Minute by Minute by Joanne Moody

Author:Joanne Moody
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

16

A New Torture

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.

—CHARLES DICKENS

In the middle of the night I awoke with leg cramps. Not wanting to awaken Bev, I tried shaking them lightly. The cramping increased to burning. Hot fire traveled down my thighs into my calf muscles.

I touched the tops of my thighs and instead felt solid granite—my muscles were in full spasm. I cried out for Bev, and she rang for the nurse. Speaking no English, the responding nurse showed no sympathy for my plight. She shrugged her shoulders and walked out.

“We’re on our own,” Bev said with a weary sigh. “I’ll rub them.”

She began rubbing them gently, and immediately my legs jumped up and down in spastic jerks. Joining the spasms was the strange sensation of my legs being seared with a hot poker.

“Pound them, Bev,” I urged.

“You have to try and keep still as I pound,” she said as she flailed her fists into my rock-hard thighs. “They’re like steel. This is bizarre! Didn’t anyone say anything about this side effect from the surgery? Maybe they touched a nerve and set this whole thing off.” She gasped out the words between blows.

While Bev hammered on my legs for more than an hour, I yelled through clenched teeth, “They need to be tied really tight with something like a tourniquet. Maybe that will help somehow.” I involuntarily flexed and curled my feet in reaction to the cramps.

Bev ran around the room looking for T-shirts, towels, or anything else she could tie around my thighs and calves. I bemoaned the fact, yet again, that hospitals under socialized medicine, did not provide basic conveniences, including towels.

Bev found two cotton jersey pajama tops and a T-shirt in the suitcase I had brought to the hospital. She tied them tightly around each leg. The searing pain shifted to a pulsating ache.

“Please go back to sleep, Bev. I’ll be okay,” I said. She leaned against the mattress with both hands and exhaled in exhaustion.

“I will if you promise to wake me if it gets out of control again,” she said as she reluctantly climbed back into the bed next to mine.

“I will. I promise.” The sounds of her deep breathing were all I heard in response.

I pulled my CD player off the bedside table and put on the headphones. Please God, please God, please God—help me get through this, I begged.

Even with the tight wraps, the cramps were full blown again within an hour. I cried and prayed, prayed and cried. With my IV in one wrist and the oxygen sensor attached to my other hand, I whaled on my legs the best I could. I did not want to awaken my weary sister again.

I tried to retie the shirts, but I didn’t have the strength to manage. Desperate to stop the spasms, I was determined to go to the open shower five feet away. I reasoned that the contractions might go away if I put my legs in hot water.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.