Transcript
Kevin Allison (0:02)
On this episode of Risk, you'll hear,
Pam Stepanski (0:04)
I need you to change my maxi pad.
Kevin Allison (0:06)
And you'll hear, we would turn and look at each other simultaneously and say, off bus. Off bus. And that is me, Kevin Allison, on the show, where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to.
Pam Stepanski (0:31)
Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave? She was tired, mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did you have to fight a dragon? Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually. Was it scary? Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be. Did the car have a sunroof? It did, actually. Okay, good story. Car buying. You'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.
Kevin Allison (1:01)
I'm Richard Sarrett. Join me on Strange Planet for in depth conversations with the world's top paranormal investigators, alien abductees, Bigfoot trackers, monster hunters, time travelers, and more. The handler one day told her this whole thing about how they've been terraforming on Mars and they're building a colony and they're recruiting specific people of specific bloodlines and specific talents and skill sets to go onto the planet. On Richard Cerrit's Strange Planet, we're redefining reality. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, folks, this is Shushu behind me now, and we're calling this episode Bad Medicine. In a little bit, we'll hear something from me, but before that, we're going to hear a story by Pam Stepanski that she shared at a collaboratively produced live show in New York City last December. It was Risk collaborating with the story Collider. So after Pam's story, you'll hear Brad Lawrence of Risk and Aaron Barker of the Story Collider chatting about Pam's story a little bit on stage after she shares it. And all of that is to say what you about to hear is Pam Stepanski with a story we call the Laxative Standoff.
Pam Stepanski (3:03)
The day after my Last drink was December 27, 2013. I awoke in the midday at a friend's apartment, very groggy and disgusted with myself. The night before was hazy at best, but I didn't need concrete memories to know that I wasn't returning to that world. I could never, would never drink again. A few days later, I went to my dad. I broke down in tears, and I told him I couldn't stop drinking. He gave me a really big hug and took me out for pasta. And he promised that we'd get through it together. By the next morning, he already had a counselor lined up to help me. At this point, I'd already been living with him for about a year. After I broke up with my boyfriend, lost my jobs plural, and got kicked out of my apartment, my dad was there to cushion my fall, which is kind of his forever mo. So I lived with him for the year leading up to my last drink and for the next two years as I pursued recovery. Aside from sleeping on the couch every night, I liked living with my dad. I mean, we had lived together from the time I was 12 until the time I was 19, just the two of us. And we'd always been close. I mean, he's the person who bought me my first box of tampons. Still, I was a 27 year old woman, so I wanted to get back out into the world on my own. For the first time in my life, I contemplated starting a career. I kicked around some ideas, and I thought being a massage therapist would be a cool way to help people. I never dreamed of being a massage therapist as a kid. I always thought I'd end up a creative, like an author or maybe an actor. I was born with this writer's spirit, like as a child, before I could even read or write or even say the Alphabet. My favorite toys were my grandpa's old fashioned dip ink pens and his old typewriter. But in recovery, people push this idea of being of service to the world. So to prove that I was serious about my sobriety, I enrolled in massage school at night, got a new day job, and moved back out to Brooklyn, which is where, after some time, I developed sciatic pain. The pain was intense. It was electric and wiry. It ran from my right butt cheek all the way down through my right foot. And I just muscled through it as long as I could. But eventually I had to see a doctor, so I met with an orthopedic surgeon. He sent me to physical therapy. And you know, it's not what you do at physical therapy that matters so much as what you do the other 23 hours of the day. Recovery had also inspired me to exercise. I was on my way to a spin class, even though the moment I left my apartment, I knew it was a bad idea. My back was really acting up, but I'd already paid for the class, and I wanted to be the kind of person who shows up when she says she's going to show up, which is another Tenet of recovery. I got to the studio and I just called my dad quick before I went in. And I was like, hey, my back is acting up, but I have this workout class, what do I do? He told me to just go in and take it easy. If it started to hurt, back off. Easy peasy. So I went into the class, and a few minutes in, the instructor guided us out of the saddle. As soon as I stood up on that bike, I felt it. Something in my spine unhinged. But I didn't back off. I kept going. Endorphins carried me through the whole class and back to Brooklyn, which is where the excruciating pain really set in. I couldn't move without screaming. I didn't know what to do. So I, like, barrel rolled off my bed and army crawled to my phone to call, of course, my dad. I was like, dad, there is something so wrong. I can't move. You gotta come get me. So he did. He brought me back to his apartment on Long island, where I laid in bed as still as humanly possible. I wondered if this pain could maybe be worse than childbirth. Which is when I remembered the worst thing I could remember in that moment. I had my period. And it was not a light day. I called my dad over to the bedside and I said, dad, I have my period. He said, okay, what does that mean? And I said, I think I need your help. So we hobbled over to the bathroom together and I said, go get my purse. I need you to change my maxi pad. This is not a directive I ever thought I'd be giving my father. But I knew I couldn't bend over. I could not perform the task. I was defeated. He came back, rummaging through my purse, and he pulled out this orange square and said, is this what you need? I nodded and I closed my eyes, mortified. I set my pants and underwear down, revealing a blood soaked pad and of course, my vagina. My dad knelt down. His head was just inches from my pubic area and I heard the sticky release of the used pad. I peeked down with one eye open to see him very gently opening the new one, like a delicate presentation. He held it up and said, this way. I nodded. He stuck it on and pronounced that he was done. I swallowed, looking down and said, you have to do the wings. He cocked his head to the side and I explained that you had to peel the tab off and then wrap the wings around the sides of the underwear. And his eyes just lit up in understanding. My mouth curled downward in a frown. He finished the task and helped me pull my pants back up. We got back over to the bed, and that is where my screaming continued relentlessly due to the ongoing pain. Around 2am My dad called 911 after a neighbor came by to see if someone was being murdered. The EMTs came and they kept trying to shove me in a wheelchair even though I told them my body wouldn't bend that way. We got into the ambulance. They gave me a shot of morphine and delivered me to the er, where a nurse came by to give me a second shot of morphine. I told her, no, thank you. I'm a person in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. I want the least amount of narcotics possible. She told me I couldn't refuse medication, shot me up, installed a catheter, and admitted me to a room. The hospital was ready to move forward with the spinal surgery, but I didn't want them to do my spinal surgery. It's a terrible hospital, and it's not where my surgeon was affiliated. But I got stuck there for five days. They had graduated me from morphine to Dilaudid, which is basically one medical step below heroin. And it just felt like I was living underwater. Like, had no one heard me when I said I didn't want more narcotics and that I wanted to be transferred to my hospital of choice? Recovery had taught me to be like water, to go with the flow. But in me, a tsunami was rising. Five days of watching these hospitals point fingers at each other while I was drowning in these unwanted narcotics and becoming irate. For the first few years of my recovery, I was a very meek and damaged version of myself. I didn't have a lot of strength to find my voice and to advocate for my needs. But there in that hospital, too much was at stake. I started yelling at the hospital administrators to get me out of there. I also had been requesting a laxative for days on account of all the opiates and had been refused time and again. So by the fourth night, I had had enough. I mustered the strength to get out of the bed, and standing on my own two feet with my catheter dangling, I wrapped my hand around the cannula and yelled at the nurse in front of me, I will rip this fucking IV out of my arm if you don't get me a laxative. She never got me the laxative, but the next day I was delivered to the correct hospital. It was like night and day. The OR was bright and clean. My surgeon was peppy and listening to 80s synth pop. I told him that I was going to go to Peter Luger's as soon as he was finished. I don't remember anything else until I woke up in the recovery room hours later in a whole new type of pain, which was a surprise to me. I had never had surgery before and I naively believed that cutting my spine open wouldn't hurt after. So my steakhouse dream quickly became my hospital French toast reality and I was back at my dad's house for the next six months. Except this time it was my dad on the couch and me in the bed so I could recover. At this point I was five years sober. My dad was doling out my Percocet as prescribed and he would stay with me in the night when the pain was the worst. We'd be up together around three in the morning talking about the Beatles or something he heard on Stern that day. Living with my dad in early recovery, he was a sense of comfort, protection and safety. And now he was still all those things. But in the glow of the late night television, I realized he had also become one of my closest friends. I could only handle so much movement each day, so a lot of my time was spent staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life. I could not go back to a four floor walk up in Brooklyn and I could not go back to massage school. In my condition, I wasn't permitted to twist my spine for an entire year. It was time to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be in the world. So I took a long hard look in the mirror. I felt really powerful in the hospital, using my voice to demand what was right. And that's when it came to me. I was a writer. I've always been a writer. And it was time to learn how to write and use my voice for my livelihood and beyond. I moved into my mom's vacant studio apartment on Long island and sought out a part time job just to keep the lights on. And I interviewed at a pelvic floor physical therapy office. When I was asked why I wanted the position, I explained that I knew a lot about being in physical therapy and I also only wanted a part time job because I was building a career as a writer. The therapist said, oh, I hate to write. You can write for me. So writing blogs about pelvic floor physical therapy is how I got my start as a professional writer. And I've been a professional writer ever since. My dad and his underutilized journalism degree couldn't be prouder and I am still amazed that people pay me to put words on the page. But in some ways, it's not a surprise at all. After derailing my life with drugs and alcohol and then putting it back together in recovery, my mission became very clear. And it was always to stay rooted and connected to that little girl inside me. The one who likes playing with typewriters and dip pens. It just took one crazy spinal surgery to find my way back to her. Thank you,