MFT jumped up off a bench.
As he was performing this acrobatic feat, he was thinking to himself that his “elderly” body probably shouldn’t be doing this,[1] and (as you might expect from my lead-in) he felt a sharp burst of pain, and spectators heard a crack when he landed. He immediately fell to the ground.
Normally, when you break your ankle, you go to Urgent Care, right?
Not in prison.
There are a whole slew of angles and reasons and permutations that must be thought through before you commit to an action that could have you swept up and moved to a new prison at the other end of the state before the night is through.
Even if your ankle is broken.
First, the bunking system in the building[2] is very systematic. Right now, MFT is upper-lower. Which means he is in an upper pod (upstairs) on a lower bunk. This is because he has a sleep apnea machine which requires a lower bunk. But he is capable of climbing stairs, so he is upper tier. Someone in a wheelchair is lower-lower, and those enviable, fully functioning twenty-somethings are upper-uppers. Not only can they climb stairs, but they can climb bunkbeds too.
So, with a broken ankle and most likely crutches, MFT would no longer be upper-lower. He would be downgraded to lower-lower, which means he’d have to—at the very least—move downstairs in his building.
Lest you think this is no big deal, a prisoner’s bunk is their home. And MFT really loves his bunk, because he’s been there since 2018, and there are decent, compatible guys in his pod. (He could end up with a bunch of thieving, chaotic, crazy podmates.) Plus, he has a window,[3] and he’s in a corner against a wall, so he only has people on one side of him. He can turn his back to the room and have a little privacy.[4] It is very stressful moving bunks—new set-up, new bunkie, new personalities in a small space, new drama.
If there are no lower-lower beds in his building, then MFT could be moved to a different building, or even to a different yard (another section of the prison), where there would be entirely new people to have to learn and gauge and judge and be wary of. And he’d lose his friends.[5]
If there are no lower-lower beds in the entire prison, then he’d be shipped off to one that does have space for him. It could be 300 miles away.[6] So then he’d have an entirely new prison to adjust to.
And if he was in school, this would interrupt his schooling. It’s not guaranteed that the new prison would be able to continue his education.[7]
He’d lose the support of officials who know him and speak well of him.
He’d lose his self-help groups.[8]
He’d lose our upcoming Family Visit. At a new prison, he’d have to go through the entire approval process again, and then he’d be shuffled to the bottom of the waiting list, and who knows how long that list would be. Some families at some prisons only receive their family visits every 6 months.
And there’s no way of knowing how things stand until you’ve taken the step to get medical help. There’s no turning back once Medical labels you with a restriction. So he has to decide if his health is bad enough to warrant risking uprooting his entire life. And right now, for him, it’s not.
He’s going to live with the broken ankle.
Addendum:
After writing this post, MFT’s friend and podmate was sick enough to warrant a doctor’s visit, was reassigned to lower-lower, and—whoosh!—now he’s living on another yard.
[1] According to CDCR, at the ripe old age of 55, MFT is considered elderly.
[2] It’s like a fun-filled prison dorm.
[3] From which he can see the sunset, birds, rabbits, bats, and even a small manmade lake.
[4] Get your minds out of the gutter! One should not do that in a room filled with other men. One should wait for the Holy Grail of an entirely empty pod. Since there are 13 other men, that doesn’t often happen. (And they wonder why MFT never goes to chow . . .)
[5] He has some very close friends who genuinely care about him. I love to hear them joking together when I’m on the phone with him.
[6] This would then make things difficult not only for MFT but for Dolly, because Dolly combines visiting MFT with visiting her family. If MFT moves farther away from her family, this makes things more financially difficult for Dolly.
[7] Fortunately, as of June, MFT is no longer in school (he graduated!), but disrupting his education and not being able to finish was always a big concern when he was.
[8] He’s currently part of a group of men working on a prison podcast—led by a volunteer—which is the highlight of MFT’s week. Podcasts were made for MFT!