They are embarrassing.
I was driving down the freeway with the kids in the back, on my way to meet Tolga. Finally, a weekend away. I was stocked up on toys and healthy snacks and some sweets. Both kids had napped for the first hour-and-half and I was really trying to be alert and careful.
I reached into the backseat many times. Sometimes to push Tomris's head back because I was afraid with it falling forward she couldn't breathe properly. Sometimes to hand a toy or snack or water to one of the two. I did it many times and my mind was on being alert to the road, and careful... or as careful as one can be reaching into the back seat of the car while driving.
What was I thinking?
It was one of these occasions I was reaching back once again to give Tomris, or maybe Teoman something and pulling my arm back I rotated my shoulder right out of the socket.
I screamed a muffled high-pitched "No no no no no no, Oh Jesus help me! Aaarrrgh!"
My back was arched, I was sitting very upright and resisting the urge to grab my shoulder with my other arm. I just kept driving straight, I didn't let go of the peddle, I didn't turn - I was kind of frozen driving at 120kph. Then I forced myself to breathe and told myself to not crash and tried to focus on getting off the highway. The shoulder of the freeway was dangerous and I wasn't sure if I could make it to the next exit and lots of scenarios were going through my mind - but when I lifted my eyes off the road directly in front of me I saw that there was an exit in 1000 meters. I hit my hazard lights at some point and begin pulling over and slowing down.
The exit was one of those really long (torturous) exits that lead to a toll booth. I was in the middle booth and saw police cars and a station and slowly pulled over into the last parking spot. A civilian had just come out and was watching me - and I couldn't give him any indication of my trouble. I couldn't take the car out of gear, or honk the horn, or unlock the door - I was just frozen. I tried showing him with my eyebrows that were hidden under sunglasses - he got the point anyhow that I needed help and called the police over.
They came over and I managed to unlock the door and I don't remember what they said, but I told them right away - olmus çiktii. The one policeman called 112 right away - the others opened the back to check on the kids. Tomris, amazingly wasn't crying. Teoman was calling them abi and saying "Anne. Oof! Oof!" Another policeman called Tolga. He kept telling Tolga to come slowly, that they would take care of us - but Tolga was near the freeway himself, and sped the whole way.
I have dislocated my shoulder many times, and it doesn't get easier, or less traumatic, or less painful. It's always terrifying.
I could have been miles away from an exit, hospital, and orthopedist - but I wasn't. I was 10 minutes from a government hospital that had an orthopedist. The policeman followed the ambulance with my car and children. The ambulance worker who helped me was kind and patient - impressive as I was neither kind or patient. He said, "Do you trust me?" I said no. Because I know what comes next. Forcing a sling on me, a bumpy ride on the ambulance, the stretcher wheels banging down, the bumps in the seams of the doors, the doors themselves if they were not careful. Transferring me from one stretcher to another. Every movement excruciating and the muscles spasming more and more with everything so tight ... and then the pulling begins. "Trust me," the doctor orders. And I can't trust him because I know what he's going to do - he's going to pull one direction, another person will pull the opposite, and it may or may not do anything - so they will pull harder.
They did not give me any pain medications - I'm not sure why. Teoman and Tomris were sitting on the bed near me and the room was full of people. The kids seemed a little shocked. I could only glance at them now and then, and I was stressed because of them. I was mostly worried about Tomris because of her fear of strangers and it was probably time to feed her. At some point she began to cry. And at some point they took the kids out of the room - I'm not sure when, but I could hear Tomris crying. The doctor who had been pulling on my arm had relieved some of the tension - but gave up because he said the muscles were to hard and they would put me under general anesthesia. At that point - everybody left the room. A nurse came in with Tomris, crying. I tried to smile at Tomris, and she smiled with a desperate laugh and lurch for me. The nurse set her next to me, but Tomris began crying again because I couldn't hold her. So she picked her up and took her away.
And then I was alone.
No doctors. No nurses. No children. No husband. No pain meds.
I wish I could say I was strong, or stoic, or sacrificing my pain for the kids. But I'm pretty sure I was whimpering. Begging for help and all of that not so heroic stuff.
I heard Tolga's voice. He's popular wherever he goes. I heard Tomris's cries stop immediately. I heard laughing. Tolga came in a few moments later carrying both kids.
Always my hero.
They brought me upstairs, tried to move me once more to another bed and I yelled in pain. They anesthesiologist took a phone call from his wife and left the room because I was so loud. My doctor said "forget it, we'll do it right here." The nurse started injecting the serum and then they were wheeling me away again. At some point, I had been knocked out and my shoulder put back in - but I hadn't even noticed the time had passed. In fact I thought it didn't work, or maybe it was a "conscious sedation" and it wasn't working either because I was still in pain. I was thinking to myself, they are still not going to be able to put this in. And I told Tolga, but he told me they were finished, and that's when I realized my arm was straight.
Tolga drove me and the kids back to Ankara. Our nanny called that night to see how my road trip with the kids had gone. We told her what happened and while we had given her Monday off, she said she would come and help on Monday.
In retrospect, everything that happened was miraculous: we didn't crash, I was taken care of, the kids were taken care of, and Tolga made it.
I had no blood work done, no pain medications given, no x-rays done - they hadn't even taken off any of my clothes. It was the fastest it had ever been done.
I always pray in these situations. (Who wouldn't?) I pray for Jesus to come and to help me, but I realized for the first time today that what my heart is actually praying is - oh Jesus, make it go away. Fix it. Take it away. Reverse time, this is not/cannot be happening.
I've always been big on pain avoidance. I'm against suffering. And I protested many times in my heart whether suffering through labor or - for that matter - Jesus' suffering on the cross is really necessary. Everything in my being rejects the idea. I am appalled at the suffering others go through and I have a very hard time listening to justification of suffering. I can't watch violent movies or even the news - if I catch a scene, or overhear something terrible it haunts me. I think most people just say, "That's terrible." And they shrug there shoulders, shake their head, and move on. I can't stop myself from imagining the details of the suffering. Ugh. I am sure - if one of these horrors I see happened to me I would be screaming- no, no, no Jesus!
I had a dream once that I was leading some parents into identify the body of their child - a burn victim. One of the most grotesque and painful injuries I could imagine. I went to the foot of the bed, but I shielded my eyes as to not see the body. I waited for the parents, and accidentally saw the girl's foot and shuddered. Then the supposedly-dead-girl sat up in her bed and screamed an inch from my face "LOOK AT ME!"
And there was no way over my dead body I was going to look at this resurrected burn victim screaming in ear. I had my eyes closed tight and I was trying to out-scream her.
The scream made my whole body vibrate with fear and I woke up shaking and my ears ringing. I jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and couldn't sleep or hardly think of the dream for a long time.
It was was YEARS before I even considered the meaning of the dream. Not because I forgot, because I was afraid. But I have become more sure as the years go on - it is an embodiment of my refusal to look closely at suffering.
I was always really afraid to have a baby - I know most women are - and I supposed most women feel as if they are exceptionally afraid. The fact that millions of women had suffered this only baffles me, not comforted me. Labor was the consequence of sin in the Garden of Eden - so how do so many women justify this pain as "worth it"?
And then I had Teoman and I still couldn't comprehend the idea that suffering was justified - but it did open my mind. Until that point, I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that something so beautiful and pure should be the result of such pain and suffering. Then, a bigger realization: I brought this beautiful and innocent baby into a world full of pain and suffering. What had I done? How could I have been so cruel and thoughtless? I would do anything to save this child from pain and suffering.
The thought hasn't justified suffering for me - but it's made it more understandable. And Jesus' night in Gethsemane more human. His closest friends couldn't understand his suffering. He felt alone. He was alone. He was stressed and probably afraid, like anyone of us, thinking of the the suffering to come. Jesus prayed for God to take it away, in a sense. He wasn't immune to these feelings.
We are not alone in these feelings.
And once the suffering was finished the joy of our son, and later, our daughter has merged the two somehow. It has made the short cost of their birth nothing. I was afraid to have Tomris as well - but I was excited too. It IS a miracle.
My shoulder problems are still terrifying in the midst of it, and I have yet to learn how to handle it gracefully. I'm not sure I ever will - but I hope that my prayers will change, because "make it go away" may be a natural response, but maybe I can be more brave . . . I'm just not sure what that looks like.
Because, terrifying things happen all the time to people all around us. It's not going to go away. Things could be worse. Things might get worse. Am I really ready to look into the face of this burnt corpse?
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