The Healing Horse, Ch. 23, Scene 13: Mama Intervenes

Mama arrives in the nick of time. She tells off evil Dr. Lambert and shames him in front of his colleagues. photograph of graffiti reading shame

(Image courtesy of Anthony Easton/flickr: PinkMoose, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Scene 13: Mama Intervenes

As Karen stepped through the curtain to face the experts,

Mama pushed open the door of the physical therapy room.

“Mama! Mama! Thank God you’re here,” Karen cried, as she darted past the doctors and into her Mama’s protective arms.

“It’s all right, Kitten. I had a feeling I should be here after all.” Mama replied. Her eyes were warm as Karen looked up into them, but her jaw was set and her mouth hard.

“Mrs. Hearshstein, how nice of you to come. We are almost done with the subject,” Dr. Lambert said.

“What do you mean? Subject? Of an experiment? My daughter is not the subject of anything! She is not the subject of your experiment. She is a human being! This is my daughter you are talking about. Look at her! You don’t have the right to frighten her like this, and unless I say so, you don’t have the right to touch her. I signed an authorization for you to perform a clinical review and evaluation without my being present. This did not include terrorizing her. My daughter is not for you to play Henry Higgins with! Every year, you recommend experimental surgery to even her hips, even though she walks better and better on her own, and even though you can’t offer any guarantee that the surgery will help her and not leave her completely crippled. Look what you did to that little boy you left with the dangling wrist! The one who died after the surgery!”

Mrs. Pinzetti turned pale. She coughed and cleared her throat, as she approached, smiling sweetly, putting her arms around Karen and her hands onto Mama’s shoulders.

“Mrs. Hearshstein, please calm down. We’re here to help your daughter, and I know you are too. But please calm down.”

Karen twisted her neck so she could see Mrs. Pinzetti. After watching her throw her coffee cup onto the hallway floor while talking about Tammy, Kitten had trouble believing how sweet Mrs. Pinzetti’s smile was. She looked up and caught Mama’s eye with a frown that told Mama not to believe any of this.

Mama took a deep breath. Her voice dropped an octave, and she replied, “Mrs. Pinzetti, I am here for the same reason you are, to help my daughter. I can sense that the room is close to exploding with tension, and I am here to defuse it before it destroys my Karen. I’m not going to let you constrain my daughter’s potential so she can fit into your preconceived ideas of what she can do with her life. Karen is not only going to throw away her leg brace, soon. She is going to accomplish more than you and all the other experts gathered here can imagine.”

Mama shrugged the fake friendly hands off her shoulders and looked straight at Dr. Lambert. Her voice grew higher and louder than before. Karen knew she meant business.

“My Karen is a beautiful little girl who happens to have cerebral palsy. We are dealing with a human life here, not a puppet! She has her whole life ahead of her. If you were in my shoes, would you trust your doctor who wants to cut up your child’s body for no apparent reason but to make money? She’s the one who has to live with whatever treatment she gets. Once the cuts and scars are there, they are there for life! What are the risks involved? If this doesn’t work, how much is Karen going to suffer? You know it is going to affect her emotionally, physically, and mentally. Are you going to be the one to prepare her for this? Are you going to sit her down, wipe away the tears, and tell her everything will be just fine? Are you going to be the one holding her at night, when the pain gets so bad she can’t stand it? Are you going to take responsibility if this doesn’t work? Or will Karen have to pay the price of your arrogance all her life? You make this process seem so easy and so routine like you’ve done it a million times. Tell me, how many times have you actually performed these procedures? Is my daughter going to be your guinea pig? You want to make decisions for Karen, but you’re not going to be walking around with scars on your body. You’re not risking a dangling wrist or permanently damaged hips and spine. She will have to suffer the consequences of your decisions, and I am not going to let you make bad ones for her.”

Looking at the wall clock, she added, “It’s past noon. We all need a break and some lunch, doctor. I’m taking Karen to the school cafetorium. Would anyone like to join us? We would be delighted to have your company.”

Neither Dr. Lambert nor any of the others replied.

“Never mind, then,” Mama concluded. “If you need us, you will know where to find us. We will return at one.”

The Healing Horse, Ch. 23, Scene 12: Meanwhile, at Mama’s Work

The story jumps from the evil experts in Karen’s school to Mama at work. She hears her daughter’s plea photo of clayton moore as the lone ranger atop his horse silver

photo of clayton moore as the lone ranger atop his horse silver

and races to the rescue like the Lone Ranger.

(Image courtesy of ABC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Scene 12: Meanwhile, at Mama’s Work

Meanwhile, Mama sat at her desk at work, typing a brief for her attorney boss. As her fingers pecked the typewriter keys, she repeated to herself, “Karen can handle the clinic and eval on her own. She’s a big girl now. Karen can handle it.”

But then she heard her daughter’s voice in the air, just as if she were in the room. “Oh, Mama, I need you here with me. I may be disabled, but I am not an animal on display. If they see me like an animal, then I will show them the Pegasus in me. I am not afraid, but I wish my Mama were here.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She gasped for air. “Sir,” she said to her boss, as she stood up. “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked for time off, but I thought Karen could handle this by herself. She needs me now. Those experts don’t even recognize her as a human being. I have to go. I’m sorry.”

He looked up from his desk, and she realized he had no idea what she was talking about, except that her daughter needed her.

“Go,” he said with a nod.

“Okay. And I’ll get the brief typed this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”

The Healing Horse, Ch. 23., Scene 11: Regaining Herself

The examination ends, as little Karen retreats to the changing area, so she can pull herself together and put on her clothes. This symbolizes how she turns away from the evil experts, who see her as subhuman, and reclaims the identity she is creating for herself.

(Image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Scene 11: Regaining Herself

The room fell silent, as she walked behind the curtain. Once alone, in the changing area, her tears returned. Would one of the adults would come to comfort her? None did.

As she dressed, the experts murmured among themselves. There would be trouble, when she faced them.

She gasped and forced herself to stop crying, then wiped her face with the clean, white handkerchief that Mama said ladies always carry. There was no brush for her hair, so she ran her fingers through it, trying to smooth it down. The room did not have a mirror. The experts did not think a disabled child would care how she looked.

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The Healing Horse, Ch. 23, Scene 10: Crisis in the Clinic

This scene continues the story of how a heartless professional can prey upon the children he is supposed to help.

Scene 10: Crisis in the Clinic

Dr. Lambert told her, “Stand up and turn around, so we can see your back.”

Balancing unsteadily on the soft, padded tabletop, her feet apart, half squatting to show her spine, she clutched the gown in front of her and turned to face away from him and the other white coats. Silent tears flowed into a pool between her feet. A bitter smile twisted her lips, as she wondered if they thought she had lost control of her bladder as well as her dignity. She exhaled, and her body shuddered as she sobbed, the tears no longer silent.

He ignored her tears, as he tapped her spine and back with his pointer while describing the near-paralysis on the left side, and contrasting its shriveled muscles with the well-developed muscles on the right. He tapped each vertebra and explained how it was or was not pulled to the side by the uneven muscular development. Then he poked her buttocks and the backs of her legs, as he described the imbalances between them. She did not understand his medical jargon, but his tone was critical. She knew he was preparing to recommend an experimental surgery, like he did every year.

He put down the pointer besides her. His cold hands moved up and down her calves, as he described her heel cords. He squeezed both calves at once to show that the right was much larger than the left. The left spasmed, and she collapsed onto her knees. Gasping in pain, she lost her balance and rolled onto the table, then off it.

The fall to the hard floor shocked her into remembering who she was. She was a human being. She was not an animal on display. Grasping the edge of the table with her strong right hand, she pulled herself to her feet. The experts frowned at her, as if she were the one who had done something wrong. She glared back at them. The tears stopped. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“You’ve seen enough,” she said. “I’m getting dressed.”

The Healing Horse, Ch. 23, Scene 9: Spine and Gate

The scene continues the description of how humiliating medical examinations were for kids with disabilities.

Scene 9: Spine and Gate

“Walk back and forth so we can observe your gate,” Dr. Lambert said without any preliminaries. In spite of his size, his voice was high and reedy. He waved the long wooden pointer from side to side, as if indicating the path she should follow.

She looked at Mrs. Pinzetti and the other white coats. No one smiled, winked, or nodded. No one offered any reassurance or compassion. They stared back as if she were a thing, not a person. She stepped into the center of the room and slowly walked back and forth between the two groups of experts.

She tried not to flinch when Dr. Lambert tapped her back and legs with the pointer as part of his commentary to the other specialists. He told her to face away from him, and then to bend over and touch her toes. He needed to check her spine. Blushing as the gown fell open, she wondered if the white coats were smirking among themselves. She flinched, as he felt her vertebrae with his icy hands.

He told her to stand straight and walk up and down one of the flights of stationary stairs that stood against the wall. She reached behind her back to close the gaping gown.

“Leave your gown open, so we can see how your spine works as you move. It needs to be open,” he commanded, as he tapped her spine with the pointer again.

He continued tapping her back and commenting, as she trudged up and then backed down the stairs.

The ringing sound of the wooden pointer landing on the concrete caused her to pause and look over her shoulder. It had slipped from Dr. Lambert’s grasp and fallen to the floor. When he bent over to pick it up, he staggered forward, and for a moment he grabbed her left calf, trying to keep his balance.

“Excuse me,” he said to the other white coats. “My blood pressure is so high I almost pass out if I bend over.”

Clinging to the stairs with her strong right hand, Kitten looked over her shoulder at his purple face. He looked as if he might die. She looked to the other experts for help, but they all gave her the robot stare. With compassion filling her heart and empowering her body, she leapt down from the stairs and retrieved the pointer from the floor.

“Dr. Lambert, please let me help you,” she said. He accepted the pointer from her, and his face returned to its normal gray color. He did not thank her. She returned to the steps.

“Climb onto the table and lie on your back,” he said, without recognizing her kindness or his own weakness. “I want to check your hamstrings and heel cords.”

She limped up the stepladder to the table without bothering to keep the back of the gown closed. As she lay down, she tried to make eye contact, but he kept his eyes down on her calves and ankles. She felt as if her mind were leaving her body.

When he looked up, he looked not at Karen but into the crowd of white coats that surrounded her. Speaking in a composed, expressionless tone of voice, he uttered medical statements, using long words she had heard before but only vaguely understood.

The Healing Horse, Ch. 23, Scene 7: The Gown

Left alone and without help, brave little Karen figures out how to put on a hospital gown by herself. Then she steps through the curtain to begin her ordeal.

Scene 7: The Gown

The table in the changing area held a white cotton hospital gown. Karen disrobed as quickly as she could, conscious of the doctors waiting for her. Shaking the folded gown, she opened it and held it up before her. She had worn gowns like this for some of her medical treatments, but she had never tried to put one on by herself. In previous years, the Child Study Team had not provided anything for her to wear. They had let her wear her own clothes. She considered asking Mrs. Pinzetti for help, but since she now knew how the therapist felt about Tammy, she no longer wanted any help from her.

After pulling the gown up and over beautiful weak left arm, she maneuvered it behind and around her neck, so she could get her right arm through the other hole. Reaching behind her back with her right hand, she caught one of the ties, but even though her left hand could grab the string, it could not tie it into a knot, even with help from her mouth. She leaned her back against the table to hold the gown in place and got a pair of ties into her right hand. After a few minutes of twisting them, she succeeded in making a loose knot. She did the same with the other ties.

Under her breath, she whispered to herself, “Oh, Mama, I need you here with me. I may be disabled, but I am not an animal on display. If they view me as an animal, then I will show them the Pegasus in me. I am not afraid, but I wish my Mama were here.”

She stepped through the curtain.

The Healing Horse, Ch. 23, Scene 6: Clinic Begins

The clinic begins with the evil Mrs. Pinzetti shepherding little Karen through the room of experts, where her orthopedist refuses to return her smile. This is only the beginning of the process of dehumanizing her. At the end of the scene, Karen is left alone to remove the clothing that expresses her individuality and to put on the anonymous gown of someone who is merely the subject of a medical examination.

(Painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Scene 6: Clinic Begins

The hallway clock read eleven. Karen had been waiting outside the physical therapy room for fifteen minutes since following Mrs. Pinzetti from the classroom. She sat stiffly, unable to relax, legs numb from the hard seat of the wooden chair. The door opened. Mrs. Pinzetti looked down at her and cleared her throat. “Come this way with me, please,” she said.

Karen followed her through the main part of the room. The silver walking bars, which normally filled the center, had been pushed to the side and replaced by a treatment table. Her orthopedist, Dr. Lambert, stood beside it. As usual, the only bright spot in the room was the dusty print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night on the far wall.

He was still as tall and overweight as she remembered. Well over six feet tall, he could not button his white coat over his belly, or stretch his tie beyond his breastbone. He was bald, and in spite of having beads of sweat standing on his scalp, his hands were always frigid. His deep-set gray eyes were hidden behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses. He held a wooden pointer in his right hand and a binder containing his notes on her in his left. He always wore a gray suit with a matching tie. She wondered if he wore the same clothes every day, or if he had a closet full of identical gray pants, gray striped shirts, and gray ties. She was sure he owned only one pair of cufflinks, and these, too, were gray. He was no Ben Casey or Dr. Kildare. Rather, he was the opposite of the heroic medical doctor.

He had an audience of at least fifty other white coats. They sat in two groups, on folding chairs, facing each other across the middle of the room, with Dr. Lambert in the middle. They took notes, as he spoke.

She forced herself to smile at him, but he did not acknowledge her. He looked through her and said to the other professionals, “This is our next subject. She has cerebral palsy and dyslexia, so she is unable to describe her own condition, but you will find everything you need to know in the notes I provided.” Then he continued his lecture.

Karen remembered that, in the three years he had been her orthopedist, he had never asked her how she was, how she felt, or what she hoped to get from his treatments. He had never tried to get to know her as a person. She wondered whether he could remember anything about her without referring to his notes. He assumed she was unable to report or describe her own condition, and that only he could observe, analyze, report, and diagnose her needs.

Mrs. Pinzetti led Karen into one of the treatment areas, which had been curtained off for privacy. She said, “Please disrobe and put on the hospital gown. You can do that for yourself, so I will leave now.”

The Healing Horse, Ch. 23, Scene 5: Time for Clinic

This scene transitions from Karen’s worries into a sequence of action scenes, as the evil Mrs. Pinzetti pulls Karen from the safety of the classroom, so she can undergo a clinical evaluation by the experts.

(Image courtesy of Adammoore426, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Scene 5: Time for Clinic

Precisely at ten-forty-five, Mrs. Pinzetti opened the classroom door and walked to Karen’s desk. After clearing her throat, she said, “Come this way with me, please,” and turned back toward the door. Karen looked up at her teacher, who nodded assent. Shivering from fear, Kitten remained in her chair, unable to stand, unsure of herself and of what she could do. She had heard the anger underneath Mrs. Pinzetti’s syrupy tone. She took a deep breath and then followed her down the hallway.

The Healing Horse, Ch. 23, Scene 4: Worry and Courage

This scene shows little Karen in the classroom, trying to pull herself together, but in a daze of fear of the coming physical exam and evaluation.

(Image courtesy of User:Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Scene 4: Worry and Courage

She could not concentrate. She was miserably, ferociously preoccupied. Although her adrenal glands were in overdrive, her mind was in a stupor. The red second hand of the black-rimmed clock ticked the minutes away. She heard the teacher speak, but the words were meaningless.

What would the experts do to her? Would she have to perform for them, do exercises for them? She promised herself that she would take each minute as it came. She would maintain her composure. She would do whatever it took to get through clinic. She put her head down on the desk.

So much for living serenely in the here and now. Am I a failure at that, too? I want serenity, and I am trying my hardest, but I am just a kid!

For a moment, she retreated into her imagination and visualized herself riding on Pegasus in the sunshine and freedom of nature. As she rode in freedom and imagination, she felt her strength grow and knew it would sustain her through the afternoon.

With an existential jerk, she heaved herself back into reality. She knew she had just experienced the power of imagination that Pegasus had described a few hours before. That moment of freedom had been pure imagination. Yet, instead of being outdoors, in natural surroundings where she felt free, she was now in a classroom and would soon be on a table, undergoing an examination by experts. It would not be a place of beauty. It would be harsh and cold, a place where starched white coats looked down at her with commanding eyes and cold, intrusive hands.

The specialists would confer, command, and recommend. They would speak softly among themselves—not to her—as if she mattered not and could neither understand nor contribute to their discussion. When ready, they would announce their rulings without regard for her feelings. Their rulings would carry the weight of law in her life, but would have no consequences at all in the lives of the experts.