Malignent Melanoma Survivors who climb

Life sure is expensive. My phone was flooded with calls from creditors. I felt scattered & scared. The cancer B.S. left me broke before fully healed. So three months after the surgery I set off into the woods again to climb trees for money.

My first day back started out frustrating. The first Douglas Fir of the morning had one nest out on a wrist-sized branch, waaaayyyy up there. Above it were a handful of live limbs. After two hours of crossbow shots ending in no safe rigs I was fuming. "I should freakin' quit right now!" I screamed. My mind replied 'Quit or climb, dude.'

"Fine!"

The next arrow hit the sweet spot, arcing over a solid looking live limb close to the trunk around 90 feet up. Time to climb. I clipped my ascenders onto the rope. Shove up the left hand, bring up the right. I crawled up the nylon thread, moving quickly & soon hung just below the nest, spinning slowly around & around. Kicking a foot out to the trunk, I stopped my rotation & leaned forward toward the aromatic sap-scented mat of needles. They looked fresh.
I heard a "pop!" The rope went flaccid & I plummeted with a scream. The branch my line hung over had snapped. The sudden drop spun me face forward & slowly to the left. I saw the rope through the corner of my eye.

"Pop-pop!" The falling coil snapped the only other branches; the ones I was counting on to snag my lifeline through some miracle of gravity & friction. It had worked before. Above me I beheld rope & limbs hurling down, a huge undulating mass. I was going all the way, 80 feet, no stops.

My mind lit up. I saw no images of my life, no white light. I saw Christopher Reeves, former Superman, in his wheelchair breathing through a tube in his throat. 'Screw that!' I knew if I hit head first I would A. die, or B. end up just like Superman. Gravity had become my kriptonite. The trunk was rushing by less than a foot away from me so I head-butted the tree, knocking a few teeth loose. This crazy move reversed my rotation, spinning my head up towards the sky.

I glimpsed ground cover coming up fast & screamed again. “Arraaaaahhh!” Computer animation of the Martian Lander bouncing along the red planet's surface flashed in my lit up mind. If I hit the ground flailing I would most likely auger in & shatter.

"Bounce!"

The command was beyond reproach & came out of nowhere. I tucked into a cannon ball & impacted, landing on my elbows & right butt cheek. My spine compressed like an accordion. The right ribcage yielded first, popping inward from convex to concave; breaking some ribs in the process. Several compression fractures occurred as my spine failed. Then Lumbar-Two (L2), one of the largest vertebrae in the small of my back burst, leaving almost nothing but multiple shards resting against my spinal cord. A stump stopped me 20 feet downhill, leaving me askew in a fetal position.

"Mmmnnngguu!" That's all I could say. Inside my mind was racing, trying to reorient. 'Who am I ? Who am I , who? Who...What, what is me, is this ,what's happening...Am I awake?' My lungs were covered in lead & my back was on fire. “Aaaaaaammmm!” I felt something grinding in the small of my back. Then I didn't.

I lay crippled in the middle of nowhere, hours down an unmarked maze of logging roads, 200 miles from home & deep in an Oregon forest. I bellowed from the incredible aching-tingling-spasming convulsions. Then I heard Nolan Bowman, my friend & fellow contractor, running full tilt down the ridge to me. He came diagonally into view & tried to look calm but failed miserably. I could see his eyes & they were scared. “How do you feel, do you need to sit up?”

“No! Dude, Damn! I think my back may be broken. Mmmmmaaaahhhhhh – Mother F*#!*er!” I couldn't believe any of it. Had I grappled with cancer & separation from my wife only to die in a brush choked second growth forest looking for the nests of a freakin' rodent of no consequence to 99.9% of the human population?

“Focus.”

“Nolan, I think I really screwed up this time.”

“How far up were you?”

“Probably 80 feet, near the nest structure. Mmmhhhhhhaa! Dude, my back is really spasming. It keeps trying to arch. If I can't keep still I think I... Huoohaaaaamu! I might cut my spinal cord.” I wept from the effort to stay immobilized. “Nolan, I need you to clear my spine. Do you know how?”

Nolan hovered over me on his knees, arms out in a gesture of bewilderment. “No, buddy. What do I do?”

“Run your fingers lightly, Lightly!, down my entire spine & tell me if it is shifted or broken feeling. Be careful. Mmmhuuuh!”

Nolan slid his hands down my back. **It felt so good to simply feel another human's touch, even though it hurt like hell. 'I am not alone. I am not alone,' I repeated in my mind as he checked my spine.
**“Um, it feels OK down to your mid back, but then it sort of disappears. Damn! What should we do?”

My heart accelerated then sank. “Dude, I need a back board and paramedics.”

“OK, OK. I can't get a cell signal here so I gotta drive until I can call out for help.”

“Thanks, I...”

“Paul. Paul, it's gonna be alright. I'll be right back.” He ran straight up through the undergrowth.

“Stay awake.”

It felt like I'd had the Peter Pan beat out of me. My pixie dust was used up. So this is true pain. I slipped into an in-between place, where mad-mind calisthenics attempted to push my torture into a smaller corner of my brain. I had to escape for a while. My consciousness felt lit up like a jack-o-lantern, with a raging fire burning me up from the inside out.

“Stay conscious, stay here,” I repeated to myself. I was the only one I trusted to get me through this. 'God Damn It! I am not ready to fade yet. No way.' I swelled with illogical confidence, at least in between the spasms. “Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrruuhhh!"

I lay there for five hours before help arrived. Horns announced the rescue. At last! Lying upside down was disorienting. It gave the whole scene an off-kilter balance. Fire hats & mustaches popped into view from the corners, like whack-a-moles in some acid trip. "Hey, there. What can we do for you?"

Was he kidding? "Aaaarrrr...DRUUUUUGGGGGS!!!"

"OK, OK. We're EMT s. We don't have meds. We're going to roll you onto a backboard & get you moving towards the road."

"Hell no! My back has been trying to arch since I fell & my legs tingle. If you roll me it will cut my cord."

"Don't worry. We know what we're doing."

"Arrrrruuuuuhh...So do I. I'm an EMT too & I'm not releasing...Ddddmmmmnn...me into your care. I need DRUUUUUUGGGGSSSSSSS!" I would have kicked him if I wasn't broken.

That seemed to confuse my rescuers. I heard them confer, try to radio out. They put a collar on me & held me in place, saying paramedics were on the way.

Thirty minutes later shots of morphine arrived. Things became much more bearable, giggly even. I turned into a body, a case, a problem to be packaged, hoisted, dragged, dropped, pushed, carried, deposited & transported.

"Thank God."

I awoke. There was a blood filled tube in my side emerging from a long horror movie incision in my back, a catheter in my dick & IV lines in my arms. My spine, broken in two, was now held together by titanium bars and screws. The bolter had become the bolted. I wiggled my toes. They still worked.