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It certainly was a memorable trip. December in Rochester, Minnesota will always leave an impression.
The excitement began before we even left North Carolina. Our flight out was extremely delayed. We were leaving early and our scheduled plans in Rochester did not start until the morning of the next day, so our concern was minimal. But when we landed at the airport of our first stop, we got the bad news. We had missed our connecting flight to Rochester, MN and while there was another flight that was heading there that night, there was only one seat on it. My husband, being the chivalrous man that he is, gave me the seat. Meanwhile, he took a seat on a flight to Minneapolis/Saint Paul, rented a car and drove down to Rochester - in blizzard conditions, no less - and arrived at the hotel at 4:00 in the morning. The same morning started early, and we were handed a full itinerary of activities to keep us busy. Shuffled from one bells and whistles adventure to another, the smiling and caring faces of our hosts never wavered. After a hardy lunch, we eagerly arrived at the grand finale of the day - a meeting with the man whose reputation had preceded him and who was the whole reason we had made our exhausting journey the day before. His legend would only grow in our short meeting, as once again our expectations were forsaken. He informed us that our activities earlier in the day had resulted in my being upgraded from a quick, one-day trip to the arena into a week-long getaway. We were in shock. Could we stay a week? What about work; the kids? Was there a possibility to delay this opportunity? Or was this a now or never situation? For me, it was quick road to YES. My husband looked less sure. But, we were not given much time to debate, and my husband relented and shrugged out his approval of the plan. That night, there was a romantic dinner at Outback Steakhouse to discuss the details, his reservations and what the week would look like. Another late night of preparations and phone calls to his family that they would have to take care of the kids for a week instead of a couple days, as originally planned. I have almost no memories of what happened the next day, due to the strong cocktail that our hosts served me. So the details were reported to me by my husband. He was made comfortable in a waiting room for many hours. The nurse came out every 30-60 minutes to give him updates. I was on the heart-lung machine for approximately 90 minutes. The hole was closed. The valve was implanted. He watched me struggle in the ICU after it was all done. My gagging reflex was strong, and I did not relax until extubation. He watched in amazement as his wife’s color turned in front of his eyes from purple to pink. He could not have comprehended how red my lips could get. A private room housed me for the next week. While I was kept cozy and warm, my husband had to brave the winter Minnesota weather every morning from the hotel to me and then again at night to sleep in his new home away from home. His stories of the trek across the street twice a day were harrowing. Meanwhile, I was left wishing I was a little younger and in better shape than my 35-year-old self. The pain and weakness were debilitating. A fact that was not helped by the social 18-year old that spent her recovery time visiting the various residents of our floor. And just when I thought the stressful part of our trip could not get any worse, I was treated to a reenactment of the scariest scene in the movie, Alien. With my husband watching nervously in the corner of the room and looking powerless to help me, a nurse jumped on my bed and mounted me like I was a horse with a saddle on me to ride. I stared up at her horrified and tried very hard not to look down at my chest. There she had put one stiff and strong palm again my right shoulder to hold me down and with her other hand she grabbed hold of one of the four tubes protruding from my chest and pulled with all her might. The shock of the horror of it, thankfully, seems to have washed all memory of whatever pain accompanied this act of violence. An act that was repeated three more times. Truly missing home by now, I could think of nothing else but leaving this world-renowned accommodation. The checklist for departure was handed to me, and I only had two main objectives: 1) walking several times a day and 2) clearing the fluid in my lungs that threatened to become pneumonia. Three days later, I managed to check the box next to one of them and convince my hosts that the second would not be an issue once I was safe on the ground in North Carolina. After all, we had our own world-renowned facilities there that could guide me through any extra curricular activities that my lungs decided to partake in. That only left my husband to make a quick trip to the souvenir shop for a sweatshirt to mark the occasion of this unique vacation. Not that I would ever forget my time in Minnesota. It was definitely more memorable than any trip to Disney would ever be. And, it is still one of my favorite sweatshirts to wear to this day.
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Being the new kid is never easy. We’ve all been new somewhere and the anxiety that accompanies navigating a foreign place is a discomfort that stays with you for a while and you never fully forget. Maybe that’s why so many people don’t like things that are “different,” such as people, places, religions, traditions, beliefs, etc. But, that’s a whole other conversation, and one I will not digress into now.
But, it might also explain why a particular lunch in the fourth grade is still so vivid in my memory. I was at a new school and had just shuffled into the lunch room. The lunchtime process at this small town elementary school was still new enough to me, and so I simply sat next to whomever I walked into the cafeteria with. Today, that person was David Something. Yeah, while the memory is quite clear, David’s full name is not. In fact, his name might not have even been David at all. But, I remember his face like he’s my own brother’s: round, pale, vacant hazel eyes, stringy straight mousy brown hair. I know, not an attractive description, so I should emphasize that he was a super nice kid. One of those kids who was a bit of a nerd, a good student, and he was super friendly and never said a bad word about anybody. So, maybe that was why I was standing next to him in line and, as a result, would spend lunch sitting next to him. Now David was shy, so I was not expecting a chatty lunch. But, his quiet demeanor allowed me to keep my head down and silently eat my lunch. Friend making for me had not progressed much in the handful of days I had been at the school, so I was a little lonely and hoping no one else had noticed that loneliness yet. I had my teeth hovering over the second half of my sandwich for a bite when David turned to look at me. I waited expectantly to see what he wanted to talk about. But then the strangest thing happened very quickly, his eyes left my face and looked down at my lap. I followed his eyes down and instinctively thought he had dropped something and was looking for it, when the dress material covering my lap was spayed with a brown-orange, chunky liquid. I jumped in my seat and screamed a little in shock. My head jolted to the right and searched David’s face for him to give me an explanation of what had just happened, when he bent his head down further and out came more nasty liquid from his mouth. This time, it hit further down my dress and onto my sandals. “Stop! Stop!” I yelled while trying to wiggle my way off the lunch table bench and retreat away from the table; away from David. Just as I freed my left leg from the table, a teacher came up from behind me and caught me on the shoulders. “Oh, dear,” she whispered in my ear, “Poor thing is sick.” My mouth dropped open, and I turned to look at her. I wanted to explain that he wasn’t the only one feeling sick, as the smell from my dress was starting to waft up into my nostrils. But, no words came to me to tell her of my own problems. However, when I turned toward her, it must have brought the smell with it, because she instantly dropped her hands from my shoulders, look down at my dress, stepped backwards away from me, and yelled in the direction of the lunch lady workers, “We need towels and a mop over here, please!” The next several minutes were a blur, honestly. There were many towels, adults swiping at me, urging me gently with instructions as they tried to clean me up, contact my parents and escort me to the office to be picked up. Back and forth between tears and quiet whimpering, my father fell into his well-worn role of lightening up the situation. The car ride was splattered with quick little jokes, such as: “That kid’s mom really needs to rethink what she’s putting in his lunchbox.” and “Well, this is a unique way for you to get out of a spelling test.” and “You know, making a kid throw up is no way to land yourself a boyfriend,” and then just a simple, “Little Lady, you stink.” But, it was all to no avail. I was deep in my head and panicking about what this meant for me in the 4th grade court of opinion. My father had already shot down me staying home for the rest of the day, “You can just take a quick shower while I’m eating lunch, and I can drive you back to school before I go back to the office.” So, I was going to have to face everyone. And if they didn’t already know what happened, when they saw me in a completely different outfit than I had been wearing that morning they would know. I would be an easy target as the new kid for the cruelest of puke jokes, which would most like revolve around something about me that made David throw up. Ugh! It was going to be worse than getting thrown up on. But then I remembered. In my mom’s latest hobby - sewing - she had gotten pretty good at making simple sundresses for me and my sister. Because we were so close in age and size, she usually just used the same pattern and material to make two dresses instead of one, and we each got one in our closets. The dress that I had worn that day was just such a dress. I had a plan. As we pulled into the driveway, I bounced out of the car and started giving my Dad instructions on where to find my sister’s identical dress. Meanwhile, he had his own instructions, as he looked at my once white sandals that were now multi-colored and had pieces of unidentifiable waste sticking to them, “Don’t you go into the house with those on,” he continued, “Your mom maybe dedicated enough to save them, so just leave them on the porch.” Within 30 minutes, the two of us bounded back down those same porch steps, my father fortified by a hearty lunch, and myself crisp and clean in my sister’s dress and another pair of sandals from my closet. I told myself no one would remember what sandals I wore that morning, and everyone who hadn’t seen what had happened would believe I was wearing the same thing from the morning. And, that was the problem. Because of course the story had spread around, so the number of kids who didn’t know what had happened was miniscule. So, when I arrived back at school looking the same as I had before the incident, the reaction was swift, but brutal. Because, let me tell you, being the kid that someone threw up on is bad. But being the kid who people thought didn’t change their clothes after was worse. Much worse. Everyone questions whether they are worthy of love. At some point we wonder if the person staring back at us in the mirror will be enough for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, most of us eagerly anticipate and yet fear the answer. For me, my early days of seeking love were largely unconscious.
My earliest memory was second grade. And, his name was David Shields. As is typical of memories from such an early age, I remember more how David made me feel than about things he said or did, how he looked or what others thought of him. David was my friend. But, in reality I had a crush on him. At least as much as an eight year old could crush on another eight year old. We played on the playground together, we teased each other in class and we shared our lunches with each other. We got teased that we were going to get married, and my name would be Sheila Shields. He was the only one of my classmates to give me a going away present when I moved out of state - his prized pencil case filled to the brim with all the best colored pencils and cool almost toy-like erasers. In my mid twenties I fashioned myself quite the hockey fan, specifically a Boston Bruins fan. While no one in my family had ever played the sport beyond squaring off with neighborhood kids on the frozen pond down the street from our house, we did live in Massachusetts. As such, I had been constantly exposed to the sport via friends, supporting the team from whatever school I was attending or playing floor hockey in gym class. Add to the fact that being an adult fan expanded the sport to include fun social nights out consuming beer and bar food with fellow fans, and I was smitten.
And so it was that I did not hesitate when my friend/boss asked me if I would like to drive up to Montreal to catch a Bruins vs Canadiens playoff game one Spring weekend in the mid nineteen nineties. It was an easy 5 hour drive, with a brief stop at the border to flash our U.S. driver’s license and head on into Canada. The money exchange at the time, made our suite at the Ritz Carlton cost only $99 for the night, which we split between the two of us, and David slept on the pullout couch. Meanwhile “standing room only” tickets were a cheap way to see the game at the last minute. If I was a kid today, I would be labeled “disabled.” But when I was growing up, those labels did not really exist unless you had mobility issues or a handicap that anyone walking past you could see. But, my disability was invisible, so I lived in the luxury of both looking and being treated as “normal” by strangers and even acquaintances.
In college, despite not having this designation, my file did have a record of my heart defect. As such, Junior year when I moved off campus and suddenly needed to fight for a parking space on a campus that did not have enough for all its students, my lifelong disabled mindset kicked in. |
AuthorA former corporate online marketing and communications professional, in 2021 Long Covid redirected me. I am revisiting my passion for writing. You are the unfortunate witness to that journey. 
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