When I woke from surgery, I wondered where my arm went. Kim Chinquee
It was still attached, I was assured. I saw it there, hanging from my body.
I’d been dreaming about dogs, I told the attending person. It’s not my first time going under. I went under just weeks before at a different hospital, and the attending there told me, when I woke, we changed our minds. You’re healing after all. You don’t actually need surgery.
In pre-op at that hospital, that’s what they told the guy in the next bed. He was healing after all. His foot did not need surgery. He did not go under.
I fell two months before, taking out my puppy. It wasn’t my puppy’s fault. She woke me up too early.
I fell onto the concrete tile in the sunroom. I hit my head. I fell onto my wrist and on my shoulder. I had to use the bathroom.
It was five a.m. I let out the puppy and my two other dogs, then cleaned myself. I changed my clothes. My wrist was deformed. I let the dogs back in and held my wrist—with my other arm—in a cradle.
I called one friend I relied on though she is sometimes unreliable.
I’d only been in my house for a year and didn’t want to bother neighbors—I respect people’s boundaries, especially when it comes to COVID.
I called 911.
“What’s your emergency?” I heard.
I’m kind of addicted to Dateline. Nobody was dead yet.
I just really needed a ride to the hospital.
The men came, with the lights on the truck. They said I might want to put some shoes on.
In the ER, the people gave me morphine. I kept dry heaving. I leaned into the trash.
The ambulance men had taken me to the VA. That seemed the most convenient since I’m a veteran. I served during war. I had injuries, long-lasting, while serving in the air force.
Six weeks after having on the cast, the surgeon was concerned I wasn’t healing. Two days later, I woke up from anesthesia there, hearing that same echo: We didn’t actually do surgery. You’re actually all healed now!
Three days later, a doctor who had been my lover and lived the next city over recommended a trauma surgeon, who took me in right away and after seeing an X-ray, said my bones are healing way out of alignment.
After that my doctor friend took a road trip to my house. It wasn’t a short drive. I wasn’t dating anyone. We’d had sex before. He was wearing scrubs. He wasn’t exactly gentle. I’m not sure what he was. He made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. He made me bleed. He took a shower on his way out and said he had to get back to his patients.
I’m at his hospital now, where I actually had surgery. He comes to visit me. He sits on my bed. He feeds me fruit from my tray.
I have a nerve block. I cannot feel my arm. It used to be my dominant. I carry it on me like a deadweight.Kim Chinqee
—Kim Chinquee, Eckleburg No. 22
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