“Where’s Eva?”
“Oh – she’s still taking a break from skating.”
“Tell her we miss her.”
“I will.”
“When is she coming back?”
“Soon I hope – I’m trying to convince her.”
“Where’s Eva?”
This conversation repeated itself with skaters, skating moms, and coaches as I entered the refreshingly cold ice rink, sat down rinkside, and changed into my skates. Eva was my 15 year old daughter who had stopped figure skating despite my and her coach Linda’s efforts over the past eight months. Skating had helped with previous bouts of Eva’s major depression, and Linda and I were convinced it could help again. We hoped this was just a temporary hiatus for her. In the meantime, since the family skating budget was not getting used by Eva, and because the nest was half empty since Daniel had left for college, I decided to take up figure skating again after 35 years. I needed an escape from the frustration at home, the constant battle to keep Eva safe and to keep my husband Andrew from fighting with his daughter, a daughter he found harder and harder to understand. In fact, I would have started skating even sooner if it hadn’t been for that neck thing.
<< ◊ >>
As I laced up my skates I reminded myself to ask Linda about the neck thing. Was figure skating a high impact sport? If so I was technically skating against medical advice. I had had numbness and tingling in my hands and pain shooting to my shoulders off and on for months. When it started to interfere with sleep and my hands became clumsy at times, I had an MRI and saw Dr. Morgan, a neurosurgeon. I had met Dr. Morgan as a medical student, and had referred many patients to him over the years. He was a relatively rare neurosurgeon – one who listened, not just to his patients’ stories and fears, but to their questions. And he made sure his patients understood his unflinchingly honest answers. He had an amazing mind for names and faces and remembered me both from the few days we had had together during my studies and the numerous referrals I had sent his way. He was impressed with my MRI.
“How did you get the spine of an 80 year old when you’re not even 50? Your cervical canal is so narrowed by degenerative arthritis that it wouldn’t take much to impinge on your spinal cord. You could even do permanent damage. A minor trauma could kill you – or – even worse – leave you a ventilator dependent quadriplegic.”
“A ventilator dependent quadriplegic” – I pictured myself tilted back in a state-of-the-art black power wheelchair, blue ventilator tubing attached to my tracheostomy in the middle of my neck, on display between my Adam’s apple and my sternal notch, immobile hands carefully laid out in molded armrests. The mental image made my stomach drop like going over the top of a roller coaster. The excited tingle migrated down between my legs. My face may have changed with embarrassment as I felt the warmth and swelling wetness.
Dr. Morgan mistook the change in my expression as fear or distress at the thought of quadriplegia. He continued in a more encouraging manner, “The risk is low, but real. Your current symptoms may respond well to physical therapy, but we will need to follow up in any case. Especially if your symptoms don’t improve with physical therapy, you may benefit from surgery. And surgery could also lower your risk for neurologic damage in the future.”
“I really want to avoid surgery unless it’s absolutely necessary,” I said, trying to come up with something normal to say, even as the words “ventilator dependent quadriplegic” kept echoing in my head.
“Well let’s start with physical therapy and follow up in 2-3 months. In the mean time, don’t do any high impact sports.”
I cringed inside as I left Dr. Morgan’s office. I was shocked that rather than frightening me, the idea of becoming paralyzed from the neck down excited me and turned me on. Even as a child I enjoyed imagining myself paralyzed and felt like I was meant to live in a paralyzed body. Ever since I was a child I had kept those desires secret, very aware how crazy those desires sounded to most people . . . . and very scared that those desires meant that I really was crazy. If I let myself I could spend weeks obsessed by quadriplegia – reading books, newspaper stories, and medical journal articles – or now in the age of the internet – lurking on forums, reading blogs, and watching YouTube videos. To keep from consuming all of my time and questioning my sanity, I usually tried strenuously to avoid all thoughts of paralysis and spinal cord injury. But now it had been presented to me as a realistic risk, a possible personal future – “ventilator dependent quadriplegic”.
I drove those thoughts from my mind and focused on doing physical therapy. Physical therapy helped. The numbness and tingling in my hands and the shooting pain into my arms and shoulders stopped interfering with sleep and then went away entirely. I stopped getting the clumsiness in my hands. I had to reschedule my 3 month follow up appointment with Dr. Morgan due to a family counseling appointment with Eva and Andrew, and he was so busy the next available appointment that worked for me was not for another 3 months. I had meant to okay taking figure skating lessons including jumping and spinning with Dr. Morgan at the follow up appointment, just in case he considered it risky. Rather than wait for that appointment, now that my symptoms were gone, I decided to go ahead and start skating lessons with my coach Linda. Of course I would let Linda in on my neck condition too – at least I meant to.
<< ◊ >>
I had skated for fun with my kids over the past 18 years, but this was just my second one-on-one figure skating lesson with a coach as an adult. I warmed up for the lesson by skating laps around the rink with Linda by my side. We chatted about how we’d been since our last lesson together and the plan for today. “You never managed to tell me what you hope to get out of these lessons,” Linda blurted out.
“I was trying to avoid that,” I confessed. “I’m still not sure about whether I want to compete, or even test, but I think I’ve come up with a goal to work towards.”
“Well . . . . ,” Linda led expectantly refusing to fill the silence.
“I want to get my axel back,” I admitted sheepishly. I had not done an axel since giving up competitive skating in the middle of eighth grade when my family moved to a town without an ice rink. I had gotten as far as my double loop back then – not bad considering I had started skating late. But I was not thinking double jumps at my age of almost 50 – at least not yet. “I want that feeling of launching into the air, being suspended for a split second, rotating one and a half times in the air with a snap, and dropping out of the sky to land.”
“Wow,” Linda smiled, sincerely impressed by how passionate I sounded. “Sounds like you mean it.”
“I do mean it. I don’t want any adult mini jumps that would embarrass Eva.” Many sensible adult skaters avoided jumps, or only managed humiliating little hops, but that’s not what I wanted.
“I’m so glad you’ve started skating again after all these years – seems like you’re really enjoying it – you deserve it!” Linda’s words echoed my thoughts – she knew just what to say – and she knew how hard Eva’s major depression had been on me and my marriage. Taking time for me to develop a physical skill felt a bit indulgent, but it also felt like exactly what I needed. “Let’s keep working on getting your waltz jump really big and comfortable, and then your other single jumps, and then you’ll be ready for the axel again. I really think you’ll get there.”
Done warming up, Linda started the lesson with basic stroking and edge exercises, forcing me to think about things I had taken for granted as a kid and getting me to really feel my power and potential in a new way. Then we reviewed three turns, Mohawks, and power three turns we had worked on the previous lesson. After that – time to jump. First waltz jump (one half rotation in the air) – initially tentative and then bigger and bigger. Finally a start on the single salchow – first a “walk-through” along the boards, the low wall that borders the rink, and then just a few salchow jumps. Before I could get comfortable with my salchow jump – and before I had a chance to tell Linda about the neck thing, my lesson was over and Linda had to move on to the next student.
I kept skating after the lesson, enjoying the nearly empty rink. It was late enough in the morning that most skaters had gone to school leaving just the most advanced young skaters and a couple other adult skaters. I did more waltz jumps, travelling higher and further with each attempt. I was too nervous to try the salchow on my own without Linda, so I moved on to stroking and edges. I paid attention to really staying on and leaning into my edges, keeping my speed up as I gained in confidence. I started paying attention to my posture, relaxing my shoulders and stretching out my arms. I consciously stopped looking down at the ice and instead looked straight ahead. I concentrated on generating as much speed as possible while still maintaining control. I was thrilled by the wind on my face, realizing that I was creating the wind.
My right skate caught in a rut halting my momentum and throwing me forward to the ice. I could not fall on my buttocks or hip like I usually did when I fell. I remember stretching out my arms to protect my face and head. Then blackness . . . .
I opened my eyes. My left eye was almost flat against the ice. My right eye saw only the ice and a bit of the boards – the yellow stripe at the bottom where the wall meets the ice. My head was trapped immobile against the ice. The wind was knocked out of me, but it was not coming back as expected. “I can’t breathe”, I screamed, but no sound came out.
“Call 911!!!” a teenage voice cried.
Linda’s face came into view. Her eyes wide open with terror met mine. “I can’t breathe,” I mouthed again and again without producing a sound. Then blackness . . . . .
Axel Dreams 