 Christopher
Key is a former fellow Salon blogger, and a friend. He's a Vietnam War
vet and the descendant of F Scott Key, who wrote the US national
anthem. He was so unhappy with Bush he announced plans in 2004 to move
to Canada and renounce his US citizenship. This, of course, earned him
a fair bit of notoriety. Then we stopped hearing from him, and his blog
went silent, and e-mails to him went unanswered. And then about a month
ago, he broke the long silence with this astonishing letter to his
friends:
An
apologia, if you will. As you may
remember, I was a bit of a media star back in 2004. National
media in
both Canada and the US were holding
a bit of a circle jerk over the patriotic American who was ready to
become a
traitor to his country. Or so it seemed. I should
know better than
to announce my plans in public. Every time I’ve
ever done that,
fate has pulled the rug from under me and I end up with egg on my
face. So it was this time.
I
was blithely pursuing my plans to flee
to Canada
when I came down with a mysterious staph infection. Ordinarily, that sort
of thing happens when you have been operated on in hospital or have an
open
wound. I had neither. I woke up one morning with a
stiff neck, did
some stretching to get rid of it and gave it no more thought. But it kept
getting worse. Eventually, I went to the ER three times in
excruciating
pain, but they could find nothing wrong. I went to
chiropractors,
acupuncturists and Reiki practitioners, but nothing touched my
pain. I
was beginning to lose function in my arms and hands and my beloved
Reiko had to
come down from Canada
to help me dress and take a shower.
Meantime, I pretty well disappeared off
the map. My application for Canadian citizenship went by the
boards. The national publications from which I had only
recently begun to
receive regular assignments must have been puzzled at my
disappearance. Not so puzzled that they bothered to pay me for outstanding invoices,
however.
Finally, I managed to convince the medical
establishment that there was something seriously wrong. The
trouble was,
it wasn’t showing up on X-rays or MRIs. By that
time, the staph
infection had pretty well eaten up three of my vertebrae (C5 to T1 for
those of
you who are medically sophisticated). I was operated on by a
neurosurgeon
at the local hospital and placed in a “halo,” a
brace that is
actually screwed into your head. I don’t remember
much of this, but
am reconstructing events from what I have been able to discover.
I suddenly took a turn for the worse and
the local neurosurgeon realized he was in over his head. It
was serious
enough that I was helicoptered to Providence
Hospital in Seattle, where a surgeon much higher on the
medical food chain took over. I had three more operations,
resulting in a
bone fusion and a lot of titanium hardware being placed in my
neck. There
were serious doubts as to whether I would survive. If I did,
the
prevailing medical opinion was that I would never regain the use of my
hands
and arms due to the extensive neurological damage. Total
hospital time:
two months.
I learned a lot about the industrial
medicine model during this time. Of course, I was on so many
drugs that I
can’t really trust my memories. Most of the time, I
was suffering
from horrendous hallucinations and couldn’t even find the
call button
that was pinned to my pajamas. I know that I was seriously
mishandled
several times resulting in unbelievable pain. Once, when I
was screaming
for relief, a nurse told me to quit whining. The doctor had
been notified
and would release pain meds in a couple of hours. Those were
long hours,
my friend.
Once I was on the road to recovery, they
took a very cold approach toward pulling me off the heavy
meds. They
basically strapped me down in a room and let me go through withdrawal
on my
own. I was shaking uncontrollably, vomiting and nobody
responded for
hours. Eventually, they took me out of the room, complaining
loudly about
what a mess I had made.
Finally, I was released from the hospital
to an extended care facility. Fortunately, one of my close
friends is
administrator of such a facility in Bellingham. She and my daughter, who has my power of attorney, made sure I ended up
there. I am very blessed in that the care I received there
was both
professional and compassionate. When I arrived, I had very
little
movement in my left hand and arm and none in my right. The
prognosis was
that I would never get it back.
I wasn’t having any of that and
neither were my therapists. I spent four and a half months in
rehab and
my therapists insisted on calling me “The Miracle
Man.” OK, I had a kick-ass
attitude about coming back, but it was their skill and enthusiasm that
did the
trick. In short, I have recovered almost
completely. After three
months in an assisted living facility and enduring two very nasty neck
braces,
I am finally out on my own again and living independently.
The medical bills added up to well over
half a million dollars. I had insurance, but it didn’t pay
for
everything. My kids sold off everything I owned in order to
pay the bills
and I am having to start from scratch. No
complaints. I’m
just happy to be alive and able to play the old keyboard. Of
course,
I’ve had to battle the state over benefits because I had the
nerve to
look for work while I was still on disability. I’ve
had to retain
an attorney in order to keep the state from punishing me because I
tried to get
off the dole. Go figure. The state will spend more
money trying to
defend its ridiculous rules than it would if it had just settled out of
court. So now I have to defend myself in a hearing over my
benefits. If I had just sat on my ass and done nothing, I
could have been
on the dole until September.
And
here’s the kicker. When I
started looking for work, I applied for unemployment benefits so I
could pay
for my car insurance, gas, etc. Some upstanding citizen in
the local DSHS
office reported me to the unemployment authorities as being unable to
work. This despite having been cleared by my
neurosurgeon. Government is a wonderful thing. So now, I am having to
retain an
attorney to represent me at a hearing wherein DSHS will dispute my
eligibility
for benefits that I told the social worker I didn’t need in
the first
place. And I’m being investigated by the
unemployment authorities
because someone at DSHS made a false accusation with no basis in truth.
That’s all irrelevant,
however. It’s a continuing miracle that I am able
to wake up every
morning, take a shower and dress myself without help. I start
work
tomorrow for a company that allows me to work from home and I have a
comfortable apartment where I can live independently. That
may seem like
a small thing, but I have learned to celebrate the small
victories. Like
being able to work a keyboard again, or making a fist, or making chords
on my
guitar.
I have thought of you often during this
long recovery and wanted to get back in touch. I have learned
some very
important lessons: never take your good health for granted, always live
life in
the moment and never announce your plans in public. Life, at
least my
life, doesn’t work that way. Thanks for listening
to this rambling
screed and I would love to hear from you. I have no plans to
resume
blogging since I don’t have the time or the energy, but I
have been proved
wrong too often to predict what might happen. Blessings upon
you.
Christopher Key
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
