The Island of Dominica

Dominica had long been on my list of places to go and things to do. Not for its beauty or diving, but for the Sperm Whales that congregate there. Swim with Sperm Whales! A chance to snorkel with Moby Dick! It sounded like the stuff of which magic is made. I made that reservation almost a year in advance with my friend, Annie, from Calgary. We met long ago on a Manta expedition, and we’ve adventured together many times since then. At the time, I was hoping for a little rest. Being a caregiver, even to someone you love madly, is stressful and takes a toll not only physically, but emotionally. I was exhausted and looking forward to it.

As we know, life doesn’t usually run to plan (in fact, it rarely does), and my husband, Randy, passed two weeks before the trip. I cannot even describe my state at that time, and won’t try. Suffice it to say I was far from okay. My friends and family thought it would be good for me to get away, see the ocean, swim with Sperm Whales, and try to gain some equilibrium. I agreed. I’d been unable to get away for quite a long time, living crisis to crisis. Seeing a friend and a whale would be balm for a battered soul.

Annie and I decided to go to the Emerald Pool and Waterfall on Dominica, which is supposed to take 10 years away. So why not? We started the hike. Something felt off physically. I felt unbalanced, and a little shaky. Understandable, I thought, after what I’d been through. I told Annie I’d watch her from above. I did, and wished I could go as well, but I didn’t think I could make it. I enjoyed the view. We spent the day bumping along roads filled with potholes, then had dinner and breakfast the next morning. The next day, I’d begin my journey with Swim with Sperm Whales. Eretz, the director of Whale-Encounters, couldn’t have been nicer or more attentive, and after meeting the group, I knew it would be a fun trip together. My theory is that people who go on trips to see and interact with animals are nice. Well, except for people who want to kill them. I’ve been all over the planet to see animals of all kinds and have repeatedly proven my theory correct.

The next morning we walked to a dock, boarded a boat, and headed off to look for Sperm Whales. No such luck, but we saw dolphin pods, and it was a beautiful day. The speedboat was fast and thrummed with vibration; after riding the waves, we headed out to snorkel. Champagne Reef is famous for its underwater geothermal vents that release warm volcanic gas bubbles and is home to sea turtles, seahorses, and other creatures. I never made it into the water.

As I was putting on my fins, I turned to stand to get in the water and felt a sudden, searing pain in my leg. I couldn’t move. Looking down, I saw that I was on the seat again, with my left leg twisted like a pretzel, unable to move. That is a pretty common saying: I couldn’t move a muscle. Well, it has truth to it. I could not move my leg at all. Not an inch. I’d been here before. Six months earlier, I’d been moving some things around in my closet, preparing for Randy to come home after a 5-month hospital stay, and I had felt the same strange sensation as I fell. I couldn’t move my leg. So, I knew I had dislocated my hip. Again. Talk about things going awry.

I quietly turned to Eretz, our leader, and told him my hip was dislocated. He thought I was joking. I wasn’t. There was an ER doctor in our group, and he asked me if I wanted him to try to get it back into the joint. Sure, let’s do that so I can snorkel. It wouldn’t go back in, and it started to hurt badly. They called an ambulance, which took 2 hours to arrive. How to get me from the boat to the dock, which was at least 12 feet up from the steps? I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. I asked for a couple of pillows, and for the next hour I used them to scream into. It took a long time to get to the hospital over potholed roads. They didn’t stabilize my leg. They didn’t know how to insert an IV. They had no pain medication. When I could breathe, I apologized profusely to Eretz, who had accompanied me.

My scream sounded so stupid. Ridiculous. I should sound like the high school kids in the gym with Carrie. After another 6 hours in the emergency room, he said my screaming did sound like a horror movie. No pain medications, no stabilization. Have you heard of people fainting from pain? How I wished I would. Finally, I was taken to an operating room, and I woke later in a ward with my feet tied together with gauze, hip back in joint. It felt a bit better. Pain meds? No, I couldn’t have so much as an aspirin. They said my blood pressure was too low.

So, hips should be put back into joint within six hours. It is a critical medical emergency. The longer it remains out of joint, the higher the risk of bone death, cartilage damage, sciatic nerve injury, soft tissue damage, ligament damage, tendon tears, etc. It took them 9 hours. Hospitals in Dominica do not supply you with drinking water, sheets, soap, shampoo, or food. Or towels. It really should be a Charlie Chaplin skit. The lady on my left had dementia and kept pulling her IV out. There’s no call button; you have to scream, “NURSE!” Not kidding. The woman on my right listened to movies in French at a very loud volume. There were times when I just had to laugh at a situation that seemed like something out of a bad B-movie. Eretz and the group came to visit me, bringing fruit, water, and snacks. They even WhatsApp’d me to a cocktail party one night. The main issue? How was I going to get home?

Here is where a little luck came in. When Randy traveled, he always caught something. Or fell. Or was sick. Medicare’s answer to the dilemma was to say that he wasn’t well enough to fly, so they didn’t have to air-ambulance him home. Of course, that meant I had to hire whomever and whatever I could to get him on a commercial flight with me so I could get him home and into the hospital. That was always a nightmare. Randy’s health was extremely complicated, and he needed to be treated by experts, which meant his transplant team in Dallas. After years of this bullshit, I joined a club called Fly U Home. You join for a nominal fee, and if you are injured or ill and insurance won’t fly you home, they will come and get you! I bought this for Randy during the last year of his life, and added myself to the membership.

Eretz called my children (with instructions not to tell them about the screaming), and between them, four hellish days later, FLY U HOME air ambulance picked me up in Dominica. I greeted the nurse and paramedic with absolute joy and begged for an IV with any painkiller they had, and then we chatted all the way to Miami, where they bought me Panera, gave me more Dilaudid, and I slept until I arrived in Dallas. Five days later I was in surgery, having my hip replacement which had been done 6 years earlier revised. And, don’t you know it, a revision is much worse than a replacement.

I have had friends tell me that God wanted me to stay home and feel my pain to force my emotional and physical recovery since I hadn’t been still or taken care of myself in many, many years. Others said it was the universe that wanted me to be still and focus on myself for a while. It’s been almost 7 months since we lost Ran and almost 6 months since my surgery. I’ve spent months in bed and in PT, grieving a loss I would not wish on anyone. But until recently, I have been still. Working hard at PT, but still nonetheless.

I hope my next trip is more relaxing.

​