When I throw up in my hospital bed, there is a special way to clean it up. Two nurses roll me to one side of the bed, lift the sheet from the mattress, then roll me to the other side. They roll me again to tie the strings on my fresh hospital gown, and to put on a clean bottom sheet. I throw up about once an hour, because of the pain drugs, they say. One night I wake up to my mother standing over me. She says she is going back to her hotel room for the night, but before she leaves, could I please eat a granola bar? I must be so hungry, she says. It’s been days. I am not hungry, but I take a bite, just to see her smile a little. I throw it up right after she leaves.
Wiping my face, a nurse tells me I look like an actress. The mermaid in that movie, the one with Tom Hanks. The nurse says she saw it on a rerun station. And I, with a turban of bandages, the gauze protecting an opening made with a small saw, believe her.
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“The worst is over,” everyone keeps saying. “You did it. It’s all easy street from here. Everything’s a breeze now.”
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For some reason I think Claude is here, somewhere in the hospital, waiting to take care of me. I call him on the phone my mother smuggled into the room for me. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says. “But I have to go.”
“Go where?”
“I’m at work.” He sounds irritated. I imagine him holding the phone between his chin and his shoulder, busy, tapping a pencil.
I drop the phone to the floor and howl like I’m in pain, and a nurse comes in and gives me a shot. She scolds me for using a cell phone. The signals they receive and send can mess up the machines, she says. Everyone’s main concern is: How did I get that phone? It is not allowed.
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When the bandages are unwound from my head it takes a long time to get to the end. The unwinding happens in circles, and it takes so long I worry that my face will come off, too.
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I still cannot tie my shoes or put my hair in a ponytail. I still cannot feed myself or bring a cup to my mouth with my right hand because my fingers are so stiff and the hand does not move and flex fluidly. My mother has been showering me. We have a waterproof wheelchair and use soap from the dispenser. I leave my underwear on for modesty. She uses a detachable showerhead to get my hair soaked. She wears galoshes. We freeze.
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The surgeon tells my family that my cerebellum was disturbed by the surgery and so I will have problems with coordination and need to teach myself basic and fine motor skills again. I will also have trouble with my balance and walking. He tells them to remind me to be patient. “We will,” they say, “we will.”
A woman from physical rehabilitation wants me to get out of bed and walk down the hall. I cannot sit up without vomiting. Priests stop by, and I wave them off. I am moved out of my private room, out of intensive care to rehabilitation. “Yay, Louise,” my family says.
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I start out crawling. My physical therapist, who is handsome and Scottish, lifts me out of the wheelchair and onto the rehab gym’s mat. He helps me get into a position I remember from Pilates mat class, on my hands and knees. He gets on the floor beside me and tells me to do what he does. We crawl. My family watches from folding chairs.
“You have to stand up,” my physical therapist tells me. “We must teach your legs how to work again.” To help, he straps on a safety belt: a thick nylon strap with a metal buckle. It is fastened around my waist, and he holds the strap taut with both hands. He tugs me up, and I rise for a moment and then tip sideways onto the mat. With my father gripping me on one side, the physical therapist on the other, I start to take steps. We have distance markers, like on a track. Ten seconds of staying upright is an accomplishment.
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A roommate is moved into my room. She is very old and has lost control of her hands completely. They spasm and shake. She keeps the television on at all times, watching game shows like Wheel of Fortune and Deal or No Deal. Her son and his wife visit. They sit in chairs by the door. The son holds a bouquet of red plastic flowers. He has brought her these instead of the real ones so they won’t die, he says. They leave soon, and she tries to cradle the bouquet in her arms.
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My physical therapist comes to my room to get me twice a day. Mom and I are in love with him. He is newly married, but I still imagine myself as his wife. He and I do this strength exercise where I get on my hands and knees and lift one leg as high as I can, like a donkey. The physical therapist holds my hips firmly while we watch in the mirror. I’m wearing a sporty outfit Mom bought at the local department store. It’s bright yellow nylon with a hood. I think of a wedding I was supposed to be in last week. I think of Claude. Screw him, I think.
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To test my hand-eye coordination, I sit in front of a pegboard full of tiny lights, like Christmas tree decorations. I am to touch the light that comes up. My physical therapist times me. He counts the seconds it takes for me to touch the little bulbs. I try very hard to impress him. Sometimes I miss, and my finger will touch a spot an inch or two from the light. I get faster every day, he tells me.
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After three weeks, my physical therapist says I am ready to try the home evaluation. The test begins in a room that has been outfitted to look like an apartment. It has a double bed with a chenille spread, a kitchenette with a two-burner stove, and a bathroom.
Five staff members crowd into the evaluation bathroom to watch me. I have to make it out of the wheelchair and into the chair that sits inside the tub. I get ready to go. Someone drops a pencil. It rolls by my foot. Everyone moves in closer.
It takes a minute to get out of the wheelchair, another minute to heave myself into the chair, and another to swing my legs over the tub. But I do it. Everyone claps. We move on to the kitchen so I can mix up some powdered soup and slice cookie dough out of a tube.
There is an old car in the rehab gym. I fasten and undo the seatbelt. I pass that section. I pass them all.
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A resident comes to take out the staples that run down the back of my scalp. The staples are put in a plastic bag for me to take home. They look like regular metal ones used for paper. They leave holes in my scalp that itch, and will keep itching, long after I go home.