by Lisa Genova
The first step in my recovery is to become aware of my unawareness, to constantly and repeatedly remind myself that my brain thinks it’s paying attention to all of everything, but in fact, it’s only paying attention to the right half of everything and nothing on the left. Every second of the day, it seems, I forget that this is so. While the part of my brain normally responsible for this awareness has taken a leave of absence, I have to recruit another part of my brain to be my own baby-sitter, to monitor my every move and to chime in whenever I need prompting.
Hey there, Sarah, you think you’re seeing your whole face, but you’re actually only paying attention to the right side. There’s another half there. It’s called the left. Honest to God.
Hey, Sarah, that page you’re looking at? You’re only reading the words on the right half of the page. And sometimes only the right half of the words. Really. There’s a left half. That’s why it doesn’t make any sense to you. Trust me.
But so far, my inner babysitter has been less than reliable, not even showing up for the job most of the time. She’s a flaky teenager obsessed with her boyfriend. I may have to fire her and start over with someone new.
The second step, once I become aware of my unawareness, is to expand this knowledge over to the left, to stretch my focus and imagination past what seems like the edge of the earth, and find the other half. What used to be automatic and entirely behind the scenes—seeing the world as whole and seamless— is now a painstaking and deliberate process of trying to reel a disconnected left into consciousness. Look left. Scan left. Go left. It sounds simple enough, but how do I look, scan, or go to a place that doesn’t exist to my mind?
Bob keeps insisting that I can do anything I put my mind to. But he’s referring to my old mind. My new mind is broken and doesn’t give a whack about the left or my old mind’s reputation for success.
Attitude. Fist. Fight. I can do this.
The strangest thing about sitting in front of this big mirror every day is seeing myself sitting in a wheelchair. Handicapped. I don’t feel handicapped, and yet, there I am. But I’m not actually paralyzed, thank God. My left leg can move. The muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves in my leg are all connected, poised and ready, waiting for confident instruction, like one of Charlie’s Wii avatars waiting for him to press the A button. Come on, Sarah, press the A button.
Martha enters the gym and stands behind me.
“Morning, Sarah,” she says, talking to my reflection in the mirror.
“Morning.”
“Did you make your way here on your own today?”
Here we go again. This is how Martha and I begin every morning together. I knew she was going to ask this, and I know she knows my answer, but I play along anyway. It’s our shtick.
“I did not,” I say like I’m a witness on the stand.
“Then how did you get here?”
I point to the guilty reflection of my mother, who is now standing behind Martha.
“Did you give it a try?”
“I don’t see why I should waste any time learning to use a wheelchair. I’m walking out of here.”
Attitude. Fist. Fight.
“How many times are we going to go through this? You should take any opportunity you get to use your left side.”
Before I can get out my rebuttal, she grabs the back of my chair, spins me around, and wheels me out of the gym. I hear my mother’s shoes tap-tapping at a quick clip behind us. We travel down the long hallway past my room to the elevators and stop. Martha spins me around.
“Okay, Sarah, let’s see you get to the gym.”
“I don’t want to use this thing.”
“Then you’re spending your session today sitting in the hallway.”
“Good, I like it here.”
Martha stares down at me, her hands on her broad hips, her mouth pinched shut. I grind my molars to keep from sticking out my tongue at her. This woman does not bring out the most attractive side of me.
“Helen, let me know if she changes her mind,” she says and starts walking away.
“Wait,” I call after her. “Why can’t I practice using my left side trying to walk in the gym?”
“You will. We’re doing this first,” she says, pausing to see if she should continue down the hallway.
Attitude. Fist. Fight. Fine.
“Fine.”
Martha walks back toward me, a smug hop in each step of her navy blue Crocs. She places my left hand on the wheel and taps it.
“Feel your hand?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Feel the wheel?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let’s go. Down the hallway. Follow the line.”
A straight yellow line is painted on the floor and runs the length of the hallway, probably to guide handicapped patients like me. I roll the chair. I roll the chair. I roll the chair. I crash into the wall. And although this is what always happens, I’m startled by the collision. I didn’t notice that I’d veered away from the yellow line, and I never saw the wall before I hit it.
“You have to use your left hand, or you won’t go straight,” says Martha.
“I know,” I say in a tone dripping with adolescent annoyance.
Of course, I know this. I understand the fundamentals and physics of how to use a wheelchair. That’s not the problem. The problem is I can’t sustain my attention on my left hand or the left wheel or the left wall that is looming closer and closer. I have it to begin with. Left hand on left wheel. Got it. But as soon as I start rolling my right hand over the right wheel, everything on the left vanishes. Poof. Gone. And with no special-effects smoke, good-byes, or fanfare of any kind. While I’m rolling the chair with my right hand, I’m not only unaware that I’m no longer using my left hand, but I actually become unaware that I have a left hand. It feels like an impossible problem to solve, and it’s a homework assignment I don’t want to begin with. I don’t want to learn how to use a wheelchair.
Martha backs me up and straightens me out.
“Let’s try it again,” she says.
She places my left hand on the wheel and taps it.
“Feel your hand on the wheel?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, keep feeling it, keep remembering your left hand, and follow the line.”
I close my eyes and picture my left hand dressed in its sparkling diamond ring and resting on the rubber tire. Then I think of what I want to tell it. Dear left hand, please roll the wheel of this chair forward. But instead of simply telling my bejeweled hand to do this in words, I picture my mind turning this polite request into warm liquid energy and pouring it into the nerves that feed my left hand. I imagine feeling this deliciously warm liquid flowing from my head, down my neck, into my left shoulder, down my arm, and into each of my fingertips.
“Good, Sarah, keep going,” says Martha.
My liquid mojo must be working. I whip up another batch and send it down my arm.
“You’re doing it!” says my mother, sounding both surprised and thrilled.
I open my eyes. I’m not sitting next to the elevators anymore, and I haven’t crashed into the wall. I’ve made real progress. My mother bounces her knees a couple of times and claps. If someone were to give her a set of pom-poms, I think she’d start cheering.
“That’s it,” says Martha. “Do it again.”
I look down the length of the yellow line. I still have a long distance to cover. My mother’s last clap ended with her hands together, so she looks like she’s praying. Okay, Sarah, do it again. I pour another liquid cocktail into my hand.
But I must not have followed the same recipe as before because something goes wrong. I’m off the yellow line, and I feel pain, but I can’t pinpoint what hurts. I look up at my mother, and the tight grimace on her face suggests that whatever it is should hurt. A lot. Then I realize it must be my left hand.
“Stop. Stop. Your hand’s tangled in the wheel. Hold on,” says Martha.
Martha squats down
and edges my chair backward as she works my left hand out of the inner nucleus of the wheel.
“I’m going to go get an ice pack. Helen, will you take her back into the gym, and I’ll meet you there? We’ll try some assisted walking next.”
“Sure,” says my mother.
My mother wheels me down the hallway and into the gym and parks me in front of the big mirror where I started. My fingers kill, but I’m smiling. I used my left hand, and I got out of using the chair. If I could walk, there’d be a smug hop in each of my steps.
CHAPTER 15
I’m sitting in a wheelchair (I refuse to call it my wheelchair) in front of a full-length mirror in my room trying to put my pants on. I’ve been at it for a while. I can’t say exactly how long I’ve been at it because I’m not wearing my watch. That part of the daily Iron Man that is “Getting Dressed” will come after I wrestle myself into my shirt. If I have the strength for it.
For some reason, getting everything south of my waist dressed is infinitely easier than dressing everything up top, and even that is infinitely far from easy. I can now get socks onto both of my feet, all by myself. My left toenails are painted the brightest Hoochie Mama red my mother could find at CVS, and my right toenails are simply clear coated. I realize this looks weird, but it’s not like I’ll be wearing any open-toed shoes any time soon. The red nail polish acts like a big red flag, like my diamond ring, and it helps me notice my left foot. And when I find it, I can then pull and tug and wriggle my sock onto it with my right hand.
I also wear mismatched socks. Same logic as the Hoochie Mama nail polish. My therapists are trying to make the left side of everything, including the left side of me, as interesting and as noticeable as possible. So my right sock is usually a standard white ankle sock, and the left is rainbow-striped or polka-dotted or argyle. Today it is green and covered with reindeers. I wish they were all Rudolphs, and the noses lit up.
I’ve got my right foot already through the right pant leg, and I’m bent over, resting my chest on my bare thighs, clutching the open waist of my jeans with my right hand, ready to pounce on my left foot should I see it, like I’m stalking a rare butterfly with a net. The problem is I can’t seem to do two things at once. I can see the reindeer sock, or I can use my right hand. If I see the sock, then as soon as I try to capture it using my right hand, it’s gone. I’ve got the reindeer sock in sight again and decide I’m going to go for it full-out. I hold my breath and try lassoing my pants onto my foot with every ounce of determination I’ve got. But I miss the sock, and all those ounces of determination tip my sense of balance, and I start to topple over, out of the wheel-chair. As I’m pitching forward, and I realize that I can’t stop myself, I also realize that there’s no time to throw my hands out to break my fall. My right hand is still devoted to the left pant leg project, and who knows where my left hand is?
My mother screams and catches me before I bash my head on the dingy linoleum floor. Thank God. The last thing I need is another head injury. From putting on my pants.
My mother props me up against the back of the chair, grabs my left foot, and lifts it up like I’m her rag doll.
“Ow, I’m not that flexible,” I say.
“Sorry. Try it sitting back.”
“You’re not supposed to help me.”
“If I didn’t help you, you’d be lying on the floor.”
Good point.
“Fine, but not so high. Hold it there, I can see it there.”
I finally thread my reindeer foot and the leg attached to it through my pant leg. I’m sweating and really want to take a break, but I see me in the mirror—jeans pulled up to my knees and naked from the waist up. I have to keep going.
My mother then helps me lift my bottom into the seat of the pants. This takes several minutes. Then she tugs at the front of my waist.
“These pants don’t fit,” she says.
“I know. Just zipper them.”
She tries again and grunts to show me how hard she’s trying.
“I can’t,” she says, looking at me like I’m an overpacked suitcase that won’t close.
“Try now,” I say.
I take a huge, deep breath in, trying to pin my belly button to my spine.
“You need bigger pants,” says my mother, giving up.
“I don’t need bigger pants. I need to lose weight.”
“You want to add a diet to the list of things you need to do here? That’s crazy. Let me buy you a bigger size.”
I feel her checking for the tag, her cold fingers on the small of my back.
“Stop it.”
“Sarah, you should accept yourself the way you are.”
“This is the way I am. This is my size. I’m not going bigger.”
“But you are bigger.”
I suck my breath in again and pull on the zipper to no effect.
“You need to start accepting your situation.”
“Huh. Are we talking about my jeans now or something else?”
She of all people can’t possibly think she’s going to lecture me about accepting the situation. When did she ever accept her situation? When did she ever accept me? I’m suddenly and surprisingly flooded with hot emotion, like every complicated feeling I’d ever had about my mother had been lying unexamined and undisturbed, a thick film of dust on a table in the attic, untouched for thirty years, and she just blew a puff of air across the surface, throwing every particle of hurt into turbulent motion.
“Just your pants,” she says, sensing my agitation and backing down.
“I’m not wearing a bigger size,” I say, shaking with fight or flight, flight not being a plausible option.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
I stare at my mother’s reflection in the mirror, an emotional tornado still gathering energy inside me, and I wonder how long we can sit in the same room and not talk about all the things we never talk about. She hands me my black Merrell mules, my only rubber-soled, flat shoes with no laces and no buckles, and with the help of the mirror and the holiday sock, I jam each mule onto each foot, without any help from her. There. Bottom half done. Reindeer socks, mules, and my unzipped, unbuttoned skinny jeans.
However competent I am at dressing the bottom half of me (for a preschooler), I completely fall apart on the top half. Barring a complete recovery, I can’t fathom the day when I’ll be able to figure out how to independently maneuver my way into my bra, like I used to, every day since I was thirteen. The left arm through the left loop, the left boob into the left cup. Never mind the clasp in the back. My poor injured brain gets all twisted up like some circus contortionist even trying to imagine how this procedure would work. I’m supposed to at least try every step of getting dressed on my own, but when it comes to the bra, I no longer bother. My mother just does it for me, and we don’t tell the therapists.
She holds up one of my white Victoria’s Secret Miracle Bras. I close my eyes, shutting out the humiliating image of my mother manhandling my boobs. But even with my eyes closed, I can feel her cold fingers against my bare skin, and as I can’t help but picture what she’s doing, humiliation saunters right in, takes a seat, and puts its feet up. Like it does every day now.
Once that’s over with, next comes my shirt. Today it’s my white, oversized, button-down boyfriend shirt. I get my right arm into the right sleeve with relative ease, but then I give myself over to my mother for the left sleeve. I can’t describe with any level of justice the impossibility of finding my left shirtsleeve with my left hand. I end up flinging my left hand way up in the air, like I’m in a classroom and I have a question, completely overshooting the sleeve hole. Or I find and grab onto the left sleeve with my right hand, but when I try to wrangle the sleeve onto my left arm, I somehow end up pulling the whole shirt up and over my head. Even the suggestion of “left hand into left sleeve” sends my brain spiraling in circles, making me a little dizzy. It’s pure madness.
So now I’m sitting in the wheelchair, dressed fro
m the waist down, my shirt wide open, my bra and my pizza-dough belly exposed, dreading what is next.
Buttoning.
Buttoning the length of my shirt with Left Neglect and one right hand takes the same kind of singular, intricate, held-breath concentration that I imagine someone trying to dismantle a bomb would need to have. I’ve finished three of the five buttons I intend on buttoning, and I’m utterly exhausted. Before I start on the fourth, I notice Heidi in the mirror, and I exhale three buttons’ worth of air and tension. Three’s enough.
“Good job,” says Heidi, sounding impressed.
“Thanks,” I say, genuinely proud of myself.
“But why on earth would you wear that?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Why would you wear a shirt with buttons?”
“Because I should use every opportunity I can to interact with the left?” I ask, quoting Martha, thinking the question is a test.
“Within reason. Let’s be practical, too.”
“So I shouldn’t wear this?”
I ask. “I wouldn’t. I’d pack my button-down shirts away and wear only pullovers.”
I think of my wardrobe full of button-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 buttons. 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 button-down shirt phase for you.”