The Next Day at Rehab

It started to rain shortly before Deb went home and I fell asleep fast, but I was woken up by a loud crack of thunder and a flash of lightning that lit up the entire room. I was lying up in bed and thinking to myself, it is getting rough out there, when suddenly a branch came busting through the window and hit the bed causing me to fall out of bed and hit the floor hard. I was laying on the floor trying to catch my breath when I noticed large amounts of water coming through the window, I thought, damn, it hit a water line. I started yelling for help but in all the chaos no one could hear me. I couldn’t move much and was getting nowhere. I was starting to get tired and could no longer lift my head out of the water, as the water kept rushing in.  I continued yelling in vain. I was starting to suck in water and could no longer get air. I was starting to choke. Suddenly, I woke up. It was just a dream. Thank God!

I sat there in a slight panic listening to it rain. I think I finally realized that being paralyzed was going to really change things. I wondered, what would I do if something like that really happened. For the first time, I was starting to wake up mentally and realized, this was not good!

As I sat there in the dark (well as dark as the hospital room gets) I realized I needed to pee. I didn’t’ have a catheter so I knew I had to hold it. I had been holding it for a while and realized I needed help, so I tried to get a nurse’s attention. They had a buzzer clipped on my shirt, but I had to squeeze it to make it work. The only trouble was I couldn’t squeeze it. Paralyzed! So, I started asking at a normal voice level, “Hay, is anyone out there?  I could sure use some help.”  I would give a short rest between requests and start again. Finally, after three or four times I could not hold it anymore and wet the bed. Not my proudest moment but what was I to do? I kept asking if anyone was out there, but there was no response. After a while a nurse came and was not happy.  She told me to be quiet; no one was going to though a fit on her watch. I tried to explain the situation, but she had none of that and continued bawling me out. “Look what you have done! What a mess, how old are you?”  As she cleaned me up and put on fresh sheet she kept complaining, “This isn’t even supposed to be my shift; I’m just filling in, I feel sorry for the full-time person if they have to deal with this.” Meaning me. I just tried to ignore her and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. She could not find any clean clothes to change me into. So, I had to hear about how unthoughtful my family was and how they must not care about me.

I must say she was resourceful; she found a pair of scrubs that would fit, cut them into shorts and put them on me. The whole time I got to hear about how much scrubs cost.  As well as that I should be ashamed of myself and thankful she found the scrubs.  I was tired so I just ignored her rants and tried to act like I was sleeping but deep down it disappointed me. I remembered the do better speech from that young man at the hospital and I didn’t want to be that guy. I didn’t really see how I was being jerk, but she sure thought I was.

Early the next morning the doctors and nurses started making their rounds. When they came to my room, I wanted to make sure the nurse knew that I was sorry for any misunderstanding and inconvenience.  As they walked in, I looked at the nurse and quickly said, “I’m sorry about last night, I wasn’t trying to be a handful, I just couldn’t squeeze the buzzer to make it work.” She looked embarrassed and the doctor turned and looked at her; he seemed upset. I wasn’t trying to get her in trouble; I just wanted her to know I was sorry. The doctor and the nurse went back out into the hallway leaving his assistant with me. She looked at me and asked how it went last night. I told her that I couldn’t get the buzzer to work and ended up having an accident.  She was sorry to hear that and was very apologetic. She said we have better buzzers and she brought me a new buzzer that was much bigger and all I had to do was push against it. When the doctor came back, he said, “Sounds like it was a rough night.” I laughed and said, “I’ve had better.” He went on with his visit; it didn’t take long. When he left a couple of male nurses came in and put a shirt on me and combed my hair. Then they put a harness on me and winched me out of bed and into a big, long backed wheelchair, strapped me in and put on fuzzy socks with tread on the bottoms; I thought that was funny. “Ok. you’re ready for the day,” one of them said with a smile.  The other was holding my schedule, “looks like you get breakfast first, someone will be in shortly and take you to breakfast.” I never seen that night nurse again.

Breakfast was frustrating at first, there were a lot of us in the cafeteria and only a few nurses, if you needed help you had to wait your turn. So, I became a people watcher and watched everyone. There were so many unwell people that were in as bad or worse shape than I was. I was humbled to see the nurses try to help every one of them, even though I was hungry, I was in no hurry and more than willing to wait my turn. Soon it was my turn and I got to eat. My mom and Deb showed up shortly after I was done, boy, I was glad to see them.

 The rehab center was true to their word they got me straight to a schedule. Each day they changed positions of the sessions. I don’t know what drugs they were giving me but man I was out of it and don’t remember much of the day.  All the sessions were for an hour, and the schedule went as such: speech therapy was first, followed by physical therapy then lunch. After lunch I had occupational therapy, then time for a quick nap. After my nap I had another doctor’s visit. Mom and Deb stayed with me until the end of visiting hour. The nurse came in and gave me my night medications and left me alone to fall asleep

Before I could fall to sleep I seen a dark-haired nurse come in and stand in the corner of the room, she was dressed all purple and very pleasant. She smiled and said, “I’m watching over you tonight.”  It put me at ease knowing she was there and I fell asleep quickly.  I remember waking up a couple times through the night and she was always standing there in the corner.  She seemed like an angel. It was a much better night.