Here to Help

The day is balmy, with thin sheets of layered clouds making stripes of dark and light. The bus driver immediately starts talking to me about his wife, who has some foot condition that causes her excruciating pain, something like plantar fasciitis only much more painful, with bone spurs thrown into the mix. He asks how I like the scooter and I say it’s better than crutches. “Yeah it turns out crutches are bad for you,” he says. “Who knew? They have a thing called Canadian crutches they say are a lot better.”

“I tell you what I could use is some of that Canadian socialized medicine,” I say. 

“Tell me about it. The operation she needs will cost ten thousand dollars, even with inusurance. And she works for the state!”

After we bitch about the evils of the insurance industry for a while, the conversation dies a natural death and I make no attempt to resuscitate it. In the window of a postmodern eyesore hangs is a sign that reads “Don’t Give Up.” Further up the street is a billboard for the Salvation Army that reads, “Here to Help.” 

At the reception desk I see that friendly woman whose mother shares my birthday. I think about asking her if she remembers my name yet, but she’s talking to someone so I just roll on past, swerving to  avoid a doctor who never looks up from his phone as he barrels ahead.

On the wall of the waiting area is a sign I’ve never noticed before. “Rapid Response Team. If you are concerned, we are concerned. Dial…” 

I sit for a few minutes before Karen comes out to get me. “Are you excited?” she asks. 

“I’m trying not to be,” I say cheerfully. 

“Well I am! It's going to look great!” 

“I hope so but I’ve been burned too many times,” I say. “I have to protect myself.” All day I’ve been anxious about this visit. I’ve been careful and “done my homework” as Shelley would say, but there’s still a chance that when she unwraps my foot, she’ll expose a bloody mess. 

“Uh oh what’s up with your heel?” she says. 

“What do you mean?” I ask, switching instantly into panic mode.

“There’s a bandage on it.”

“Oh, they put that on because of the blister. Is ithere drainage?”

She peels it off. “Not a drop, And none up here either. You’re still all healed up!”

Jenny comes in and says my wound looks better than she’s ever seen it. She was still on strike the last time I was given a clean bill of health so she's actually never seen me fully healed. 

Shelley and Vicki and Bridget all poke their heads in to admire the smooth, beautiful skin. I ask Bridget how St. Patrick’s Day was. “Wonderful,” she says, her eyes twinkling.

Nurse Practitioner Lena comes in and greets me warmly. “Before we get started, do you mind if I use AI to record all this?”

What would she say if said I did mind, that I thought AI was an insidious technology that is hastening the downfall of society, not to mention teh environment? But I don’t feel like having to explain myself so I just say, “Uh, I guess not.”

She presses a button on her phone and says “Okay, great. It’s my office assistant....this looks beautiful. I’m just going to trim a bit of this callus. I think a number three will do it.” She unwraps a scalpel and makes a few small slices, then asks Karen, “Did we agree on a football?”

“Yep, football,” she agrees. 

“So when do I try on my shoes?” I ask. 

“What did the people at the shoe place tell you?”

“They didn’t tell me anything.”

“But they did get you fitted for shoes, right?”

“I have them right here. You all told me to bring them.”

“Did they give you any instructions?”

“No.”

The Nurse Practitioner and Vicki and Karen all seem completely thrown off by this. “Well, can you call them and get instructions?” Lena asks. 

“I mean, sure, but I’ve done this before. What is tehre to know? Wear them an hour the first day, then two hours, checking them regularly…”

“Every fifteen minutes,” Nurse Practioner Lena says. “Are you still working?”

“I never stopped,” I say. Every fifteen minutes? I understand the need for caution, but aside from the infirm and elderly, who is able to stop everything and take their shoes and socks off every fifteen minutes? 

“He works at the art museum,” says Karen. “I just went for the first time. It’s awesome there.”

“Are you on your feet a lot?”

“Some. I sit down most of the time, but I do have to get up and walk around a bit.”

“Well at the first sign of redness, you take them right off and call to have them adjusted.”

“And what do I wear in the meantime?”

She looks bewildered by the question. Jesus Christ, don’t they deal with this exact issue all the time? What does everyone else do?

“Just stay off it,” she says. “You’ll still be using your scooter, right?”

“I’ll be using my scooter.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know, no one told me that either.” I wish Dr. Thompson was here. I wonder if she’s had her surgery yet. 

“That’s cool that you work at the museum,” Lena says.
I'm an artist." I tell her I am too, that I paint but mostly draw these days. She says she does watercolors.

“Wow, those are hard,” I say. 

“What do you mean?” she says. Watercolor people never understand when you tell them how hard watercolors are. They're so delicate yet unforgiving, and it's hard to fix your mistakes.

She leaves and Karen wraps my foot in the football. I’m distracted and don’t pay attention to what she’s doing. Lena comes back and hands me three small sheets of stiff card stock and tells me to pick one to take with me. Two of them have cartoon birds painted on them. The third has a wiener dog wearing a pink sweater. They’re all nicely painted but sickeningly cute.

“Wow, you did these? They look professional.” 

I show the wiener dog to Karen and she goes berserk, and insists on showing us an array of photographs of Dolly. She explains to Lena, “I’m part of a club, Wien PDX.”

“You really have to change that name,” I say. 

I pick one of the birds. The Nurse Practitioner says Karen can have the dachshund. She squeals with delight.

“So what do I do if they give me instructions for my shoe?” I ask. “Do I wait until I see you again to start putting it on?”

“No, you can just cut the football off yourself. You can manage that, right? Don’t cut yourself. See you next week. And bring in some of your work, I’d love to see it.”

The sides of my post-op shoe are hanging by threads, so Karen gets me a new one, then brings me my scooter, congratulating herself on backing it up expertly. She asks me what I have planned for the weekend. 

"Oh you know... running a half marathon. Square dance competition. The usual." Actually I've taken a four day weekend and will be heading out to the beach overnight, lugging my scooter onto the bus.

As I roll out, everyone screams, “The bell! The bell!”

"Ding ding," I say.

"No, you have to ring it!"

“I’m not done yet,” I grumble.

Sitting in the lobby to wait for my bus, I suddenly notice that I’m furious. There's no good reason for it; I’m all healed up, the skin looks beautiful, and everything went more or less like I expected, aside from the football thing, but even so, that will actually provide more cushioning, so I should be happy about it. I thought I’d want to celebrate, but instead I feel like screaming. 

As I sit there, a number of security guards hustle past with stun guns in their holsters. When I finally decide to leave, I come across a beefy guard standing in the exit. I roll past him but when a couple of young women in scrubs try to get in, he brusquely says, “You can’t come in here.”

“But we work here!” they cry. He refuses to budge or answer their questions. I see a guard standing on the edge of the parking lot, and another one hurrying across to join her. When I get to the top of the hill I see a Cintas Fire Protection truck parked beside a man standing with his hands zip-tied behind him and a cop pointing an assault rifle at his feet. They are blocking my way to the bus stop. I roll quickly to the next stop over, glancing back occasionally. The two men are joined by a third and they all just stand there as if having a friendly conversation. A number of cop cars speed past. On the ground beside the bus shelter is a white index card upon which someone has written the words “YOU’RE DOING GREAT!” 

“Bullshit,” I mutter, as I roll onto the bus, dragging my rage like a sack of knives behind me.

Operation Epic Fury

 As soon as I get home from my appointment, I notice that the bottom of my cast is soft and starting to crack and unravel. I don’t worry too much about it until a few days later, when it starts to pour, and continues to do so with no end in sight. I start wrapping my foot in a plastic bag, which looks ridiculous but helps me feel a little more secure. I don’t think getting a little water inside will do any damage at this point, but I’m reluctant to take any chances this close to the finish line. 

As the week progresses, I start to feel buffeted by waves of anxiety, not just about my foot but about this astoundingly stupid war that our astoundingly stupid president has plunged us into.  I try not to get sucked into the vortex of apparently inexhaustible atrocity, but I find myself doomscrolling like everyone else as I try to understand the madness, even though I know that by doing so I become infected by it. Outrage is a potent drug.

In the meantime, we all just continue bumbling along, staring at our phones, working at our jobs, and doing all the dumb everyday things we do to survive, which in my case means leaving work early on Tuesday to hop on the light rail and cross the river to pick up my new diabetic shoes.

The shoe place is in a less-than-scenic area of town, and the closer we get, the more the train fills up with people who are all in decidedly worse shape than I am, even taking into account my cast and scooter and cement block of crippling ennui.

Evergreen Prosthetics and Orthotics is only a block away from the 102nd Avenue light rail stop. On the way I pass the world’s least inviting retirement home, a marijuana shop, a mini-mart, and an abandoned taqueria. Evergreen is the only open business in what was once a medical complex.  People with shopping carts and sleeping bags huddle beneath the overhangs of the empty offices. The parking lot is so cracked I can barely roll across it. It all feels decidedly post-apocalyptic. 

Things aren’t much less grim inside. The tiny waiting room is drab with nothing on the walls but a photograph of Portland’s ubiquitous White Stag sign and a TV showing a plume of smoke rising from a school in Tehran that the US is vehemently denying having bombed. I go up to the window behind which slump two vaguely pyramid-shaped women who seem to be melting into their chairs. Before I even say anything, one of them asks, “Are you Seann?” and immediately informs me that I haven’t met my copay, so my bill will be $280. I take out my debit card but she tells me to pay after my appointment, and hands me a clipboard with a formidable number of questions to fill out. “We just need to update your records,” she says. It’s a good thing I got here early. 

I’ve barely finished updating my records when the man who fitted me for my shoes calls me into one of the back rooms. He looks exactly like a shoe salesman. 

“You’re wearing a cast,” he says. 

“Yeah I obviously can’t wear the shoes yet, but the doctor told me to come pick them up and they’ll have me put them on in the office,” I say. 

“Um, okay,” he says. “I mean, I guess that’ll work.” He doesn’t sound at all sure of this. He leaves and comes back with a large green shoebox. “You can try the right one on, at least,” he says. 

“I may as well,” I say. He opens the lid to reveal the most hideous shoes I’ve ever paid $280 for. I have no one to blame but myself; I picked them out from the catalog he brought when he did the fitting.

I put on the right shoe while he leaves to get a tote for the box. I tell him not to bother but he says, “It’s a really nice tote!” so I relent. The front of the shoe has odd zigzag laces that don’t actually do anything; the shoe is held fast by a Velcro strap. It looks a little like a geriatric bondage device. I hobble around the room. It feels like I might step out of it and that it may also be much too tight. 

When he returns I ask him, “So do these, uh, work pretty well for people?”

“They’re good shoes,” he says. “Real good shoes. Customers have been very satisfied with them.”

“Okay,” I say.

“You know, you’ve got a really good attitude about all this,” he says. 

“Really?” I ask. “Because I’m pretty miserable most of the time.”

“I know that what you’re going through with your is frustrating, I mean, I see it all the time. In fact it’s pretty much all I see. But you’re handling it all really well.”

 He puts the shoebox in the tote and I hang it on my handlebars and roll back out to the counter, where the other melting woman runs my card. In the office behind her is a stack of large boxes marked CHIPOTLE. 

While I’m waiting for the Widder to pick me up, I stare at the TV, where a pundit is explaining to a robotic newscaster why it’s actually a good thing that the price of gas is going up, and why this war –sorry, short-term excursion- is an essential step on the road toward making America great again. It’s funny how crooked that road is turning out to be, and there are an awful lot of potholes. I look down at my shoe. Just like this country, it’s weird, ugly, and expensive, but none of that will matter if it actually allows me to walk. 

*

“Is it still raining out there?” Bridget asks when she opens the door. 

“Cats and dogs,” I say. “And possibly a guinea pig or two. Hey, are you ready to celebrate tonight? After all, it’s..." I count on my fingers, "St. Patrick’s Day Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve!” 

“I’m sick of this rain,” she grumbles. 

“Well at least one of you is ready for the holiday,” I say to Jenny, who is wearing shamrock green scrubs.

“It’s been a weird day,” she says. “And the cats kept me up half the night with their fighting.” 

"It's been a weird week," I say. "Between the rain and this Iran shit, everybody's exhausted. I know I am."

"God it's all so evil," says Jenny. 

Bridget saws off my cast, going over the thick cast along my ankles over and over. When she finally manages to crack it open she shows me that the entire sole is starting to peel off. But there’s no water inside.

She tears off the batting and peels off the bandage and both her and Jenny look horrified and say, “Ohhh.” I can see that there is a spot of drainage on the bandage. I feel my blood pressure leap.

“Oh no. What’s wrong? Is it bad?”

“It looks great,” says Bridget. 

“It’s all closed up,” says Jenny. 

“Then why do you have those looks on your faces? And what's that spot of drainage?” 

“Oh that’s nothing,” says Bridget. “I’m going to get the doctor so she can see.”

"So it didn't open up?"

"Nope," says Jenny. "It's been healed up two weeks in a row now."

“I want to see!” squeals Karen. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen her; she says she was away. 

The doctor comes in, touches my foot, and makes a chef’s kiss gesture. “Outstanding,” she says. I want to ask about the drainage stain but decide not to worry about it. Well, try not to.

She and Jenny leave and Bridget prepares the undercast. She keeps asking me questions about how high up to pull the sock and how much padding to put on top. 

“Did Hawaii just wipe your memory completely?” I ask playfully. 

“I think so. Though it feels like it was a year ago.”

Doctor Thompson comes in and sits on the stool. “Now this is my last one so I expect it to be the best damn cast you’ve ever done,” I say. “No pressure. But I can't accept anything less than magnificence.”

"I always strive for magnificence," she says. "Though I rarely achieve it."

For the last time she uses up the first roll of Fiberglas then looks up at Bridget, who is just standing there. 

“What? Oh. Right,” Bridget finally says, then unwraps another roll and drops it into the water, which for the last time is the perfect temperature. The doctor finishes and once again looks up at Bridget, who once again is just standing there staring off into space. 

“Sorry,” she says, and unwraps another roll. “How long will you be gone again?”

“Two weeks,” says the doctor. 

“So I won’t see you next week,” I say. 

“You won’t.”

“ You finally going on vacation?” I ask. 

There's a pause. “No,” she says. 

She applies the third roll but the Fiberglas keeps bunching up and she stretches it tight to smooth it out. “We’ve known each other for a while, I guess I can tell you that I’m having surgery.” I wait for her to elaborate but she doesn’t. 

“I hope it goes well,” I say. 

“If it doesn’t I’m hosed,” she says. She holds out her hand. “Board.”

Bridget passes her the plastic board and she places my sole flat against to make sure it’s at a ninety-degree angle to my leg. Then she asks for another roll. 

“Another roll?” asks Bridget. 

“You know I always like to do four rolls,” the doctor says. She wraps it and rubs it and rubs it some more and then for the last time it’s finished. 

“That’s it,” she says. “This is the one, I can tell. It’s going to work this time. You’re all done.”

“I hope so,” I say. “No offense but this is getting old.”

“Did you get fitted for shoes?”

“Yes, I picked them up. Should I bring them next week?”

“Yes, bring them. And remember, if you start to see even the slightest bit of redness, take them off immediately and call to have them adjusted.”

She gets up off the stool and pushes the curtain open. 

“Good luck with your surgery,” I say. 

“Thank you,” she says, and disappears. 

“So after next week, am I really done?” I ask Vicki, who is standing there while Bridget gets my scooter. “Or do I have a follow up appointment?”

“They’ll decide after they see you next week,” says Vicki. 

“But Dr. Thompson won’t be here.”

“Oh that’s right. No, you’ll be seeing Lena.” 

“The nurse practitioner?” I ask, trying not to sound too crestfallen. 

“From St. Vincent, yes.”

I wish Bridget a happy Saint Patrick’s Day and everyone yells goodbye for what feels like the last time, though of course it’s not. As I wait for the elevator, I start to feel peculiar. I feel a lightness in my chest that I haven’t felt in a long time. It’s like the first breath of fresh air you take after lying in bed with the blanket pulled over your head all day. This is my last cast. This time next week, I’ll be free, though who knows for how long. The ulcer will probably open back up immediately, like it always does. Or maybe there will be a new ulcer in some new spot. Or maybe some fresh new medical horror will rear its head and…

No, I can’t let myself think this way. This time I’ll be more cautious. This time I’ll be more patient. This time I’ll take things more slowly. It’s been a long, difficult journey, but after all the mistakes and poor choices, after all the bad timing and hard luck, at long last, things are finally going to start going my way. 

I am going to be healed. And so will this country. Someday. 

In the meantime, it’s still raining like hell, and I have four minutes until the bus comes. Propelling myself uphill, skirting sticks and cracks and countless other obstacles, I make it with a minute to spare. 

Pink Shoelaces

Leaves plastered to the pavement. Rainbow rings of oil in the gutter. Pigeons perched atop a billboard.

 All day I’ve been trying not to get frustrated with people, but when I get on the bus, the front seats are dominated by a healthy-looking couple who refuse to make room for me, or the ancient woman with the groceries, or the woman with the walker, or the man with the white cane. Every time one of these people get on, the couple glances up from their phones, then looks right back down. 

When I reach my stop, the woman with the groceries apologizes and tries to move her stuff out of my way, in the process whacking me in the head with her cane. She apologizes profusely but I just laugh. My frustration is just covering how anxious I feel about what kind of shape my heel will be in when they unwrap it. I feel a pinching panic when I think about it.

Upstairs, Jenny opens the door and very quietly says “Hello.” I ask if everything’s okay, and she says yes, again very softly, that she’s just tired. “Room two,” she murmurs. 

“Good. I’m tired of slumming it,” I whisper.

Bridget is at the computer, and before Jenny can get the saw fired up she asks, “You know how I told you how important St. Patrick’s Day is to me?”

“Um, yeah,” I say, vaguely remembering her saying something last week.

“I mean, for me and my boyfriend, it’s bigger than Christmas. Well my mother calls me the other day and says she’s getting a six hour surgery done and wants me to take her and stay with her the whole time. And guess what day it’s happening on?”

“Big deal you bring a four pack of Guinness and a bottle of Jameson to the hospital, no one will care,” I say. “I mean, is  it a catholic hospital?”

“I told her I couldn’t do it so she’s getting her friend to take her,” she says. 

I laugh. “Your own mother!”

“It’s Sr. Patrick’s Day,” she says.

Jenny fires up the saw. It takes a couple of passes to cut through the extra thick heel. I brace myself, assuming the blister has broken and that I’ll be exposed to a mess of blood and pus. But nothing has seeped into the cast, nor the batting. She finally pulls off the foam pad and shows it to me. It’s completely dry. 

“Holy shit,” I say. 

“It’s still intact. Looks like it got reabsorbed,” she says. She pulls off the foam pad on the wound. I can see that there is a tan spot of drainage on the pad.

“Scant tan,” she says. “But the wound looks all healed up.”

“It sure does,” says Bridget. 

“Let me see,” I say. There is a smooth, pink indentation where there was once a ragged, gaping wound. With some difficulty, I twist my ankle to inspect the heel. There is a red splotch where the blister was.

“I’m so happy!” says Jenny. “We’ve been waiting so long for this!” 

I run my hand over my smooth heel, and Jenny does something she’s never done before; she plucks a tiny piece of skin from the edge of the former wound.

“Now it looks even better.”

“Let me see,” says Doctor Thompson, coming in before Jenny can apply the Lidocaine. “Yep, this is healed.”

“The blister got reabsorbed,” says Jenny.

“I thought it would. It was pretty tight.”

“I was expecting the worst,” I say.

“How does that song go? Hope for the best and expect the worst?” the doctor says. 

Shelley pokes her head in, then slides in to take Bridget’s place at the computer. 

“Did you do something to your hair?” I ask. She points to her new bangs. “They look good,” I say, though to be honest I’m not sure I feel about them.

“Thanks. They itch,” she says. 

“Did your girls ever cut their own hair?” asks Jenny. 

“The younger one did. She had this huge bald patch. I had to try hard not to laugh.”

“My daughter only did once. She was so proud of herself. She was usually so good but she could be sneaky. She never scribbled on the walls like some kids do, but when we moved, in the back of her closet we found a whole mural of crayon drawings. I have to admit it looked pretty cool. ”

 She washes and wraps my foot and says, “I’m giving you extra padding on the heel again, just to be safe. After this you get two more weeks of casts, and then you should make an appointment to get fitted for shoes.” I tell her I ordered shes already and that they’ve been ready for months. “Well go pick them up and bring them here. We’ll fit them here when the last cast comes off.”

“They won’t just bring them here? They came during my appointment to take my measurements,” I grumble. The shoe place doesn’t have weekend hours so I’ll have to take yet another afternoon off of work, and take the light rail clear across town.  

While she works we complain about the new war with Iran. I think of all the hospitals that have been bombed anin the past few days. And here I’ve been anxious all day worrying about a blister on my heel.

She prepares the bucket of water and the stool and lays down the blue gauze, but she does it all in front of the chair instead of to the side. I almost say something but I don’t want to tell her how to do her job. The moment Thompson comes in she asks, “What is this? You know I like to work from the side.”

 “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I guess I was thinking of Taggert,” says Jenny. 

Once Janet has scrambled to put everything in its proper place, the doctor fusses for a long time with the height of my chair, then squats on the stool. She lays an extra sheet of gauze over her sneakers and says, “Need to protect my new pink shoelaces. I don’t usually care about such things but for some reason this time I do.” Are shoelaces particularly sensitive to moisture?

She finishes my penultimate cast, then tears off her paper gown. “Wait, what am I doing, I have one more cast to do,” she says. 

“Hey, doctor?” I say. She stops and turns. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” she says, then pushes out through the curtain. 

“Code gray in the lobby of the cancer center,” says the intercom.

I miss the bus by about a minute, and sit in the lobby to wait. I feel even more anxious than I did before. I’m so afraid the shoes won’t help, that I’ll end up right back here within a few weeks of having the cast off. The cast is a nuisance but I feel safer with it on, protected by its rigid shell. I know that once it’s off I’ll need to keep using the scooter for weeks, maybe months, not really allow myself to walk around, even though everything looks and feels fine. I need to keep playing the cripple for a while longer. Maybe by summer I can start taking more chances, but until then I need to be very, very cautious. 

I am so fucking tired of being cautious. 

When I get off the bus, the billboard is clear of pigeons and the rainbows in the gutters have dissipated. But the leaves are still glued to the wet sidewalks, and through the chain link fence beside my building, constellations of daffodils bend in the breeze.