Shame on Me?
SHAME ON ME?
Every July, the Royal American shows brought carnival rides and games of chance to the Exhibition grounds for Regina’s annual Pile of Bones days. Members of the Shriners Temple sponsored and accompanied children with various health issues to the fair each year. The man who arranged for me to go to the Shriner’s Hospital in Winnipeg contacted my parents and asked them if I would be interested in going to the fair with their group. There was a catch, though; for safety reasons, I would have to attend the fair in a wheelchair because of my casts.
For me, the mere idea of getting into a wheelchair triggered intense fear. I didn’t understand it then, but the fear I experienced in that initial orthopedic appointment with Dr. Froggatt had been incredibly traumatizing. When he suggested I might spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, the fear I experienced was so intense that whenever I heard the word wheelchair, my mind and body relived not only my terror from that appointment but my dad’s as well. Also, I had already experienced several years of ridicule and bullying for how I walked. Drawing attention to myself by being pushed in a wheelchair by a Shriner was akin to being on display in a freakshow. I did not want any part of this!
My dad saw my reluctance to participate as disrespectful and ungrateful. He believed Mr. D had gone out of his way to get me into the Shriner’s Hospital and is now offering to take me to the fair, and rather than jumping at the opportunity, I am worried about potential ridicule? “You should be ashamed of yourself!” He spat. “You are going!”
On Fair Day, Mr. D parked in front of the house. I felt as though the entire neighborhood saw me getting into the car. At Exhibition Park, we met several other Shriners who had picked up other disabled children. The men wore their Shriner’s uniform: tall, bright red hats with tassels and red vests. All of us kids were in wheelchairs. There was no way to be inconspicuous. The last thing I wanted was a ton of attention, but attention is precisely what we received. I was horrified, but to me, the other kids appeared to be enjoying themselves.
Shortly after we arrived at the fairgrounds, we rolled up to the bumper cars ride. One of the carnies stationed at this ride saw that I didn’t look happy and was not engaging like the other kids. He decided to lift me right out of that wheelchair and put me in a bumper car! He perched himself on the back of the car, and began driving expertly around the track, rarely bumping into another vehicle. When the session was over, he gently placed me back in the wheelchair, and I resumed doing whatever I could to be invisible.
As an adult, I understand why everyone thought that forcing me to go to the fair with the Shriners would be a good experience, but to ten-year-old me, it was like pouring salt into a gaping wound.
After several years of bullying combined with the trauma I experienced with the surgery, the archetypal wounds of abandonment and betrayal ran deep. Shaming me into doing something I did not want to do added to my betrayal feelings, and my self-worth was rapidly deteriorating.
REHAB AT THE SHRINER’S HOSPITAL
Two weeks after my excursion to the Exhibition, it was time to return to Winnipeg for another check-up and get the casts off for good! This time, me and my mom made the trip alone, and instead of driving, we flew. It was my first time on a plane, and I was excited. Back in those days, air travel was quite expensive. The cost of the airfare was not covered by the Shriners or our government health care, so I was fortunate that my parents could afford it.
We were booked on an evening flight because my mom had to work at our store during the day. That particular evening, there was a lot of lightning in the sky, and I was concerned that lightning would hit our plane and we would crash! My mom reassured me that we would be fine, so I settled in for the hour-long flight.
My memories of this visit are spotty. I recall being admitted into the Children’s Hospital and shown to a room, but the nitty-gritty details of the visit are buried somewhere in a Mind File in my FEAR cabinet. I vaguely remember the orderly showing me again that the saw would not cut through my skin when he was about to cut my casts off. What stands out in my memory, though, is he asked me if I wanted to keep the casts as souvenirs. I was eager to get all of this behind me, so I quickly said, “no, thank you!”
Next, I went to radiology for x-rays and later to a large neurology lab. Electrodes were placed all over my lower body. The technologist asked me to walk around the room and reminded me to be careful and not to trip over the wires.
Neurological data was collected, analyzed, and sent to Dr. Riddell for review. No one ever spoke about this neurological test after that day, and I never had another one.
My mom stayed with me back in my room until visiting hours were over. As soon as she started to leave, I began to cry. The memories from my stay at the Children’s Hospital before surgery were fresh in my mind, and I did not want to be left alone in this place again. This building represented pain in my mind, and I feared I would experience more.
Mom pulled the blankets over me and gently began rubbing my back, just like she used to do when I was little. She spoke softly and said, “Close your eyes and go to sleep. I promise that no one is going to hurt you this time. If you need something, pull this string, and the nurse will come. I will be back first thing in the morning.”
The next day, I was to be transferred to Shriner’s Hospital for rehabilitation. Mom was at the hospital first thing, just like she promised! Shortly before noon, ambulance drivers arrived in my room with a gurney. I was just about to eat lunch, and my mom was concerned that I would miss lunch at the next hospital, so she asked if I could take my lunch with me. It was just a sandwich and potato chips, so the EMTs said, “no problem!”
This was my first trip in an ambulance, and I was pretty excited! One of my favorite TV shows at the time was Emergency!, a show about two paramedics, the LA Fire Department, and the doctors and nurses of Rampart Hospital. Just like I saw on TV, going in an ambulance made me feel like I was part of something special! One attendant sat with me in the back and chatted with me as we drove through the city to Shriner’s Hospital. My mom wasn’t allowed to ride with me, so she followed in a taxi.
The paramedic who sat with me in the back was very friendly, and I felt at ease. He explained what the Shriner’s Hospital was and told me he had taken many children there in this ambulance. He told me I would have lots of fun there and suggested I would meet other kids there just like me.
After about twenty minutes, we arrived at Shriner’s Hospital. Situated in a beautiful park alongside the Red River, this hospital’s focus was on physical rehabilitation. Some children were there getting fitted for new prosthetics, braces, and wheelchairs. Others like me were there for physiotherapy.
Two siblings, Becky and Johnny, were recovering from severe third-degree burns obtained in a house fire. They were in a room together, close to the nursing station.
The paramedic wheeled me down the hallway to a large room with several beds and satellite rooms. In the center of the large room was a nursing station where I was signed in. There was an eating area in the far corner and a play area next to that. Beds lined the outer walls, and there were a few isolated rooms off the main room as well.
It took a few minutes to register, and then I was wheeled into an isolated room with six beds not too far from the nurse’s desk. My bed was on the windowless room's left-hand side against the wall closest to the door. A large TV sat on a shelf mounted on the wall opposite the doors. After unhooking the seatbelt-like straps that secured me onto the gurney, the paramedic carefully lifted me onto the bed. “It was really nice meeting you, Penny,” he said. “The nurse will be in shortly. Take care!”
My mom arrived at the hospital not too long after I did. The nurse came in, took a history, and asked if I had a ‘strong stomach.’ My mom asked why I needed a strong stomach, and the nurse explained that two children had severe burns. She explained that some children were frightened by their appearance and that others became sick after seeing them. My mom told the nurse that I was strong and that seeing them wouldn’t bother me. After she had taken my medical history, she left, returned with a wheelchair for me to ride in, and took us on a tour of the facility.
We saw a large physiotherapy room where I would be going on weekdays for the next two weeks, a prosthetics department that also fitted children for various equipment like crutches and wheelchairs, hospital laundry facilities, and a large industrial kitchen. The nurse told us the food here was considerably better than ‘normal hospital food.’
A double doorway opened to a ramp that led down to a large patio just off the main housing room. Iron railings lined the ramp and the entire concrete deck. Plenty of tables and large umbrellas provided shade from the sun. You could see the Red River, rows of trees, and plenty of lush green grass from the patio. It was beautiful there, and I felt safe.
After the tour, my mom explained that she couldn’t stay with me, and that I would be here for several weeks. She went on to explain that she had to go back to Regina to work in the store. She did her best to reassure me that the nurses would take good care of me, that no one would hurt me here, and that she would see me at home in a couple of weeks.
A COUPLE OF WEEKS?!
That is the last thing I can recall with certainty from that day. I didn’t understand it then but being left alone in an institution in a city hundreds of miles away from my familial support system had a substantial negative emotional impact. No one would visit me because everyone I knew was hundreds of miles away in a completely different city. I was shocked, confused, scared, and ultimately sad. I thought my mom would stay with me in Winnipeg and visit me every day.
The two major archetypal wounds that I had experienced when I had the surgery, just gone salt poured into them. These wounds had long-lasting adverse effects on my emotional well-being. From this point on, I understood that I was on my own.
I had never been on my own before, and I had never been in a room with other children who, like me, had visible deformities. On the one hand, I felt a kind of kinship with the others, but on the other hand, the words my dad had hurled at me at the hospital only a few weeks ago still reverberated in my mind. “Take a look around you. There are lots of kids here, way worse than you! Quit feeling sorry for yourself!” His projected guilt worked because I felt guilty that my condition wasn’t nearly as severe as the kids here had.
I met a boy the same age as me who had been in a farm accident and lost his arm at the shoulder. He was being fitted for a new prosthetic arm and would only be staying a few days. Another boy in the same room was getting fitted for new prosthetic legs. He had also been in an accident. He was growing and needed legs in proportion to his trunk. His legs were amputated mid-thigh, so he could move his prosthetic legs using the top of his natural legs, using arm crutches to maintain balance.
Just off the nurse’s station was an isolation room with two beds. Inside were the two siblings. Johnny was a seven-year-old boy, and his sister, Becky, was nine. Both had third-degree burns covering most of their bodies. They were the survivors of a house fire, had already undergone multiple skin graft surgeries, and were in for many more over the next several years. Their tiny fingers had been burned down to stubs. Their ears were gone, and their eyes no longer had eyelids. The nurses had to remove the bandages and clean their wounds to prevent infection every day. This procedure was excruciating for them. Becky and Johnny would scream and cry, which upset everyone. These were the children the nurse referred to when she asked my mom if I had a strong stomach.
Not only did Becky and Johnny have to endure the physical pain of years of surgeries and therapy, but they had also been given up by their parents, who couldn’t stand to look at them because of their burns. I’ll never forget the day the nurse told me that when I asked why no one ever came to visit them. I was horrified! Would that happen to me? What if I couldn’t be fixed? Would my parents give me away too?
A few days after I arrived, a new girl came in and was assigned the bed next to mine. She was born with lower limb reduction, which is a fancy way of saying her legs did not form properly. In fact, her legs never grew at all. She was thirteen years old, had baby's legs, and wore a diaper, just like a baby. She couldn’t go to the bathroom by herself because she didn’t have the strength to transfer herself from the wheelchair to the toilet and back again. This girl gave me a glimpse into my potential future because it was clear that she would be in a wheelchair for her whole life. I began to understand why my dad had told me that he didn’t want me to be a burden to others.
One night, I was startled awake by her screaming and crying. “What’s wrong?” I said. “There’s blood everywhere!” she said, “I’m bleeding, and I don’t know why!” I asked her if it was time for her period, but she didn’t know what that was. “It’s when you bleed every month,” I calmly explained, “every girl does it. It’s nothing to be scared of”. When the nurse finally came into the room, she confirmed what I had suspected. This girl had started her period, so she would need to have her diaper changed more often.
On weekends, Shriners would come to entertain and play with us. On warm sunny days, we would go outside on the patio to play cards or board games. One weekend, rather than go outside, I wanted to stay in and watch the Bay City Rollers TV special. I was a huge fan and knew all the words to their popular songs. One of the Shriners was offended and said to me in a tone that reminded me of my dad, “I took the time to come here to spend time with you, and you would rather watch that crap on TV? What’s wrong with you?” I kept watching the show and pretended to ignore him, never allowing him the satisfaction of knowing how much his words stung.
Every weekday, I went to the physiotherapy room to exercise my feet and learn how to walk again. Each session began with a foot massage to break up scar tissue that had formed along the bottom and sides of my feet. Despite being allowed to walk in the casts, my foot and calf muscles were atrophied, so I had a great deal of strengthening to do. As is often the case, medical professionals tend to focus on the task at hand, so doing anything to help my severe bilateral hip dysplasia was not a part of my physiotherapy regime. I’m unsure if the physiotherapists were oblivious to my hip dysplasia or just insensitive because they were overly critical of my inability to navigate stairs without using the railing for support. “What are you doing? Why are you going all the way over to the railing? Can’t you go down the stairs without hanging on?” I didn’t understand why I was chastised for using the railing. The concrete stairs had at least a seven-inch rise, and I was scared that my wobbling would result in a fall. I didn’t want to stay in this hospital any longer than was absolutely necessary, and falling could easily jeopardize my release. I still use the railing to navigate a staircase to this day, forty-five years and thirteen additional surgeries later.
After nearly three weeks, I was finally strong enough to go home! This was also going to be my first solo plane ride! A nurse’s aide drove me to the airport and obtained my boarding pass. She took me to the gate and handed me over to the pilot and the flight attendant. I boarded before the other passengers. I sat in the front row beside the window. I was excited to finally go home to see my mom and dad.
When we arrived in Regina, I had to wait until all the passengers had deplaned. While I waited, the pilot came over to me and gave me an Air Canada pin for being so well-behaved. Finally, the flight attendant took my hand and said, “We’re all set! Let’s go find your mom and dad!”
We walked down a long terminal through two big doors onto a black platform. I could see my mom, dad, brother, and sister waiting for me. My mom had tears running down her face when she saw me, her arms wide open. We ran toward one another and embraced. “Welcome home, honey!” she said, “I missed you so much!” “I missed you too!” I said and hugged her so tight she could barely breathe. She hugged me back equally as hard and kissed me over and over again! I was so happy to be home! Then, I looked up at my dad. The look on his face told me he was disappointed. He shook his head and said, “You’re still limping! Why are you still limping?” He didn’t hug me. Instead, he turned and began walking away.
I felt my heart sink deeper into my chest. I was devastated. In retrospect, I think it’s safe to say that my dad had no idea how detrimental his comment and that look were to my emotional well-being. His rejection of me at the airport created a massive hole in my self-worth. That day, an over-achiever was born within me. I desperately wanted my dad to love me, and I spent the next twenty-nine years working hard to prove I was worthy. It took me many years to realize I was seeking approval from a man who not only would never give it to me but also one who couldn’t give it to me.