A Slow Recovery

Bev almost died. There’s no doubt about that.

She spent three days in ICU, doing little more than laying still and suffering excruciating pain (that’s an understatement; that’s all she did), while I sat on, leaving only long enough to take care of our dogs and get a bit to eat every now and again. And to sleep.

I didn’t call in to work for a few days, only reminded to do so when I heard the message from my boss, enquiring as to Bev’s status. When I did, he wasn’t at his desk, so I left a message on his machine: “Yeah, as you know, Bev had an accident. She hit her head and bled in her skull. She’s in ICU. So, I won’t be in for a while. Put me down for Emergency Leave, or Sick, or Holidays or AWOL. Whatever. I won’t be calling you every day to tell you that I won’t be in. I’ll probably be back once Bev’s out of ICU. I don’t know when that will be. Maybe Thursday. Maybe not then… I don’t know. I’ll have to see how things go. I have to go.” And I hung up and went back to the hospital.

It was a quiet few days. I read a novel, started another. I whispered to her when answering her whispered queries. I kept her abreast of well-wishers well-wishing.

She was not allowed food. She didn’t want it, anyway. Her skull was cracked and chewing was a misery. She did sip a little water from time to time. I directed the straw to her lips and kept it nearby until she said she was done. That was never for more than a sip or two, though. Otherwise, nothing passed her lips. She was allowed food her last evening in ICU. They brought up a sandwich and a fruit cup and some juice. Chewing was still a chore, so she attempted no more than a nibble before waving it off. She did eat the fruit cup. She declared it the best fruit cup she’d ever had.

ICU is a good place to recover from a head injury. Very quiet. But she couldn’t stay in ICU forever. After a few days they moved her to “gen pop,” as I called it, took her off the narcotics and from then on only managed her pain with Tylenol. Not even Tylenol 3s. Just Tylenol. It was noisy in gen pop. And she was light sensitive. Her head throbbed with each dropped pin and each shaft of light.

When I found out that they were only managing her pain with Tylenol, I asked her how often the nurse popped her head in to see her. Not often; she had a floor full of patients to care for, after all. Well, I thought, if all they’re going to do is give you Tylenol, I can do that at home. I asked the doctor if I could I could do just that, so she could recuperate there. He asked if I would be there. I would, I said. Then she can go, he said. But he extracted a promise from me that if she expressed any discomfort whatsoever, I was to bring her back without delay. I promised to do just that.

I packed her up that day and brought her home. It was torturously bright, even for me. I tried to give her the smoothest ride she’d ever had. Not an easy feat, but I did my best.

I set her up in the bedroom and closed the room-darkening-blinds (a blessing from my shiftwork days). I turned on the TV and set it to a classical radio station and turned the volume down as low as it would go without being off, altogether. Did it bother her? I asked. No, it was okay, she said. White noise, if you get my drift.

I became head cook and chief bottle washer for the next while. I was always the cook (I was home two hours before Bev, and unless I wanted to eat at 7 or 8 pm, I had to take it up, or be resigned to eating an hour or so before bed; besides, I like to cook, so no complaints), but now I did all the washing and all the dishes and all the fetch and carry, too, without help. I walked the dogs. And I was at her beck and call, bringing her all she desired: water, ginger ale, whatever. And I tried to anticipate her needs, too. There was always a bowl of grapes near at hand. There’s not a lot of chewing required when it comes to grapes. All as silently as could be.

I went back to work after another week. She agreed that I should. She lay about most days, not requiring much, so she gave me her blessing, so to speak.

I came home to find her crying. She’d tried to read her Get-Well cards, and suffered a migraine after reading only a few words. “I’ll never be able to work again,” she wept.

“Yes, you will,” I said. “You can’t see how far you’ve come in the past couple weeks.”

She had. Her recovery was rapid. She just couldn’t see it. The time was long for her. The improvements incremental. But I could see the difference.

And after a time, so could she. She’d get up to change rooms for a little while, at first. Then she began to watch a little TV. Then she began to watch a lot of TV. She still couldn’t read, reading still gave her migraines, but she could watch twelve hours of TV without interruption or ill effects. That may inform you how much you use your brain when watching TV. She couldn’t watch just anything. The pace of modern movies hurt her head, too loud, too flashy, too much rapid editing. Turner Classic Movies was perfect, though. Slow editing. Long cuts. Not too loud, not too much flash. Black and White helped, too. Before long, she was running out of patience, though. There’s only so long you can remain in bed, only so long you can stay in a darkened room, and you can only watch so much TV before you’re chomping at the bit to do something.

And then, after a time, she could read a little without pain, then a bit more, then more still.
She went back to work after three months. A couple hours here, a few hours there. “You’re sure you’re ready,” I asked her before she went back. She was, she said.

She probably wasn’t. She probably ought to have taken a couple more months, but she was bored.
Can you blame her?