At this point I was still extremely uncoordinated and couldn’t see very well, so everything became a chore. Every day, three wonderful meals arrived perfectly on time. Eating them, however, was another chore. I had great trouble wielding a spoon and fork and I dumped food everywhere. All my food arrived already cut-up, but Mom and Dad would cut up and feed to me anything that looked like it might be difficult. My left hand was still extremely uncoordinated and I had trouble with decision-making processes that would help me to slow down and not spill things.
Those first few days in Rehab were weird. I was at a point where I could speak, and I was excited to make phone calls to some of the people that I knew would be missing me. When I tried to make a phone call however, I would greet the person and start having a conversation while the phone was still ringing! I knew that this was both odd and wrong, but I still had difficulty controlling it. It was one of many things that I would have trouble learning to control.
One of the most significant things that I remember about Therapy was that it was hard. The therapists pushed me beyond my extensive physical limitations. Even the simplest task was a challenge for me mentally. Then the therapists would somewhat dispassionately review and correct what I was doing, and I had trouble with being corrected like that. I remember that I would complete a simple task (at least it felt simple) and then my therapist would go back and point out some detail that I had blatantly missed. You cannot understand that until you’ve experienced it: patting yourself on the back for a job well done on what you know is a simple task, and then having someone inform you that you missed the first step. It’s disheartening.
This was particularly a challenge in Speech Therapy (the one that is for mental processes). Throwing a ball or going for a walk was nothing compared to completing puzzles and games. I had two Speech Therapists: Mike and Marie. Mike was alright. He was kind of quiet and shy. Marie, however, was very different. She was little (maybe five feet tall) and she challenged me constantly. She was also merciless. If I completed something wrong (like alphabetizing all the states of the US, for example) then she had me go back and do it all over for homework. Even normally that would have irked me, but after a few days in Rehab, I was starting to complain to my parents about her.
After a few days in Rehab, things got worse instead of better. Now I was reaching the point that I could walk with just someone holding my hand and my belt and I could eat on my own. I also was able to be quiet when I wanted to now, but a new problem started. Even though I could stop talking, I couldn’t stop or slow down with doing other stuff. I did everything quickly. I walked quickly, I had trouble focusing, and it made everything into a nightmare. In therapy, if I went up stairs, I was in such a hurry that I was almost tripping over them. When I ate, this became a particular problem; I would shovel food in at speed until Mom practically had to restrain me. If my Physical Therapist told me to sit down, I would get up almost immediately. At this point, the Therapists told me that I had to warn people whenever I did anything. If I was going to get up, I should tell someone; if I was going to walk, I should tell whoever was with me. At the time I knew that all they really wanted was to force me to slow down a little bit and maybe think about what I was about to do before I did it. The results were frustrating. When people told me that I should slow down I felt like a child. I was ashamed that I couldn’t control myself, and I felt incapable because even when people were standing by me telling me to slow down I could barely do it.
Thankfully, that phase lasted only a few days, and I reached the point where I could eat and walk slowly again. The next problem that I had was with over-focusing. Because my phone was bad for my eyes, Mom only gave it to me for about ten minutes twice a day. I would take my phone and text on it until my ten minutes were up and then she practically (she actually did a couple times) had to wrestle it away from me. It was the same with my computer and other basic tasks. Repetitive, simplistic motion comforted me, so at this point, if Mom and Dad had let me, I would have spent all day on the computer just scrolling up and down on a page.
I complained to Dad about all these problems only once. Up until now, I had kept a cheerful outlook throughout the entirety of my hospital stay, but I remember that there was one day where it seemed like everything was too hard. I talked to Daddy about it and he reminded me that I would never improve unless the people around me, including all the therapists and Mom and Dad, pushed me. Dad told me that he and my mother had a meeting with my physical therapists at the beginning of my recovery process. He said they told my therapists that I was a hard worker, I was tough, and I was capable, so they should push me a lot harder than an average patient. I was flattered, but it still didn't solve my problems.
The next day I had regained my positive outlook and healed to a point that I had lost (overnight!) some of the problems that I was having difficulty with. In retrospect, that was overcoming a huge hump for me because after that one day the rest of my recovery was one big downward slope. Easy.
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