Letters From Camp

Our helicopter pilot dropped us off on a sandbar today upriver, so we could swim downriver, and he would pick us up when he was on his way home. We made pillows out of Ziplock freezerbags and layed back and drifted down. There was a beautiful moose taking a bath and we got within ten feet in the water until he took off. It was so wonderful. Sometimes, in between the allergies and the rain and the mosquitos... I want to stay here forever.

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It is a peculiar thing that occurs to a group of men when a woman amongst them is wounded. The sacrosanct mantle of machismo and bravado are shed, and the layer underneath is one of confusion and concern, mixed haphazardly with a dose of a frightened little brother whispering “Please don’t cry, oh god, please don’t cry.” I bore witness to this Jekyll and Nightingale persona upon putting my little finger in the most perfect place to have it duly crushed above the first knuckle with a union and a hammer while working at camp.

After a cursory exam and numerous claims of “Oooh, that must have hurt”, combined with backslapping and tales of other near misses and medically impossible exploits, most interest began to drift off. It is my observation that males, while uncomfortable with another person being hurt, will not hesitate to attempt to upstage the wounded person with tales of equally, if not superior wounds, as if to say “It could have been worse.” Granted, the decidedly un-wounded looking storyteller must often have the wound or scar in an unmentionable or un-demonstrable area, as I have heard many stories of near amputations but never seen the damage.

It is also my experience that when in doubt, tears to men are akin to holy water on vampires, or electricity on rats. For no sooner had the first few painful tears swelled out than flash bang plans of military precision where being enacted for medical treatment, no matter how righteously hair-brained they were, and without consideration of the distance of the Mayo clinic.

There is a contraption, located at almost every well site and gas plant, designed to test and photograph the strength of welded unions in pipeline. Approximately the circumference of a large dinner plate, and weighing in excess of 25 lbs, it is essentially an oversized and cumbersome portable x-ray.

It was a combination of the hysteria I had induced, the sun, and the plans of men that will always be better on paper, that I ended up in the middle of the two compressor buildings with lead piping lashed to my waist and my finger extended as far in front of me as I could get it while holding the x-ray around it. The lead piping, carefully tied with pink flag tape to my waist was, purportedly, to decrease my chances of x-rayed ovaries and damaged eggs, suggested by the gentleman with an occasional lazy eye and propensity for copious amounts of whiskey. You’d think, by the extreme silence in the yard (minus the 140 decible hum of the compressors) that I was holding a positive pregnancy test or a nuclear bomb, but the advisory was that I stay as motionless as possible while they hit the x-ray button from behind a shed. While I had the 10 inch circumference of a lead pipe to protect me and my children from occasional lazy eyes and propensities for whisky.

An hour an a half later, with the pride and shyness of a child with a finger painting, I was presented with a blurry black and white x-ray of either Mount Everest in the round, or a broken finger. What could I say? The time spent cloistered in the bathroom with only one look at the chemical composition of the x-ray fluid, the hushed expletives, the careful use of measuring cups and shot glasses, mag lights and towels lining the floor – it was beautiful, and fit to be pasted upon the fridge. And decidedly, fractured. Or so we diagnosed after surfing the internet for “finger + broken+x-ray pictures”

Now that the diagnoses could be safely assumed, the concern was treatment. Every splint was made for use on much larger hands, not small thin lady hands, dirty as they may be. My advice is this – if ever wounded, the safest thing to do with a man is have him construct something. Be it an ice bag, a front porch, or a poached egg, there is nothing that saves a man from pointless worrying like the instruction to construct. The stampede to the shop was enough demonstration to suggest this, and the return of four men with a splint made of three quarters of a metal spoon and plastic piping was proof as good as any. It fit perfectly. And it was waterproof.

It is safe to say that by each man’s reaction to illness or pain, one may deduce the major sources of illness or pain from each mans youth. Regardless of whether the ailment in question was a broken finger (as mine was) or a sore throat, I can make a sound conclusion that the treatment from each respective gentleman was to be the same. Those who bring you popsicles most definitely had bouts of tonsillitis, those with calamine and books had chickenpox, those who do nothing generally have wives and have forgotten what to do. Regardless, I was treated as no less than monarchy, and even got to choose the program on T.V. I chose Ultimate Fighting. I had to make up for the tears.

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I like my strength. I like that in this job, my strength, my muscles, my ability – is not cute, clichéd or sweet. It is required and wanted and admired and needed. That I can work hurt, tired, in a million degrees – is not stupidity but bravery, strength. It is not cute or handy that I can change oil and fix compressors – it’s my job. It makes me feel womanly and beautiful and competent and strong and able. I can deal with wells and fittings and pipe wrenches and bears, and it is admired, and respected. And I can have armpit hair and leg hair and that doesn’t take away from my worth or abilities, I do a good job.

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