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P

anicked shrieking filled the air. He’s fallen again was my immediate reaction.

As I hastily made my way to my father-in-law’s room images of his last fall flashed before my eyes. How could it have happened again?! Just a few short weeks ago he’d been so badly injured people had said he was lucky to be alive. It seemed a miracle he wasn’t left paralyzed — how many broken necks leave a spinal cord intact? Crossing the hallway I uttered a fervent prayer that this time should not be any worse.

I found Grandpa on his feet. Waiting for me with accusing eyes. And yet even as I allowed myself to breathe I didn’t know what to make of his wild gesticulations. “Where is it?” he cried. “Where?”

“Where is what?” I followed his right arm as he brought it up over his chest his fist clenched tightly in despair.

“That thing. Nu… The thingy they took off my back… that needs to be taken back...”

It took a few seconds for his words to sink in. Of course. His back brace.

Following his fall the orthopedist in the hospital’s outpatient clinic had fitted him with a torturous device. The heavy back brace was meant to support his fractured vertebrae and replace the temporary structure given in the ER. It was dreadfully annoying however.

Cumbersome at the outset it soon became downright painful. When an unpleasant odor started emanating from his back we were alarmed enough to rush back to the ER and ask for a second opinion. Incorrect installation of the brace it turned out was the cause of his grave discomfort. It had been so poorly placed that the constant rubbing of the contraption against his back had created a lesion that was fast becoming infected.

Upon his second discharge my father-in-law was equipped with a new lighter brace and a generous course of antibiotics. The old contraption was ceremoniously ensconced in an unassuming plastic bag. Offers to dispose of it before we left were determinedly waived. “I paid through the roof for this awful brace — and look what it did to me!” said Grandpa. “I’m going to take it back and get the orthopedist to refund its cost.”