Don stayed with me from Midterm, or from March for all those nonacademic types, until I went home at the end of May. Remember I said that the Center was a different sort of hospital, and encouraging family members to stay with the afflicted person is one way the hospital is different. Don always thought we didn't get moved out of my single room because I was accompanied by a male, a member of the opposite gender. That made it hard to move me in with another female, and to be honest, I wasn't complaining. I liked my single room; it gave me the illusion that I had more privacy than I actually did.
Apart from that, Don got me up, dressed me, went to therapy with me, took me to the bathroom, fed me while I needed help, and stayed with me during meals when I didn't. He did everything a regular nurse does, and more. He even canceled a trip home one time when I asked him to. He was my link to the talking world.
But as good as he was, he wasn't perfect, either. He made many mistakes while I was spelling, and we still have them recorded in a notebook for posterity. Plus, he was allergic to the cot he slept on, so he snored on most nights. Before I could move my arms, but after I could talk, I would call out to wake him up and make him stop. When he wouldn't wake up, I would call for the nurse if I had to use the rest-room and the sound of the call-button would wake him up. Sometimes he refused to wake up, no matter what I did. I couldn't reach him to shake him awake, even when I could move my arms. I quickly learned that he was harder to wake near morning. If he was snoring and I couldn't wake him up and I didn't have to get up for anything, I would just lay in bed and listen to the noise of his snoring. There were times he woke me up at two in the morning. It was an early time to start a day, but what other choice did I have? I couldn't walk or even roll over. I was literally trapped by the bed and its protective rail on either side. Let me tell you, that ceiling was boring.
But the snoring wasn't as bad as not being able to communicate. Even when I could talk, the problem of making mistakes didn't go away. It only got worse, because so few people understood what I said. The spelling board saved me on more times than I can count. The Center may be a hospital, but it's still a talking hospital, and if you can't be understood, you have more problems than this book can possibly go into.
Another way that the Center is different is the doctors, whom I saw every day, allowed the patients to go out into the town on weekends. That particular town is a very handicapped accessible town. It was nice in that way, but I was still stared at a lot if we went downtown or to the mall. The mall was especially bad because it was always full of young people, and though I have nothing against the young, young people are those who stare. It was as if those people had never seen a handicapped individual before. Yet I was not going to let a few stares keep me away from shopping if I needed to.
And I really needed to shop. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe. Don was extremely messy with food, and I became delightfully addicted to a coffee drink while I was at the Rehab. Center. I kept asking for the drinks, and visitors kept bringing them. In one way, we were lucky to be only two hours from home, but we were also unlucky due to the close proximity, depending on how you look at it. All those drinks added to weight gain. When I got to the Center, I was ten pounds underweight from doing nothing but lying around for twelve days. But with those coffee drinks, I quickly gained it back, and more. Because the food was so good, or maybe because I hadn't eaten by mouth for a month, I ate a lot. My sweet tooth was really activated by the stroke, and I had nothing to lose by drinking the coffee drinks. I liked coffee, and those drinks were sweet! I gained weight fast, and before I knew it, I was ten pounds overweight. Then I was twenty. At thirty, I knew something had to go. I chose to cut back on the food that I liked so well. I liked the coffee drinks too much to lose them, too, it turned out.
On the other hand, Don was really messy with those coffee drinks. There wasn't a shirt I owned at the Center that didn't have a coffee stain on it somewhere. Even when he tried to be careful, he inevitably spilled. Or I did. The stroke left me clumsier than ever, and I was clumsy already. Spilled liquid was the result. We started using towels to keep me clean, but we always forgot the towel. My shirts didn't stand a chance, when I think about it.
If I wasn't drinking coffee or going to therapy or entertaining visitors, then my time was my own. So what did I do with all my free time? As long as it didn't interrupt therapy, and it was the weekend, we went out. If it was a weekday, I read, a lot. At first, I listened while a friend read the first Harry Potter book to me. But I eventually wanted to hold the book with my hands. Lyndsay, my Occupational therapist who worked almost exclusively with my arms, made me a page turner for my head, and I could use that after a fashion, but Don invented something that really did it for me. He took a three-ring binder that he bought and a paperback copy of the book, tore out the pages of the book, tucked them into clear plastic inserts in the binder, and voila, I had a book with pages I could turn... turn clumsily, true, but I could turn them. I couldn't read very fast at first because of the double vision I had that was related to my stroke, but within weeks, I was holding the book in my hands and reading much faster with the help of a prism on one lens of my eyeglasses. Before I knew it, I said, 'goodbye' to the patch I had worn over one lens of my glasses, and I was reading as much fantasy as I could devour, and I devoured quite a lot. There's nothing better for stroke recovery then a good fantasy novel, or anything that will help you escape from the irritations of life. I'm always thankful for my ability to read. If I couldn't read, I would surely go crazy. I always had a book with me at the Rehabilitation Center from that time on, and I still do today.
Next: Lability