Where am I? How did I get here?

The room was dark, and yet I could see deep into the past. It was so real I wanted to reach out to touch the brass Tiffany lamp on the dining room table. I could smell Grandpa's honest sweat when he came home from work at the Union Depot. I could hear Galli-Curci's voice from the wind-up Victrola in the living room.

My memories began 70 years ago. There in the dark, they were so sharp, so clear, so vivid. I wondered if somehow the past had become the present. Was I living then, or now?

"Will any aide please come to the nursing station," a woman's distant voice whispered in the night. I opened my eyes and thought I was in Mexico. It must have been something about the ceiling that reminded me of a place I knew in Mexico years ago. A man's face appeared above me. "Are you all right? Can I get you anything?" he asked.

"Some water, please," I mumbled through my dry mouth.

Then I remembered I was at Porter Memorial Hospital. I was admitted early May 9 for reconstructive neck surgery that I hoped would end more than a year of unrelenting, hard pain. Certainly I was no stranger at Porter. Over the years, I had back, knee, stomach, lung, eye and prostate surgery there. I knew many of the nurses by name. "They ought to name a wing after you," they would say.

The past year has been difficult. My neck pain was so severe I was no longer able to drive to work. I had to depend on my wife, Trish, and my son, Brett, to get me there. An X-ray examination last summer indicated that discs separating the fourth and fifth vertebrae and the fifth and sixth had deteriorated and should be surgically replaced with a fusion, utilizing bone from the bone bank.

Neurological surgery was performed in September. I wore a rigid cervical collar of heavy plastic and steel for the next six weeks. I was told it was called a "Philadelphia Collar." This, of course, reminded me of the epitaph W.C. Fields wrote for himself, "I would rather be living in Philadelphia." What a glorious day it was when it finally came off! But my relief from pain was temporary. It became intolerable again.

I was unable to sleep in a bed. I made the rounds of physical, massage and osteopathic therapists with only marginal relief. I went to a pain clinic where I received steroid injections. I was told that a "pain block" procedure was risky and might damage the spinal cord. I was popping pain pills at night but trying to avoid them in the daytime at work.

I reluctantly ordered a recliner chair. Trish and I picked out one we thought didn't look like a recliner, sort of. I didn't like the idea of being an old grouch like Frasier Crain's father in the TV show, gimping around on an aluminum cane and frumping down in a rump-sprung old recliner.

It was March, and spring was here! I began to take notice of grape locusts pushing up through the black earth. Trish loved standing on the back deck with her binoculars, sweeping the horizon in search of "her" blue heron that must have nested in the cottonwoods along Bear Creek. The pain was constant. My chin dropped, and I was no longer able to shave my neck with a blade.

All that seemed unimportant the Sunday morning I awakened to find I couldn't brush my teeth, or button my shirt, or do much of anything with my hands. Before I called the doctor, I sat down at my computer and tried to write my name. I couldn't. My fingers flopped helplessly on the keys. It was an agonizing moment. Those of us who follow the writing craft, whether as journeyman, poet, famous novelist or local newspaper columnist, think through our fingers. I wondered if this was the end of it for me. I knew it was a stroke even before I was admitted (again) at old Porter Hospital.

This time I was on the fourth floor where stroke patients and others with physical disabilities were given rehabilitation therapy. Slowly, control was returning to my hands. People reassured me that even though I might not ever be able to write again, I could "speak" my columns into new voice-recognition computers. I gave up trying to explain that there is no way in the world I could "speak" my column.

Yes, I write for the ear. I want readers to "hear" my voice as they read my words. But the process, for me, is a painstaking one. The words just don't spill out. In his book PrairyErth, William Least Heat-Moon likens writing to stone masonry. It's a matter of chipping away at stone / words until they fit with as much precision as possible. Poet Thomas Hornsby Ferril made a similar observation about his work, noting that the ancient Greek word for poetry also means "building." Certainly my modest literary skills are not on a par with his or Heat-Moon's, but I employ their methodology.

And so rambling into voice-recognition computer technology is not even an option. We have come to believe, wrongly in my estimation, that there is a technological solution to every problem. Because of my stroke, I write more slowly now than before, sometimes rewriting a word several times until I get it right.

Regaining manual skills after a stroke involves constant repetition of finger exercises. The smallest tasks can be maddening. At the "stroke table" in Porter's rehabilitation dining room, we laughed at each other trying to open those little cellophane packs of two soda crackers. Same thing with small containers of jelly and margarine. I must say, though, that even under the best of circumstances, getting the cellophane pack open without crumbling the crackers is a daunting task for anyone. Nabisco should find a better way.

For more than a year, I had difficulty swallowing food and liquids. An upper GI (gastrointestinal) examination was ordered to determine why. It involves drinking phosphorescent barium while being examined by X-ray. I had hardly taken a sip of the chalky stuff when the technician rushed out of her protected control booth to ask me a startling question: "Did you ever break your neck?"

When I told her I hadn't, she told me not to move but to remain seated. Other technicians were summoned. I couldn't see them, but I could hear them whispering anxiously about what they had seen.

The hurried conference ended, and I was wheelchaired back to my room. Word of what had happened had already reached the fourth floor, and the nurses and aides were ready for me. I was helped back into bed. The side rails went up and I was told I couldn't leave my bed under any circumstances. Moments later, the physician in charge of Porter's rehabilitation department arrived to tell me the neurosurgeon who had performed the original discectomy fusion procedure had been summoned from her office at the Swedish Medical Center complex.

She arrived about 20 minutes later and informed me that the fusion had failed and that I would have to undergo orthopedic reconstructive surgery on my neck. The hated cervical collar went back around my neck, but I was permitted to get out of bed and move around. After all, I had been walking around for months in this condition, and a little while longer wouldn't matter that much. "I told them your head won't fall off," she said.

Also in attendance was the neurologist in charge of my stroke therapy. "Let's do the surgery now and get it over with. I'm already here," I said to her with only a feeble attempt to conceal my growing impatience with what was happening to me.

I had to keep reminding myself that I am a 74-year-old man and that body parts do wear out. I was shown the X-rays, and my neck was indeed a mess. In doctor talk, the fusion had "spit the plugs," which meant that the two bone implants had just popped out. They were about the size of .38-caliber bullets. It was too risky to leave them there. If bone fragments were to make their way into the spinal canal, I could be in real trouble.

"Surgery is not possible now, not at least for six weeks," my neurologist said. She explained that my blood was being thinned by medication so that clots wouldn't form, causing me to have another stroke, possibly a life-threatening one or one that would leave me severely debilitated. My stroke therapy continued for several more days, and I was released from the hospital.

I went back to work immediately. My son Brett picked me up to take me to work every day. There was no way I was going to sit around the house for six weeks worrying about what was going to happen to me. Even so, I felt badly about missing all the time at work. I offered several times to retire, but the good old Rocky stood by me and told me they wanted me to resume my column when I could.

Certainly, my columns are not literature, but they were wonderful therapy for me. "They keep me off the street," I like to say. I can't recall much of what I wrote about during this period, but they got me through what seemed at the time like an endless waiting period. I returned to Porter at 6:30 a.m. May 9, and I entered the operating room at 8:30 a.m.

As consciousness gradually returned that night, I became aware that my neck pain was gone, completely. I cautiously moved my right shoulder. No pain. But there was intense pain in my left hip. Then I remembered. The reconstructive surgery involved removing a large piece of bone from my pelvis and using it to fuse the vertebrae together. I tried feebly to sing to myself: "De hip bone's connected to de neck bone. Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones." The bone is being held in place with a titanium plate screwed to the vertebrae. It will always remain there.

The next morning, I was returned to the fourth-floor rehabilitation wing, where I had to learn to walk all over again; how to sit down and stand up ; how to use a walker and then a cane; how to get in and out of a car; how to go up and down stairs; how to sit down on a toilet and get in and out of a bathtub; how to do so many little physical things I had always taken for granted.

The pain in my pelvis was nearly as bad as the pain in my neck had been. I was kept under constant medication for pain control. I still am. Several times a day, nurses would ask me to rate my pain on a scale of one to 10. Trying to be a hero, I said, "Eight," but it felt more like a 12. Finally, when they would ask me I would say, "It only hurts when I laugh."

The therapists were patient but firm. Porter, like all other hospitals, is struggling with the challenge of changes in the health-care industry, and an "industry" I am afraid it is becoming. Porter is not out to make money, but it must compete with for-profit hospitals. Insurance companies call the shots, and sometimes their aim is poor. Patient census can vary greatly every day. A wing is full one day, empty the next. Porter's staff is constantly challenged to meet these changing conditions. I marvel at their ability to do so.

A young woman gave me my first bath. I would guess her age at about 22. She wheeled me to the shower room on a chair contraption with an open toilet seat. She managed to get that damnable surgical gown and my undershorts off me. Then she lathered me up and hosed me down as she would a cocker spaniel. Believe me, I have no secrets from her.

Through the long nights, a large woman helped me to the bathroom, measured my urine, took me back to bed and packed my pelvis incision with ice. What humble work that is, and yet she did it with dignity and care.

And then there was the young immigrant from Poland. He had studied medicine there but has been unable to be admitted to medical school in this country. He gave up trying, is now married with two children and plays in a rock band on weekends. Maybe he'll look at a nursing career, he says.

Many of the aides have medical-school aspirations, like the young Korean-American aide who works weekends while he attends the University of Colorado at Boulder. He worries about being admitted to a good school after he gets his B.S. degree.

A Jewish mother at a Seventh-day Adventist hospital? Yes, and what a wonderful nurse she is. I had known her during my previous stays at Porter. Actually, she isn't old enough to be my mother. She is young enough to be my daughter. A little gold Star of David is always around her neck. She has a son and a daughter who are both college students, and she is proud of the literary skills they have developed. "When they were kids," she said, "I would take them to the Tattered Cover and let them choose any books they wanted to read. I didn't care what they were. They both are wonderful readers."

My primary-care doctor is Jeanne Day Seibert. She was a registered nurse before becoming a physician. Dr. Cynthia Norrgrandid the original neurological surgery and assisted in the reconstructive orthopedic surgery performed by Dr. George A. Frey. His physician assistant was Mike Murphy. Dr. Jane A. Burnham was the neurologist. Dr. Richard D. Mountain supervised my pulmonary care. I am grateful to all of them.

I'm home now and back in my beloved recliner. I still haven't been able to sleep in a bed, but that will come. I am taking 15 prescription medications, some of them several times a day. I am still being treated for coronary-artery disease, peripheral neuropathy and a bad stomach. My pulmonary fibrosis is still in remission, but I remain partially dependent on oxygen.

Wait a minute, here! What the hell is this, an old man whining about his aches and pains?

No.

This is a celebration. I'm glad it happened. I rejoice that I had the pain, and given the choice, I would endure it again, in a heartbeat. The experience transformed me as nothing else ever has. At the center of it is the love of my family. It wasn't just passive devotion. During those long, stressful days, my daughters, Tustin and Susan, and my sons, Brett and Jon, came to the hospital every day and told me they loved me. Their declaration had a profound effect on me.

In all our years of marriage, I have never felt closer to Trish. It was something in her eyes as she said good night to me. If there is such a thing as a Medal of Honor for wives, she deserves one.

Why now? Much of it had to do with my nightly journeys into the past. I would lie there in the dark, tethered to an IV pole and a urine bag and let my mind find its way through all I could remember from those childhood days on West Maple Avenue to the present. I have had a wonderful life, not always an easy one, but one that has left me with few experiences I would change.

Yes, the Great Depression years were an ordeal for my family. Each time I hear complaints from some young people that they may not have enough money to retire, I remember that cold day in Casper, Wyo., when I was a child. My father had lost his job, and the three of us sat around the kitchen table, looking gravely at a single can of soup, all that we had to eat. We came back to Denver and moved in with Grandpa and Grandma on West Maple. Mom was able to get spot work in the Denver Public Schools as a substitute teacher for $5 a day.

I can still close my eyes and see her every morning cutting out cardboard insoles for my father's shoes. He would walk downtown every day looking for work, but the jobs were not there. He'd come home at night, terribly discouraged. Because there was a shortage of sleeping space, he slept on an old bed in the attic. He wouldn't come down for days. My mother would take me up the back stairs every day to try to cheer him up, but he would just lie there, looking at nothing, saying nothing.

Things got better. We moved from West Maple to South Emerson and then to other houses in south Denver. My mother continued to teach, and Pop found work as a salesman in the wholesale automobile-parts business.

Both had come from blue-collar families and wanted to better themselves for their sake and mine. My mother's father had been a farmer in Ohio until my uncle contracted tuberculosis, forcing the family to come to Colorado for the dry air. Grandpa Wilson worked as a foreman on a sheep ranch and later was town marshal in Montrose and was driver of the express-company horse and wagon.

Grandpa Amole had run away from home in Ohio when he was 15 and made his way to Denver. He worked a lot of jobs in town and eventually set out to try to find gold in Victor and Cripple Creek. He became involved in a labor dispute that almost killed him. Colorado militiamen ambushed him one night, tied him to a tree and whipped him until they thought he was dead. But he lived and carried scars on his back and in his gray eyes until he died in 1948 at the age of 86.

I loved Grandpa and he loved me. He was a tough, honest, profane man, a socialist and an atheist, but he was wonderful to me. I can't recall ever seeing any affection between Grandma and Grandpa, though. They both openly expressed love for me, and in the night there at Porter I wondered if maybe they were devoted to each other through me. I don't know. I never understood what they saw in each other. She was refined, well-educated, a Christian Scientist. My mother said it probably had been a marriage of convenience, common in those days.

My parents often expressed love and affection to each other. There was no lack of that in our house. They were devoted to me and would do without so I could have more. They were selfless, caring parents. Even so, I was never a demonstrative person. I guess I was embarrassed, too shy. During one night at Porter, I realized I had never told either of them that I loved them. Not once. God, how I regret that now. It would have meant so much to them. I loved them, but I never said so as my children had said to me.

Why am I writing this now?

Partly for myself. Certainly for my family. I also had time at Porter for some long-delayed introspection. I needed to confront my mortality. Time is running out, and I realized how important it is for me to take stock of "where I am, and how did I get here."

As a combat soldier during World War II, I learned to live my life one day at a time. The meaning of life was never a great philosophical mystery to me. Life is to live, and that's what I have done. In the process, though, I have taken much for granted, too much. Yes, I have worked hard all my life, and I realize now what a great gift work is. I live to work.

I was always a poor student, finishing high school in the bottom third of my class. My parents scrimped and saved to send me to the University of Colorado. I flunked out after a year. It was a terrible disappointment to my parents. All these years later, I realize what a mistake it was for me not to go back to school under the GI Bill and get a degree. I was afraid I would never get back my old job as a radio announcer.

How fortunate, though, I have been in pursuing my career in radio and television and at the Rocky Mountain News! It's not that there wasn't a lot of blind luck involved, too.

The most fortunate thing that ever happened to me was to become a partner with my dear friend Ed Koepke. We began our broadcasting careers at about the same time, he as an engineer and I as an announcer.

We struck out on our own in 1956. We had no money but believed in ourselves. In the 30 years that followed, we built, owned and operated three radio stations and a background-music company. We also published a magazine. Others in the trade were fond of saying, "Koepke's got the brains, Amole's got the mouth." He's retired now, and he and his wife, Cordy, enjoy traveling and watching their grandchildren grow up.

There is a large get-well card on the wall here in my study at home. It was drawn by my old pal Ed Stein, whose cartoon strip, Denver Square, is becoming so popular. The card is a drawing of the Rocky Mountain News building. It is split right down the middle. One reporter says to another in what is left of the newsroom, "Apparently the whole place is held together by Gene Amole," which, of course, is ridiculous. It is held together by so many talented people. The card is signed by more than 100 of my pals, whom I dearly love.

I have no idea how much, if any, of this will be published. If it is, I hope other older people, who lack my forum, will see something of themselves in it. I hope, too, that their children will think about how important it is to express their love, as my children have to me.

It will be a while before I regain my health. I have lost 40 pounds, but I am determined to get out and around again. I want to take Trish on a nice trip somewhere. I want to walk along Bear Creek with my little grandson, Jacob. I want to experience again my beloved bright, blue October. So many blessings, so much love in my life.

Tomorrow?

Tomorrow, I'm going back to work.

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