unhelpable child

 

As I lay in my beanbag recuperating from a total hysterectomy I am comparing this experience to the last time I went under general anesthesia in a hospital setting. I’m 50 now- one would think at this age I would have found reason to be put under the knife in my 20’s, 30’s or 40’s but luckily I’d escaped any serious illness or injury that would have required total sedation until this elective surgery, which was to remove all the bits and pieces to my fertility that were silently plotting to overtake me, and all the additional harmless cysts, growths and tumors that had collected over the decades who were crowding out more gainfully employed organs as well. 

The best part about major surgery is the amnesia that comes with it. I can’t remember anything about this robotic laparoscopic procedure that removed masses larger than the organs to which they were attached. I was worried that if I didn’t have evidence it was all removed my body wouldn’t acknowledge the change so I insisted that the Dr show me photographic proof. Unfortunately, she complied, and handed over the most horrifically gory glossy 8 ½” x 11” snapshots of what looks to be utter mayhem seething in my belly- replete with black Sharpie outlining the offending viscera and pointing out the non-offending viscera and it all looked the same.  I wish she had not handed those photos over to my poor adult son who was accompanying me- he was clearly disturbed. But I have proof now that I was fixed, that I was helped and that I had competent care. 

Why would someone need proof of that?

 I don’t remember the worst parts of this hysterectomy, and that’s the way it should be. This was not the case last time I went under. Not because of something unplanned like waking up during the surgery or undergoing a painful procedure under local anesthesia so I could witness it, but because the worst part of surgery had already happened before I had even arrived at the hospital. 

It happened on a Saturday sometime after Halloween and before Thanksgiving. It was 1983 and I was having a pretty miserable year already; I was a year younger than everyone else in my class, and this matters when you’re 8. Looking back, I don’t think I was mentally or emotionally at the same place my peers were, which created a lot of isolation and a feeling that I was the weird and stupid kid in the classroom.  It certainly did not help that in 1983 my parents moved me into the “gold room” bedroom and out of the “orange room” bedroom I had shared with my younger sister so that I would be sharing a bedroom with her latest newborn.  Not just any newborn, like the several others my mother brought into the world in her mission to be Perfect- this was the Precious Boy my parents had wanted all along. Instead of the 5 girls they had before him- because girls couldn’t pass on the name or bear the priesthood we were less valuable than boys. The patriarchy was alive and well in my family.  We all knew Kelsey was the Chosen Child- the future priesthood holder- babied like no other baby in the Hall house. He had 4 or 5 doting sisters all around him, taking care of any whiffle or sigh- the attentiveness over this infant was unparalleled. 

There was no privacy for me at that age- Mom also put her sewing machine in the gold room where she watched Donahue and made things like dresses I hated wearing.  So the only space that was really mine was my twin bed, and even that was handed down from the older sisters when they outgrew it. There were those older sisters always intruding into my space- or younger siblings who were mostly screaming toddlers or wailing babies at that time. Always a diaper to be changed and always a snipe to be made by an older sibling in a place where I couldn’t really escape. My mother put me in that room with a baby because I was old enough to be her built-in overnight infant care. I was there when Kelsey stirred at 10pm and at 2am and at 4am and needed soothing. I was the one who got up to check on him, rock him back to sleep and to fetch the actual parent as a last resort. I was the one changing his diaper in the morning, because Mom knew I would. It must have been so nice as a mother to wake up at 7am to a cheerful baby who has already been changed, fed and burped by free labor.

I went through a considerable amount of grief and rage at this age because I was so lost in the middle of it all and nobody seemed to notice. I had been my Dad’s tomboy up until the real boy arrived. He used to let me help with the man-chores, but when Kelsey came, Dad scooped him up and carried him to the garage for company instead of me. A baby over me!  I felt especially replaced by this baby boy because I wished that I had been a boy, I had tried being a boy in many subtle ways, and was reminded over and over that I was indeed, not a boy. This was also the year I had been pressured relentlessly into being baptized into the Church. I acquiesced only as a surrender, not because I believed that Joseph Smith was a true prophet or because I heard the Holy Ghost or because I wanted to be an eternal helpmate to a priesthood holder. Even at 8 I was faithless in many regards. The baptismal pressure tactics included Mother sewing a lavish, full length white baptismal dress adorned with lace and made of shiny satin, and compelling me firmly not only to wear it, but additionally to appreciate what she had worked so hard to make for me. She pulled my hair back into a tight bun and packed my long dark hair into the pristine white bun-cozy she’d crocheted, and curled the side wisps of my hair into tight ringlets with foam curlers to make me look wholesome and feminine. I was made to be her dress up doll who would be paraded through the church on my baptismal day and I would outwardly perform this for her and for everyone else in my family who believed that dipping a kid in waist-deep chlorinated font water would make them worthy of the church’s blessings. 

I wanted to be good, but it rarely felt good. 

Grandma and Grandpa had gifted me a new set of scriptures for my baptism. It was really unusual for me to get anything brand new- I remember feeling guilty they had paid to emboss my name in gold on the cover of the Bible and Book of Mormon. I didn’t deserve that kind of special attention and I also knew very well that these gifts were actually not gifts- they were investments- or obligations I was expected to fulfill perfectly for the rest of my life. It was their way of committing me to the gospel as soon as I was able to think for myself hopefully before I started to think for myself too much.

I started 4th grade with some emerging behavior issues at school. They were directly related to the aforementioned stressors although my parents did not see it that way. I was labelled somewhat of a troublemaker. I made friends with some particularly precocious boys in class and we considered ourselves pranksters at recess and in the classroom as well. I liked being seated in the back of the room where I could retreat to my daydreams or commit stunts like shooting other kids with the tiny orthodontic elastics I’d pilfered from my sister without being immediately noticed. There was a power in invisibility I had mastered already at that age. Whereas the year before my teacher had reported to my mother that I had been crying in class when the teacher didn’t call on me, by 4th grade, I had abandoned the hope of being picked for anything good if my hand was raised. I was able to have a lot of fun and freedom to explore if I was able to successfully evade attention, and this was the main lesson learned at 8. 

To avoid the screaming infants, the hollowed-out parenting and the unchecked bullying by my older sisters at 8, I learned to stay outside from the house as much as possible. By this time I knew how fast and how far to open the back door before its noises would give away my escape. I had a few friends in the neighborhood whose Non-Mormon houses were scandalous glimpses into the Worldly world and I delighted in all that was forbidden. MTV was new, cable was something only bad kids have, and my friend Holly had a training bra. I was mystified and fascinated by these things. I wondered why my mother didn’t want me to train my boobs- she never told me about these kinds of bras. I didn’t know they needed to be trained, but it's something people do who are not Members. Holly was able to wear anything she wanted. She had actual denim jeans and wore t-shirts with cartoon characters printed on the front that were purchased new at a store just for her. Same for Suzy who had a SINGLE MOTHER and was also a gentile. Suzy’s wardrobe was neither demure nor homemade. I was able to compare these households to mine, and even though they were strange and scary in their foreignness, I preferred it over my household. 

When my worldly friends weren’t available, I was often on my own, wandering the suburban neighborhood tracts alone. I liked to look in other people’s windows to see how their families functioned when they thought no one was looking. I still like doing that. My father had constructed part of a playhouse in the back yard that was little more than 4 posts and a wooden platform raised up about 5 feet from the haphazardly constructed sandbox below where all the cats historically would shit. Over the summer in 1983 I had claimed that playhouse as mine. The little kids were too small to climb the ladder and my older sisters were too preadolescent to hang out in a playhouse- so there was a relative peace in the roofless playhouse that was roofless because Dad never finished building it. I was known to carry out quilts, pillows and all the accouterments necessary for living into the playhouse and I would stay out there as long as the weather allowed, including overnights, where I slept in the quiet, with the stars watching me from above.      

 This was also when a new tract house was being constructed next door. The neighborhood was a typical Mormon community where we knew what houses contained Members, and we ignored houses containing non Mormons. The streets were well-planned and organized by grid numbers with incompletely paved cul-du-sacs and weed-festooned empty plots between the mowed, cultivated plots as this was a growing community. Always new construction happening for another new house to either be filled by a new member in the Ward whom we would welcome warmly, or maybe some other type of doomed human who would not merit a plate of cookies or a casserole upon arrival. Two doors down from us the Martinez family lived for entire years completely separate from us, even though they had children close to the same age as several of our own, we never talked to those brown, worldly people. We never invited them over to play and we never ever tread upon their lawn. They were strangers even when there were a half dozen other kids from the neighborhood out playing.

The new house being built next door was in the stage where the basement had been excavated and concrete had been poured and the framing and electrical work had just begun.  I had been scavenging the site regularly for a few months at this time. One of my totally normal childhood exploits was looking for shiny interesting objects and collecting them either in mason jars or repurposed for something creative. I had become transfixed by the electrical wiring being installed next door. I had already checked every single open lightswitch and outlet box for the punched out metal discs that were made to allow conduit to pass through. I had collected a dozen or so of them, and had been pretending they were actual coins, since they were about the size of quarters. 

On this particular Saturday, my mother had taken the smaller children somewhere and only my 2 older sisters and Dad were at home. I don’t remember what Mom was doing, except that she wasn’t expected home that night. She would often go on weekend trips performing or rehearsing as a soprano with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, leaving the little ones with her older children or her mother- maybe that’s what she was doing. Or maybe all the little kids were there the whole time with the older sisters in charge and I just don’t remember- they didn’t count as far as I am concerned. But I know for sure mom was gone for the weekend. 

In the late morning, I entered the empty house again, looking for new materials to explore. These electricians were pretty messy, I have to say. It was all too easy for me to cast my eyes around the particle-wood floors and see their remnants scattered all about. I was interested in conduit this time. I observed on my last visit that inside these oblong white casings were multicolored strands that had shiny copper wire within them. I imagined these wires were bendy and therefore good for making sculptures of horses or kitties. And could be wrapped around wrists as jewelry. I liked the smell of the copper wire and the plastic sheathing that surrounded it. I didn’t have any particular plan for the stolen conduit, but I did manage to carry home maybe 3’ worth of electrical conduit that had been cast off by the professionals. Just remnants in lengths under 12” with the white plastic casing on the outside and a bundle of copper on the inside. 

This was a clandestine operation; I knew that this was basically a crime. I took a pair of my mothers sewing scissors into the orange room and laid out the conduit for stripping. I had to get the outer casings off to harvest the copper inside. As I held the conduit with my left hand, I slid the scissor up into the casing to slice it off and away. The casing was more tough to slice than I had anticipated; so I used more force. And with more force, the scissor slid out of the casing and rotationally sliced into my left pinkie finger across the second flange joint until it stopped at the inside of the scissors. This had instantly severed everything in my finger right to the bone.

Blood exploded out of my hand. It sprayed over the orange carpet and the heat vent, where the dried blood remained for years- I don’t know why no one ever cleaned that up. I was immediately aware of the MESS I was making with my own blood and ran to the bathroom sink, where I thought I would make the least amount of mess in the most discreet manner. At no point did it occur to me to sully a towel with my spurting life-force. I wanted to not make a mess and to not have to explain how it happened, so I aimed the 3 foot long pulsing stream of blood down the drain and stared at myself in the mirror as I quietly went into shock. After what seemed like hours, the conversation I had with myself over this predicament at the bathroom sink wound around to admitting I would have to alert the household to this. I would be caught eventually. The sight of my own blood mixing with the water and disappearing down the drain was making me feel light-headed but I ended up not having to call for Abby or Mindy because they had both somehow realized that something was wrong and immediately went into hysterics at the sight of all the blood in the hallway and on the bathroom countertops. They weren’t working as a team; they were yelling at each other about what to do and whose job it was to do it. I remember Abby frantically looking up the word “ambulance” in the yellow pages and absolutely baffled that she could find it. Nobody apparently ever told her what to do. I remember Mindy who was 11 at the time glimpsing at me in the bathroom then  running around uselessly in panicked circles in the living room, tossing whimpers and exclamations over her shoulder. Meanwhile dad was outside mowing the lawn, completely oblivious to the apocalypse happening inside. 

It was not an insignificant amount of time that passed where I was actively bleeding out in the sink and my sisters were impotently panicking, neither one of them going outside to alert the legally responsible person at home. The parentified daughters in charge of me really believed it was their job to handle this despite training or direction, and not the arena of the priesthood holder who had created them.

Maybe at some point they did tell Dad. I don’t remember because I was shocking out at this point. I do remember Dad coming into the bathroom with his headphones around his neck and his eyeballs bugling in horror at what he’d seen.  

Here’s what a competent parent would have done:

Upon seeing your child bleeding arterially in the sink, raise the wound above the heart, apply direct pressure and get the child to a hospital immediately.

That seems like a simple thing to do. Either by ambulance or by driving me in the car he had parked in the garage. One would think this would be the only immediate decision to make. 

Dad went a different way.  

He sullied some of the Chosen One’s cloth diapers with my blood in order to contain the bleeding. My hand was turned into a baby’s ass that was diapered and wrapped with diaper pins. The rest of me was scooped up and carried to my twin bed in the gold room, where I continued to bleed through the diapers and onto the blankets for another hour while Dad chose to take a trip to the drug store for first aid supplies and a full size Hershey bar for me, too. What a great dad, thanks. 

It was dark by the time he got home. I was shivering cold and only semi-conscious at this point so I don’t know how many hours I laid there. He handed me the candy bar and I just didn’t have the strength to open it. He bandaged me with the drug store first aid supplies, but I bled through those almost immediately. He let me just lie there pale and cold until Mindy looked at him gravely and said “Dad, she doesn’t look very good.” I remember the two of them sitting there looking at me while I bled on the bed. Only then did my dad decide to load me into the Vega and take me to the ER. If Mindy had kept her opinion to herself and dad continued his method of letting me let me just sleep it off, would I have been ok the next morning? I don’t think I would have been ok.

It wasn’t enough to see a kid going into shock from blood loss for him to know what to do- it took an 11 year old girl’s naked observation to convince or perhaps shame this grown ass man to get his own child some emergency medical help. I should be thankful to Mindy but I’m not- she wasn’t being kind, she was just being honest.

That was the real injury that happened that day. It wasn’t the finger getting sliced nearly off. Nor was it the trauma of seeing my own blood. It was my main caretakers being utterly incompetent and useless in an emergency situation. This is a loss in faith a kid never gets back. When you realize that the people you live with are not willing or able to care for you when you are unable to care for yourself, home becomes unsafe and family becomes dangerous.  

I was excited to be in the emergency room. I was receiving attention at a rate and intensity I had never experienced. I didn’t have to perform for them, I could just be honest.  Being the focus of 2 or 3 medical experts felt so safe to me. They covered my shivering body with heated blankets and gave me ice water to drink and a bag of ice for my damaged hand. I got IV fluids.  After a small wait, I was introduced to the Dr who would be working on me. He pulled away the bandage and my finger dutifully squirted a jet of blood 3 feet to his left and instead of shock and paralysis, he chuckled and congratulated me on being so robust despite the blood loss. He was calm, warm and funny. I wish I could remember his name, but he was special to me not only because he cared for me, but because of a new commonality between us he revealed in the ER as he put on his gloves.

“Hey, look at this, kiddo” He flashed his left hand at me, revealing a total absence of a pinkie finger! He grinned at me and said “You’re going to be ok, see how I am?” He gestured his hand in waves and fist clenches while smiling.  Showing off the normalcy of the other 4 digits still in place. This was the entire world for me. He was a Dr, who used his hands for a living and at some point had done something like this to himself and was still OK. I never asked how it happened- it didn’t matter. I felt like I was in the right place, and that the right thing was going to happen because a competent person was in charge of me in the hospital. A scary place for most kids was a fun adventure for me where I could be curious and get reliable answers to how I would be repaired, and the hospital was also where I could get something I needed if I asked for it. I gladly trusted the nurses and doctors and I liked listening to them talk about the medical aspects of my situation at the hospital.

So that was my last time being in the hospital undergoing anesthesia. It was to sew my muscle, artery, ligaments, tendons and nerves back together. I had a blood transfusion to make up for the blood loss, and it only took 1 surgery to fix me. After a few days at the hospital I went back to my life as a Perfect Hall Girl. I didn’t lose the finger, but it is permanently crooked because I didn’t do the post-op physical therapy like I was supposed to. 

This has been a helpful exercise to make comparisons between now and before because although I have been to the hospital since this incident, it was for experiences that did end up being traumatic. That trauma led to a 25 year long avoidance of hospitals and mistrust for medical professionals that was oversized by the grief and loss they were attached to. 

This time around, although the PTSD was still present, I am reminded that when I was a child hospitals were the safe place for me when home was where the trauma was.  When I was small and helpless that incident helped me to know there are medical professionals who would take care of me whether or not I deserved it. I learned from that experience that there are procedures, there’s training, and there’s education that can make strangers safe and useful in circumstances when your own family is somehow neither.

The simple outpatient procedure I just had done has not left me triggered or retraumatized- the story this time is different; I was surrounded by competent people who took good enough care of me when I was unable to take care of myself and I bet none of them realize how much emotional wreckage they nullified by merely being competent caretakers. Not even exceptional- just a little more reliable than the ones who raised me.