Cages within cages

Jostled awake by a sudden twitch in my right thigh, I reached for my phone to check if it was early enough to continue sleeping. Five months into the haziness of being locked down by COVID-19, I failed to remember waking up without the greeting of an anchor weighing down the muscles of my chest. No, this was not a symptom of the debilitating virus that forced us to transform our apartments into classrooms, gyms, and what little safely remained of social scenes. This was simply the effect of physical restriction manifesting in the body.

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The thin white numbers atop my screen read 7:12 a.m., but below them was a text from my roommate Monica – “I fell down the stairs and I can’t walk. I think I broke or sprained my right foot, maybe the left one, but it’s not as bad. Alex is picking me up right now, and I might have to go to the hospital tomorrow morning. Text me when you wake up,” sent at 2:58 a.m., just moments after I had fallen asleep. Monica was celebrating our friend’s birthday that night, and I had stayed behind to wake up early and study for my looming MCAT exam, just one week away now. Before I could have any emotions about the situation, I responded asking how I could be of the most help and started gathering together the pieces of a game plan. I’ll get her coffee, a comfortable outfit, and I’ll drive her car to pick her up from Alex’s house, Alex being the friend you can always count on being awake past 3:00a.m. As I prepared for action, I couldn’t help but question whether this would have happened if I had been by her side. If I fed my insomnia a few more scrolls, I could have picked Monica up, and she could at least be sleeping in her own bed instead of on Alex’s second floor couch. Hold on – how did she even get to the second floor?

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My phone flashed again. Monica is never awake before 9 a.m., so I knew the pain must have kept her from sleeping. “I almost fainted crawling to the bathroom. I think I left my keys at Erica’s last night. I don’t know what to do.” These additional plot twists were no surprise to me, and I marched through the Ann Arbor streets completing my scavenger hunt of errands, reminding myself of the unpredictability of the universe. I parked outside Alex’s home, positioning the passenger’s seat as close as I could to the front door. I made it up the stairs juggling all of her requested items, but I soon realized both of my arms would be occupied elsewhere. Monica’s body was curled inwards as to protect her very swollen feet, darkening by the second. It quickly became clear that “crawling” was not an exaggeration – Monica most definitely could not walk. She gripped her body onto mine like a koala bear, and we slowly crept down the fourteen steps to the first floor and around the porch. I shouted to Alex that “I’ll take it from here!” knowing he probably wasn’t going to wake up for another four hours, and Monica and I maneuvered around using this technique for the rest of the day.

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Our senses of humor sustained us as we made light of the spectacle our neighbors enjoyed from their windows. By the time I got Monica upstairs on my back, successfully not bumping any foot through the hallways, we agreed the emergency room was our next destination. Moving into our fourth year of living together, Monica and I have learned to take on the others’ problems as our own. Fully invested in this injury being a team experience, I was quite dejected when I was turned around at the emergency room and told that no visitors were allowed for COVID safety. Though I understood the circumstances, leaving Monica alone at that moment felt like a dangerous move for her peace. I drove home and trusted that my roommate was in the hands of the world’s top healthcare professionals, but the lack of hospital cell reception left my worried calls answered with consecutive voicemail tones.

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After six hours of cyclical communication with Monica’s mother, we finally got an update on what her scans revealed. Monica had a Lisfranc, or midfoot injury, fracturing the second metatarsal of her right foot. Her left was sprained but seemed much more promising and would soon be the rock of her balance. She may need surgery to install plates for proper joint orientation, but she may not. She’ll be in crutches for at least three months, but she could get a scooter to transport in a little more style. She’ll soon be escorted out of the ER, packaged up in a cast, and delivered to an even more restricted lifestyle than we had all known this summer. Knowing Monica as one of the most extraverted people in my life, I had a strong notion of what concerns were racing through her mind as doctors shuffled in and out of her hospital room and revealed all of this information. Different opinions would present different stories, and she sat back breathing through her N95, she patiently took it all in. These professionals had hundreds of patients to consider, but in that moment, their words meant everything to Monica. Someone so free-spirited would really suffer under a lack of autonomy, and she didn't even know to what extent that freedom would be removed. Across the following two months, she slowly pushed through this adjustment and learned that while these challenges layered onto the existing lack of stability, a tight grasp on what she did have would carry her through.

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A broken foot can take a lot more from someone than just the fashion of wearing two matching shoes. It means being unable to leave your apartment for six days at a time without the help of someone carrying your scooter down the wide outdoor stairs. It means battling loneliness and isolation without the freedom of going on a run or having a picnic with a friend. It means worrying if everyone in your group is slightly peeved at having to walk at half their usual pace, and struggling to believe them when they tell you not to worry about it. And showering on a stool, and being unable to do your laundry, but most importantly, it means slowing down. It means taking the time to remember and reflect on what you hold onto when it seems everything is stripped away. Monica’s grounding point was always humor. Metal plates were eventually installed in her joints, and she never missed an opportunity to announce when she thought it was about to rain because of a pang of soreness. When we blasted our music as we love to, she danced on her scooter more on-beat than the rest of us. This endless stream of laughter reminded her of life before and after her injury, anchoring her peace on her road to recovery.