I can’t breathe…
Get me out of here!
Please, God. Get me out of here!
Lisa turned to face the respirator and trembled.
Something’s wrong, she thought.
Lisa called Mike’s nurse, Carla. “Something’s not right with the ventilator.”
Carla studied the panel, shook her head, and then paused. “Lisa, he’s not on demand—he’s breathing on his own!”
Mike flushed, and trembled. Pearls of sweat blossomed on his face. The monitor showed his pulse at 160 beats per minute, and his blood pressure was up to 180/100. Alarmed, she grasped his hand, and said, “It’s okay Mike—it’s okay.”
Let me go! Mike’s mind shouted as he grasped for something—anything, to escape.
“Carla,” Lisa shouted, “come over here, something’s happening.”
As Carla approached the bed, Lisa started to back away, when she found that something was holding her hand. She pulled the blanket covering her hand. Mike was grasping her hand. Lisa tried to pull away, but Mike refused to let go. “It’s Mike, he’s holding me. He moved.”
“What?” Carla asked, staring at the two hands.
“Mike—Mike—,” Lisa said. “Look at me, please look at me.”
He opened his eyes.
“Your hand moved! It’s holding me.”
No.
“Yes, you moved it. Concentrate now, and open your hand.”
Lisa and Carla stared at the clasped hands, and then, gradually, Mike’s fingers opened.
Tears streamed down Lisa’s face. “You did it! You moved.”
I’m dreaming, again, Mike thought for a moment, but then he knew it was real.
Lisa bent over to kiss his lips, but this time she felt some resistance, some active muscle tone. She pulled back, staring at her husband, watching as his mouth moved. She sobbed as she read his lips. In slow, but distinct motion, they said, “I love you.”
Chapter Seventy-Five
The commands from Mike’s cerebral cortex, long obstructed in the lower part of his brain, started as a trickle of nerve impulses, and then cascaded over the falls of his blockage, forming a torrent of information connecting thought to movement.
Tentative at first, Mike’s motion was slow and uncoordinated, a combination of newly reestablished connections, and muscles weakened by inactivity.
After the fifth day, Mike could block his tracheotomy tube, and talk for the first time since his accident. His voice was somewhere between a croak and a whisper.
“Don’t worry,” Lisa said. “Your voice will come back.”
“I’m not worried,” Mike said. “I’m talking and scratching my nose. That’s a miracle enough.”
“What about your tracheotomy?”
“They’re closing it tomorrow, and then I’m going to a rehabilitation facility.”
“Is that necessary? We want you home.”
“I don’t think Wonder Woman could handle a man of my size. A few weeks of rehabilitation can jumpstart my recovery.”
“Ross Cohen is warning me to be aware of your emotional condition. He thinks that nobody surviving such a nightmare can emerge unscathed.”
“Maybe so, but, for now, I’m going to enjoy my euphoria. If I survived being locked-in, I can survive anything.” He paused, and then continued, “You know what they say about taking time for reflection, time to reassess your life and values?”
“Yes?”
“Amidst the truths of terror, the cycles of confusion and the darkest depressions, I had long intervals of peaceful thoughts and reminiscences. These came with lucidity only possible when all I had left was my thoughts. I’m not recommending it, believe me, but, in some ways, I’m better for it. It’s difficult to take anything for granted after that experience—especially the time we spend with the people we love—I’ll never do that again.”
Into the second week of rehabilitation, Mike had advanced to the use of a walker, which they’d modified specifically for his height. They predicted he’d be home in a week.
Mike talked with Carter Reynolds, who said, “I couldn’t be more pleased. It’s great to have you back.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Mike said. “Someday, when we have the time, I’ll give you the rundown of what it means to be locked-in.”
“I talked to Oliver Schlasser. He wants to come back to examine you. I’d bet you’re going to be a published case study.”
“What are his suggestions about Viagra?”
“If his theory is correct, you may have reconstructed the nerve pathways. If so, you won’t need the Viagra.”
Mike smiled. “I think Lisa may have something to say about that.”
Daisy almost knocked Mike over when they opened the front door. She stayed so close underfoot that he had to be careful he wouldn’t trip over her and fall.
“I’m going to work tomorrow,” Lisa said. “Will you be able to take care of Aaron?”
“No problem. I’ll do my physical therapy after I put him down.”
“Have you thought about work?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It's not so important to me, now.”
Lisa met with Ross Cohen at his office. The comfortable furniture, muted autumn colors, and inviting couch evoked a sense of security. He invited her to the couch.
“Mike spends long hours in front of the television. He always had a book or two in progress. Now, he reads little. He won’t talk with me about his illness, or the future. What’s wrong?”
“How is he sleeping?”
“Poorly. He gets up three or four times a night, saying he’d heard something.”
“How is his mood?”
“Most of the time he’s okay, but sometimes, especially when he’s had little sleep, he’s really irritable.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Ross said.
“Why?”
“He has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ( PTSD ). I should have predicted it. Will you ask him to give me a call?”
“PTSD. What does that mean for us?”
“It means that Mike’s human, and that he’s been through horrors we can only imagine. Have him call me.”
“He won’t. I suggested it when he had sleeping problems. He refused. What can I do?”
“Say that I called to see how he was doing and tell him that I think he has PTSD. I think that, with time, it will pass, but, in the meanwhile, I can make things a lot easier for him.”
Aaron still cried every two to three hours at night and Mike was able to get up several times to feed him. He looked at the tiny baby in his enormous arms, smiled, and felt flushed with love for his son.
I hear the shuffling steps of someone coming down the hallway. Who can it be at this hour? When the door creaks open, I open my eyes to the darkly shadowed room. I turn to look at the clock, but I cannot move. No, my mind screams—not again—no, not again!
I feel the helplessness and the horror.
My eyes face the ceiling as the shadow of the unseen visitor hovers above me. His silhouette looms above me…
Someone is shaking my arm.
“Mike—Mike. Wake up—It’s only a dream.”
Mike sat up, turned to face Lisa, and then pulled her close.
Aaron’s cry echoed down the hallway.
“I’ll get him,” Lisa said.
“No, let me. I’ve come to cherish these things.”
“What things?”
“The small everyday events I took for granted before.”
“Maybe in retrospect, but not in reality,” she said, caressing his cheek.
Mike smiled, and then held her hands. “Indulge me for a moment. These little things fuel the brightness of my days. Each one illuminates my life with new meaning. After the accident, I returned to a world of darkness with only the consciousness of existence, a tiny flicker in the night sky of a vibrant living cosmos.”
“You’re getting poetic.�
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Mike embraced Lisa. “The light of your love arrived with the dawn, and the horror of my lonely journey back, drifted away like the memory of a bad dream.”
“I never stopped loving you.”
“But, I’m not the same. I’ll never be the same. That person died in the crash.”
“You’re wrong. These events touched all of us, but I love you more than ever. If there’s any change, it’s that you see yourself through my eyes for the first time. That ain’t so bad—trust me—that ain’t so bad.”
Trapped Page 33