Week three

On Saturday, September 10th, two weeks and one day after surgery, Alex and I decided it was time to get back to the trail. We left early and went to Speyside, and spent the day hiking. I moved slowly — very slowly. But I had a chance to find some lovely mushrooms, and spend time in a part of the trail I truly love.

We hiked for about five hours, and covered only about six kilometres, a fraction of the distance we would normally hike in that time. By the end, I was somewhat sore, but the day had been worth it.

This emboldened me, and I felt ready for swimming. On Monday, we went to Angela Coughlan Pool in the evening. I was very apprehensive, although I would only use a pull buoy so I wouldn’t have to kick. It felt strange getting in the water (carefully), and it took about five minutes before I attempted my first length. It was tentative, and I could immediately feel the surgery area.

I did about five laps in total, resting after each length. When I left the pool, the area felt strange, like a pulled muscle, or a strain. I was a bit concerned, but it looked the same. I considered it a success.

I tried again on Tuesday at Centennial Pool, and it went just as well. On Friday, I was back at Centennial, and managed one or two more laps than previously, including a few one-hundred metre laps, and one without the pull buoy.

There was a definite straining sensation on one of the lengths, and I had to quit. Getting out of the pool was difficult. I felt as though I’d have to forgo swimming for the time being.

That evening, I noticed what looked like a slight hernial bulge in the area where the sac had been before surgery. Had the hernia recurred?

Week four

It was difficult to determine what was going on. On the one hand, I was fairly pain-free at the hernia site. However, I’d definitely felt strain at the site while swimming, and there was what appeared to be a sac that was invisible in the morning and appeared later in the day, only to reduce again — sometimes while I looked at it.

It was impossible to decide if I was seeing a natural part of my anatomy, or something anomalous, and the only solution was to see Dr. Chemparathy. I was asked by the surgeon to follow up with him at some point, so I decided to wait until four weeks had passed, after which I’d make an appointment.

On Sunday, September 18, we spent the day in the Niagara wine region. Everything seemed fairly normal, although I was slightly sore. On Tuesday, Alex’ father Serge came to stay with us for a few days. A hike through Bronte Creek Park was not as comfortable as I’d hoped it would be, or indeed, as it had been previously.

The bulge still seemed to come and go over the following few days, with no serious indication that the hernia had recurred. I made the follow-up appointment with my regular doctor for the following week.

I had progressed fairly well up to this point, with no severe pain issues, and perhaps some expected discomfort while engaging in more strenuous activity. The presence of what appeared to be a bulge was only slightly concerning, as recurrence so soon after surgery is very rare. It seemed that I had, indeed, recovered completely at week four’s conclusion. I was satisfied with the entire experience.

Until that weekend.

It happened so very quickly. From the instant I saw the animal until I realized we’d hit it, a second, or less, had passed, but in the strange chronology of the mind, it seemed to take much longer, and so very much happened. While Alex and I were chatting, his head down looking at the map, I suddenly saw a coyote at full gallop less than a metre away from the front end of the car, its path perfectly perpendicular to ours. I saw its yellow-brown fur, and the reticulated pattern on it, like a tiger’s, running down the length of its body. In a microsecond, I saw its eyes, intent on the safe side of the road ahead of it. I thought I could avoid it. My foot came off the gas and hovered for another tiny slice of the second above the break, and I jerked the car to the left, slightly. But there is no median on this high-speed road, and cars were coming toward us. It would do no good. I was going to strike this animal with the full force of my car, speeding at eighty kilometres an hour, and neither I nor the poor coyote would be able to stop it, and so I simply did the only thing possible, and continued along a straight path, and ran into the side of its beautiful, wild body.

I immediately slowed, looking in the rearview mirror. I could see a small piece of the car, but the coyote wasn’t there. I thought by some miracle I had only glanced it, and it had simply run off into the fields to the north. But I suddenly realized it was still under the car, and we were still moving, at maybe fifty kilometres per hour. Just at that instant, there was a loud thud, and, as I pulled onto the shoulder, there it was, about twenty metres behind.

I was stunned. Alex was overcome. A truck pulled off the road ahead of us, and a man got out, pulling on gloves. I rolled down the window, and glanced in the mirror. To my utter horror, the coyote’s head lifted off the road, wobbling. It was still alive. The man came to the window, and said he’d drag it off the road to avoid an accident. Perhaps he didn’t realize it wasn’t dead. For some reason, I said nothing, and got out of the car to see the poor thing lurch up, and hobble, in agony, onto the shoulder, limping as though one of its legs were crushed, or torn off. I felt sick, and Alex was leaning against the roof of the car, his face hidden.

Realizing that the animal was alive, the man told me to call the Humane Society. This I could do. I couldn’t help the coyote. I couldn’t even bring myself to approach it and look at the state it was in, and the immenseness of the suffering it was experiencing and which I caused. But I could call for help. I got back in the car and made the call.

Because of the proximity to Oakville, and the state of the various services in the two cities, it took three phone calls and an exasperating voicemail trap before I spoke to someone. When I hung up, I got out of the car, and watched from a distance while the man, and now two others, crowded around the wounded animal and did what they could.

“I can’t go over there,” Alex said.

“I know.” But I could go, and I had to. There was no helping it, but I should at least look at what had happened. And so I walked slowly toward it, expecting the worst. Nobody looked up as I approached. One of them had put a blanket over its body. It was curled up as though it was ready for a nap, but its head was up, and it was alert, looking at us with its yellow eyes. Its breathing was laboured; it was almost panting for breath. Blood spilled out of its mouth freely, and the foreleg that I could see, poking out from under the blanket, was soaked with it. There was a trail of bright red blood leading right up to where it lay, and I suddenly realized that I was standing in it.

A van appeared, and a woman in uniform got out. The first man was actually handling the coyote’s head, petting it, and she warned him not to touch it. It could, after all, be rabid. But it was not rabid. It was strong and healthy before the impact. The fur was thick at its ears, and its eyes, even now, were bright, alert, beautiful, and wild, even as it struggled to stay alive.

“It’s a good thing it’s winter,” the woman said. “No pups left alone.” So it was female. “Anyone know what happened?” An older man said that someone had hit it and driven off.

“No,” I said, “I’m the one who hit it.”

She got on the phone to the police, and described where we were. Someone wondered why the police were called. The older man suggested it needed to be shot.

For some reason, I thought this woman from the Humane Society would have everything she needed in her van, and would be able to euthanize it immediately. She explained that she would never touch a wild animal so severely injured, and neither would any veterinarian. The only alternative was to shoot it.

“You should all leave,” she said. “You don’t want to be around when it’s shot.”

I simply looked down at it for a second, panting blood, its injuries dramatic. If it wasn’t euthanized, it would simply die in an hour, or two, all the while in some kind of agony I don’t want to imagine. I suppose I looked distraught, because the older man took my arm warmly and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t worry,” he said, “there’s nothing you can do on these roads. And it won’t be much longer.”

And so, as they drifted away, I simply thanked the ones who had stopped, and I thanked the woman from the van, and I went back to the car.

Alex was still upset, his hands mostly covering his face. “Should I take us home?” I asked.

“No, we should go hiking.”

And so we did.

In Speyside, the trail is beautiful and tight, and crowded with fragrant cedars growing from fissures in the ancient rock of the escarpment, split from centuries of ice and rain. It snowed last night. The trail was undisturbed. Snow capped the rocks, and coated each needle on every evergreen. It was quiet, except for the occasional call of a crow, and the crack of wood in the distance.

Nobody had passed the trail here before us — the snow was pristine. The only tracks were those of coyotes, following the natural depression the trail made, moving ahead of us in what appeared to be a gallop; two animals, traveling side by side and marking the snow on our beloved Bruce Trail, hunting rabbits, or simply running freely through the forest. We followed for a while, and once, we missed the marked path and had to double back.

I loved the impression of those tracks. Here, they galloped, and here, they slowed, walking close together. They traveled along the path for what seemed like a long way. I could follow them all day. But soon, the tracks left the main trail and headed off into the trees, and disappeared from sight.