Equipment: The Power of Plush or How a Teddy Bear is Sometimes Just What the Doctor Ordered

When we were children we all had a toy or two that held a special place in our hearts. I remember how attached to my G.I. Joes I was well into my early teens. Oh, hell who am I kidding I am still really attached to them. Well to their replacements since the originals are long gone. I do however have one toy that has been with me almost 30 years and it still has a place in my heart.

Many years ago I had a car accident which was a major life changing event. I spent months in traction with all hope of ever walking again becoming very nearly a impossibility with each passing day. Multiple surgeries and a couple of brushes with death I eventually made it out of the hospital. From the hospital I went into rehab to learn to walk again which as I stated was barely a possibility but I bucked the odds and managed to prove my doctor wrong because I walked. It took just 2 weeks for me to take my first steps on my deformed legs but I did it out of sheer determination and will. I really hate when someone says that I can’t do something. That wasn’t the end of the surgeries though. A year out of the hospital and I needed to go back for some, let’s call it maintenance shall we, a tune up.

I consider myself a relatively rational individual but I do believe in the concepts of luck and fate. As I stated I had had multiple surgeries in the months following the accident. Even though I had to be brought back a couple of times (3 to be exact…take that Buffy Summers I beat you by one) I did come back. This procedure that was looming actually scared me since I felt I was tempting fate. Having managed to beat the odds I was thinking that my luck could run out at any point. Statistically the odds were not in my favor. In my mind I knew that there could only be so many times that I went under anesthesia before I didn’t come back. It happens all the time. Someone goes in for a simple procedure and next thing they are telling the family that it was a freak thing but their loved one died on the table.  Yup, happens every day.  So I was getting worried about going under.

It was the early fall of 1987 just before the surgery that I was speaking with one of my friends. I told her as we strolled around Greenwich Village that I kept thinking this would be the time I didn’t come back. I had this fear in the back of my mind that if I went under I wouldn’t be coming back. Like I said, it was an irrational fear but it was nagging at me. She pointed out that I hadn’t used up my “times” and that it wouldn’t be my final trip. I wanted to believe her but odds are odds after all. We continued our stroll passing shop after shop until she decided to pop into one asking me to wait outside. When she reemerged she handed me a bag. I remember looking into the bag and pulling out a white, stuffed bear. She could see the confusion on my face, after all I was a grown man and I didn’t collect stuffed animals. She smiled at me and informed me that this was to be my good luck charm. She told me that as long as I had this bear to watch over me I would always come back.

So now I had a good luck charm. It couldn’t hurt having a little something to improve my odds. When the time came to go to the hospital for my surgery I went with bear in tow. I am not sure how or precisely when she was named but she was dubbed Gertrude (though her “real name” is Vanilla Truffle). This white bear with two red hearts around her neck became my mascot for my surgeries. Each time I go into the hospital she is there in the recovery room (or brought in shortly after) to greet me. In the last 30 years I have had a total of 33 surgeries and she has been there for the majority of those. Gertrude has been with me after surgeries or as company in my room. She spent 11 months with me in a nursing home after an infection nearly killed me. Each time I return home she goes back into storage until the next time she is needed for moral support. Fortunately I haven’t needed her in a while, though I did pull her out of storage last year just before I moved.

As I was sorting through stuff prior to the move I placed Gertrude into the pile of belongings headed to Goodwill. This bear, more gray than white now, with a tiny stain of dried blood on one of her arms had seen so much. When I placed her into the “to go” pile I figured someone else could use her good luck. It was my friend Mary that rescued her. Mary picked her out of the pile and when I inquired as to why she looked at me. “This is your surgery bear,” she said, “she makes sure you always come back. You can’t give her away.” And with that she carried Gertrude downstairs. I guess it is a good thing she saved her for me. There aren’t any impending surgeries in my future but you never know. If I do have to go back into the hospital for anything I will have my little bear to follow and watch over me. Yes I am a grown man with a stuffed bear à la Christopher Robin but that bear and I have been through a lot together. Let’s face it, everyone needs a little extra luck.