Left Neglected Part 16

"Within reason. Let's be practical, too."

"So I shouldn't wear this?"

I ask. "I wouldn't. I'd pack my b.u.t.ton-down shirts away and wear only pullovers."

I think of my wardrobe full of b.u.t.ton-down shirts, the shirts I wear to work.

"For how long?"

"For now."

I take a mental inventory of the shirts hanging in my closet-Armani, Donna Karan, Grettacole, Ann Taylor- crisp, stylish, expensive, professional, all with b.u.t.tons. And this doesn't even include what's presumably hanging in my closet on the left side. Heidi senses my reluctance to embrace her philosophy.

"It's like when Ben was born, and he had horrible reflux. For months, I had his spit-up on my shoulders, down my back, down my front. It was gross. I had to stop wearing all my dry-clean-only shirts and sweaters for almost a year. It would've cost me a fortune, not to mention all that time driving back and forth to the dry cleaners. I wore all machine-washable cotton instead. It wasn't forever. It was just for that phase of my life. This isn't a b.u.t.ton-down shirt phase for you."

We both look at me in the mirror.

"In fact, it's not a zippered-pants phase either," she says.

It dawns on me that she's not only suggesting that I should say good-bye to all my beautiful work shirts and all of my jeans and trousers, but she's also suggesting that I should get redressed. I should take off my shirt and my jeans, which would also mean taking off my shoes, and start over entirely with some other outfit, and I can't handle even the possible suggestion. I start to cry.

"It's okay. Look, your day is hard enough, right?"

I nod and cry.

"Right. So let's make some simple adjustments where we can. Pullover shirts. Elastic-waistband pants."

Our eyes sidestep over to my mother, who is wearing black synthetic elastic-waist pants and a shapeless white pullover sweater. I cry a little harder.

"I know. I know you're used to looking very stylish and put together. But I think we should go for independence over fashion. Vogue is just going to have to wait to do their photo shoot with you."

Not funny.

"You think I like Crocs?" she says, kicking up one purple rubber foot. "Believe me, I'd much rather be in Jimmy Choos, but they're way too impractical for what I do here."

Heidi hands me a tissue.

"But if I'm trying to get back to one hundred percent, don't I have to practice doing what I was able to do before the accident?"

"Sarah, I hope that happens. I hope you get back to a hundred percent. But you might not. Instead of only focusing on getting better, you might want to also focus on getting better at living with this."

I've gotten used to hearing and ignoring this kind of defeated, negative att.i.tude from Martha, but can't believe I'm now hearing this from Heidi, my ally, my friend.

"I know that's a really hard thing to accept, but it'll help your situation so much if you can."

There it is again. Accept the situation. Are she and my mother drinking the same Kool-Aid? Accept. Adjust. Those words don't sing to me at all. In fact, I have a hard time even considering those words without hearing Give up. Lose. Fail. Accept and Adjust. Give up. Lose. Fail.

What about the poster? Att.i.tude. Fist. Fight. I clench my fist and sniffle.

"So are you saying I have to start over?" I ask, referring to what I'm now wearing.

"No, of course not. But for tomorrow, Helen, let's pick out something simpler, okay?"

"Okay," says my mother.

"Anything left to do with getting dressed?" asks Heidi.

"My watch."

My mother hands Heidi my Cartier watch, and Heidi pa.s.ses it to me. But instead of beginning the long process of putting it on, I compare it to the watch on Heidi's wrist. Hers is a pink plastic sports watch, digital, with no buckle. It's shaped like the letter C and appears to simply hook around her wrist like a horseshoe rings around a post. And I have an idea.

"Wanna trade?" I ask, like we're in elementary school, and I'm offering her my tuna for her PB&J.

"No, Sarah, yours is-"

"Too complicated," I say.

"Expensive," she says.

"A daily source of aggravation. I need a degree from MIT to work the clasp."

"I couldn't," she says, but I can tell she's considering it. "This is like a thirty-dollar watch. Your mother or Bob could order one for you."

"Yeah, but I want to do this now. What about that speech you just made? Accept and adjust. I think this is a pink plastic watch phase for me."

A smile sneaks into her eyes.

"Okay, but when you want this back, you just tell me."

"Deal."

Heidi replaces my diamond-and-platinum Cartier with her pink plastic watch. I hold the edge of the opening in my right hand, find my diamond ring on my left, and in one lucky try, I slap her watch onto my left wrist. I even read the time. 11:12. My mother claps.

"Wow, Sarah, this is really gorgeous," Heidi says, admiring her upgrade. "You sure about this?"

I think about all the agonizing minutes I just saved.

Accept and Adjust.

You're giving up. You're going to lose. You're going to fail.

Att.i.tude. Fist. Fight.

"I'm sure. But I don't care what you say or how hard I have to work, I'm never asking for your Crocs."

She laughs.

"Deal."

Don't worry, I'm not giving up, I tell my conflicted self. Sometimes I'm just too exhausted to fight.

CHAPTER 16.

Meditation has been added to the list of rehabilitation techniques that may or may not help me return to my old life. So I meditate. Well, I try. I've never had any inclination to meditate, and even beyond that really, I can't imagine why anyone would want to. To me, meditation sounds a whole lot like doing nothing. I don't do nothing. I pack every second of every day with something that can get done. Have five minutes? Send an email. Read the school notices. Throw in a load of laundry. Play peek-a-boo with Linus. Got ten? Return a phone call. Outline the agenda for a meeting. Read a performance evaluation. Read a book to Lucy. Sit with my eyes closed and breathe without planning, organizing, or accomplishing anything? I don't think so.

So when I envision someone who meditates, it isn't anyone like me. Most often, I picture an old, bald Buddhist monk sitting erect on a bamboo mat in an ancient temple somewhere in Tibet, his eyes closed, his expression wise and serene, like he holds the secret to inner peace. While I admire my imaginary monk's ability to achieve this apparent state of contentment, I'll bet my right side he doesn't have three kids, two mortgages, and four thousand consultants to manage.

But now I don't have any emails, phone calls, school notices, or laundry to deal with (no laundry being one of the few perks of living in a rehabilitation hospital), and the kids aren't here. Baldwin's no Buddhist temple, but I'm still sort of bald, and I've got buckets of time. Plus, I've started to worry that too much daytime television might be damaging the rest of my brain. So I'm giving meditation a try.

Heidi says it will help to increase my concentration, which I could definitely use more of. Before the accident, I could focus on at least five things at once. I was a mult.i.tasking genius with plenty of surplus brainpower to spread around. If concentrating on five things at once before the accident required five gallons of brain fuel, one gallon per thing, now I need four gallons of brain fuel to simply be aware of the left side, leaving only one gallon of fuel to concentrate on only one thing. And then I'm completely out of gas. So I could use some more focus. And meditation might also help to reduce my blood pressure and anxiety levels, both of which are unhealthily and unproductively high.

So here I go. I close my eyes.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on my breath. Breathe. Nothing else. Focus. Breathe. Oh, I have to remember to tell my mother to put a few blankets under one end of Linus's crib mattress to help him breathe. Bob says he's got a horrible head cold. I hate it when the kids are sick, and they don't know how to blow their noses. How old were the other two when they learned?

Poor Linus. He's probably going to be sick with something from now until May. I swear, once the winter coats come out of the closets, someone in our house is always sick. All those kids in school and day care sneezing and coughing all over one another, drooling on the toys, wiping their runny noses with their hands and touching each other, touching the water bubbler spigots with their mouths, sharing toys and snacks and germs. So gross.

Poor Linus. I should also tell my mother to run the shower as hot as it can get and let Linus breathe in the steam. That'll help. I miss our shower. The one here barely has any pressure and doesn't stay hot for long enough.

I miss our bath towels. Thick, soft, luxurious Turkish cotton. And they smell like heaven, especially when they're right out of the dryer. The ones here are thin and stiff and smell too strongly of industrial bleach. I should ask Bob to bring me a bath towel.

Wait. What am I doing? Stop thinking about bath towels. Stop thinking. Quiet. Breathe. Observe your breath. Meditate. I'm having a hard time with this. I'm having a hard time with everything. I don't think I've ever worked this hard at anything and not succeeded. I'm not succeeding. I'm failing. I'm not accepting and adjusting. I'm just failing. I can't let Bob see me fail. Or work. How will either of them tolerate me if I don't get back to the way I was before this? I have to recover from this. Work won't take me back unless I recover from this. I don't blame them. I wouldn't take me back either.

What about Bob? Will he take me back? Of course he will. He'd look like a real jerk if he left his brain-injured wife. But he doesn't deserve a brain-injured wife. He married his partner, not someone he has to dress and provide for and take care of for the rest of his life. He didn't sign up for this. I'll be his cross to bear, and he'll resent me. He'll be stuck with a brain-injured wife to take care of, and he'll be miserable and exhausted and lonely, and he'll have an affair, and I won't blame him.

Wait, can I even have s.e.x with this? I think I can. I should be able to. All the necessary parts are right down the middle. Thank G.o.d I don't have a left v.a.g.i.n.a to try to find. But will Bob even want to have s.e.x with me like this? Sometimes I drool out of the left side of my mouth and don't know it. That's real attractive. And I can't shave either armpit or my left leg. I'm a drooling, hairy Chia Pet who can't walk. Bob and I were barely having s.e.x before this happened. What's going to happen now? What if he stays with me out of obligation, and we never have s.e.x again?

Sarah, stop. Stop all this negative thinking. This isn't helping. Be positive. Maybe the average person doesn't recover, or maybe even most people don't recover, but some people do. You can do this. Remember Att.i.tude. Fight. You can get better. It's still possible. Don't give up. Breathe. Focus. Clear your thoughts.

You're right. Breathe. Focus. Breathe. Who am I kidding? I'm so far from better. Better is a tiny village buried somewhere deep in the Amazon rain forest, not on any map. Good luck getting there. Good luck getting anywhere. I can't even walk yet. Linus is more capable than I am. Bob says he's already cruising around the coffee table. And I'm still dragging myself between the parallel bars as Martha commands my every labored move. Linus is going to walk before I do, and I'm not going to be home to see him take his first steps. Not that I was there to see Charlie or Lucy take their first steps. I was at work. But still. I want to go home.

Stop thinking! You're supposed to be meditating. You're not going home now. You have nowhere to go and nothing to do. Just be here. Breathe. Think of nothing. Blank wall. Picture a blank wall. Breathe. Didn't you always dream of having this kind of downtime to relax and catch your breath?

Yeah, but I didn't dream of having a brain injury in order to have the chance to sit and think about nothing in the middle of the day. That's kind of a high price to pay for a little R&R, don't you think? I could've just gone to a spa for a weekend.

Sarah, you're wandering again. You're all over the place.

Is this what it feels like to be Charlie? I bet it is. Bob took him to the doctor yesterday without me. That was hard, to not be there. I can't believe he's being evaluated for Attention Deficit Disorder. Please don't let him have it. But I almost wish that he does have it. At least that would explain why he's having such a hard time. And if he has it, then there's something we can do for him other than yell at him all the time. Yeah, but that something is to medicate him. We're going to drug Charlie so he can pay attention. I don't even want to think about it.

h.e.l.lo? Don't think about it! You're not supposed to be thinking about anything. Stop thinking.

Sorry.

Don't be sorry. Be quiet. Turn it off. Picture turning off the switch.

You're right. Stop thinking. Breathe. In. Out. Good. In. Out. Good, I'm doing it. Keep doing it.

Okay, stop cheering for yourself, though. You're not your mother.

Thank G.o.d. How long is she going to hang around? Why is she here? Doesn't she have a life to get back to on the Cape? Probably not. She checked out of her life when Nate was six and drowned in the neighbor's pool. So why does she suddenly want to be a part of mine? She can't just suddenly decide to be my mother and pay attention to me after all these years. Where was she when I needed her before? No, she had her chance to be my mother when I needed one. But I really do need her now. But I won't. As soon as I'm better, I won't need her, and then she can go back to the Cape where she belongs, and I can go back to my life where I belong, and we can both go back to not needing each other. And that will be better for everyone.

I open my eyes. I sigh. I grab the remote and click on the TV. I wonder who's on Ellen today.

CHAPTER 17.

It's just after 10:00 a.m., and I'm already having a really bad day. I tried calling Bob a few minutes ago, but he didn't answer. I wonder if he knows.

I'm in the gym, sitting at the puzzles and games table, tasked with transferring the red plastic beads from the white cereal bowl on my right to the invisible cereal bowl on my left with the spoon I'm holding in my left hand. My right arm is bent at the elbow and wrapped in a sling, immobilized against my chest. Constraint-induced therapy is supposed to help me resist the urge to use my right hand, and because we've eliminated the compet.i.tion, this is supposed to help me feel more comfortable choosing to use my left hand. But mostly, it just makes me feel like a woman with no arms.

Even before I had to face straitjacket therapy, I was feeling upset and utterly demoralized. After some meeting my medical team had without me earlier this morning, it was decided that I will be going home in three days. It actually wasn't so much decided by them as it was ceremoniously rubber-stamped. My insurance carrier figured out long before my accident through some cost-benefit outcome a.n.a.lysis, not unlike the kinds of a.n.a.lyses many of the Berkley consultants are likely running on Excel spreadsheets for various companies right now, that I'd be going home in three days. It was predetermined by the intersection of some billing code and the code for my medical condition, with only marginal consideration given to my progress or lack thereof. Or maybe it was determined all along by the intersection of Venus retrograde in Scorpio. Whatever the faceless bureaucratic or mystical reason, this is my fate. I'm going home in three days.

While my medical team delivered the good news to me in super-cheery voices and faces dressed in community theatre smiles, I sat silent, stunned, expressionless. Here I am, sitting in a rehabilitation bed in a rehabilitation hospital, working hard every day in my rehabilitation sessions, all the while thinking I would be here until I was rehabilitated. As it turns out, this was never the case. And the joke's on me.

Here's what I learned this morning. In the world of rehabilitation hospitals, if a patient's condition is slipping downhill, the patient stays. Everyone believes, We must save her. Alternatively, if the patient is making significant strides toward wellness, the patient stays. Everyone hopes, We can still save her. Acceleration either up- or downhill means more rehab. But standing still with nothing but miles of flat terrain on the horizon means the patient is going home. Everyone agrees, Don't waste your time. She can't be saved. If the road to recovery plateaus, insurance will no longer pay the bill, which, by the way, is about as steep as the hill I've been trying to climb.

I should be thrilled. I'm going home in three days. In time for my wedding anniversary and Christmas. I'm going home. I've been praying for this day. I should feel triumphant. But instead, knots of terrified uncertainty are pulling tight inside my stomach, and I feel like throwing up. They're done with me here. My insurance company has deemed that my rehabilitation effort here is no longer a wise investment. She can't be saved.

This can't be it. There has to be more for me. I can walk on my own, but barely and only if I use the cane they gave me. The cane they gave me is one of those hospital-grade, stainless steel granny canes, the kind with the four rubber-capped feet. My cane is wearing Crocs, for G.o.d's sake. Not cool. There's nothing subtle about my quad cane. It's a cane that screams, Look out, I have a serious brain injury! I hate it, and I want to learn to walk without it.

I still can't read the left side of a page without lots of correcting and prompting and reminding to use my L-shaped red bookmark. Scan left, find the left margin, keep going until you find the red bookmark. I'm still not getting dressed without a.s.sistance. I need help with brushing my teeth and showering. How am I going to take care of my kids and my house? How am I going to do my job? I can't even release the spoon I'm holding in my left hand without professional coaching. I want the insurance a.n.a.lyst who determined my length of stay to come over here right now and look me in the eye while I point my spoon at his head and threaten, "Do I look rehabilitated to you?"

Martha explained to me that I'll continue working at home on the techniques I've learned here. Heidi a.s.sured me that I'll meet with other therapists doing the same kind of work on an outpatient basis. Dr. Nelson, the doctor here who oversees my care, said, The brain's a funny thing. You never know. And he went to medical school for these words of wisdom.

None of what they're telling me sounds like good news. It all sounds a bit vague and dismissive, less intensive, less committed to my progress, less committed to a belief in my progress. It sounds like I'm no longer on the road to recovery. It sounds instead like I've been detoured onto some slow, c.r.a.ppy dead-end road that leads to an abandoned, boarded-up building where everyone has given up on me.

The knots inside my stomach twist and squeeze. I lose my concentration and spill a spoonful of red beads. The beads spin and bounce and roll off the table. As I listen to them scatter across the linoleum floor and consider the thought of scooping out another spoonful, the twisting and squeezing dissolves into an acidic hot anger, scorching a hole through my stomach, seeping into every inch of me. I can even feel it burning into my left hand. I want to throw the spoon, but I can't undo my own kung fu grip, so instead I squeeze the spoon as hard as I can, and I feel my fingernails dig into the tender palm of my hand. It hurts, and I think I might even be bleeding, but I can't unfold my hand to see.

"I'm not doing this anymore. I want to go back to my room."

"It's okay. Just load another spoonful. You're doing great," says Martha.

What's the point? How is this ridiculous task going to change anything? Why don't I just go home today? What is three more days in this prison going to do for me? Nothing. It's been determined. She can't be saved.