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As Christina laid there, totally immobilized in her body cast and not even
able to talk, she was later told by Dr Schlamov that she would be in that cast
for over 6 months until they were sure that all her bones healed properly. As
her neck was broken also, the tube had to be inserted down her throat because
if she talked, even her vertebrae could become destabilized. |
So, Christina had to face, in her own now isolated little worl of her own, the prospect to
being totally still and quiet for a VERY long time, which both terrified her and stimulated her sexually, as she periodicaly would forget about her immobilization and as she woke from her many frequent naps (as, of course, there wasn'tmuch else she could do other than look at her visitors talking to her) s he woulf forget about the cast and try to get up and instead would feel the unyielding heavy plaster all around her as she'd try to bend an arm
or leg or crane her neck, all for naught. This went on for two weeks until one of her physicians noticed some black and blue around her eyes.
He took a
flash light and shined it in her eyes. He made a comment and within minutes,
some transporters were summoned who loaded her on a stretcher and brought her
to the operating room. She could not talk, because of her intubated throat
but the attending nurse explained to her that as Christina moved her eyeballs
within the eyee sockets, some bone fragments came loose. She was informed that
because of this, her eyes would have to be operated on to fix the eye orbits and
her eyes would have to be fixated, by heavily bandaging the eyes after taping
them shut and more
plaster cast bandages would then cover the gauze
bandages, thus rending her blind
for all practical purposes for the rest of the term of
the body cast! Cristina then lost consciousness as the sedative was
given and she awoke wahat seemed to be a little while later to the sound
of her mother talking to her. She tried to open her eyes but quickly remembered
that her eyes would not open for vision for 4 1/2 more months! The months of
total blackness with only sound dragged by slowly until finally she heard a
voice announce that her big day had come and the bodycast with the eye bandages
were to be removed. She was wheeld down to the casting room and she heard the
buzz of the all-too-familiar cast saw and felt hands removing the
restrictive plaster. Shortly after the cast came off and she felt lighter than air, which
also had a horrible odor from being confined for such an extended period of
time in the cast, she was now told the tube was coming out of her throat and the
bandages would be taken off her eyes. She felt relief as each was removed and
tried to talk in a raspy voice and she sensed a flood of indistinct light come
into her eyes. A nurse gently swabbed her eyes with a wet cloth, which helped
moisten and stimulate her eyes and she could now make out shapes of the
people around her and things
came into focus once again. She asked if she could
keep the body cast and was cheerfully told that she certainly could.
Christina mumbled to herself, that finally there would
be no casts on her for quite a while, hopefully, as she was being helped
into a hospital johnny after being washed in a bathtub by two female nurse's
aides. She was carried gently onto a hospital stretcher and she finally saw
how her body had become so atrophied that her arms were now as thin as her wrists
and her thighs not much bigger than her ankles. She dreaded the upcoming
months of painful physical therapy, especially under the tutelage of the head
physical therapist Georgi
Kristov who was like a drill sargent.
Two painful weeks of physical therapy were endured
during which range of motion was being attempted to be restored to
unyielding limbs when, after one of the most painful sessions ever, the transporters
were loading Christina onto the rickey elevator, which hadn't been repaired due to
limited funds for at least 20 years. Instections were rare and when
performed, bribe was paid the insectors to pass the elevator as no patients could
ever get around without the elevator being taken out of commission for repairs!
The elevator made frequent screeching and scraping sounds and was prone more and
more to a jerking
motion as opposed to the more normal smooth operation
of a normal well-repaired elevator. So, as the elevator suddenly lurched, nobody
in it paid attention except the usual comment "Oh, there goes the
elevator again". They didn't realize that this was not going to be the business as usual
trip of the elevator as a horrible screech sounded, but then a bang as the
elevator ascended to the top 9th floor where the physical therapy clinic was
located. Suddenly, the elevator rapidly plummeted the 9 floors, with Christina and the
two transporters in it, all the way to the bottom, where it stopped
abruptly with a
resounding loud banging noise which nearly everyone in the building
heard and dust filled the entire structure.
Chapter 7 Christina's Trouble
Christina saw and heard everything initially, the
snapping ound of the severed cable, the all too rapid descent of the
elevator cab and the horrible impact. She lost consciousness at that moment of the
impact and never realized the damage done to her body from the gurney and the two
attendants slamming into the cab ceiling from the force of impact and then the
backlash impact of landing on the floor of the cab again as everything
and everyone was
tossed about inside.
Christina's mother was waiting for her in the hospital
lobby and felt the entire building shake. She had a feeling of
premonition that something had had happened to her daughter but didn't realize, of course
how bad until after an hour of firemen and paramedics scurrying back and
forth, taking patients out of the hospital to be transferred to a different
hospital, she was called aside to give permission for medical treatment for
Christina. She was informed by Dr Schlamov, who volunteered to give the bad news as
he knew Christina and her family very well, about the drastic extent of
Christina's new injuries.
Virtually every bone that had fractured before in the
fall down the stairs was now refractured and a lot of those bones ahd addtional
fractures as well. All the bones would have to be re-set in a different hospital,
as the fracture care room on the fourth floor was now inaccessible due to
the lone elevator being destroyed in the crash. She would be transferred to
the new People's Revolution Hospital, a newer hospital which was built in the late
1980's in the waning days of the Soviet Union, outside of Moscow, for
soldiers of the Red Army who were severely injured in the Afghanistan war. Dr
Schloamov, with his military connections, arranged for an army helicopter to
transport Christina to the new
hospital along with the two medical attendants, who
were also critically injured in the elevator crash. The male attendant, Yuri, had
both legs crushed and the female attendant, Ruba, had both arms crushed
along with multiple fractures when the gurney smashed on top of them. As they arrived at the new hospital the three were
brought into the ultra
modern operating rooms. Ruba had to have both arms
amputated above the elbows and be put in a full body cast, and Yuri had both legs
amputated above the knees and was put in a halo brace for his neck
fracture. However, Christina was put in yet another full body cast, with her jaws
wired, for another 8 months! The cast went from completely covering her head,
except for her nose and mouth, all the way down to her toes, also covering her
arms to nearly her fingertips.
