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A CLINIC IN THE SKY
On Monday afternoon, October 23, Jane and I boarded a jet in Sacramento bound for Denver. There we had reserved a rental car which we would drive three hours west into the Rocky Mountains to _______, Colorado, a remote little mountain town that harbored A Clinic in the Sky (“ACS”). The flight was uneventful. Jane slept the entire way.
We drove off toward the Rockies on a road I had been on with the band many times before, when we went on tours to the mountain towns and ski resorts to play and drink. No music, beer, or friends this time.
Twilight. We ascended the twisting route into the mountains. It was early in the season, but there were little patches of snow along the road under the pines. Those patches increased in size and frequency the higher we went. The temperature dropped. Our bodies steamed the windows. Twilight sank into early mountain darkness.
When we reached _______, some 9,000 feet in elevation, it was well below freezing. A thin sheet of early season snow covered everything except Main Street and the cars parked along its edges. We coasted through town, searching for the road to The North Pole Motel.
Main Street was short, the streetlights yellow against the black sky. There were a few shops and restaurants, a little store and a pharmacy. The motel road appeared – North Pole Road - and we took it. Two blocks up on the left, nestled under pines in a crook in the mountainside, it was there.
I checked us in. A plate of fresh baked cookies was set out for all the guests. I took two. We ate them as we settled into our room.
The room was at the back of the motel, set into the mountain that rose behind it and stopped at the bottom of the moon. The window opened into a tunnel through the pines. We saw all the way up the silvery slope, all the way to its summit and beyond, into the sidereal backdrop.
The next morning, I looked out the window. It had snowed over night, maybe half a foot, and flakes were still falling. They flew sideways, undecided. We had our first appointment at ACS at 9am. Two hours.
I woke Jane at 8am and went down to the breakfast area to get croissants and juice. I had coffee as well.
The tires of our rental car crunched over the snow in the motel parking lot, swished through the slush on Main Street, then crunched again as we turned right off Main into the pine shadows of Noel Road.
As we chomped our way up Noel Jane remarked, “There sure is a lot of Christmas going on around here.”
I was about to agree when we rounded a bend. A life-sized, Swiss-chalet-style gingerbread house rose before us; we burst out laughing.
“No doubt!” I said. “But Jesus! Is that ACS?”
We parked around back. At the entrance, I half-expected to be greeted by one of Santa’s elves, or Mrs. Claus.
I wasn’t far off. The person who answered the door was dressed in something like a pink candy-cane outfit and was short and sweet. Out of keeping with the Christmas theme was the powerful electronic prison locking system that bolted open as we entered and bolted closed with a bang behind us once we were inside. Someone had it in for Santa.
Several solicitous elves bustled about inside. They were industrious, no-nonsense types.
In a long, amber-lit room like an old university registrar’s office, Jane was given a seat against the wall. I stood at the counter to fill out some forms. I handed an elf my debit card. She processed it and handed it back.
“Nice to know you can get money out when you need it,” she said.
“Yes, it is.”
It was $7,000.
We were led back through the labyrinth to a viewing room. We watched a video of the planned procedures. The elf who started up the VCR apologized for the antiquated video. It had a 1970s feel. Indeed, the whole place was seventies; this Santa was a bit of throwback.
The video warned that the first and the last days - Tuesday and Friday - would be the hardest. Did we have any questions? No. The elf led us through the maze to a small, windowless interview room to meet Santa.
Jane and I sat down. The elf left.
Ten minutes later there was a knock. It was Santa: deliberate and tall, all bones beneath the blue scrubs, he closed the door and sat down. His angular face and thick glasses made it hard to locate his eyes. He spoke to an invisible point at the center of the room. We heard in his voice, he had been through this, done this, so many times over the years. He was coming to the end of his tenure. When there was nothing else to say, Santa left and the elf led Jane and me to the examination room next door. Jane changed into a light blue gown and sat up on the table.
Santa reappeared with a different elf who checked the status of its heart by sonogram. It was still in persistent supraventricular tachycardia (“PSVT”): it still had a morbidly rapid heartbeat. Santa exchanged a few words with Jane: they were about to go ahead with the procedure. Santa conferred with the elf; something clattered on a metal tray. Santa told Jane to turn away and close her eyes. She did both. The elf swabbed an area on Jane’s abdomen with a topical antiseptic analgesic. Santa prepared a six-inch needle, looked at the sonogram screen, and pressed it through Jane’s abdomen and into the tiny heart, injecting it with a solution - Amiodarone - that would stop it from beating immediately, and for good. Jane cried.
We would return the following morning to have “laminaria” placed in Jane’s cervix to induce cervical dilation.
Jane was still in tears when we left. When we got back to the motel, we slept; we slept until the next day.
That morning we went back to the gingerbread house. The first set of laminaria was inserted. Jane experienced more and more pain as the dilation progressed. She was given weak painkillers.
Back at the motel, she fell straight to sleep. I went out for supplies. The sun was out, the snow melting. Mountain Grocery had soup, sandwiches, crackers, granola bars, juice and soda. When I returned, Jane’s pain had abated. She was hungry. We ate and talked and looked out the window. The recent snow had all but disappeared.
I went for a run up the mountain. The path twisted through pine and aspen, dropped into dry creek beds, opened onto vast expanses of grass and snow. At the top, I could the whole valley. There was ACS.
Thursday morning more laminaria were inserted and the pain increased. It was explained that a tolerable amount of pain was necessary to monitor Jane’s progress. If her pain went beyond tolerable, they’d know something was wrong.
Jane and I arrived at the gingerbread house for the last time on Friday at 1pm. We were led down a hallway to a room with three single bunks, like camping cots. Down the hall, a woman was screaming. It sounded like she was giving birth.
An older, hard, tattooed elf came in. She helped Jane into her gown, tucking her into one of the bunks, and made her comfortable. When she left, Jane and I laughed. The place was like a hippie crash-pad.
Waves of pain rolled through her. I gripped her hand. Occasionally the hard elf checked in. A faux labor was being induced; the waves of pain were faux contractions. This went on for two and a half hours. At last, the hard elf said Jane was ready.
In the operation room, Jane was given real drugs for the pain. When her cervix was sufficiently dilated, Santa reached in and removed the limp, red fetus from her body. It was 5pm on Friday, October 27 - a month since the PSVT was discovered.
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