Warrior Pose (9 page)

Not wanting to get soaked, Mary Beth and I jump up from the beach and run back through a small forest to our vacation rental home. It sits alone in a pine forest at the ocean's edge, facing the approaching storm. As we arrive, the entire sky turns black. A torrential rain slams into the house. Its large, plate-glass windows vibrate and hum as the tempest descends on us. The force of the wind is so powerful we wonder if it's a hurricane.

I have just a few minutes to batten down more than a dozen storm shutters before the brunt of the storm hits. I run to each window, yanking hard at the heavy wooden shutters as their rusty hinges resist. I finally close them all, except one. It's stuck. As I struggle
with the rusty latch, it punches a hole in my thumb before I finally secure it.

Completely soaked and with blood trickling down my arm, I dash inside and slam the door. The whole house shakes as the storm lashes against it with amazing force. We hear a loud-pitched scream and look up to see a small, open window at the top of the vaulted ceiling in the bedroom where we've taken refuge. It's shaking so hard I think it might burst.

“I've got to close that,” I say to Mary Beth.

“Why?” she asks softly.

“I'm not sure,” I answer, laughing a little at myself. “It just seems like the right thing to do. Maybe the glass will break and the room will be damaged by the rain. Besides, I can't stand the noise.”

I'm six feet tall, but the window is far above my head, so I have to climb onto a dresser and then pull myself up and balance on a narrow ledge as the storm continues to scream like a banshee.

Barely steadying myself, I reach up and grab the window handles as the salty spray of the storm whips at my face. They're badly corroded and I have to force them. As I twist harder, it happens in an instant. Both handles snap off in my hands. I fly off the ledge, falling twelve feet to the hardwood floor and slamming onto my back.

No matter how hard I try, I can't breathe. My heart is pounding like a jackhammer. My ears are screaming. Mary Beth kneels by my side and holds me, pleading with me to take a breath. I gasp and convulse for what seems an eternity.
Please, body, breathe. Just breathe
. I begin fearing I might die from suffocation. Then, it's like a dam bursting open as the first inhale floods in. A wave of relief rolls over me as I drink in the oxygen. Now I try to get up from the floor. I'm stuck. I can't seem to send the right signal to my legs. They won't move at all.

I've been lying here on the floor for ten minutes. I still can't move my legs. I can feel them, but I can't make them do my bidding. No matter how hard I try to will them to, they won't move.

“Just stay down. Give it time. You'll be fine.” Mary Beth is comforting me, saying just the right things, but I can hear the fear in her voice.

“I'm okay,” I tell her with a grunt, but I have to use my arms to drag myself across the floor, grab the bedpost, and pull myself onto the mattress. I'm exhausted, yet I feel very little pain. I must still be in shock from the fall.
You'll be fine in the morning
, I tell myself with my usual hubris, then collapse into a deep sleep as the storm continues to rage.

At dawn, the sun is pouring through the tiny window with the broken handles as if nothing ever happened. The skies are calm and the tropical storm, having never become a hurricane, has passed. It's time for the long trip back to the States, but as I stand up from the bed my legs are like noodles and I fall down to my knees. My lower back is on fire. It feels like there's an ice pick in my tailbone and someone is twisting it just to torment me. Despite the agony, I have to laugh as I consider the irony: I just tromped through the freezing mountains of Afghanistan during a terrible war without suffering a scratch, but now I'm on a warm beach in paradise so wounded I can barely walk.

I grit my teeth and force myself to stand. The pain deepens.
Don't worry. This will soon be over. Tough it out.
I repeat this silently as Mary Beth and I head for the ferry boat. There are no cars on the island. We have to take our little boat and motor to the main harbor, then walk to the ferry landing. I limp the entire way, holding the left side of my lower back with one hand while dragging my suitcase with the other hand. When we board the ferry, I grip a rail and steady myself during the long ride to a larger island, where we finally catch a commuter flight to Florida.

By the time we land in Miami, my whole body is on fire. As I limp toward baggage claim gritting my teeth, a TV at the airport bar catches my eye. It's breaking news. A covert CIA operative, Eugene Hassenfus, has been shot down and captured in Nicaragua. He was airlifting military supplies to right-wing Contras fighting to
overthrow the socialist government of President Daniel Ortega. It's long been suspected that the American government was behind the war, and here's the first tangible evidence. Adrenalin rushes through my veins and I prepare to jump on the story in any way possible, pain be damned.

I'm at WBZ the next morning, covering local angles on the story, including street protests, predictable sound bites of outrage from our Massachusetts senators, and obfuscations from White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes. Being fully absorbed in the news is powerful medicine for me, and it takes my mind off the pain. Anyway, I'll be better in no time. It was only a little fall from a ledge. Nothing to worry about.

The back pain subsides after a few nights of rest, allowing me to function closer to my normal level. But at least one morning each week I wake up with a tender back and shaky legs. It inevitably gets worse throughout the day. When this happens, sitting to write a news script or edit videotape agitates the problem and sets my back on fire. An airplane or helicopter flight to cover a story is scorching. On top of it all, every few weeks the invisible tormenter with the ice pick sneaks up behind me and stabs me in the tailbone again.

Some days it hurts so badly I want to scream out loud, but I stuff it. I'm convinced that I'll be better soon. Meanwhile, I feel like I can't let anyone know I'm injured. I have to push forward. In this business, the weak fall behind and most of them never catch up again. I'll never let that happen to me.
Never
.

Three months have gone by since I crashed onto my back during the storm in the Bahamas. I'm still running at full speed, artfully hiding the problem from my colleagues, each day faking that I'm fine. But the pain is deep. Gnawing. The invisible ice pick torturing me more often. I try everything to make it better: different postures in my chair. A seat cushion. Cold packs. Hot packs. Salt baths at home. Nothing does the trick. Physical therapy and massage at my gym provide temporary relief, but I'm merely treating the symptoms.
My back is not healing. I don't like doctor offices and am only comfortable in hospitals if I'm there as a reporter with a camera crew and an interesting story to cover. But this looks like the only option left. Reluctantly, I finally decide to see an orthopedic specialist.

“You have a hairline fracture in L5, the lowest lumbar vertebra in your spinal column,” the doctor says as he holds the X-ray film up to the light.

“You see the pedicles, the two flanges that protrude from the sides of each vertebra?” I have to look closely to see them. They seem like stubby wings sticking out from the sides of each disc.

He points his pen to a thin, blurry line running across a portion of the left pedicle. “This is a hairline fracture. Technically, you have a mildly broken back. I can't believe you are still functioning at the level you are.”

“No, it's not a broken back, just a little crack,” I snap at him with unintended anger. This has been happening more often with me as a result of the nagging pain. I hear myself getting short with people, sounding aggravated when I don't intend to. “So what can we do?” All I want is a quick solution.

“We might be able to control the pain with medications and a brace,” he continues, “but you need to have surgery if you want to fix this. I'd like you to see a colleague of mine, a surgeon who specializes in these procedures.”

This is out of the question. Surgery would take way too much time. Get in the way of my career. I obstinately refuse to even consider it. I rationalize it in an instant, recalling having a broken arm and leg as a child and how each injury healed in due time without surgery. My back tightens as my resolve intensifies.
I can still meet deadlines
, I think to myself
. Travel anywhere. Rough it whenever necessary. I am not spineless. I am not crippled. I am not stopping now.

I grit my teeth and say to the doctor, “I'll take the brace and the pain medications.”

The doctor's reaction makes it clear he doesn't agree with my choice, but he complies and fits me with an elastic back brace that straps around my waist. It has two thin metal bands that curve into the arch of my lower back to support the main muscles flanking my lumbar
vertebrae. He also prescribes medication: a high-strength dosage of the anti-inflammatory drug Motrin, along with Valium to relax the muscles that often flare up from my buttocks to my shoulder blades.

“You shouldn't drink alcohol with the medications,” the doctor warns, “and let me know if the Motrin bothers your stomach.”

I'm barely listening, still numb from the thought of having a broken back. I can hardly bring myself to say thank you. I fill the prescriptions at the pharmacy below his office and stop at a water fountain to swallow a dose of each, having no idea that I'm taking my first step into what will become a pharmaceutical-induced nightmare.

Mary Beth and I are still seeing one another, but I'm not a very good partner. Back pain makes me irritable and impatient, and I'm only interested in pushing my career forward. Everything else is on hold. I can't work out at the gym any longer, I've stopped going out on the town, and I'm no longer taking long walks along the Charles River after work. At the TV station I've found a vacant room upstairs and sneak into it whenever possible to lie down on the floor and rest. Three times a day I gobble Motrin and each night down a Valium with a glass of wine, ignoring my doctor's warning about mixing alcohol with drugs.