. We went shopping, ate out all the time, and made love.
 

Neither one of us wanted to go back home after a week, but responsibility called and we had to return to Canada. The puppies were thrilled to have us back and again we faced another New Year
’
s Eve together. I was glad 2013 was over because I wanted to start a new and happy year with my wife Sheelagh.