...and they ignored her
by Jerry Trejo
When I was five, my brother pushed me off my bike and I fell onto a concrete slab protruding from the sidewalk on our street. I fractured my elbow in several places and I had to be driven to the hospital. I don’t really remember anything other than seeing my pregnant mother crying outside our little apartment as a neighbor put me in his car and prepared to drive me to the hospital. My mother wasn’t supposed to be standing up; it was too dangerous for the baby.
She could miscarry again.
Despite the pleas from Juanita, the diabetic lady next door, my mother got into the car with me. Juanita knew about the risks, and she tried to call my father. He was away on business, and no matter how hard Juanita tried, she couldn't reach him. (Few people had cell phones back then.)
I can imagine my mother’s desperation as she sat in that crowded waiting room praying I would be okay. Her English wasn’t very good; in fact, it was dismal. The doctors wouldn’t talk to her because they were afraid she wouldn’t understand. They urgently needed her to sign the release papers for my surgery. She refused.
My arm was swelling and the doctors wanted to proceed with the surgery to prevent any complications or further fractures in the bone. They walked up and looked at her with growing irritation.
What on earth does this ignorant Mexican woman think she knows about medicine? they probably asked themselves.
She is stupid to waste time when the surgery could have been performed already. We need to insert the metal pins to hold the bones together. She doesn’t have a right to reject primary care for her son.
To anyone else observing in the waiting room, my mother must have appeared like a coldhearted monster. Everyone probably thought she was trying to get out of paying for my surgery.
She’s a bad mother; she shouldn’t be allowed to have more kids.
To this day, I picture her with frazzled hair, dingy clothes and worn out wicker sandals. She fit the stereotype perfectly.
Stupid, pregnant and poor.
In tears, my mother tried to get them to understand. She kept saying the same phrases over and over,
but everyone ignored her. She was speaking in Spanish, and the doctors were pretty aggravated. No one, not even the nurses, bothered to listen to what she was really saying.
“Soy cirujana, mi hijo tiene varias fracturas superficiales en el Cóndilo humeral, y hay mínima separación…no hubo ruptura arterial…….. el hueso está desacomodado…la cirugía no es necesaria!”
It all probably sounded like gibberish to anyone who was even listening to my mother. The doctors and nurses looked at her with contempt; she needed a sedative, or better yet, she needed to be sent home.
My mother could sense what they all felt about her, and she really couldn’t blame them. Twenty years ago, she would have felt the same way. Ironically, she was now on the other end of the spectrum. They don’t understand a word I’m saying. Even if they did, I doubt they’d believe me. I don’t even carry myself like a doctor anymore. Look at me. Twenty years ago I had everything, and now, I have nothing……
* * *
She vividly remembered dealing with the same type of negative attitudes from male colleagues when she had attended medical school in Mexico City. A woman should never be a doctor, she had been told. Women need to cook, clean, and have babies.
Women shouldn’t even be allowed to go to medical school, her own father had told her on the day she got her acceptance letter.
My mother must have been hurt by his comments, but she certainly never let my grandfather see her emotions. When she finished medical school, she proved to everyone who had ever doubted her that she was different than other women. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough.
“Why don’t you get married and have kids?” my grandmother would ask, “You should find a fiancé. You'll end up frigid and lonely if you don't listen to my advice.”
It wasn’t long before she started to believe everyone was right. After all these years of hard work, she had finally finished medical school, and she was still the empty little girl who cried herself to sleep because everyone made fun of her.
For Mexican standards, at 27, my mother was deemed a spinster. No one even asked her out on dates anymore. She was “damaged goods.” Most men didn’t want to marry ambitious women, and for my mother, the word “ambitious” was an understatement. She was too focused on her career to let anyone get in her way of success. Who needs love? I can be totally happy by myself......right?
Lying to herself was good consolation, but after awhile even the lies weren’t enough to make her feel better. She finally resigned herself, and accepted her fate.
I guess I’ll never get married.
Everything changed, however, in May of 1983. For a medical training project, my mother had been assigned to a hospital in Monterrey for six months. Although she liked traveling to other parts of the country, she was disappointed to have been stuck in Monterrey. There were other places where her skills would have been more useful. Monterrey was too boring; nothing interesting ever happened there.
One day, fate put her on a path that would change her life. Running late for work, she accidentally ran into my father outside the metro station. He had gone to school with my mother’s younger brother when they were young and he instantly remembered her.
“Rosa! Eres tú?”
She immediately recognized his face and gasped, shocked to find him in Monterrey. Last she knew, he had moved to the States and they had lost touch. They hadn’t seen each other in more than twelve years.
“Dios mío! Cuántos años!” my mother exclaimed. He looked so different. He had gotten taller, and his once dirty-blond curly hair had browned with age. But his smile was unmistakable. She had always liked his smile.
For a moment, she forgot about her problems. He invited her out to dinner that night, and then the following night, and pretty soon they were going out every night.
She was in love, and by then, nothing else mattered. They would go out on picnics or take road trips to the beach. They would sometimes just hang out at the park or museums all day with no worries on their mind. Before she knew it, she was planning for her wedding.
In just a few months, she got married, quit her job, and became pregnant. Her life had turned completely upside down. She had finally found happiness and nothing could change that.
Unfortunately, just three months after their marriage, my father told her he was moving back to the States. He had been offered a great job opportunity and he was going to take it whether my mother liked it or not. She had no choice. She loved my father and had to follow him in sickness and in health. He would have left without her.
She packed her bags, said goodbye to her family and friends, and left.
She gave up everything she had: a nice house, a good job, friends…. everything.
Her medical title, her knowledge, her wealthy lifestyle, her life….. none of that mattered anymore.
The instant she crossed the border, my mother had become what everyone always said she would become. She was pregnant, poor, and to many people in this new country, she was stupid, too.
* * *
The doctors were getting exasperated, and had given up dealing with my mother. One of them had called Child Protection Services. Soon, the doctors would get their precious surgery.
At the time, my mother must not have realized the dangerous water she was treading upon. She was still desperately trying to convince the doctors to forgo the surgery. After arguing for what seemed like hours, she felt a little nauseated and sat down. The nausea had been constantly getting worse, not just because of the stress from that day, but in general. She knew the dangers, yet she had to protect me from those stupid doctors. The last two weeks had been especially bad. She had spotted the night before.
Just like with the other miscarriages.
She knew how angry my father would get. He really wanted to have another baby. So did she. But at that moment, I was more important.
I had been in isolation for a couple of hours by then, and my mother hadn’t seen me since we had gotten to the hospital. At first, I had been very uncooperative, screaming and kicking. The nurses had to sedate me because they were afraid I would do more damage to my arm. I don’t really remember much more after that.
My mother, on the other hand, was desperately reliving every single painstaking detail. She went over in her head what had happened. It had taken so long to get to the damn hospital, and then the stupid doctors hadn’t let her see me.
She kept thinking about the doctors’ attitudes and how as soon as we had gotten to the hospital, I was taken away and she was bombarded with forms to fill out. My mother couldn’t really understand what she was signing, but she didn’t want to look like a fool. The forms were all in English, and she didn’t want people to think she couldn’t even sign her own name.
She kept signing and dating all the forms without reading them, but something was kicking around in the back of her thoughts. Why so many forms? she had thought. Why do all of them require my signature? Why can’t I see my son?
Something must have felt wrong because she stopped writing. She remembered back to her own days as a surgeon. Only surgery patients had to sign special release forms. But my son isn’t going into surgery.
And then it hit her.
Tearing the papers, she demanded to speak with the doctors in charge. They were crazy, she thought. Before we had left for the hospital, she had examined my arm and hadn’t seen any reason for a surgery. It was just a broken arm, elbow perhaps. There hadn’t been any superficial bone exposure, or damage to radial and humeral arteries, otherwise she would have noticed the darkening tissue caused by internal bleeding. She couldn’t be sure until she saw the X-rays, but she wasn’t about to sign any damn releases. At least not yet.
You did the right thing by tearing the papers, she told herself.
That had been two and half hours earlier.
Now, all the doctors were ignoring her. She was still sitting in that waiting room, with dried up tears around her eyes and cheeks. Why won’t they let me see my son? she thought. She knew she was running out of time. She wanted to get up and scream at those damn doctors, but she felt overwhelmingly weak.
She was running out of time.
Sitting there, my mother focused on their faces. She tried to read their lips. She couldn’t make out what they were talking about because she was sitting too far away. She didn’t even understand what anything meant, but she could almost make out the phrase “CPS is coming….10 minutes..”
CPS, she thought, what on earth is CPS?
* * *
Twenty-something years before dealing with workers from Child Protective Services, or arguing with my orthopedic doctors, my mother had to cope with her own medical problems. She could never forget the way other girls would make fun of the way she walked. She could never forget the metal pins protruding from her legs, or the scars that ran up and down her ankles.
It wasn’t her fault really. She had been born that way.
My grandmother would tell her that it wasn’t noticeable.
But she lied.
My mother was born with a congenital torsional bone deformity in her right tibia. Congenital In-toeing, as it is called, is relatively rare and can usually only be corrected with surgery. In most cases, the degree of torsion in the bone is minimal and only requires few surgical procedures. My mother, on the other hand, had problems with her knee in addition to the torsion and had to undergo eight surgical procedures. Because her bone was rotated almost seventy degrees, she had a slight but obvious limp.
Even at the age of five, my mother understood the consequences of her defect. She would never be able to run or jump, even if the surgeries were successful. Rosie, after we do each of the surgeries, you’ll have to be in a wheelchair for some time. How do you feel about that?
My mother must have cringed. She hated pity, but she also really wanted the surgeries. Looking normal was her only desire. She didn’t care if she couldn’t run or jump or even wear high-heels; all she wanted was to look normal when she walked down the street without people feeling sorry for her. I want to be able to walk more than two steps without people staring at me.
Over the years, the surgeries kept getting more and more painful, and the recuperation times longer. She hardly had any friends, and at school the other girls were cruel. Patas-chuecas, they all called her. They would do wretched tricks like loosen the screws on her wheelchair so that the wheels would roll off and my mother would fall flat on the floor. They would grab her things and throw them across the courtyard, where my mother would have a hard time getting to them. They even left dead birds and rats in her desk to try and scare her. The comments they made were terrible. It’s a pity; you have a really pretty face but no man will ever want to marry a bow-legged freak! You are so stupid, look at those hideous scars on your ugly legs.
Despite their actions, I don't think my mother ever hated them. All she wanted was a friend, and at least other girls knew she existed. It would have been worse if everyone ignored her and pretended she wasn’t even in the room. She hated being ignored. By the time she was ten, my mother had been through seven operations. She only needed one more and her legs would be perfect. I’ll finally be normal, she thought.
Weeks before her next scheduled surgery, my mother met a teenage girl named Anastacia who had the same congenital bone problem in both legs. Anastacia was trully beautiful. With long black hair and soft alabaster skin, she was easily the most beautiful girl my mother had ever seen. Her eyes were hazel, with a bit of bright emerald around the edges. Such beauty was rare in patients at the rehabilitation center where they met, but Anastacia had a certain vibrant disposition that made her alluring to others. She was also scheduled to undergo her last surgery the following week. Like my mother, Anastacia still had a slight limp, but it was barely noticeable.
I’m going to be perfect, Anastacia would say. I’ll finally be able to lead a normal life. Rosie, you and I will be the prettiest girls for miles.
Vanity, however, was the devil’s favorite sin.
Although the surgery was declared a success, it should have been declared a tragedy; Anastacia lost all the strength in her legs. After so many surgeries, her bones were so weak and brittle, they fractured with any slight pressure. Her legs became gelatin; she couldn’t even move them.
She would never walk again.
The doctors had overestimated the strength of her bones. We made a mistake. It’s too bad really, she’s such a beautiful young girl. Don’t worry about the wheelchair it’s on us. But we’re afraid you’ll still have to pay the hospital fees.
My mother left the rehabilitation center that day, crying, and never came back. Seeing Anastacia in a wheelchair broke her heart. All those years my mother had pursued something she could never have, but she had never stopped to think about the consequences. She was grateful she could still walk.
As my mother matured, she grew taller and her limp eventually disappeared. But her scars, both physical and emotional, were still tormenting her twenty-something years afterward. Now, she was sitting in that waiting room hoping that something terrible like what happened to Anastacia wouldn’t happen to me.
* * *
The CPS worker looked indifferently at my mother. She examined my mother as she walked down the hall, looking for signs of drug or alcohol abuse. These immigrant women, she thought, they’re all the same. Observant of every detail, she estimated that my mother was probably 15 weeks into her pregnancy. The subject is female, pregnant, roughly in her early to mid-thirties. She looks haggard, possibly from drug use. There could also be evidence of physical abuse. I can tell she’s a bad mother.
My mother looked at the CPS woman very carefully in the same observant manner. I can take her, she thought smugly, I can punch her in the stomach and knock her lights out.
I can imagine why my mother was so defensive; she wasn’t stupid. She knew that the woman could mean trouble, not just for me, but for my brother and the baby my mother was carrying.
The woman came over with a menacing look and started making accusations my mother didn’t really understand. She kept shoving papers in my mother’s face, making threats about me and my well being.
My mother just stood there, staring blankly at the woman.
Something was wrong;
She could feel something warm trickling down her leg. Ignoring the CPS woman, my mother glanced down and saw the growing crimson spots on her beige dress.
Blood.
It can’t be happening again, she thought. It wasn’t fair. She had worked so hard for this pregnancy and she couldn’t go through it again.
I’m losing my baby.
My mother panicked and tried to take a few steps, but her legs collapsed.
“Oh my God!” screamed the CPS woman as she reached out and prevented my mother's fall.
“I can't feel my legs!” my mother screamed. She could feel her joints weakening as she felt a type of paralysis creeping up her body.
I can’t feel my legs. What’s happening to me. Help! My baby!
She twisted her head back and forth with desperation for anyone to help. She couldn’t feel her fingers, and the numbing sensation moved quickly up her arms. She felt dizzy and nauseated as the room revolved around her.
“Help Me!”
Her eyelids were getting heavy. She could faintly see the doctors and nurse running towards her. She tried to scream. But it was too late.
Everything turned black.
* * *
I opened my eyes only to find myself in total darkness.
For a few instants I had no idea where I was.
Then I remembered the hospital, and the doctors in white overcoats who kept asking questions I couldn't answer.
As my vision came into better focus, I realized I was lying on a bed in some kind of room. It was a dimly lit hospital room. I was a bit groggy, but I could make out the shape of a nurse filling out some forms at the foot of my bed.
I could feel a piercing pain running down my arm and I tried to move it but I couldn’t.
That’s when I noticed the large white cast around it.
Great, I thought, now how the hell am I supposed to ride a bike like this?
* * *
When my mother woke up, she saw my father sitting next to her bed. What’s he doing here? she thought.
And then she remembered the blood.
She immediately jumped to get up, but my father grabbed her hand and tried to calm her down.
“Rosie, its okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“El bebé? No quiero perder a mi bebé!”
“The baby’s fine, but you have to stay in bed.”
My mother wanted to jump out of bed, but she still felt the overwhelmingly weak and she couldn’t really get up.
“y Jerry, cómo está su brazo. Dios mío, tienes que parar la cirugía!”
“Don’t worry Rosie, él está bien.”
Although my mother felt powerless, she looked into my father’s eyes and believed he was telling the truth. She lay back and soon fell asleep again.
My father looked after her for a few minutes and then walked out into the hall to speak with the doctors.
Unlike my mother, my father was not someone to be ignored. He was tall and menacing. When he spoke, people always listened, even if they didn’t like what he said.
He had arrived at the hospital about half an hour after my mom’s anxiety attack, and was enraged that no one from the hospital staff had attempted to call him from the start. He had gotten home from work and Juanita had filled him in on the details.
The doctors, of course, were still adamantly pushing for my surgery, but they said my mother had refused. My father looked at them with contempt.
“Well if she refused, she must have had a damn good reason. She’s an experienced surgeon, and trust me, she knows more about orthopedics than you guys do. I would like to get a second opinion and a maybe even a third. Who is your best orthopedic surgeon around?” my father asked, “I want to speak to him, NOW!”
There was something about the way he spoke to the doctors that made them rethink their approach. They brought in three orthopedic specialists and none of them recommended the surgery as a first choice. He’s young, they said, the pins are unnecessary. The bone needs to be readjusted but if the separation is minimal, the bone can solder without pins. The less invasive we are, the better.
My father had come to my rescue and easily accomplished what my mother, a woman, hadn't been able to do.
But he never took the credit for preventing the surgery.
As much as he hated to admit it, my mother had always been the stronger one in the family. Despite his rough facade and menacing nature, my father wouldn't have known what to do if he had been in my mother's place. He would have signed the release forms out of ignorance, out of fear.
He admired my mother because she had more courage than he ever could. He would have never given up his career for a family.
As he stared at her sleeping peacefully in that hospital bed, he kept thinking about the sacrifices my mother had made when she married him. She had given up everything in the name of love.
He felt like the luckiest man in the world.
He was.
Sitting next to her bed, he caressed her face. She calmly opened her eyes and smiled at him. She was feeling much better.
“y Jerry? Did you stop the surgery?” she asked.
“No… I didn't...” he said softly, “You did. By the time I got here, the doctors had already revised their diagnosis. Thanks to your pleas, they brought in orthopedic specialists and they decided against the surgery. Believe me, you stopped it all by yourself.”
She looked at him and smiled. For an instant she thought he was telling the truth, but she knew him too well. He's lying through his teeth, she thought. How sweet of him. With that, she knew everything would be okay.
'I believe you...” she whispered.
He smiled at her. She smiled back; she had always liked his smile.
© 2005 MIT E-merging Journal
