Life's Mountains

It began one spring morning. The sun was out and the weather crisp. I stood in a chicken coop adjacent to the barn. A high chain-link fence kept raccoons and skunks from stealing poultry at night. Cool air held down the stink of chicken droppings that always stuck to the bottom of my shoes.

Matt and I had purchased and settled in on thirty-two acres, located in the transition zone between the Rogue Valley and the mixed coniferous forestlands of southwestern Oregon. A home, painted bluish-gray with a metal roof to match, was situated to the edge of the property near the county road. The original foundation, built in the early 1900s, had round timbers that supported the walls and floor structure. Behind the home sat the barn.

The property was on a hillside covered with mixed Douglas fir, madrone, and white oak trees. Spring rain had greened up the leaves and needles. Yellow tulips and blue crocus sprouts had already broken through the soil and were beginning to flower.

In beat-up old clothes and black rubber boots, I held a sharp machete in one hand and a chicken in the other. Thirty hens shuffled around me. I took a deep breath, not looking forward to the butchering day. Even though our family loved to eat homegrown broilers, killing them was not fun.

Watching me closely out of the corner of their eyes, they scratched the ground, appearing to know they would soon become BBQ dinner. I stared back at them, trying to avoid eye contact. To get the work done, I headed toward the chopping block. Matt, being a helpful husband, created a butcher table for me by laying a piece of plywood on two sawhorses. It was slightly off balance and wobbly. I hoped it wouldn’t tip over. Chickens started clucking.

Grant and Clint’s laughs reverberated in the distance through the open window of our home. Most likely they were wrestling with Daddy. Grant, three years old, had enough energy to power the universe. With black hair, dark eyes, and dimpled cheeks, he always ran around with confidence. He loved to wrestle with Daddy. Clint, one year old, liked to cuddle more than wrestle. With large round greenish eyes, he was good at getting what he wanted with his big puppy stare. It was hard to say no to him.

I pouted and thought, I’d rather be in the house with Matt and the boys. But butchering was my task, since I was the one who wanted to raise the poultry in the first place: eight egg-laying hens, two roosters, two turkeys, and thirty meat chickens.

I loved the farmyard atmosphere, providing our family with our own meat. Matt had already hunted and dressed out a deer, elk, and turkey that year. We planned to fill up our large freezer full of wild and homegrown meat. It was my turn to add to it.

To encourage myself, I said out loud, “You guys are going to be tasty!” Laying a chicken on the block, I stuck its head between two nails, pulled on its legs to stretch the neck out, then swung the machete. Off came the head; out shot the blood.

At that exact moment, I felt a sharp pain slam into my left temple. Like a jab from an ice pick. Dropping the headless body, I bent over in pain. The nearby chickens stopped clucking and watched. In silence, I could only hear my heart pulsating in my left ear. Had the chickens cursed me? What was happening? Sinking to the ground, I held my head between my hands, chicken blood smearing across my cheeks.

After a few moments, I took a deep breath and grabbed the plywood to pull myself up. The chickens began clucking and scratching the ground again. I closed my eyes tightly for a few seconds then opened them again and looked around.

My sight was normal. Raised by my Dad to believe work before pleasure, I thought to myself. Keep working and get it done.

Chicken after chicken, I grabbed the nearest, sat it on the butcher block, and chopped. Then I tightly held each one neck down in a garbage can until the wings stopped flapping and the blood stopped draining. With a sharp knife, I sliced open the skin, cut off the breasts and legs. I felt the warm smooth muscles in the fresh meat. The scent of blood was like a paved road on a hot day. Thirty chickens later, I put all the meat in a big plastic container and headed to the house to clean and wrap it for the freezer.

I walked in the back door, arms full of chicken meat. Matt came into the kitchen and asked, “Do you want some help finishing it off?”

“Yes, thanks. I’ve got the worst headache. I feel like my own head got chopped. Let’s hurry and get this done so I can lie down.” When we finished the job, I washed the blood away, took some Tylenol, stripped my clothes off, and crawled into bed.

The headache went on for weeks with peaks and valleys of intensity, but always there. The pressure pounded. It even hurt to bend over and tie my shoes. With each step, it felt like my skull would explode. Despite the excruciating pain, I continued to go to work each day as well as take care of things at home. Telling myself, Tough it out.

One afternoon, Matt, the boys, and I took our pony, Butterfinger, out for a ride. I don’t know how he ever got that name because he sure wasn’t sweet like the candy bar. He quickly tried to get you off his back any way he could. He at least deserved credit for creativity.

When it was my turn to ride the pony, we headed down a road on a fairly steep slope. Matt carried Clint in a backpack, and Grant walked alongside him. Butterfinger stopped quickly and lowered his head and shoulders as if he wanted to take a bite of grass that didn’t even exist on the road. He flung me forward over his shoulders, and I hit the ground headfirst. Slowly I sat up, my hair tangled with leaves, sticks, and dirt. I didn’t care.

Matt ran forward and grabbed me. “Are you OK?”

“Please take him. I have to go,” I whined, holding my head. Matt grabbed the pony by the reins and followed me home, with Grant running alongside.

That night I couldn’t sleep; the pressure in my head was unbearable. “You need to go to the emergency room!” Matt exclaimed. “I’ll take you.”

“No, I can drive myself,” I said. “You stay home with the boys. I don’t want to call somebody in the middle of the night and ask them to babysit.”

I rushed to the emergency room and described the pain to the doctor. The first thing he said was, “It’s just a normal headache.”

“What? No, it’s not!” I argued and pointed to my left temple. “I can feel something in there. If I shake my head, it moves.”

He looked at me like I made it up. “Why don’t you go home, take some Tylenol, and relax. It will go away.”

Earlier that evening, I had gotten on the Internet and Googled “headache.” One Web page described five symptoms that raised red flags. If you met three, it was not a normal headache. I had all five.

I told the doctor, “I want a CAT scan. This isn’t normal.”

He gave me a stupid smile again and told me to come back in a few weeks if it hadn’t gone away. Angrily, I stomped out the door. If I hadn’t been in such pain, I would have argued with him more. I was in no mood for a fight.

Two days later, we flew east to visit Matt’s family in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where he grew up. We’d purchased the plane tickets months before and didn’t want to waste them. We wanted Grant and Clint to have the opportunity to visit with their faraway East Coast family that they rarely saw. I figured a relaxing vacation might be the exact thing I needed to get rid of my headache.

During our trip, we stayed at Matt’s mom’s home (Catherine, “Grammy Cat”) and were busy visiting Matt’s dad (Grandpa Joe); the boy’s great-grandparents (Gummy and Gumpy and Grandpa Broyles); and Matt’s cousins, aunts, and uncles. My headache got worse and worse. I often sneaked off by myself to hide in a quiet room. All the busy noises and movements were too much for my brain to handle. Catherine gave me a full bottle of aspirin, but no matter how many tablets I took, it didn’t phase my headache.

Early one morning, it got to the point where I was in so much pain I couldn’t open my eyes. I shook Matt, woke him up, and said, “We’ve got to go, we’ve got to go.”

Matt quickly woke his mom and told her, “We need to go to the emergency room. Can I borrow your car? Please watch the boys for us.”

Catherine, shocked and scared, said, “Yes, yes, go.”

Matt helped me to the car and drove as fast as he safely could, not worrying about getting a speeding ticket. My brain couldn’t think clearly, and everything went black. All I could do was hold my head and rock back and forth, crying.

At the ER exam room, the nurse asked me questions, “Describe the pain. How would you rank it, from one to ten?” The pain was so intense I couldn’t speak, just continued rocking back and forth. Without delay, she injected my arm with medication. I felt it slowly crept into my veins and through my body, like sinking into a nice warm bath. Finally, I could take a deep breath, relax, and open my eyes. The pain went completely away.

“Thank you,” was all I said. I felt so relieved.

Lying on a gurney, I was rolled off to get a CT scan. After the scan, Matt and I waited in a hospital room for results. Once I began to think more clearly, fear rushed in. Fear replaced the pain; it wasn’t any better. On the phone near the hospital bed, Matt called our family members to update them on what was happening. Hearing him describe it all made it seem so real. Nausea and cramps from fear hit my stomach. I ran to the nearest bathroom, where stuff came rushing out of both ends. Thank goodness the sink sat adjacent to the toilet.

The doctor returned, placing the scanned film in the x-ray viewer on the wall. Looking to me in the eyes, with a solid unemotional expression, he said, “Your brain is hemorrhaging in the left temporal lobe. We’re going to send you by ambulance to a larger hospital to see a specialist.”

I couldn’t respond. I could only stare at my brain scan. The next thing I knew, I was rushed off to the UMass Memorial Medical Center, forty-five minutes away. Matt followed, keeping up with the ambulance in his mom’s car. There were no lights or sirens on, but the ambulance exceeded the speed limit and moved right along. I can’t remember much of the trip other than the fear and the pressure of belts that held my chest, arms, and legs tight to the gurney. The paramedic sat quietly next to me, taking my vital signs over and over again.

At the hospital, they took me straight in for an MRI. Pushed from one room to another, here to there, it all happened so quickly. Soon after, a doctor with a caring smile and sweet eyes leaned over me; putting his hand on my shoulder, he said, “You needed to have brain surgery to stop the hemorrhaging.”

All I thought to say was, “Can I fly home to Oregon for surgery?” I didn’t want to be over two thousand miles away from home with a risk of coming out of a craniotomy with serious disabilities.

“Yes,” was all I remember him saying.

Checked out of the hospital, Matt and I headed back to Grammy Cat’s house. We needed to find a neurosurgeon in Oregon ASAP. Grammy Cat, knowing we were so focused on finding a surgeon, was so helpful and took the boys out to play at a park, fed them, gave them baths, and put them to bed for us.

Sitting at her kitchen table, we spent hours on the phone. I wasn’t sure the little town of Medford had a brain surgeon. We also weren’t quite sure how to find one in Oregon from across the country. In the past, I’d searched telephone books for hair salons and car mechanics, but never for a neurosurgeon. Directory assistance gave me one Medford number to try.

I called and a woman receptionist answered the phone. “I’m looking for a neurosurgeon with craniotomies experience,” I said. I’d been told most neurosurgeons have practice with operating on spines and other things like carpal tunnel syndrome, but not on brains.

“Yes, Dr. so-and-so does craniotomies,” she said confidently.

To make sure the doctor was well qualified, I asked, “How many brain surgeries has he done?”

“One,” she said. I hung up the phone. I wanted to find a specialized neurosurgeon, one that did brain surgery every day, all year long. One that could do it with his eyes closed. That’s what I wanted. 

Later I found out the receptionist was probably being sarcastic, but how was I to know.

Matt called a coworker at the BLM, who’d gone through brain surgery a few years before. He recommended that we use his neurosurgeon at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, only a five-hour drive north of home. We quickly called OHSU and scheduled an appointment for surgery.

The next day we flew to Portland. I carried a big manila envelope with the MRI films with me. Matt and I could tell Grant and Clint sensed something was up. We looked worried. The boys looked anxious and confused. Still in shock, we didn’t know what to tell them. So we tried to smile, gave them treats to eat, toys to play with, and held them close on the flight back to Oregon.

My brother Scott, who lived in Salem, an hour south of Portland, met us at the airport. “Grant and Clint, you get to have a sleepover at Uncle Scott and Aunt Sue’s house,” I told them as Uncle Scott reached down to give them each a hug, then pulled me tight into one. At first they hesitated, but their reaction changed quickly when I told them, “You get to play with Emily and Zack.” Loving their cousins, they jumped at that idea.

After Matt and I gave the boys big hugs, they climbed into Uncle Scott’s car. My brother held me tight, and I could tell by the look in his eyes, he didn’t really know what to say. “Thank you, Scott,” I said and waved good-bye as they drove off.