Speech was probably the most frustrating therapy for me, making it the hardest of the three therapies, Speech, Occupational, and Physical. A young woman named Tori was my first Speech therapist. I had two therapists for Speech altogether at the Rehab. Center, Tori, the head Speech therapist, and Meredith Gill. But Meredith came much later.
When I first came to the Rehabilitation Center, I couldn't talk at all. By the time Tori was done with me, I could definitely talk, and I talked all the time, though it felt like I had a cotton ball in my mouth. I was hardest to understand first thing in the morning and if I was tired, such as late at night or right after PT, so Tori started the habit of scheduling me later in the morning.
Tori was tall and authoritative, and scared me at first. Some of the patients could only remember her name because she was so tall, and they called her 'Tall Tori,' but I had no problem remembering who she was. How could I forget the name of someone who could help me regain my speech? In fact, Tori was also Speech therapist for the Meal Group, and it was a standing rule that a Speech therapist had to be in the room at all times during every meal, so I saw a lot of her there.
I was automatically put into the Meal Group as soon as I started eating; it was assumed that I would have trouble swallowing, since I'd had a stroke. Meal Group means that you eat with others who also have trouble with the swallow muscle, or who can't lift their hands to eat and need help. A stroke often affects the swallow muscle (who even knew we have one?), though mine went comparatively unaffected. The Meal Group was fun later, after I could eat by myself, but being fed by someone else, which was the case with me until I was able to feed myself, isn't much fun at all, especially if your assigned helper is messy (as Don often was). We used lots of towels when we ate! Don was the messiest of the bunch, but I didn't discover that until the end of my stay at the Rehab. Center, and I thought I was the messy one at first.
It was considered a good thing if a patient could feed himself, although I couldn't do that simple task at first and needed help from somebody... anybody would do when I was hungry! When Don wasn't there, others fed me. Sometimes I was fed by the therapists and later I was fed by the nurses when my swallow could be trusted. Everyone always fed me the way they themselves ate, such as with a circular motion or mixing the food all together into one, big lump, or with their particular grip on the spoon. This was annoying, because everybody always ate slower, faster, or ate in a circle and I didn't. A perfect example of this struggle just to eat is the day that I had ignorantly ordered a sandwich for lunch. I admit that the ensuing struggle to eat a sandwich was of my own making, since I had ordered the food myself from the provided menu, but how was I to know what was going to happen? By then, I could eat by myself, so I figured there would be no problem, but there was no way that I could pick up a sandwich from a plate; it was a physical impossibility. But the therapist who was assigned to help me that day didn't know this - couldn't know this - and she couldn't understand my speech when I tried to tell her what was wrong, so I just went hungry that day until someone helped me by simply picking up the sandwich and handing it to me. I could take it from there, but getting to that point was a struggle that was hardly worth the effort it took.
Still, we managed. Since swallowing fell in the domain of Speech therapy, Tori was often in the Meal Group. If she wasn't there, another Speech therapist was in the room while we ate. A Speech therapist had to be there, since all of our swallows were being watched. After I could feed myself, I ate in my room, which I liked best of all, even though I was part of Meal Group for a long time and always enjoyed it (except when sandwiches were on the menu!).
Tori popped in and out mostly, always keeping her cautious eye on things. By cautious, I mean really cautious; her favorite expression had to be, “Be careful.” In fact, we say that all the time to Ellie now, and I always think of Tori when we do. But then, caution was the rule for everyone at the Rehabilitation Center. I started at the Center on level three thinned liquids, or liquids with a thickening agent added in. Every time I coughed, and with three separate colds I coughed a lot, Tori always looked around. I distinctly remember Don saying one day, “You can tell Linda's getting better because, when she coughs, Tori doesn't even turn around anymore.”
Tori did my swallow studies (meaning the pass-or-try-again-later test where you get to sit in the middle of a huge x-ray machine and have food brought to you for you to swallow) in addition to my Speech therapy. She made sure I got some Pepsi (one of my favorite drinks) during the studies, and we did many things as well during the actual therapy sessions: played games, read cards, sorted pictures, and read lists of words, just to name a few. I think the lists were her favorite thing to do, and later they became mine, so we read a lot of lists. (For a person who used to read the dictionary, this was a dream come true.) That was okay with me because the noises I made at the beginning finally turned into words and I had a voice. A quiet one, to be sure, but a voice. It had been a month since I could talk and I had a lot of things to say, mostly jokes, I noticed. In spite of that, my best phrases I learned were, “Nevermind,” and, “Leave me alone!” The nurses taught me the second phrase in case I had to use it with one of them. I never did, but it's really useful now when Ellie is driving me to distraction with her talking and following me around.
Like the others at the Rehab. Center, Tori was very positive. She was enthusiastic about both me and our therapies. She was amazed at how fast I went, though it was hardly fast enough for me! I wanted to talk, since the world is a talking place, and I was hoping there would be fewer misunderstandings when Don wasn't there to translate for me. Little did we know that the misunderstandings were just beginning. My speech was hard to understand at first and I was frequently misunderstood by the nurses and by Don. I don't think Tori ever misunderstood me. I was clearer to her than I was to anybody else, but not everybody is a Speech therapist, I've since realized.
Tori was many things as well as a Speech therapist; Besides being in charge of the Meal Group, she was also in charge of scheduling for all the Speech therapists. I saw her a lot just before my other therapies, doing the scheduling while sitting on the first mat in the gym. She had two students who worked internships with her, and they often worked with me, especially towards the end, but only Tori had the authority to schedule everybody who worked in Speech therapy at the Rehab. Center, so it was inevitable that I saw her a lot. Even when she wasn't my therapist, Tori was sure to say, “Hi,” to me, and it was always nice to know someone in the gym. It made me feel special, and I liked being able to say, “Hi,” back.
The letter 'T' was the only thing that I remember ever making me cry in front of Tori. I had been working particularly hard on that sound, but I just could not get the right sounds to come out of my mouth. 'Yeah' was my first word, and I remember saying, 'Yes,' to everybody when I learned the 's' sound so that I could practice. Just the fact that I had someone to practice with made me made me far and away the best speaker, though my speech hardly came back fast enough for me. When no one else was available to interpret for me, Don was stuck with the job, thank goodness, since Tori couldn't be around me all the time, and he was. Don didn't stay with me every minute of the day and night, but he stayed enough to make a difference in my speech as well as my other therapies. It was simply easier if he was there to translate for me, and he translated a lot. Few people understood me except for Don, and Tori, even the well-trained personnel. It was very frustrating, and remains one of the most frustrating aspects of my new life. I had never before realized how 'talky' the world is.
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