After a Fall

A Sociomedical Sojourn

Laurel Richardson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781611323160
• eBook ISBN: 9781315435312
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Anthropologie

For renowned sociologist and writer Laurel Richardson, a broken foot led to a month as a patient in an extended care facility. In this compelling description of her lived experience in one of these institutions, she addresses key questions of health delivery and behavior: nurses who can be angelic or cruel, institutional policies often structured to maximize income over care, and patients whose behavior often does not mirror the severity of their condition. She points to inequality of treatment of patients of different ethnicities, genders, and classes, and to an underclass of health workers—often poor immigrants—whose own personal and familial problems mirror those of their patients. Enfolded in a captivating narrative of life in the facility, Richardson's book is a revealing literary autoethnography designed for social scientists, health care professionals, and students alike.

Chapter 1
Fear of Falling

January 5

I have frequently driven past the Bellemont, but now I am in it. An ambulance brought me here on a gurney. Two orderlies carried me in and Ernest carried my suitcase in and unpacked it. It is late afternoon. There are no fetid smells. My left foot and calf are swaddled in six feet of Ace bandage. The nerve block has not worn off, a Donjoy IceMan chills my ankle, and Vicodin circulates in my bloodstream. There is no pain.

Funny to write those four words—"there is no pain"—without my customary introduction: God is Love. I will do it now: God is Love, there is no pain. My Christian Science-inclined father taught me this mantra when I was six and had broken my arm falling on the ice because I tried skating like the boys, with my hands cupped together behind my back I trudged through the rest of that Chicago winter with my left arm slung in a piece of torn sheet Father had tied around my neck, the bone healing itself, the bone mending crooked, my first grade teacher the only adult noticing, telling my mother to bring me to a doctor. She did so without my father's consent. Looking at my plaster cast, Father shook his head in anger and disappointment. Ever since then I have associated being incapacitated or sick with the neglect, disapproval, and anger of those who are supposed to love and protect me.

It is as if I am living in a long-term awful story, a plot that says if I am ill it is because I have been "bad"; and if I am "bad," I deserve "punishment." Maybe that's why I have such a high pain tolerance. Maybe that's why I never took an aspirin, never registered a headache, until after my first day of teaching. Maybe that's why I chose to deliver both of my sons through natural childbirth, and still contend that "there was no pain," only labor. Maybe that's why so many other things rankle around in me, unresolved: to acknowledge them is to acknowledge pain.

My private room in the Bellemont looks out on an enclosed courtyard with picnic benches, sensible chairs, and a roofed-over smoking lounge. I am lying in bed in my hospital gown in the Rehabilitation Wing, Hallway 100, Room 112. It is good to know where I am. In my room are a clothes closet, bed-table, large round table, four wooden chairs, two comfy chairs, a wall clock, and a bulletin board to which a blue snowflake January calendar has been pinned. There is no mirror.

Looking out my window, I see a church steeple, and a surprisingly blue sky for Ohio in January For the next two weeks, I am not allowed to put any weight on my left foot. That is okay I feel at home here.

"I'll go home and eat some dinner," Ernest says. "I'll get the Papillons and come back." He kisses me.

CHECK HALL 100 EXIT CHECK HALL 100 EXIT CHECK HALL 100 EXIT RRRRRRRRIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG RRRRRRRRIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG

A robotic school-marmish voice scolds us over the public address system. One of the Bellemont's wings is for dementia patients, so I think codes have to be entered before opening the outside doors, but I don't know that for sure because no one from the facility has been here to see me yet. I think Ernest set off the alarm.

I had put off my ankle surgery. It was irrational, I know, but I feared I would die—or worse. I had become obsessed with getting my affairs in order: I had new legal documents drawn up; I finished everything on my academic plate; I sent "thinking of you" notes and emails to friends; I paid all my bills, settled all accounts; I spent special time with my sons; I got a year's grooming appointments for my Papillon dogs, Bashi and Lily—and, for good measure ordered a paving-stone in their names for WOOF, the new Worthington Off-Leash Dog-Park; I showed Ernest where I kept all my important documents. I threw out my old panties.

I am not dead, but I am sleepy.

"Hi, I'm Jamal." A young African-American man enters my room. "Sorry, I'm late. I'm your nurse's aide until eleven p.m." He checks his Swatch and adjusts his tortoise-shell glasses. His biceps flex.

Jamal asks permission to go through my belongings so he can count and register them. He looks uncomfortable touching my clothing.

"Oh, just write something down," I say. "I didn't bring anything of value."

"Your laptop," he says. "I'd better put that in your dresser. Your iPad, too. Things can get stolen." He takes my vitals, refills my Donjon IceMan with ice, shows me how the push-buttons on my bed work, and helps me to use the bedside commode. Both of us are embarrassed.

"Have you worked here long?" I ask.

"Just started. You're my first patient."

I hear the familiar jingle-jangle of dog tags coming down the hallway.

"Ernest, meet Jamal," I say, as Ernest puts Bashi and Lily on the bed with me.

"What kind of dogs are they?" Jamal asks. He looks apprehensive.

"They're sweethearts," Ernest says. "Papillons."

"French for butterfly," Jamal says, gingerly touching their ears.

Lily sniffs my wrapped-up foot. Bashi gives me dog-kisses.

"Dog-nap," Ernest says, and the dogs and I settle down on my hospital bed. Ernest settles down with his Kindle, a gift for his seventy third birthday from our Columbus "blended family." Like so many other "blended" families that arise out of divorces, ours is not a puree. We have chunks that collide, edges that have not worn down. Ernest cried when he read the card signed by all ten of us.

Ah! The blended-family? I smile at how the nineteenth-century metaphor of the "melting pot," a harmonious society in which new immigrants embrace a common culture, has been transformed into a "blender" and applied to contemporary family life, where presumably, and desirably, the adults and children will live in unanimity. But just as melting is a questionable and non-attainable ideal for American society, so, I think, blending is for step-families. Salad, anyone?

"Please close the door when you leave," I say to Jamal. He does. The hallway noise is blessedly quieted.

"Rest well, Darling," Ernest says, whispering my favorite endearment. "Time for me to go, too." He kisses me, collects the dogs, and off he and the dogs go into the night. I feel safe.

"We're leaving for Hawaii tomorrow," Bev says, "so we wanted to see you tonight." Bev is in my memoir-writing group—seven women who have been meeting bi-monthly for twelve years. Bev is always well turned-out. Tonight she is wearing a black skirt-suit, knee-high black boots and a cape of many colors

"You're looking good," her husband Craig says, as he gives me a tentative hug. His left shoulder droops from post-polio syndrome. Craig has been jostling with retirement from his university professorship. It is hard to let go of the identity, status, and perks that being a professor confer. You pass as smart, even if you aren't; you can claim to know more than you do, and others accept the sham. You set the rhythm of your days, and can demand everyone be quiet and shut-up because you are working on your seminal project.

But when you retire, you become dispensable. When I asked for post-retirement office space, my startled department chair said, "Why, I thought Emeriti just crawled into the woodwork." When Ernest updated his Who's Who entry to reflect his retirement from the English Department, his entry was dropped. Career consultants say that many professors feel lost after retiring because so much of their lives have been tied up in the university. Their work, their friends, and even their vacations—often tied to their disciplines' scholarly meetings—are integrated. Some care deeply that they won't be passing on the knowledge they have accumulated. Many faculty have built programs, labs, and specialties that they fear will be demolished when they retire because their university will likely replace them with adjuncts rather than tenure-track faculty. The adjuncts are neither hired for, nor committed to, stewarding the existing programs.

Larger issues bear down on the faculty, too. Economic uncertainty has created "portfolio phobia." What faculty could once count upon—their pensions or investments—now seem fragile and under assault. Universities have not rushed in with economic incentives (such as buyouts, phase-outs, or deferred annuities) to ease the faculty's financial fears. And then there are the health-care issues. With no mandatory retirement, and no mandatory replacement with tenure-track professors, and with a plethora of emotional, social, and economic concerns, it is not surprising that faculty commonly put off retiring until they fear that they "might fall off the stage."

I empathize with Craig's difficulty in letting go. I'm still working on accepting being retired, on accepting my title, Emeritus Professor of Sociology It's been nearly a decade since I taught my last university class. But I am not retired: I write, I give workshops, I serve on journals, and I mentor. But mostly I work pro bono. I don't get paid. Making money for one's labor is the hallmark of societal value. So, I—and other Emeriti faculty who do as I do—have left not only the prestige that came with being a university professor, we have given up our status as employed earners. Yet, there is comfort in not being judged by the size of my salary.

"For so many years, Craig," I say, "I avoided uttering the word retired... almost like how forty years ago people avoided uttering the word cancer."

"Retirement has all these negative connotations." Craig shakes his head. "Like worn out. Tired. Outdated. Broken. Useless. And that's not how I like to think of myself."

"Nor should we," I say.

"Most retirees today are pretty fit," Bev says in her upbeat Memphis accent.

"And that's why pop culture has come up with a slew of new names for retirement," I say "Rewire, re-tire, advanced, sage-age, and -my favorite -jubilated. Like we've been lifted into a paradise."

"Not very catchy," Bev says.

"And none has won the re-naming game," I add.

Snort. Gasp. Snort. Gag. Loud guttural sounds echo through the corridor.

Craig puts his hands over his ears.

"Hard to predict our futures, isn't it Craig?" I say. "Some of us retire to places like the Bellemont—trade our desk chairs for wheelchairs."

"I hope I don't end up here," Craig says.

"Most of us don't," I say. "But we sure fear that we will."

"Here's a bed jacket you might want to wear," Bev says. She's a counselor and knows when to change a conversation. She holds up a rosy jacket, still on its hanger in its cleaner's bag. "Sometimes it feels good to get dressed up. Here's a book you might enjoy" She h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• CHAPTER 1 Fear of Falling
• CHAPTER 2 We Don't Know Why Yet
• CHAPTER 3 Help Me... Help Me...
• CHAPTER 4 What Is Right
• CHAPTER 5 Lo and Behold
• CHAPTER 6 You Have a Lot Of Friends
• CHAPTER 7 Snake Pit
• CHAPTER 8 A Time for Every Purpose
• CHAPTER 9 Kiss Me... Kiss me...
• CHAPTER 10 Down With the Bad, Up With the Good
• CHAPTER 11 Food Good for Women
• CHAPTER 12 Training Wheels
• CHAPTER 13 The Forever Home
• CHAPTER 14 Temporily Abled
• APPENDIX On the Writing of After A Fall
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR