Worst Christmas Ever

We thought that the Christmas of 2020 was the worst one. We were well into the second, great wave of the coronavirus and nonessential travel was restricted. Governments and healthcare experts were urging us to limit gatherings to the people with whom you resided.

Lots of people, sadly, ignored these warnings, driving the number of positive COVID-19 test results through the roof. People who heeded the warnings and kept to themselves lamented that Christmas Day was the worst in living memory. People who didn't heed the warning lamented that spreading their germs, possibly killing loved ones, made Christmas 2020 the worst, ever.

For me, Christmas 2020 was disappointing. Our family tradition is to have our extended family members visit us for a lavish brunch of potato and bacon pie, spiral ham, cheesy scrambled eggs, orange and spinach salad, and Christmas stollen. In 2020, no one was invited over.

Instead, DW and I still baked the pie, and DW made her delicious stollen. Instead of roasting a ham, we bought a smaller ham and cut cold, thin slices. We packaged individual servings of each of these and I delivered these helpings to my parents and my sister, both who live nearby.

For those of you who feel that Christmas 2020 was the worst ever, hold my beer.

I was 25, was of an age where the Christmas break was a time to get together with friends, to socialize from house to house, from pub to pub. I was still living with my parents because I was attending university but had my own car and was enjoying my young independence. My girlfriend was going to be away for the holiday, would be with her parents, visiting with extended family in another part of the country, but I could look forward to her return in time to ring in the new year.

But this Christmas wasn't going to be the same for me, was not going to give me the independence that a young adult craves.

Photo: CTV News Ottawa

From my mid to late teens, I had a degenerative condition with the bones in my feet. Diagnosed as Köhler's Disease, I was referred to a surgeon who was renowned for his treatment for this potentially debilitating disease. Surgery, I was told, was my only option for dealing with Köhler's.

A date was scheduled, and I was told that I would be spending a week in the hospital and several months on crutches, afterwards. Unfortunately, the date of the surgery was not appealing. It was December 22, with my check-in to be the afternoon before. If all went well, I'd be out of the hospital and back at home on the twenty-ninth.

I had to get my Christmas celebrations out of the way by the twentieth. And there was a chance that I wouldn't be partying on New Year's Eve. Only time would tell.

I have very few memories of the surgery. I remember waking up early in the morning, feeling hungry, because I wasn't allowed to eat for the 12 hours before the operation and had only a sip of water before midnight, before going to sleep.

A gurney had been brought into my room and I was asked to make myself comfortable before I was rolled through the halls, into an elevator, and to the operating room. My surgeon and a handful of assistants were awaiting me, and a mask was placed over my face, from which I was given anesthetic gas. The previous day, the anesthesiologist offered to freeze me from the waist down and set up mirrors, so that I could watch the procedure.

"No thanks," I said, "knock me right out."

With the mask secured, I was told to count down from 10. Only 10?

At about 7, I heard someone say "oops."

"What do you mean, oops?" I said, but I was out before I could hear an answer.

In the recovery room, my memories are more like dreams. I remember lifting the oxygen mask from my face, only to have a nurse put it back in place. Again, I removed the mask, and again the nurse put it back on me. On the third time that I lifted the mask, the nurse didn't respond. But after a few seconds, I found myself putting the mask back on, myself, and drifting back to sleep.

My next memory was finding myself back in my hospital room, where a doctor, nurse, and a couple of orderlies were transferring me from the gurney to my bed. I remember seeing a plaster cast, smeared with a bit of dried blood.

As soon as I was in bed, the orderlies helped shift sheets and get me comfortable, but at one point they sat me up. The pain was so intense that I vomited and passed out. I didn't wake up again, to my knowledge, until the next morning, when breakfast was brought to me.

It was December 23. My girlfriend, who was leaving later that day for the airport, came by after breakfast for a short visit and to drop off a Christmas gift. A Calvin and Hobbes anthology.

I loved Calvin and Hobbes. Though my girlfriend and I had been dating for less than two years, I told her that I would love to have a kid like Calvin. I'm surprised that, upon hearing that, stayed with me. That girlfriend is now DW.

I was in a room that had three beds but was only occupied by me and an elderly gentleman, who had slipped on ice and had broken his hip. He was a friendly and talkative man, originally from Newfoundland, and we had enjoyed each other's company and conversation on the day before my surgery and on the days afterward. But as much as we enjoyed chatting, we also respected each other's privacy and would give each other a break, when I would turn to the comic book.

Perhaps Calvin and Hobbes wasn't the best gift for someone recovering from surgery. In his work on my foot, the surgeon had removed bone from my hip to graft onto the bones in the foot. My hip was incredibly sensitive—it's what made me pass out when I was sat up. And in reading the comics, I would burst out laughing one moment, burst into tears the next and yelping out in pain.

In laughing, my shaking would cause me jolts of pain that radiated from my hip and ravaged my body. Pleasure, meet pain!

On Christmas Eve, I had few visitors. My parents dropped by in the morning, but because they were hosting Christmas dinner, they had some errands to run and my mother had lots of cooking, baking, and cleaning to do. In the afternoon, my roommate was given permission to leave the hospital, so that he could enjoy the holiday with his family. I was alone from mid-afternoon until after dinner.

With my Calvin and Hobbes anthology finished, I turned to the magazines that my folks dropped off. But I was bored, already missed the conversation of my roommate, and my skin under my cast was itchy. A pretty nurse came to my room and asked me if I'd like a sponge bath, and I happily accepted.

Sadly, she brought in a middle-aged intern, a man, to attend to me.

Just before I was about to turn off my light and go to sleep, my girlfriend's best friend, Catheleen, drop by to check on me. With her, she brought some Christmas baking and a present—a 12-piece Sesame Street puzzle. We put it together in less than a minute, took it apart, and built it again.

Catheleen and I knew each other before I knew DW. As the younger sister to a friend of mine in high school, I often saw her wandering the halls, between classes, and we would always say hello. Years later, when I was dating DW, I learned that my future wife was often with Catheleen, but I never paid her any attention (they were minor niners when I was in grade 12).

In the first summer that DW and I dated, she went to Europe with another friend and Catheleen invited me to go with her to Cancun, Mexico. Catheleen was like a sister to me.

With visiting hours over, Catheleen wished me a Merry Christmas and I was alone once again.

I awoke on Christmas morning with a new gift. A patient, in the bed next to mine, had a leg suspended, several rods running through it, holding broken bones together. He was not in the mood to talk, as he had endured a bad skiing accident and was upset that he had to spend Christmas in the hospital, next to a stranger. Ski season had just begun and it was already over for him.

All of my reading material was read before lunch. In the afternoon, with visitors for my neighbour piling into the room, I asked a nurse to draw my blinds closed and I immersed myself in my Sony Walkman, with the stack of cassettes and mixed music.

I didn't get any visitors until mid-afternoon and it was brief. My parents came to wish me a Merry Christmas, but they had to get back home to receive guests for dinner. I had no more visits that day.

I was stuck in the hospital for a full week, finally able to return home, where my folks helped take care of me until DW returned.

So if you think Christmas of 2020 sucked, I can beat that.

Let's hope that Christmas 2021 is much better.