A few years ago, I found myself at a crossroads with more than one friendship. Getting married and having kids will do that to some friendships, as will changing jobs and moving to a new town. Oh yes, and experiencing pregnancy-related and probably longstanding, on-and-off depression will shank a friendship or two as well.

I’d done all of these things, and saw a couple of older friendships grow distant and a new one I’d made online positively implode, with periodic aftershocks for months and even years later, all beginning during one of the roughest times of my life. I have my side of that story and she has hers, and the incessantly nitpicky, “she said/she said” details aren’t important to me any more.

What’s important to me now, years after having moved on, is that I know why I did what I did and I’m at peace with the way I handled things, even when I was irrational and emotional, even when I knew I’d be despised for some of the choices I’d made (because I sensed they were the right choices, as each aftershock has proven, time and again), and even though I know I made missteps and mistakes.

I still stand by it all, and now take the attitude I should have taken from the start, which is, essentially, “Fuck me? Fuck YOU!” Not sour grapes; I simply refuse to be manipulated or disrespected again, not from friends and certainly not from people who proved themselves otherwise. It took me a few years to realize that having the backbone to take that stance with someone means you truly are at peace, and I am. I also learned the hard way that trying to spare everyone’s feelings and make everyone happy often ends up doing just that–only it often leaves you holding the bag, and I can tell you, that bag ain’t filled with happiness.

What I learned from this time in my life–as I’d learned with lovers before I met my husband–was to know what behaviors and treatment I would and would not accept from a friend. Over time, I was lucky enough to develop several new friendships (while also keeping some old ones that had fallen away and a few others that grew from online into “real life” bonds). These friends not only saw the “real” me in good times and rough, but also loved me anyway (to paraphrase one of my favorite quotes). That was so vital to me, because frankly, I can be a real pain in the ass and I do believe my image appears under the antonym for “grace under pressure.”

During this time, every spring my mother-in-law would travel to Sanibel Island, Florida for a week or so to visit some old friends. They’d stay at a friend’s beach house and hang out, read, and go shopping; a totally relaxing deal. I remember thinking, “I want to do that some day.” At the time, I had two young kids and a mountain of student loan debt (but a part time, at-home job). Travel? Every year? With GIRLFRIENDS? Who all get along? Forget about it!

Also during this time, every time I’d think of names for each of our three sons (whose gender went undetermined until their birth days the first two times), my husband would shoot the majority of them down (including Angus–he actually giggled; NOT a smart choice around a pregnant me–and Deaglan).

Exasperated, I’d say, “Well, what do YOU want to name him if it’s a boy?”

“Fred,” he’d deadpan. Every damned time. I must have smacked that man a thousand times per pregnancy, but I suppose I deserved some of those “Freds.”

Fast forward a few years. I was done with pregnancy and breastfeeding and had managed to build a reasonably successful freelance writing business from home. I blogged about starting a girlfriends’ getaway and asked if any readers (most of whom were my friends already) would like to come along. To my surprise, about a dozen actually replied yes.

It’s so hard to get away when you’re working and married with young kids, not just financially but in terms of asking spouses or significant others to take off work and tend to the schedules we usually run, not to mention taking time off work yourself. My mother-in-law and her friends were retired with few financial worries; how, exactly, would we manage to pull this off?

Somehow, we did (that’s a whole other piece on smart trip planning for groups). We began planning, and as we did, I wanted to come up with a name for our girlfriends’ getaway. Nothing came to mind until I remembered those arguments with my husband: FRED! We’ll call our trip Fred!

In July 2007, we rented a luxurious cabin in Salida, Colorado and pretty much from the moment we got together, we laughed. When we’d be out, people would assume we were partiers because of all the giggling, but no, that was just us. In 2008, we converged upon Lake Tahoe and again, every night I’d go to bed with a sore jaw and abs from all the laughter, only to laugh again with my friend and Fred roomie, Janey, until we’d finally fall asleep, often still giggling.

The best part was how seamlessly everything went. A dozen women, all used to running the show at home, figured how to divide up the money for meals and activities, how to tidy the home, who got what bed (or what spot on the floor–eep!). We all just put our own egos aside and let it flow, and it worked.

This February, we held an impromptu “mini-Fred” in our sweet home Chicago. Once again, despite a bump or two in the road (and on the way), the laughter was there. So was the liveliness and the complete freedom from the mundane details and hectic schedules we normally face. We were just us, only funnier and more vibrant, and we just . . . laughed. Man, that feels great.

So on the day we left for home, fellow Freddies Melessa, Kelly and I walked to the River North Paper Source store. I hadn’t been here in about a decade, since their Evanston store north of the city is closer to me. I wanted to look at pretty papers for my friend’s  baby shower invitations (struck gold there, by the way!). As we entered the store, I noticed some rubber stamps positioned on a display table. Guess what they spelled?

FRED.

I love you guys. And I miss you. Thanks for putting up with me and laughing at my jokes and my crazy conversations with random strangers. You make me a better person and a better friend and I know how lucky I am to have each of you in my world. CHEEP!

I can hear the medic to my right calling in stats and requesting morphine.

“I’m twelve weeks pregnant,” I say.

Too soon for it to be obvious.

“Patient is pregnant,” says the medic. “Can we still administer morphine?”

He pauses a moment and looks down at me. I’m shivering as I lie on the gurney. I’m not even cold.

“No morphine,” he says. “Sorry.”

He looks at me again, then adds, “Boy, you sure are sweating a lot.”

Great. I’m the Richard Nixon of slip-and-falls.

I’m not quite old enough to have given birth to this guy, but we’re far enough apart in age where I could’ve been his babysitter. Even if I had the energy to make the Nixon joke–or even an “Albert Brooks in Broadcast News joke about Nixon” joke–it would’ve been lost on him.

The medic makes up for commenting on my trauma sweat with an astonishing act of kindness: he warns me before every bump in the road for the entire ride. He seems proud to have learned the routes through town, and I have to admit it’s an impressive body of knowledge of something most of us never consider. And as even the slightest movement sends shock waves of pain through my body, his super powers arent wasted on me.

Several potholes and speed bumps later, I’m wheeled into a very crowded ER. I have no idea where my two-year-old son is. He rode in the cab of the ambulance, chattering excitedly about the sirens while thankfully appearing oblivious to my injuries.

We’ve only lived here a couple of weeks. All of our friends and family are at least an hour away and my husband is out of town. A snowstorm had hit just after a bout of freezing rain, and there were many car accidents that day in January 2002. I quickly learned that Dansko wooden heeled clogs and ice hidden under snow don’t mix well.

After a few minutes, I’m wheeled into a room at the ER that barely fits my  gurney. A nurse whose name tag reads ‘Brandy’ asks me a few questions as she uses scissors to cut away my pant leg from mid-thigh downward. My son arrives in the arms of a nurse, who places him on a chair to sit with me. I start crying and am not even sure why, and I can see the worry in his big, brown eyes but I can’t stop.

“Look,” says Brandy. “You’re going to have to get yourself together–for your son’s sake,” she says.

I nod without speaking, trying calm myself and to breathe through the pain.

Even though I know she’s right, I also know that Brandy is kind of a bitch.

“Can you please cover it up?” I say, pointing without looking at my foot. “I really don’t want to look at it.”

Without speaking, Brandy obliges. I can’t tell if she wears a look of disgust as she does, but at this point, I don’t care.

Another nurse arrives to say she’s going to take my son to the cafeteria for a PB&J sandwich and some juice. I’m grateful someone is able to care for him because right now, I can’t. All I know is the pain, washing out everything around me.

Maybe an hour has elapsed since I fell, and I haven’t received any pain medication. Suddenly, I feel horrible for not worrying about this new baby more. I remember the words of a doula I’d met at an art show during my first pregnancy, who told me that right then, my baby was in the safest place he’d ever be for the rest of its life. I clung to those words just then, hoping she was right.

I notice an ancient man with thick, brown rimmed glasses shuffle past the doorway to my room.

How nice, I think to myself. Volunteering in his waning years like that.

I have no idea how long I laid there, my lower right leg covered by what looks like a white kitchen towel, but eventually my mom arrives. She has the same look in her eyes from when she saw me laboring in the hospital–an unnerving combination of fierce love and abject terror, only today it’s mostly terror.

“I had to take a cab to get here,” she says. Legally blind due to macular degeneration, my mom can no longer drive. “The car almost went off the road two, three, four times,” she says.

My mom is the strongest person I have ever known, but today, as on the day my son was born, I can see the dents in her armor.

“Where’s Jackie?” she asks, looking around the tiny room.

“In the cafeteria with a nurse,” I say. Brandy reappears and offers to take my mom to him. It’s the last time I see either of them that day. The cab driver drove with them back into the storm, even escorted them inside and made sure they were safely settled in.

With Jackson and my mom gone, I wait a short while until I’m wheeled into a large, open room filled with an array of medical equipment. A woman with brown hair wearing light purple scrubs stands beside me and gently says they’re going to take some X-rays before I’m prepped for surgery.

Surgery. Gah.

I see the old volunteer hobbling my way, and his thin, fuzzy hair and hunched back remind me of Yoda.

“This is Dr. Bobba,” says the tech in the purple scrubs. “Our attending ER physician.”

“Doctor–” I can barely say it without smiling, but am proud that I at least refrain from laughing as we exchange greetings.

After placing a couple of reassuring, weighty lead aprons across my pelvis, the tech takes images of my leg by maneuvering a massive machine over me, since moving me would be both painful and impractical. She also takes images of my right shoulder, which is still painful to lie on or move at all.

When the tech finishes, Dr. Bobba shuffles over puts a hand on one arm and speaks to me in a reassuring tone. His voice and skin tone hint at an Asian origin, somewhere near India, I’d guess.

“This is Bonnie,” he says to me, gesturing behind him (he has to turn his torso since his head and neck won’t oblige). A tall, slim fifty-something woman with blonde wavy hair and glasses smiles down at me.

“Bonnie has some nitrous oxide for you,” he says. “I suggest you inhale deeply, as it will help you manage the pain.”

Finally, something for the pain, I think, as Bonnie smiles down at me. She has kind eyes, and as she gently places the mask over my face, I don’t notice that about eight hospital staff members have surrounded the gurney.

I take a shallow, cursory breath of nitrous when I feel Dr. Bobba quickly and deftly grab my right leg.

Imagine trying to scream as loudly and forcefully as your body will permit. Then double–no,  maybe triple–it, and you might have a close approximation to the sound I make.

When it’s over, my entire body shakes uncontrollably and before I can regain my breath, Dr. Bobba grabs my foot again to finish resetting it.

I don’t scream as loudly this time, but the pain is no less intense. I lay there, panting like a mountain lion, shivering uncontrollably, and once again drenched in sweat.

My only thought, besides being grateful for not having died of shock, is how in the hell did that little old man move so quickly?

Everyone congratulates me on getting through it while I’m wondering who I should kill first: Dr. Bobba or myself.

I’m wheeled back into the waiting room and finally look down at my foot. Instead of hanging sideways at a right angle away from my body, it’s back on straight again. The pain has receded a few hairs short of excruciating.

I close my eyes briefly when Dr. Bobba enters the room holding an X-ray.  I notice he’s standing just out of arm’s reach from me, a good thing since I’m actively considering strangling him.

“The films show that you have also dislocated your shoulder,” he says. Before I can reply he turns his torso and calls out the door:

“Bonnie! Bring the nitrous!”