I regained respect for the 1989 movie, “My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown,” during the last few days. A film based on Brown’s autobiography “My Left Foot,” written in 1954, it focuses on Brown’s boyhood experiences that were shaped by being born with cerebral palsy to a working-class Irish family.
On Saturday afternoon I broke my left foot in two places after slipping on a patch of ice on the top brick stair in front of my favorite specialty store in Westwood.
It was while I was being put in a cast and then transported by wheelchair to my husband’s car that I began to think about the movie. As I wheeled myself so I could comfortably sit with my left foot raised in front of my desktop computer to draft this column, I thought about it again.
Although like Brown I have only one working foot, thereafter the comparison breaks down. My top two limbs are working even harder than before when I transition back and forth between crutches and chair, and my speech is not garbled. I am not afflicted with CP or any other malady as far as I can tell, except my broken left foot.
Some might say I am blessed. I do. I say it more and more since my fall on Saturday. It could have been both feet and or worst a wrist or hand too. That is when Brown and others, like Travis Roy and Stephen Hawking, slip into mind.
“I know, because I have suffered,” retorts Phineas, one of the main characters in the novel, “A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles when he argues with Gene, his antagonist who causes him to break his leg not once but twice. The second time leads to his death due to some bone marrow that enters his bloodstream.
Well, today I know. I know better what others, who are more afflicted than I, suffer everyday. From the way I see it, it is well worth our while to listen to their cries, not only those in response to their pains and frustrations, but those in response to the anguish that accompanies getting the care they need.
Because our modern-day system is controlled in a large part by insurance companies, care is often delayed. Responses are furled in red tape, and are often pre-recorded or rehearsed messages that can border on the unintelligible when they are summoned by phone. Days and hours (24 and 48) are often key unless something is ordered immediately. All this, and more, contrary to the promises printed or implied by the insurance policies we pay for.
According to Prentice Hall’s website, www.phsschool.com, Brown’s stated goal in life was: “To be remembered not for…human frailties or mannerisms, but for something…[he] achieved, left behind, something that reached and touched the lives of total strangers.”
As for my goal today, all I can do is offer you advice based on the lessons I learned from this weekend’s experience.
First, if you fall and you hurt at all, yell for help. Although I tried to get up without assistance before I shouted for the shopkeeper inside the store, if I had moved my left leg and bruised it more, chances are it would be broken in more than two places and cracked in more than one.
Cloak your pride even if the individual who comes to your aid turns a dirty, old snow shovel into a crutch. And if you still cannot move the injured limb, allow all that gather to see what happened, to lend a hand and get you inside so you can sit on a chair instead of on an unforgiving brick landing.
Don’t try to reach a loved one to pick you up. It wastes precious time. Don’t call your primary care doctor for advice. It wastes precious time. Do admit it hurts and ask for ice even if, ironically, there is none immediately available. Do admit it hurts, even though you already slipped into your mouth and swallowed dry the two Advils you always carry, along with other first-aid sundries, because you trained to be a nurturer. It could be over 45 minutes before you are issued pain relievers.
Do spend all your time preparing a list of all the questions you need answered when it is your turn to see someone who can diagnose your injury. No matter how uncomplicated acquiring the proper treatment may seem, chances are there will be hours and days between requests made and received unless they are not dealt with immediately.
If you can plan ahead, try to break or crack whatever, before your children, if you have any, leave home. The hours I have already spent struggling to do what I should not attempt to do if I want to avoid surgery, helps me to remember their youthful breaks and the hours I spent waiting on them hand and foot. Forgive me for this digression.
In the meantime, I will remind myself I am blessed to have my husband home some of the time and to have had wonderfully, memorable students when I taught at Dedham High School.
Thanks to Lisa Reppucci, whom I met years after she left my classroom, in a hotel swimming pool in Hollywood, Fla. where we were both attending separate weddings, I recalled that she mentioned that one of her relatives did housekeeping for one of my friends.
A quick call to Lisa last weekend and now I can take comfort from the fact that at least my house will not suffer as I strive to heal and mend.
As for you, take comfort that, unlike Christy Brown, for the time being at least, I have no plans to paint or write with my right foot.
Westwood resident Carol Ziemian teaches writing at Northeastern University. Her column appears in the Daily News Transcript on Wednesday. She can be reached at YankeePenn@aol.com.
