Brain Damage, page 7
part #2 of Prescription: Murder Series
Recently, Amy started letting me have food that wasn’t completely mush. It’s very exciting. I can have sandwiches, for example, but they can only have cheese or tuna salad in them—nothing really hard or difficult to chew or swallow like chicken or beef. If I do want meat, it has to be mushy, unfortunately. Maybe I’ll become a vegetarian.
The really, really exciting thing though is that I get to have water. I really missed being able to drink water. I felt like my mouth was always dry and yucky before.
I feel like I could just drink water all day. I could drink the ocean. And not just a small ocean, like the Arctic Ocean. I could drink the Pacific.
A lot of the people in the hallway right now are old. Most of them have thinning hair, and what little hair they have is white or gray. They are all wrinkly, and have bleary, watery eyes. Plus they are all really deaf, so when they try to talk to me, they usually don’t hear what I say back. It’s sort of depressing.
Maybe I should tell them to readjust my position so that all the old people are on my left, so I don’t have to see them.
Directly to my right is one guy who seems a little younger. He is maybe in his thirties. His brown hair is shaved short like mine, which I guess has something to do with the staples punched into the left side of his skull. But unlike me, he still has his skull. Otherwise, he’d be wearing a helmet like I am.
The guy is eating some cut-up pieces of meat, and I can’t help but watch. He’s really not doing very well at feeding himself. He’s actually horrible at it. He’s able to spear the meat with his fork, but after that, his hand seems to go all over the place, when it’s obvious that he’d like it to go to his mouth. He does eventually get the food in there, but it takes a while. I feel bad for him because it looks really frustrating.
As he’s chewing, the guy realizes that I’m watching him. He turns to me, blinking his brown eyes. He isn’t super handsome in the same way that my husband is, but he’s cute and I like the way he looks. He looks like he’d be a nice person, like he’d have a friendly smile.
“What are you looking at, Helmet Girl?” the guy snaps at me.
Okay, maybe he’s not so nice.
I look away, back down at my own sandwich. I know that I’m not supposed to be staring at someone else. But I don’t want to look at the depressing old people, and there really isn’t all that much else to look at in the hallway, so almost right away, my eyes get drawn back to the guy with shaky hands. Now he’s trying to get open what looks like a container of cream cheese. It takes him a minute, but then he’s got the cover off. I watch as he digs his fingers into the soft, white cheese.
I thought for sure he was going to eat the cream cheese, especially considering it’s obvious he hasn’t eaten much yet for lunch. But instead, he starts smearing it on his cheeks like warpaint. He’s actually much better at doing this than he is at feeding himself.
He’s emptied almost the entire container of cream cheese onto his face before a nurse whose ID badge reads Betty notices what he’s been up to.
“Jamie!” Betty exclaims. “What did you do to yourself?”
His name must be Jamie. He blinks innocently. There’s cream cheese in his eyelashes. “What do you mean?”
“There’s cream cheese all over your face,” Betty says accusingly.
Jamie glances in my direction. “Helmet Girl did it.”
Before I can have a chance to protest my innocence, Betty studies me and shakes her head. “Nice try, Jamie,” she says. She holds out her open palm to him. “Give me the cream cheese container.”
Jamie grins at her. I was right—he does have a nice smile. “I don’t have it.”
Betty’s voice becomes more stern: “Where is it then?”
“It’s in my butt,” he reports very seriously.
I start to laugh. Hard enough that I almost start choking on the water I worked so hard to be allowed to have.
“That’s not funny,” Betty says.
“Helmet Girl thinks it’s funny,” Jamie says. He winks at me.
Betty folds her arms across her chest and taps her foot angrily. After a few seconds, Jamie pulls out the package of cream cheese from the seat of his wheelchair, and throws it in her general direction. It misses her by about two feet and lands on the floor.
Betty sighs and scoops up the package of cream cheese from the floor. “Come on,” she says to him. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I watch as Betty wheels him away. Lunch in the hallway really isn’t so bad.
Chapter 14
Two and a Half Months After
Today is my first day of Walking Group.
I’m very excited to be in Walking Group. So far, I haven’t gotten to do much walking. Mostly, I’ve been stuck in my wheelchair. We’ve done a little bit of standing, and taking a few very careful steps in my room. But that’s about it.
I’m assuming we’re going to do a lot of walking in Walking Group. After all, it’s called “Walking Group.”
Walking Group is held in a small gymnasium, which has large windows on either side that pour light into the room. There are four other people in Walking Group, and we gather together at ten in the morning, forming a semi-circle with our wheelchairs. The first thing I saw when an aide pushed me into the room was a set of parallel bars, like the kind I used to use when I took ballet class when I was a kid.
“Are we going to do ballet here?” I asked in surprise.
It’s not that I didn’t want to do ballet, but I just didn’t really see the point. If I can’t even walk yet, what good would it do for me to be able to plié?
A small woman in green scrubs with straight brown hair pulled into a ponytail smiled down at me. “We’re not going to do ballet,” she said. “Those bars are to help balance during walking.”
That made a lot more sense, I guess.
The woman with straight brown hair turns out to be named Natalie, and she is joined by a young black man named Steve, who is also wearing green scrubs. They start together on the far right, helping us to walk one by one.
I recognize only two other people in the group. One is an older woman, part of the deaf old person crew that populates the hallway. The other is that guy Jamie, the one who smeared cream cheese all over his face. I wasn’t sure if he would recognize me, but then after a minute of my sitting next to him, he says, “Hey, it’s Helmet Girl.”
So one thing I soon realized about Walking Group is that nobody in Walking Group walks very well. It’s sort of ironic. The first person, an elderly man, needs to use a walker, and even then, Natalie is mostly holding him up. The man keeps leaning more and more forward, until his top half and his bottom half have nearly formed a right angle. When that happens, Natalie yells for Steve to bring her his wheelchair, and they get him to sit back down again. His turn is over.
Jamie goes next. Natalie wheels him over to the parallel bars, and says to Steve, “I’m going to need your help with this one. He’s a lot of work.”
Unlike me, Jamie seems able to move his arms and legs pretty well. But that doesn’t help much when he tries to walk. He’s able to stand without a problem, but then when he tries to take a step, he’s all over the place. He lurches forward drunkenly then nearly falls to the side. He looks like he’s intoxicated, although he clearly isn’t. Natalie and Steve are both straining to keep him upright, even as he grabs onto the parallel bars with his right hand. He takes a few steps then they carefully lower him back into his wheelchair.
“Wow, that was terrible,” I comment.
Too late, I realize how mean of a thing to say that was. Sometimes I honestly don’t know what I’m about to say until the words are already out of my mouth.
Jamie whips his head around to glare at me. His ears are bright red. “Let’s see you do better.”
Natalie wheels me over to the parallel bars for my turn. I feel a twinge of excitement in my stomach.
“Do you need my help?” Steve asks Natalie.
Natalie looks at me thoughtfully. “She’s small,” she says. “I think we’ll probably be okay.”
Natalie guides my right hand to the parallel bars. I close my fist around the cold metal. She instructs me to stand up, so I try, but I immediately start pitching forward. Natalie catches me then helps me onto my feet.
“Steve!” Natalie gasps. “You have to help me!”
Steve rushes over, and between the two of them, they keep me upright. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing wrong. Natalie keeps telling me that I have to try to stand up straight, that I am leaning too much to the left, but I’m trying to stand up straight the best I can. When they tell me I’m completely straight, that’s when I feel like I’m going to fall over to the side.
It takes several minutes and all we manage to do is just stand up. I don’t even get to take a step. By the time Natalie and Steve lower me back down into my seat, I can see a line of sweat along Natalie’s forehead. It’s definitely a disappointing start to Walking Group.
“Oh my God,” Natalie says, shaking her head. “That was really hard. I don’t know if she’s ready to be in this group.”
Oh no, no, no! I don’t want to leave Walking Group! I don’t want to be stuck in my stupid wheelchair all the time! Please let me stay!
I want to beg Natalie to give me another chance, but I don’t. I just sit there silently, biting my lip as Natalie and Steve talk about me, deciding if I should be allowed to stay. Finally, they agree to let me have a few days to see if I improve.
When Natalie wheels me back to my spot in the semicircle, Jamie’s brown eyes meet mine. I expect him to make a comment on how badly I did. I would deserve it. For a lot of reasons.
But he doesn’t say a word.
Chapter 15
Three Months After
My favorite of all my therapies is speech therapy. It’s the only one I really look forward to.
My speech therapy sessions with Amy are usually held in my room. We sit by the window, me in my wheelchair, Amy in a regular chair, with a rolling table between us. Every day, we start our session with the same set of questions.
“Where are we, Charly?” Amy asks me.
“We’re in a rehab hospital,” I reply.
Amy smiles. “Very good. And what’s the date?”
“March sixth,” I say.
Except the only reason I know is that it’s written on the whiteboard hanging from the wall in my room. And pretty much everywhere I go, somebody has written down the date. And people are constantly asking me what the date is. So it would be almost impossible not to know at this point.
I pointed out to Amy once that I just look up at the wall to tell her the date, and she said it was okay, that I wasn’t cheating. She said just knowing where to look for the date was pretty good.
“Great!” Amy exclaims. She makes a note on her clipboard. “And why are you here in the hospital?”
This is the part I always have trouble with. I’m not entirely sure why.
“I got hurt,” I say.
“What part of your body did you hurt?”
“My head.”
“And how did you hurt it?”
I lower my eyes because I know I’m about to give the wrong answer. “I fell.”
“No, Charly,” she says. “You got shot. In the head.”
I guess the reason I have trouble with this part is that I don’t believe it. How could I have been shot? I’m just a normal person. Normal people don’t get shot. Only police officers or criminals or people in the movies get shot.
“Who shot me?” I ask her.
Amy gets very busy all of a sudden making notes on her clipboard. “I’m not really sure.”
As I watch her scribble on the clipboard, I suddenly remember a conversation I had with my mother yesterday.
“Was it a burglar?” I ask.
Amy puts down her clipboard. Her blue eyes are wide. “Why do you say that? Do you remember something?”
I shake my head. “No, that’s just what my mom told me.”
Amy sighs and shakes her head sadly.
The next thing Amy does is whip out a piece of paper from her clipboard. She places the paper on the table between us so that I can see it’s a drawing. I know we’ve done this task before.
“Can you tell me what you see, Charly?” Amy says.
I look down at the black-and-white sketch in front of me. “It’s a mom washing the dishes.”
“Right. Anything else?”
I study the drawing. “The mom is distracted and the sink is overflowing.”
“Anything else?”
I shake my head no.
I already know what Amy is going to do next because the same thing happens every single time. She whips out a bright red ruler and places it on the left side of the drawing. I turn my head to the left, looking for it. Finally, I spot the red. And now that I have it as a guide, I can see the rest of the drawing.
“There are two kids trying to steal the cookie from the cookie jar,” I say. “And the little boy is on a stool that is going to fall over.”
“Good,” Amy says. She leans back in her chair and gets this thoughtful expression on her face. “Charly, why did you say that the woman was a mom?”
“I guess because there are two kids in the picture,” I say with a shrug.
“Yes,” Amy says, “but you couldn’t see the two children until I put the red ruler on the paper.”
“I don’t know then,” I say. “Maybe she just looks like a mother.”
“Or maybe,” Amy says, “your brain was able to see the two children, but you just couldn’t put the whole thing together. Maybe you’re absorbing everything that’s on the left, but you just can’t process it.”
Maybe. I guess it’s possible. But the woman in the drawing really does look like a mom. She has an apron and everything.
_____
There are two parts to every dinner I eat:
First, the aide sets me up in the hallway, so everyone can keep an eye on me, then she puts my tray down in front of me. I eat everything on my tray and let them know that I finished.
Then comes the second part of the meal. When a nurse or nurse’s aide turns my tray around, and all of a sudden, it’s filled with food again.
Right now, I’m on part two of dinner. That guy from my Walking Group, Jamie, is sitting on my right. He’s only out here in the hallway sometimes, but now I wonder if maybe he’s here every time I’m here, but sometimes he’s on my left so I don’t know he’s there.
He’s got a plateful of chicken, cut into pieces, as well as peas on the side of his plate in a big green pile. He’s not much steadier than he was last time I saw him feed himself. Anyway, I’m not sure who thought it was a good idea to give him peas to eat, but it really isn’t. He takes a spoonful of peas and carefully brings it in the direction of his mouth. He actually gets almost all the way there, before his hand jerks in the wrong direction and the peas spill everywhere. Like, all over his plate, his tray, his pants and the floor.
And on top of that, he pokes himself in the eye with the spoon.
That’s when I burst out laughing.
Jamie rubs his eye and glares at me. “You think that’s funny, Helmet Girl?”
“Yes,” I say. Obviously I think it’s funny. I’m laughing.
Jamie puts down his spoon. He reaches over towards his tray with his hand and scoops up a handful of peas. I watch him carefully, wondering if he’s going to start smearing them on his face. But instead, he hurls the handful of peas in my direction.
His aim is actually very good this time.
The peas wind up going everywhere, just like they did to him. A few hit me in the face but most hit me in the chest. My shirt has a pretty wide neck, just in case I need to get it on over the helmet, so several peas go down my shirt and pool in my bra.
“Mr. Knox!” There’s a nurse rushing over to us who apparently saw the whole thing. Maggie, I’m pretty sure her name is. “Did you throw peas at Charlotte?”
“No,” Jamie lies.
I don’t say anything, but then Maggie looks down at his plate and at all of the peas on my shirt. I don’t have any peas in my lunch. She can figure out the truth.
“Tell Charlotte that you’re sorry,” Maggie instructs him.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Jamie insists.
At that moment, an elderly man suddenly appears out of nowhere. Like he just materialized out of thin air. That means he probably came from the left. Also, he’s wearing a checkered shirt and khaki slacks, which means that he’s not a patient because we mostly all wear sweatpants and t-shirts or sometimes jeans. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the visitors from the patients, especially when they’re old.
“What’s going on here?” the elderly man asks.
Maggie shakes her head. “Your son just threw peas at this woman over here.”
“James!” the old man says in a stern voice. “Why did you do that?”
Jamie is quiet for a minute. Maybe deciding if he has any chance of getting away with it. Even I know that he doesn’t though.
Finally, he says, “She started it.”
Maggie shakes her head again. “Trust me,” she says to the old man. “This patient did not start anything with him. She hardly ever even talks.”
“She did!” Jamie insists.
Then he picks up another handful of peas from his plate and throws those at me too. God, they gave him way too many peas.
“James!” his father yells. “You stop that right now!”
Jamie picks up what remains of the peas on his plate. At this point, it’s painfully obvious to everyone what he’s going to do. Maggie grabs his arm and attempts to wrestle the peas away from him. She at least manages to get his fist open, and the peas scatter all over the floor.
Better on the floor than on me.
“God, I’m so sorry,” the old man says to Maggie. “You have to understand, he’s not like this… usually. I mean, before.”
“It’s understandable,” Maggie says as she bends down on the floor to scoop up stray peas. The old man bends down to help her, although it looks like it’s hard for him to get on the floor. “He has a head injury. This behavior is part of the recovery.”
