Moving Forward in Reverse (2 page)

Laying his hand on my shoulder once more, he said, ‘Your mother
and step-father should be here soon. Rest.’ With two pats of his hand he said
farewell for now and strode from my room, on to the next critical patient.

~~~

I was thankful for the lonesome reprieve. This was all too much. I
couldn’t – didn’t want to – process it all. I glanced down at my body and my
eyes once again fell on what was left of my arms. They were so thin. When I had
last seen them, my arms had been layered with conditioned, lean muscle. And now
they were. . . I felt wetness on my face and instinctually thought to wipe it
away but the mental instruction went unheard. I didn’t even have enough muscle
to lift my arms, nor any hands to wipe away the tears.

Unable to prevent it any longer, I surrendered to the sobs, lying
motionless as they wracked my decimated body. Tears streamed from my eyes,
clogging my nose and sliding into the corners of my open mouth. I gagged
against the tube in my throat, needing to cough and sputter. Everything was so
wrong. It was like going to sleep one man and waking up another. My last
memories were of a healthy, thirty-five-year-old collegiate soccer coach in the
best shape of his life. And now I was this atrophied, amputated semblance of
that man. What future could I hope to have now?

I sobbed through thoughts of what I had lost and how little I had
to look forward to. This was not how my life was supposed to go. I had done
everything right – worked hard; trained hard  – and yet here I was,
ravaged and heartlessly ripped from the life I had built for myself, the future
I had planned. It was infuriating. Unacceptable.

By the time the sobs and the
fear and the anger and the desperation had relinquished me from their
persecution, I was thoroughly exhausted and could do nothing more than sleep.
Minutes or hours slid by while I dozed. So abysmal was my sleep that I didn’t
even hear them enter, only realizing company was here when a timid hand fell
across my shoulder.

When I resisted, it shook me,
dragging me from my peaceful slumber and back to the caustic reality that had
suddenly become my own. I heard the beep-beep-beep of the machines and felt the
plastic tube swelling in my throat.

No
, I silently pleaded, not
ready to open my eyes to whatever awaited me.
Please, just leave me alone.
As foolish as it was, a part of me had hoped that I’d wake up and this would
all be nothing but a dream. I was tired of reemerging from unconsciousness to a
damaged body and an unfamiliar world.

The hand shook me again and
someone called my name softly from my right. Unable to procrastinate any longer
lest they start to think I truly was comatose again, I slowly opened my eyes.
Light blared from above with such intensity I thought I could hear it screaming
in my ears. I grunted – though no sound came from my lips – and winced,
squinting my eyes into protective slits. As my pupils adjusted to the harshness
of my surroundings, I cautiously peered in the direction of the hand which had
woken me.

If it had been just about
anyone else standing beside me in that moment, I think I would have cried out
in frustration at still being in a hospital surrounded by strangers. But this
time, it was a cluster of familiar faces that beamed at me from above. I looked
from one to the next: Mom with the same dark complexion and curly brown hair I
remembered standing beside my stepfather, Don, in his usual plaid shirt and
tan, suspendered slacks to my right; and my older sister, Nancy, a taller
version of our mother with dark brown hair cut at her neckline leaning against
her husband, Jim, his kind eyes smirking at me from behind the aviator lenses
of his eyeglasses, to my left.

As I gazed from one
wonderfully familiar face to the next, all I could think was pure joy.

Don grinned down at me while
my mom leaned over and kissed my forehead. She stroked my hair with a slight
tremor in her hand and bit her lip on a whimper. My eyes swept across their
faces again and again, giddily hopping from one to the next like a kid at a candy
store: some of this and a bit of that; some of these and a lot of those. Not
even the tension evident in their expressions or the way their smiles seemed to
stretch the skin around their eyes a little too thin could diminish the elation
I felt at seeing them.

You have no idea how glad I
am you’re here,
I thought and swiveled my eyes to the left where Nancy and Jim
were standing bunched together.
I really didn’t know what I’d do if it had
been another nurse or doctor who woke me up. Heck, I’d probably clamp my eyes
shut and never open them again.

I stared at them, smiling
internally with every ounce of my being, laughing to myself at my meager
attempt at humor. But their faces stayed the same: smiling with their mouths,
pleading with their eyes. I looked at Jim, his face a plaster mask of moral
support, then back to Nancy, watching me with too much intensity, her hand a
vice grip around Jim’s forearm. I cringed and for a brief moment wished yet
again that I had never opened my eyes. I didn’t need their fake optimism or
coddling expressions.

Watching Nancy’s eyes blink a
little too often, though, I realized the smiles were as much for them as they
were for me. If not for fake optimism we would have been a room of sobbing,
blubbering hopelessness and that’d be beneficial to no one. I couldn’t fault
them for trying to keep their faces dry when I was sure countless tears had
already been shed on my behalf over the past few weeks.

These weeks were probably
harder on them than they had been on me,
I mused and felt the gut-wrenching remorse of a
traitor. For all those agonizing moments when death loomed, and the days the
doctors sagged in their lab coats as they whispered that I probably wouldn’t
make it, I had been asleep. I could have slipped away none the wiser, sheltered
from my suffering by a medically-induced coma while they were left to grieve.

I couldn’t imagine the terror
they must have experienced at never knowing; at being stranded in a perpetual
state of uncertainty and fear of hope while I remained oblivious to it all. How
many times had they stood like this around me as I slept? Watching, waiting,
wishing. How many times had they already donned these delusively capable
facades for each other’s sakes?

I sought frantically for a
way to lighten the mood. In situations such as this, I was often the humor
relief, armed to the teeth with sarcastic quips. But now, when my humor was
needed most, I was left completely inept. I had woken from the coma and lived
through the flesh-eating disease, but I couldn’t offer a single word of solace
to my family. It was infuriating! I wanted to bite down on the damn tube
obtruding on my throat. To grind it to tiny, unidentifiable fragments for
making me so powerless.

My frustration must have been
evident in my eyes because as I was turning my gaze towards the ceiling in
aggravation, Jim sputtered from my left.

‘You’re not looking so good.’
When I swung my eyes to look at him Nancy was frowning with disapproval. I
could tell by the self-satisfied expression on his face that his smart-ass
comment had been a calculated move, intended to lighten my mood and bridge the
chasm between us all. And it had.

My anger slackened as my eyes
creased in good humor and my lips strained against the mouth guard securing the
intubation tube in an attempt to grin.
Still look better than you, old man,
I
mentally quipped as I sent out a silent thank you to the brother-in-law who
always had my back. It still stung that someone else had to fill my role in the
family, but at least I had people I could rely on to do so.

Postures slackened. My mom
frowned across the bed at Jim but there was a smile lighting her eyes. Don just
grinned and Nancy caught on when she met my eyes and saw gratitude in place of
hurt. The air lost its stifling weight as everyone began to breathe easier.
They were no longer standing by my death bed, ready to say their good-byes, and
yet it wasn’t easy to relinquish the sense of impending loss that seemed to
fill the room.
Perhaps they are still grieving – not for my death but for what
I had to give up to get here.

Nancy leaned in to kiss my
left cheek, straightening up with her signature big-sister smile: compassion,
protectiveness, and authoritative disapproval of a little brother who just
can’t get anything right all wrapped into a doting package. I loved that smile.
Mom just stood where she was for a while, staring at me as she fought a
precarious battle against the onslaught of tears brimming in her eyes. The
weeks had worn on her, of this I was sure. I would have given anything for the
ability to reassure her in that moment. But gagged and paralyzed, I could only
stare back at her, hoping my eyes could convey even a fraction of what I longed
to say.

Don’t cry, Mom. I’m alive!
See? I’ll be fine. Please don’t hurt any more.

‘We, uh, ran into Lindy on
the way in,’ Don said, drawing everyone’s attention from the pains and sorrows
of yesterday back to the new prospects of today. ‘You met Lindy, right? I think
she said she was in here when you woke up.’ He glanced at my mom. She dipped her
chin once in a hitched nod of confirmation.

‘She said that tube in your
throat’s going to come out tomorrow,’ Don continued. ‘Sometime in the morning.’

As if on cue, the nurse from
earlier stepped into the room. I watched her move to the end of my bed, smiling
– a bona fide smile with creased cheeks and dancing eyes – at the people
clustered around me. Never had I felt such relief at seeing an honestly upbeat
expression. I could have sworn even the machines lessened their grating peals
at her presence.

So
this
was Lindy.

Motion from my right drew my
attention briefly and I glanced over in time to see my mom slinking out of my
line of vision with one hand raised to her face.
Perfect timing, Lindy.

‘How’re we all doing in
here?’ Lindy asked in a slight Southern drawl. And after a short-lived round of
good’s and fine-thank-you’s, added, ‘You look like a man who is well-loved,
Scott.’ Three sets of eyes returned to me, their expressions palpable
verification for Lindy’s statement.

‘Did you hear that the key to
pulling Scott out of the coma was a bunch of lanky women in bikinis?’ Lindy
proffered.

What?

‘It’s true,’ she added when
four quizzical faces and one set of narrowed, skeptical eyes turned in her
direction. ‘I had ESPN on, as always, and they were airing a women’s beach
volleyball tournament. I think I even said something to Scott about how he was
missing out and needed to see the show, then I turned around, and what do you
know? His eyes were open! If I had known all he was waiting for were some girls
to show a little skin, I’d have tuned it to a channel other than ESPN long
ago.’

Ha. Ha. Ha,
I thought.
Real funny.
Pick on the guy who can’t fight back, why don’t you?
But as I looked around
the room at the smiles and chuckles, I knew Lindy’s story had finished what
Jim’s comment had started. It seemed as though the room itself finally released
its consummate breath and was at last ready to move on.

Just as everyone was
beginning to slacken their reserve, Dr. Henrickson strode into the room and
took up his post at the foot of my bed. I felt an involuntary surge of dread at
the memory of what his last visit had done to my concept of my reality: But
quick to allay it was a flicker of hope.
Will you finally tell me if I’m
expected to walk again, doc?

‘Hello,’ he said, eyes
surveying the small crowd gathered in my room. ‘Everything seems to be going
well in here. I thought now would be a good time to lay out the plan for the
next few days while you all are in attendance.’

Like a well-trained militia,
the people stationed around my bed came to attention at Dr. Henrickson’s
summons. Everyone was eager to hear what was in store for my future, but none
so much as I. I had a college soccer program to get back to and by my calculations,
it was now August, which meant preseason training was about to get underway.

‘First,’ Dr. Henrickson
began, ‘I anticipate the intubation tube to be removed sometime tomorrow
morning. Your kidneys seem to be in good shape, Scott. We’re going to do one
more day of dialysis treatment with the expectation that you’ll be producing
urine on your own afterwards. If that is the case, then you will have made it
past the renal failure.’ I felt a clench in my chest and clamminess in my palms
that was reminiscent of starting a college exam at this first big test of my
recovery. Then everything went still as I realized my error.

I have no hands to become
clammy.

So this was a phantom
sensation. I wobbled on the edge of a mental cliff as I sat with that thought for
a second. Lean too far one way and I’d fall into thin air, but too far the
other would cause me to crash into the hard ground. I couldn’t contemplate
these things right now, not when I was on the cusp of moving forward. As I
forced my attention back to Dr. Henrickson, I resolved not to allow myself to
dwell on the negatives – as many as there may be. If it couldn’t aid my
recovery, it had no business taking up my time. Of course, this was easy to
commit oneself to when surrounded by family and optimisms for one’s recovery.

‘He’s out of the woods in
terms of the infection, Betty,’ Dr. Henrickson told my mom. ‘Now the next step
is to focus on getting Scott strong enough to transfer to the rehabilitation
unit.’

Turning to me he added, ‘The
road is still long, Scott. While your body was fighting off the infection your
muscles atrophied severely. I estimate you’ve dropped around forty pounds, most
of it muscle. It won’t be easy rebuilding what you’ve lost...’ He let his words
drift off. They hovered, faded, and were lost to silence, but the tacit vote of
confidence hung in the air as perceivable as that which was said.

‘How long do you estimate
before he can be transferred?’ Mom asked. She was watching Dr. Henrickson with
such intensity it was almost frightening. There was a reserve in her expression
and desperation in the forward set of her shoulders, but her eyes were alight
with a determination I knew well.

‘Two to three weeks,’ he
replied, then turned to me once again. ‘But with the right patient - sooner.’

I met his eyes and held them.
Yes, sir.
His meaning was clear: A challenge had been issued and I had
every intention of rising to the occasion. I had been in this godforsaken bed
for long enough. The sooner I could place myself cleanly on the road to
recovery the better.

‘I’m sorry to send you all
away so soon, but Scott does need to rest. Tomorrow, though, you’re welcome to
return.’