The Ghost of Birthdays Past (Warning: More Than You Want to Know)

I turn sixty today.

Technically, it's at 3:02 PM in the afternoon, but I think I'll make it. :-)

My mother was 44 years old when I was born. I was born on her birthday and always believed I was her gag gift.

I always thought my mother couldn't conceive after my older brother Alan was born seventeen years earlier, but found out relatively recently that she had had a series of miscarriages.

So when the doctor found she was pregnant with me, he all but restricted her to her bed for nine months.

Despite this, I was born about 2 - 3 months premature. And thank God for our neighbor Shirley Thayer who had managed to get her to the hospital just in time. (No doubt, after my mother insisted on taking a bath and changing into all clean clothes.)

This must have been especially difficult for her to deal with as she had lost her own six year-old son in a drowning accident a year or two earlier.

My birth weight was 2 lbs., 10 oz. and my Iranian-born doctor - Doctor Partow (sp?) - decided to bleed nitrogen into my incubator instead of the pure oxygen used at the time.

In doing so, he may have saved my retina's from being burned out in the pure O2 environment.

There was only one other memorable birthday from my childhood, my last one at the age of 13 - a skating party with my Jr. Hi. friends.

Jr. High was about the first year I had a group of friends at school and I'm still in touch with some of them - via Facebook, of course, today.

None of my other birthdays were particularly significant (beyond the parties and cakes and presents and such) until my 42nd birthday.

Having read, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," I presumed the mysteries of the universe would be revealed.

I worked at the Red Cross at that time. People at the Red Cross had contributed money to buy me clothing. (Yeah, I'm that bad. :-) )

My supervisor, Kate Davis Santoro, went with me as a chaperon to Men's Warehouse, the day before, on Feb. 4th.

She had actually made a color coordination chart so I knew what went with what. (Of course, being partially color-blind, this was of limited use. :-) )

But I was all decked out in my new finery when I walked to Darto's in Bethlehem the next day for a celebratory breakfast. I think I got a scrapple*, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. Or maybe a cheese omelet with scrapple on the side.

I remember the scrapple and am hazy on the rest.

Leaving Dartos, I walked the 1/4 block to the bus terminal.

I never made it.

Slipped on the snow right in the middle of the intersection where the buses pull in.

Heard the ankle pop as it dislocated.

Knew I wasn't going to walk it off.

Just as I had been trained at the Red Cross, people ignored my cries for help. It was about 2 degrees. They gave me a curious look and then acted like I was invisible.

Finally someone, responded to me - and, again, as per training, once the first person responded, others helped out. Someone had me get my gloves out of my pocket and put them on.

A LANTA bus driver called for an ambulance.

When the police showed up they covered me with one of those tarp things they use with traffic fatalities. :-)

Got my one and only ride in an ambulance to the hospital.

I'm a total wussy when it comes to pain and was waiting to be examined by the orthopedic surgeon before they'd give me any pain meds. I was biting my arm to keep from screaming - no lie. :-)

The doctor - Dr. Bana I believe - examined me and said that he could just set it, but that I'd probably develop arthritis later. He said he really needed to do surgery and pin it.

I whimpered, in true heroic fashion, and asked if it was going to hurt a lot.

I obviously insulted his professionalism. He gave me a cold look and said, "Mr. Bekkenhuis, you have just severely dislocated your ankle and broken it in two places. And you did it WITHOUT anesthesia. I promise I won't hurt you THAT much."

Point taken. :-)

So he re-set the dislocation and somehow managed to keep me from puncturing a hole through all eight levels of floors and roofs above me and then nailed me with something that was REALLY, REALLY nice. :-)

They couldn't operate on me for about 8 hours because of my breakfast, so I just lay in the hospital room, high as a kite (per my brother) all day.

Around noon my co-workers in the marketing department at the Red Cross came over, gave me my gifts and gave a really pathetic rendition of "Happy Birthday," as I lay there in my new clothes, covered in salt and road grime, with the trouser sleeve sliced open to my thigh. (When the EMT cut it I told him, "Oh, NO! Kate will KILL me!" But to no avail, he cut it anyway.)

That night they wheeled me down to surgery. The anesthesiologist took one look at my overweight self and my family history of heart disease and told me he wanted to operate using an epidural. I asked what that was. He said it was like a spinal tap. I giggled and said, "Great, I LOVE their music!"

Like I said: high as a kite. Normally, knowing he was going to stick a big ass needle in my spine, I'd have had a miraculous healing and run for the hills.

There was no pain from the epidural (I was probably incapable of feeling pain), I just felt pressure as he pushed. But, sadly, it also didn't work.

"Do you feel that?", he asks, pinching my knee.

"Yes."

"How about that?"

"Yes."

The last thing I remember before going under anesthesia was asking the surgeon on which leg he was intending to operate. Drugged or not, I was a bit paranoid. :-)

The next morning the nurse asked me if I needed to pee.

I said, no thanks. Moving myself out of bed was an obscene thought.

"No problem," she said, "We'll give it a half hour or so and then catheterize you."

I'll tell you, I jumped out of bed and hopped right over there and pee'd like a champion.

For the next eight weeks, I could only sponge bathe myself and the only way I had an income is that my heroic supervisor, Rich Santoro, would come to the house each day and give me a disk with data entry to do. He had to stare down the dachshund, Gretchen, who was fiercely protective and wanted to eat him.

And I lived because my nieces kept shipping me food and a close friend kept picking up food and liquor for me.

But, after 8 weeks, think Jack Nicholson in, "The Shining." :-)

In any event, I'm anticipating this birthday will go a bit better.

Though the weather is the same. :-(


* Spell check does not recognize "scrapple" as a word, just as a nutritionist would not recognize it as a food.