The New Song Book
Chapter Five: Done
10 years ago, I suffered a series of illnesses and physical setbacks that challenged everyday life and raised the stakes on mortality. Events play out in sequence, over time, one next to another. However, in this case, the symptoms surfaced seemingly without connection, neither all at once nor in an orderly progression.
The first notable event was an ulnar nerve transposition surgery done on my right arm. A few years earlier I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right wrist. That surgery halted the muscular degeneration that had attacked my hand. At the time, the decay seemed related to sudden and significant increases in digital work as I had just started teaching interactive media and was doing a lot of multimedia production and right-handed-mousing. After the procedure, the surgeon assured me that he had seen significant narrowing of the nerve channel. The surgery relieved the congestion by “giving me the equivalent of a pair of sized 40 inch-waist pants for a 32 inch waist.”
However, a few years later, testing indicated continued diminution of signal to my hand and my doctor suggested the potential benefits of moving the ulnar nerve so that bending my right arm would not block those nerve impulses. Mid-October fall break provided the needed time away from classroom and schoolwork for the outpatient surgery.
Pre-surgical procedures required inserting an IV; the nurse attempted to place it in the back of my left hand. Subsequent years of experience clearly indicate that I have collapsing veins on my left side; unfortunately that knowledge was not available to the nurse who proceeded to fail with insertion, two separate times. Each time she failed, I fainted, as I’d been apt to do around blood and medical procedures, my entire life. Eventually she was able to insert the IV in the back of my right hand and the surgery proceeded without incident. I should note that I no longer allow IVs in my hands. All IVs go into my right arm, inside of the elbow. If medical staff insists otherwise, they can only do a hand placement after I’m asleep/sedated.
After the ulnar nerve procedure, I returned home and returned to normal life, recovering from the surgery over the course of a couple weeks. Initially, I was only able to take light walks for exercise but before long I was able to begin jogging again, headed back toward my then-usual routine of 3 miles in approximately 24 minutes, every other day.
The first few runs back in training seemed fine; I was soon able to regain previous standards of distance and time. However, the second day at the usual time and distance proved difficult; I was only able to run 2 miles. The next attempt I was stopped at 1 mile. Soon I could barely get to the end of the block.
I began making the rounds of doctors. I had a stress test for heart trouble; I visited my family doctor a number of times, to the point that he eventually ordered a “psychological evaluation.” I had blood tests and many other examinations: nothing seemed amiss; all tests were negative.
Yet over a few weeks time my condition worsened until I found myself only able to work at the desk in my bedroom for half an hour or so. I would then go to bed and rest until I could return to the desk for some more work and then go back to bed, repeating as needed. At a point in this diminution of ability, I called my family doctor and told him I was checking myself into the hospital.
I spent three days in the cardiac ward at the hospital, with active heart monitoring the entire time. As had been the case with all other evaluations, the staff found nothing wrong with me. Including the mental health staff, two of whom did a full psyc. work-up and declared that I was mentally sound and did not appear to be either a complainer or someone who was bringing my symptoms on myself.
I was to be discharged on the third day of my stay. In the morning, I got up and did as much of my daily yoga routine as I could do while still connected to the monitoring. I felt a fainting spell come on, climbed into the bed, and passed out. As I woke up from the fainting spell (as I have done my whole life), I push the panic button and the duty nurse came in. I told her that I passed out; she told me that they had not seen anything untoward at the nurses’ station; she’d go down and check with the nurse who was watching the heart monitoring apparatus. She quickly returned and reported that no abnormalities had been sighted.
However, an hour or so later, my cardiac doctor’s assistant came in and told me that a more careful examination of the monitoring strip found that I had flat-lined for about 10 seconds. They would be implanting a pacemaker the next day. And so they did.
Mine was a (relatively) pass-ive pacemaker—it monitored and recorded the performance of the heart at all times, but it was set to “come on” (making the missing electrical connection between the two chambers of the heart) if/when my rhythm went below 50 beats per minutes.
I left the hospital, returned home, and started a routine for recovery with one problem: I didn't get any better. In fact I felt just about as bad as I had before I went into the hospital--which was pretty bad and is contrary to the improvements that most post-implant patients feel.About 2 1/2 weeks later, while doing dishes (she was washing, I was drying) Cheryl looked down at my legs and said “Isn’t your right leg swollen bigger than your left”? Noting that it seemed so, I called my cardiologist. We agreed that I’d come to the office the next morning.
During the examination, my cardiologist insisted that I had damaged my leg--sprained my ankle or suffered some other injury. I retorted that I had not, noting that I didn’t feel well enough to exercise. After going back-and-forth over this 3 or 4 times, he agreed to send me for a Doppler
I went on blood thinners (that rat poison Coumadin) and weekly blood tests for 9 subsequent months. My doctors and I also embarked on a broad series of medical examinations trying to determine why I had flat-lined and developed blood clots and didn't feel very well, seemingly all at the same time. I saw hematologists, I saw neurologists, I saw cancer specialists, and I had just about every diagnostic test one could have. I made two trips to the Mayo clinic in Rochester MN. They were real interested in me when I presented a puzzle; they became less interested as they discovered that they couldn’t solve the diagnosis. The last doctor I saw at the Mayo Clinic, their ALS specialist, ended our 2nd and last appointment with the heartening phrase “you don’t have anything that we can diagnose, yet.”
The result of the medical testing was a collective shrug of the shoulders, rolling of the eyes, and mutual medical admission that “we just don’t know what’s wrong with you.” Eventually, I received a diagnosis of “chronic fatigue syndrome” and a prescription for Ritalin. I take four low-dose pills a day; they help me feel a little better. 10 years later, we still can’t account for my physical issues.
However, this story, and song, aren’t about my medical conditions. My illnesses are only background about writing the song Done. Done is about my longtime friend, Debbie (Lafayette) Cole—Deb.
I was in Southern California a 5-day week and made the “usual” circuit/tour that I’ve established during most visits after marrying, completing graduate studies, and moving to Peoria. I spent lots of time with high school friend Dan Ponchak (and his wife Janice). I drove further south in Orange County and played golf with high school buddy Dr. Mike Esposito. There was a family gathering of cousins (the Haucks and Grobatys). I drove around Long Beach, stopping at the schools I attended, St. Anthony High School, St. Cornelius grade school, California State University. Although I spent 1 and ½ forgettable years there, I never visit Long Beach City College. I drove to Wardlow Park, 5 blocks from the house I grew up in (on Killdee St.) and where I played high school baseball. I visited Joe Jost’s for a sausage special and a beer (if I have to explain, you have not really lived). There’s always a stop at Hof’s Hut on Bellflower for a Hof burger, onion rings, and chocolate shake (honestly: just the best). Sees Candy has a shop two doors down from Hof’s: if I don’t go there and buy chocolate for Cheryl, I don’t get to come home from the trip, so that’s a fixed feature.
This visit, however, featured a special, once-in-a-lifetime event (how appropriate, no?). High school friend and special person Lynne (Veeder) Simmons planned a party for me.
As noted elsewhere, high school was not a particularly successful time for me with regard to attracting girls, or even being found in the same place with them, unless they were with their boy friends, or I was driving them to meet their boy friends. Recall that I had a penchant for crushes on girls without mutual interest. As a result, after Janet Lester and I split up toward the end of 1st year, I was pretty much on my own. That’s where Lynne came in.
Only God knows why she smiled on me. We never explored the reason. But a sort of silent understanding grew between us. I’d see her at a party, dance, or other social gathering and pretty soon we were standing together. Lynne would allow me to “be with her” in a visual way. We stood close together, sometimes I put my arm around her or we held hands. Little (if any) kissing took place; but lots of good laughs and many good times broke out. I was not alone, she was not tied down to a boy friend, and I escaped the reputation of not being able to get a date even if my very life depended on it. I’ve long and always been very thankful to Lynne for taking me in that way. I probably should have paid Lynne a lot more attention than I did, rather than casting my eye toward unobtainable other girls who interested me, as was my habit and the bane of my youthful existence.
I suppose it was only natural that when someone had to throw a “going away” party for a guy who was still very much in place, Lynne stepped in and offered her home as party headquarters. She and a couple of other old friends, Joanie Graves among them, organized the guest list, made lots of phone calls, and gathered a sold crowd of 15 or so old chums from across the years at St. Cornelius and St. Anthony. My friend Deb was on the guest list.
Debbie Lafayette and I met either at the end of our seventh grade year or toward the end of eighth grade (neither of us is quite sure which, though I suspect the former). We both are pretty sure that we met as the result of a gathering of our Catholic youth organization (Chi Rho) at St. Cornelius. We did not attend the same grade schools; I was in Catholic school (a “k though 8” that I attended 2nd half of 2nd through 8, while Deb was in public schools split between grade school, 1-6, and junior high, 7 & 8).
The Chi Rho club was one of the few times that Catholic boys and girls from different schools mixed socially. Though we had neighborhood friends who did not attend the same school, and we
occasionally hung around and/or played with people at the local park who, likewise, did not share school affiliation, most of the friends that I spent time with were classmates at St. Cornelius. And in seventh and eighth grade I didn’t spend much time with females (classmates or otherwise) in any case. Chi Rho was the first social activity that the priests and nuns allowed boys and girls to mix in a social setting (the eighth grade classes at St. Cornelius were coed and all of the classes in the public schools were coeducational).
Although students were not allowed to belong to the club until after they had graduated from 8th grade, the seventh graders were allowed to attend one function/dance during the summer of their seventh grade year; I suppose as an enticement for later membership. I think that is when we met. As many of the same-age public school Catholic kids had attended CCD classes at St. Cornelius and were going to go through Confirmation during 8th grade, they were also invited to the gathering at the end of the 7th grade year.
Regardless of the time or place, I was immediately taken with Deb to the point that I replaced my previous unobtainable crush, Marlene Perry, with Debbie Lafayette.
I did a lot of bike riding in those days (to and from school; too and from Wardlow Park; to and from the shopping center just a few blocks further than Deb’s house, right across the street from the US Postal station where my dad worked) and her house was between mine and school, if I rode home via a less-than-direct route. After we met, I visited her home as often as I could get away with it. Debbie is of Lebanese and French background and there are many aspects of those cultural heritages that I especially appreciate. In her case, I suppose “looks” came first for me. But I enjoyed her family as well with father and mother and sister living at home.
I cannot count the afternoons I spent riding over to her house, hoping that we could spend some time together. Often we did; sometimes in the
I do not believe that she was as enthused with our conversations as was I. I tended to pontificate about religion and politics; I think she, generally, humored me more than deeply sharing my interests. However, she gave every impression of enjoying my company and she was always willing to come out for a chat or to invite me in for soft drink and to spend some time with the family. I don’t think we ever did a major event together; we didn’t go out on any formal dates. Neither of us was dating in those early times, although both of us were not far from wanting to.
One of the things I most looked forward to when eighth grade rolled around and membership in Chi Rho became open, was the chance to pursue a deeper relationship with Ms. Lafayette. By the second year of our membership in the club, I had become president of the organization. Unfortunately, also by that time, the dye had been cast against our relationship.
I was engaged in the first boy friend/girl friend relationship for me during my freshman year in high school as Janet Lester and I tried to find ways to work around her braces. By the time the summer after ninth grade and the first year in my presidency of the Chi Rho club rolled around, Deb and I had spent a year going to different schools (me traveling downtown to St. Anthony’s high school, she staying at the East Long Beach neighborhood school, Milliken high).
Further, it wasn’t long before Debbie found her first real boyfriend and as luck would have it, he also spent some time at functions shared by a large group of interconnected friends that included many of our high school and Chi Rho associates. Mark Elliott was much taller than me (in those days I might’ve been 5’4”; Mark was probably closer to 5’ 10”). He’d played quite a bit of football; I’d pretended to play for a couple of freshman-year months.
Yes, this image is really large.
It is, however, the only extant evidence that I once/ever played on the SAHS freshman high school football team, late summer/early fall, 1967.
It’s not as clear as it should be that I had NO business there.
Our kids have a good giggle over this image, for a wide variety of reasons. Kinda reminds me of Adam Sandler in The Waterboy . . . a waterbucket is what I should have been carrying, instead of that helmet.
Mark was quiet, fun loving yet intense, much less egotistical then was I, and was certainly a better listener. Most importantly, and to my chagrin, Mark appealed to Debbie in ways that I simply did not. Disappointment reigned at the Lamoureux house, but I’d been in that hot mess before and would revisit this position many times during the high school years. Life went on, albeit more sadly than I wanted.
Although Deb and I stayed in loose contact based on our large sets of mutual friends, we never again experienced the sort of relational intensity that we had from daily visits. I continued to be interested in her; she continued to date other boys, ending up with one that was even less acceptable to me than had been Mark – – and Mark was not all that acceptable to me on the face of it. Wayne Cole, on the other hand, was a completely different ball of wax.
Eventually, Debbie formed a relationship with a guy who was a bit older than us, was much taller than me, was relatively unknown to most of the people on the St. Cornelius/St. Anthony side of our social groups (although he was friends with a few of Deb’s other friends), and had experienced some “adult” issues in life, including a brush with the law. In short, although I never met him (yeah, I was kind of a shit-head about stuff like this, back then), Wayne seemed totally unacceptable to me and so after they got together, I saw very little of Debbie.
As things turned out, Wayne was the perfect match for my good friend Debbie. They matured together, had a wonderful married life, raised two beautiful off-spring (one girl, one boy) together, and in every way proved my intuition about Wayne to be 100% wrong. I never got the chance to tell them how stupid I felt about my jealous disapproval. And we were so out of touch, they would not have cared a nit anyway.
And then about month before I made my “farewell tour” of Southern California, Wayne died tragically and rather suddenly. Although an accident-induced disability and some ill health preceded his passing, there was no real indication that a young man in his mid-50s was going to leave his family and friends suddenly and dramatically. Debbie was devastated as were their children and her family and friends.
As I was making plans for my visit, I learned of this tragedy and fully expected that I would not see Debbie during my stay, regardless of the fact that she had been invited to the party. I wonder what I would’ve
been able to do in a similar situation; as much as I have always loved her, it’s unlikely that I would overcome that much grief to attend a social event in honor of someone that I hadn’t seen or heard from in 20 years. Yet, as the group gathered at Lynne Veeder Simmons’ home and began to tell long, tall, tales of old days gone by, the front doorbell rang and in came Debbie Cole with as much of a smile on her face as she could manage.
We did not spend a lot of time talking at that event. There were people in the room with whom Debbie is much closer then she is with me, especially Jeanie (Fanelli) Torres, who had introduced Debbie and I. Jeanie and husband, Joe, were married after Jean and I graduated together from high school (Joe is a bit older). I delivered a scripture reading at the ceremony; Jean was one of the first married girls in our class and among our group of grade school chums. Some 40 plus years latter, Jean and Joe are still going strong. Debbie naturally gravitated toward Jeannie and other close friends, and they to her; I stayed back and involved with others. We did greet each other and share a hug as I told her how sorry I was about her loss. Debbie stayed at the event through most of the day. Now and then, I looked over at her--standing against a wall, staring off into the distance, a little dazed, obviously in shock. My heart broke; but of course, whatever upset I felt paled in comparison to the depth of her loss and suffering.
Group portrait at Lynne’s 2007 gathering.
Front Row, left to right: Lynne, Joan Graves, David Theriault, Debbie Wiedeman
Top Row:
Deb, Tom Gillespie, Jean (Fanelli) Torres, Ed
When I returned from the trip, it was clear that I needed to do something to thank her for attending an event that must’ve been very difficult for her. I really did enjoy seeing her – – always do. And I was glad that she was able to get out among her old friends; I think that being with people who love and understand her probably helped her a little.
Most of all, I wanted her to know how special she is to me. Even though were did not have a successful boy friend/girl friend relationship, she has always been a favorite person and I will always remember her as someone I would’ve been proud to have been in an intimate relationship with. Better yet, as friends, she’s gold.
But the hooks that first loves land, dig deeply into the heart. I’m always sure who I’m singing about when I perform Done.
| Table of Contents |
