*****
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
I tried to move my arm to slap the snooze button on my alarm but found myself tangled in wires and groaning in pain as soon as I attempted motion. I froze, afraid and trying to figure out where I was.
The steady beep beep beep noise was still going and I faintly registered that it was too…something…to be an alarm. Too fast, too constant, who knows.
I cautiously opened my eyes. Andrew’s blurry face slowly came into focus and I felt him grab my hand to keep it from flailing about.
“Hello, sleepy head.” Andrew smiled at me. I felt my insides go all mushy and warm.
I opened my mouth to say hello back and all that came out was a sort of hoarse groan. I stopped myself at the last second from shaking my head to try and clear it but it was a near thing. Instead, I closed my mouth, focused on gathering some saliva and swallowing it to moisten my throat.
I opened my mouth to speak again and, again, all that came was a wordless animal sounds. My heart started racing and I began to panic. I couldn’t speak. Oh my God. I was about to spiral into hyperventilation when I felt Andrew’s hand on my head.
“Hey, hey, Shawn. Calm down. It’s okay. The doctor said you might have trouble talking. Remember. Just breathe.” He kept his hand on my forehead and continued to murmur, “Breathe in, breathe out, there you go” until I had calmed down.
When I was breathing normally again, he took my right hand, which was currently free of IV’s or any other wiry connections, and placed it gently on the hospital tray.
“You have a pen and paper here if you need to write anything. They left your right hand free. For simple things, Dr. Tillman suggested blink once for yes and twice for no. Is that okay?”
I blinked once. I was so relieved that I could still communicate I wanted to write something right away. I picked up the pen. It felt clumsy in my hand and my fingers could barely grip it. It was like they were only getting part of the signal from my brain. I had to spend twice as much effort for half as much result. Nevertheless, I managed to scratch out my note of three words.
The handwriting was a mess, and it looked like a three year old had written it, but it was legible, if just barely.
Andrew’s face lit up as he read it, and tears streamed down his face. He leaned over and kissed me gently. “I love you, too.”
Before he could say more, we were interrupted by Dr. Tillman coming in the room. He smiled broadly, all trace of his poker face gone.
“I see you are awake now, Shawn. That’s really good. Your surgery went very well. You will probably need some speech and occupational therapy before you will be able to get up and around, and I will need to see you back in here in a month to take some more pictures of your brain, but I am very hopeful.”
Two weeks later
Andrew was hovering again. It seemed like he was always there, tucking blankets, offering water, questioning whether I was warm enough, fixing bandages. At first I was grateful, and I know I should still be grateful, but damn it, I didn’t need him to do everything for me.
I was frustrated because therapy didn’t seem to going as fast as I would like. It was still hard for me to use my right hand, and my left hand had always been pretty useless. Furthermore, I still hadn’t been able to speak words yet. All I could manage were the sound exercises my speech therapist gave me. As soon as I tried to string those sounds together into words, it fell apart between my brain and my mouth.
If I had to blink one more time, I was going to scream, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
Andrew came back from the bathroom with a glass of water and leaned over to fluff my pillow behind my head for the twentieth time in the last hour.
I lost it.
I batted his hand away and without thinking growled, “Stop fussing” at him. It sounded more like Shlop fushing, and was in a low rough voice I had never heard come from my throat before, but we were both so shocked we just froze.
Then, in the space of one more breath, I had his tongue doing its best to get down my throat. He kissed me hard and with abandon. It was the first time he had done more than press his lips gently to mine since the surgery, and I was ravenous to feel his touch. I threaded my fingers through his hair and pulled him towards me with strength I didn’t know I possessed. I exulted in the feeling of his tongue in my mouth and re-learned every surface of his with my own tongue. We made love with our mouths, and it was glorious.
Unfortunately, still being significantly medicated, that was as far it could go for the moment, but it was as if that moment broke the ice that had surrounded my brain. I still had trouble forming some words, but I could manage to communicate again. He climbed into bed with me for the first time since the surgery and wrapped his arms around me, cuddling me to his side.
It was as if my speaking was some sort of signal that I was actually getting better, getting strong again. It let him touch me as a man and not as an invalid. I reveled in it and we stayed that way all afternoon, watching re-runs of bad sci-fi on television.
*****
Chapter 7
Life in Chaos Page 6