“While I Was Freezing…”

“It ain’t fun and games,” Mike told us. “Too cold. I was about ready to hit a cop to get a few nights in jail for hots and a cot. 

“You know what that means, don’t you?” Mike looked at us like we weren’t keeping up with the conversation. He might have been right.

We were following up on the reports of frostbite among our Resource Advocate Program clients at Springs Rescue Mission. Sarah, the chief RAP angel, asked Mike if he would chat with us. Mike agreed—as long as we’d tell more people about how the cold affected him and his friends.

Mike has frostbite. Before you escape to pleasant notions of frostbite being the leftovers of an innocuous 3 a.m. visit from Jack Frost or Suzy Snowflake, let’s cut to the chase. Frostbite is when blood literally freezes in your veins. It almost always starts in the extremities (toes, fingers). Then, if untreated, it works its way back toward your heart as gangrene.

Mike woke up one morning a few weeks back to find his left foot so swollen he couldn’t put his shoe on. A friend propped him up so he could limp four-and-a-half miles into town from their camp site to see a doctor. The doctor found frostbite in the toes of both feet.

No matter what the temperature since then, Mike has made the journey into the Mission to soak his feet six days a week. The regimen has restored normal color to the toes on his right feet, but not his left. There, two toes are still black. Mike has to make the hard call to allow the amputation of those toes or not. He hopes against hope the toes will recover color and circulation, like the ones on his right foot.

There’s no guarantee of that. And the longer Mike waits to make that call, the greater the possibility that gangrene will cost him his left leg up to the knee.

Mike weighs those odds even as he talks to us. Then he changes the course of the conversation.

He coughs to clear his throat. For all the drama that could so easily be leveraged out of his situation, Mike is matter-of-fact. “While I was freezing…”

It is clear Mike is searching for the right words instead of taking a dramatic pause. He thinks for a moment. “While I was freezing,” he says slowly and softly, “I talked with my son. He’s gone on. Talked to my parents and a couple of friends who have all passed, too.

“Couldn’t feel anything from my knees down or my chest up, so I poured kerosene over myself to commit suicide. I just didn’t get it lit.

“These ladies [the RAP staff] got me through. They’re helping me get what I need. It’s worth the time I spend here. I want to work. I want to get past this and find a job and be warm someplace I can call home.

“We light candles in the tent. We use little propane bottles and a burner to try to stay warm. But it wasn’t enough to stop this” – Mike points to his feet – “from happening.”

What does it mean that Mike can say with not an iota of hype, “While I was freezing”? Not a metaphor. Not a simile. Just his blood freezing in his veins.

It ain’t fun and games.  

No __cancy

So Joe pulls into the parking lot of the fifth motel of the day. His wife Em is great with child, and the shocks on the car aren’t what they used to be, and he knows if they hit one more pothole the baby will pop out right there, no questions asked.

The ancient Buick pulls alongside the awning over the door into the front desk. The “No Vacancy” sign is lit up, but the “v” and “a” are both dark so the sign reads, “No cancy.” Joe sounds it out: “No can see.” He says it out loud a few times, still under his breath, and begins to chuckle. 

By then Joe’s at the front desk and the help there might be the owner, but you’d never know it by looking at him. The poor guy behind the desk is making his pitch that there’s no room at this inn and Joe’s still chuckling over “no can see,” and he holds up one finger and shakes it and says, “Wait. Before you say anything else, I want you to come and look at my wife. Just see what’s going on. It’ll just take a minute, I promise.”

So the help (maybe the owner) checks the hip holster under his light jacket to make sure the gun’s still there and follows Joe to the Buick. It’s colder outside than he expected, but just looking at the woman on the passenger’s side makes him whistle in amazement. “You sure you don’t want an ambulance, lady?”

Em manages a smile and suddenly sucks in her breath like she wants to create a vacuum that will suck in the Buick around her. She manages another smile that turns into a grimace. “No time…NO TIME.”

Joe turns pale. “Em?” But she’s already turning herself sideways and telling Joe to get everything ready to catch the baby, because she’s gonna push and there’s not a thing he can do to stop her.  On his way to giving his wife the attention she needed, Joe looks at the help and says, “Please call the police or the fire station or someone who can actually help her. I’ll be worthless!”

The help (maybe the owner) says, “Anyone can see you two need help. I’ll make the call right now!” and runs into the motel lobby behind the counter and dials 911. Joe is in wonder at the difference it makes for people to actually see what’s going on so they understand what kind of help someone needs while he’s arranging their sleeping bags and coats like he’s seen it done in at least a dozen movies. Some of them were comedies, some of them were dramas and it fits because he’s laughing and crying at the same time while Em who usually watches her tongue lets out a blue streak that would make most of the guys at the shop blush, and then he’s laughing and crying at the same time because his wife’s scream is fading and the wail announcing his first and only son has arrived is building and the red lights from the paramedic fire truck are getting closer.

Joe’s jacket catches the baby and he hopes the paramedics hurry to help him figure out the mess. Em says “Let me see,” and Joe scrunches the jacket around the baby a bit more tightly and thinks he will ask the first paramedic who can actually see what’s going on to cut the cord. Em’s voice is still surprisingly strong.

Then a paramedic shows up and asks, “Everything all right?” and Joe says, “Please, take a look for yourself,” and waits while the paramedic does whatever it is he’s doing and wishes he could see and understand but there’s no room and once again Joe wonders why “no can see” is the theme of the night. 

The paramedic says, “Here’s your son. We’re going to take you all to the hospital to clean up and make sure everyone’s OK. Looks good from here, but let’s make sure.”

Joe nods and is grateful to see into the eyes of his miracle and wonders if he’s looking into the eyes of Jesus for a moment and feels like he could look through the eyes of Jesus at everyone around him—Em, his new boy, the owner (maybe the help) at the motel, the paramedics who are guiding him and his son into the back of the ambulance where Em is already, the homeless guys and gals from the park across the street who checked out the commotion and are headed to the underpass five blocks away to huddle together for warmth while they sleep.

They’re all so beautiful, Joe realizes. Who knew?

We just don’t see.

“And Use Soap!”

Amid our holiday bustle, let us pause to consider the wonders of soap and its personal hygiene cousins. 

Public health documentation indicates that the introduction of bathing, and bathing with soap, was the turning point to send disease rates downward in a number of infectious disease events from the mid-1800s through the late 20^th century. The disease downturns often came years, if not decades, ahead of vaccine development. [i]

(Parents of the civilized world, now you can show your children the written evidence that bathing with soap is truly a benefit to individual and public health. “And use soap!” should not be limited to the speech of June Cleaver, after all.)

So when our neighbors in need at the Mission show up with a need for hygiene items, we pay attention. You see, the study also shows what our practical experience affirms: without effective and ongoing personal hygiene, the possibility of suffering infections and infectious disease goes up substantially. Simply put, their health suffers without soap, shampoo, deodorant,  toothpaste, toothbrushes and the other commodities that figure into staying clean.

Homelessness and poverty often make staying clean a challenge. You can imagine sleeping outdoors, having to walk some distance to secure a shower, and then trying to launder your clothing (or find new) in an effort to keep rashes and sores to a minimum. Can you imagine how difficult it is to maintain the positive effects of that shower without soap and shampoo, much less laundry detergent? 

For many of our homeless and impoverished neighbors, it’s an everyday challenge that can actually be worse in Colorado winters than summers.

The increase in families and individuals stopping by to secure the basics of life has drained our shelves of health and hygiene items of late. We need the simple stuff—soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, feminine care products, diapers, deodorant—to help hundreds of families and individuals avoid skin and wound infections as well as communicable disease in the next few weeks. Can you help? Any size of any hygiene product is welcome.

A little soap (and it hygienic cousins) will work wonders today, just as it has for centuries before.

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[i] The Soap and Detergent Association, “Against Disease: The impact of hygiene and cleanliness on health.” November 2008. Accessed at http://www.againstdisease.com/documents/SDA_Against_Disease_final_cover_11808.pdf. Face it, you always knew Mom was right.