by Nancy Adams
Katie Lou stifled the tears that wanted to come flowing down her cheeks, and forced herself to smile, hoping that her mom, Kylie and Sherry weren't catching on that her heart was breaking. “That's fine, Babe, no problem. I love you!”
“Love you, too,” Darren said. They talked for a few more minutes, and then he said he had to go.
5
Allen and Jay got to the Brennan home at seven, and set to work immediately. One of the neighbors, Sam Boardman, saw them working on building a ramp and came over to ask what was going on with Katie Lou; when he heard the good news, that Katie had survived the accident and would be coming home the next day, he pitched in and helped with the ramp, so it was finished by eight thirty.
It was almost fifteen feet long, and ran from the driveway up to the back deck. There was a sliding glass door that opened from the deck into the kitchen, making it the easiest way for a wheelchair to get in. There was a recessed track for the door to slide in, so there was no doorsill to have to climb over.
Once that was done, Jay and Sam said goodnight, and Allen went into the house to start bringing down some of Katie's things to the guest room.
True to his word, Dr. Capshaw released Katie Lou the next morning, and Nurse Kathy helped her to get a bath and wash her hair, before dressing her in an outfit of Kylie's. Since they were the same size, and Kylie had a suitcase full of clothes with her, it seemed a simpler solution than trying to buy her some new clothes, and her own clothes that she'd been wearing the night of the accident were cut off of her and probably ended up in an incinerator, somewhere.
Katie could still feel when she needed to go to the bathroom, which was a lucky break; often, paralysis includes a lack of feeling in the bowels and bladder, as well as a lack of control over them, but this hadn't been the case with Katie Lou, and she was grateful. It meant she wouldn't have to use or deal with catheters, and could at least keep some personal dignity.
When everything was signed and set, Kathy wheeled her down to the elevator while Kylie went to bring her old Riviera up to the entrance. They all ended up at the front door around the same time, though Sherry had to say goodbye there, and go to get her own car and head for home. Kathy and Judy helped Katie get into the front seat, and Kylie managed to stow the folded wheelchair into her trunk (it really was a big one) and they were off to see the wizard—or, rather, the physical therapist.
Maxwell was actually on the opposite side of Ralston from Columbia, so they had a slightly longer drive than Allen and Jay the night before. It was almost nine by the time they'd gotten out of the hospital, and Katie's appointment was for ten fifteen, so Kylie was actually speeding down the highway to get her there in time. Luckily, the one cop who saw her go flying by was one who always took his own car to Allen's Garage for service, and knew whose old Riviera that was. He had heard about Katie's accident, of course, and when he saw her sitting in the shotgun seat, he smiled and let them go on by.
Christopher Physical Therapy, the sign said, as they pulled in and parked. Katie looked at her sister behind the wheel, and her mother in the back seat, and said, “Well—can't say I ever expected to be coming to a place like this.”
Kylie and Judy both nodded. “I know,” Judy said, “and I'd never have dreamed it, either, but we've got to learn to deal with the reality we're living in. This is a part of your life, at least for a while, so let's go see what it's going to mean.”
Kylie got out and brought the wheelchair around for her, and Katie Lou held onto the roof of the car as she slid her bottom out and onto the wheelchair seat. She wriggled around for a moment to get herself settled, then released the brakes and pulled herself backward, away from the car, before spinning the chair and moving it up the ramp onto the sidewalk that led to the front door of the building. Her mother got behind her and pushed her a bit as she got stuck on the ramp, her arms not yet accustomed to pushing the wheels forward.
Kylie held the front door open, and Judy pushed her inside, where a half-dozen people were sitting in a waiting room. Katie took over and wheeled herself up to the front desk. A cheerful redhead smiled at her.
“Hi, there, and I'm gonna bet that you must be Katie Brennan?”
Katie smiled. “Yes, Katie Lou Brennan. I've got an appointment with Dr. Christopher?”
The redhead nodded. “Yep, we've been expecting you.” She handed Katie Lou a clipboard and pen. “We've already got your medical records from Dr. Capshaw, but if you'd fill these out for us, please? They'll give us more of your history, insurance information and such.”
“Sure,” Katie said, and wheeled herself over to where her mother and sister had taken seats. She started filling in the many blanks, and made it through the first whole page before she had to ask her mother who their insurance company was. Between the three of them, they got all the information completed, and Katie went to hand it in. The redhead smiled and said, “Dr. Christopher will be with you in just a few minutes. Incidentally, I'm his sister, Anna. If he isn't nice to you, just tell me, cause I can still beat him up, no matter what he says!”
Katie Lou laughed, and startled herself with how good it felt to do so. “I'll be sure to remember that,” she said, and then wheeled back to her mom and Kylie.
“What was so darned funny?” Kylie asked, and Katie chuckled again as she told her what Anna had said. The three of them were still chuckling when a tall young man stepped out through a door behind the reception desk, and said, “Katie Lou Brennan?”
Katie smiled at him. “That's me,” she said, and he walked over.
“Hi,” he said and extended a hand to her. “I'm Doctor Rob Christopher; I'll be your physical therapist. If you'll follow me, we'll go over a few things and start working on a game plan for you, okay?”
Katie was surprised at how young Dr. Christopher seemed to be; she would have guessed him at no more than twenty-four or so, but she figured that getting a doctorate and then working in Columbia long enough to develop a reputation would put him closer to twenty-eight or thirty. “Sure,” she said. “Can my mom and sister come along?”
Dr. Christopher smiled. “Of course,” he said. “There'll be a lot that you'll need to do at home, too, and your family will need to know what you're going through. If you ladies will come with me...” He turned and led the way back through the door he'd come out of.
They followed him down a short hallway into a room that reminded Katie of a small gymnasium. There was a mat on the floor, and several different kinds of machines and exercise balls and “toys,” as she thought of such things, all around it. There were also a few chairs, and he took one for himself after inviting Judy and Kylie to sit down. Katie, of course, had her own chair, and Dr. Christopher positioned it so that she was right at the edge of the floor mat.
“Okay, Dr. Capshaw called me yesterday and gave me the history of your case, including the accident and your injuries. I've gotta say, you are one lucky girl; most people who went through what you did wouldn't be even close to being released from the hospital, and that's assuming they would have even woken up yet. When he said this only happened last weekend, and he was ready to turn you over to me already, I was pretty shocked.” He smiled. “On the other hand, I've come to trust his judgment, and if he thinks you're ready for PT, then you are. Still, I'm gonna go easy on you for the first week or so, and see how you handle some of what we're going to do.”
Katie smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Okay,” she said. “I have, like, no idea what we're going to do, so I'll just try to do what you tell me.”
Dr. Christopher laughed. “That's usually all I ask,” he said, “and I try to make my instructions clear and simple.” He looked down at the file he held in his hand. “Katie, I've got Dr. Capshaw's notes here, and as I said, we talked about your case for quite a while yesterday. What I'd like to know, though, is what you're feeling, in your hands, your arms, your legs and feet. Does any part of your body feel normal, and what parts do not feel normal? If they don't feel normal, how do they feel a
bnormal?” He looked at her expectantly.
Katie sat there and thought over what he had asked, and a part of her wanted to run out the door. Of course there were parts of her that didn't feel normal; holy cow, she'd been thrown through a windshield! Her back felt abnormal, because it still hurt above her waist, and there was tingling feeling that went from about the level of her waist to her tailbone. She could feel that her feet were on the footrests of the wheelchair, but she couldn't feel her legs or feet the way she could days before, just sensing them there. Her hands—she could feel them, and they seemed to work okay, but there was something odd about the way they felt, and even in their sense of touch. She began composing how to say all of this to him.
“Well,” she began, “I guess nothing really feels normal, right now. My head and neck and back are sore, and so are both shoulders. My arms don't exactly feel sore, but there's something in the way they feel that just seems—I dunno, different, maybe? Just a sort of 'not quite normal' feeling, I guess, like they aren't my arms, but some new ones I'm getting used to. My lower back is tingly—in fact, everything from my waist down is tingly—then, from about my hip sockets on down, there isn't really any feeling at all, unless you touch my legs or something. I can feel, like, pressure when I'm touched, and where my feet are on the footrests or the floor, or whatever.”
Dr. Christopher was making notes, and then looked up again. “What about movement? Show me what you can do.”
She shrugged. “From the waist up, no problem, I can move my head, neck, arms and hands like always. When I try to move at the waist, it's like I can feel it moving, but when I look down, nothing's happening. From the hips down, nothing, except I can make the toes on my right foot curl downward just a bit. That's it.” She shrugged her shoulders again, as if to say that she didn't have anything more to add. “Dr. Christopher, is there really any hope that physical therapy is going to help me get the use of my legs back?”
Dr. Christopher smiled. “First, let's get a little less formal; titles are wonderful for signs, but I'm not that crazy about them, so just call me Rob, okay?”
Katie grinned and said, “Okay, and I'm Katie Lou, or just Katie.”
Rob nodded. “No problem, then. Now, as for you question, there is always hope, and PT has been shown to have some very beneficial effects in cases like this. How much it will help actually depends on three things, and one of them, the most important one, is you. You have to be determined to get the use of your legs back. From what Dr. Capshaw told me, he thinks you've got plenty of determination; is he right?”
Kylie laughed. “Doc, you don't know the half of it!” she said. “Katie's wedding day is less than three weeks off. Think that's enough motivation to make her determined?”
Rob's eyebrows shot up a half-inch. “Wow, congratulations! This was some pretty rotten timing, then, wasn't it?”
Katie gave a short laugh. “You think? If I'm not walking by then, we'll probably end up postponing the wedding; give you any clue how motivated I am?”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I can see that this is important to you on many different levels, right? Well, then; let's talk about what we can do to help you get back onto those feet! I will be right back, and then we'll get started, okay?”
Katie smiled. “Okay, I'll be here,” she said, and he walked out of the room.
No sooner had the door closed behind him than Kylie grabbed Katie's arm. “Oh, my God, he's gorgeous!” she said. “Find out if he's married!”
Katie gave her a shocked expression. “Wha—? You find out if he's married, if you wanna know! I'm already engaged, remember? Might seem a little odd if I ask, after I just told him I want to get on my feet so I can dance at my own wedding!”
Judy cut in. “Kylie, she's right! It wouldn't do for her to ask that, but I'll admit you're right—he's hot!”
Both girls stared at their mother. “Mom!” Kylie said. “You're too old to notice things like that! That's just—ewww!”
Judy laughed. “Honey, trust me, you're never too old to see what's in front of you! Now, would I be interested? Of course not, I'm married, and it just so happens I'm in love with the man I'm married to! But that doesn't mean I'm blind, or that I wouldn't have been interested back when I was your age, and if you think it does, then you're in for some pleasant surprises when you get older!”
Katie and Kylie looked at each other and made faces. They straightened them out as the door opened and Rob came back in.
“Okay,” he said, as he took his seat once more. “I've got a series of pretty basic exercises laid out that we'll want to start with. They're simple, and most of them you can do on your own. Now, let me ask, can you get out of the chair onto the floor by yourself?”
Katie looked blank for a moment, then turned her eyes down to her wheelchair. She reached down and locked the brakes, then began thinking about how she could slide herself out and onto the floor mat. She set her hands on the arms of the chair and pushed down to lift herself up—and then dropped right back down. Without her legs capable of movement, she couldn't figure out how to get her butt to move forward. She rose up again, and tried to use her chest and belly muscles to push herself forward, but all she managed was a slight swing that barely moved her bottom toward the front edge of the chair at all.
She dropped back down and looked at Rob. “Nope,” she said. “Wanna give me some pointers?”
He grinned, but tried to hide it. “Okay, try this: lean forward and put your hands on the tops of your leg rests. You're almost doubled over, so now when you lift yourself onto your arms, your bottom end swings forward all on its own, and you'll end up sitting on the edge of your seat. Try it.”
Katie looked at the leg rests, and saw the place where they attached to the chair. Since they weren't removable, there were bars welded right to the chair's frame that she could put her hands on, and she did so. Then, when she pushed down to raise herself up, she felt her butt slide forward on the seat. It took her three tries, but she finally did end up sitting right on the edge, and holding onto the arms to keep from falling out onto the floor mat in front of her.
“Very good, that's excellent! Most people take half an hour to get that far! Now, what I want you to do is lean forward again, and this time just let yourself sort of fall out onto the mat. Catch yourself with your hands, and then roll yourself out of the chair and onto the mat. Can you do that?”
Katie gave a half shrug, as if to say she wasn't all that sure about this, but she leaned forward. She felt as if she were going to fall onto her face, and managed to get her hands out in front and catch herself, but then she felt her bottom sliding forward, so she did her best to roll the way he'd said. Everything started to move too fast, and then she was on her back and looking up at him from the mat.
“Excellent!” Rob said. “Now, can you sit up?”
Katie didn’t know whether to glare at him or smile. She felt her face getting hot, and knew she was blushing from his praise, so she made herself scowl as she tried to sit up. It wasn't easy, without being able to use leg and lower belly muscles to draw on, and she had to rely on her arms. She rolled onto one side, and used her arms to lever herself up to a sitting position, with her legs straight out in front of her. Once she got there, however, she found that it wasn't easy to stay up in that position if she tried to lift her arms from where they were supporting her on the floor.
She suddenly realized that Judy and Kylie had been encouraging her the whole time, and she beamed at them from the floor. “Who woulda thunk just getting on the floor could be so much work?” she asked, rolling her eyes, and they laughed.
Rob smiled. “You've done incredibly well,” he said. “Yes, when you don't have the legs to do half the work, just moving from one position to another is not easy. Now, what you're going to need to do is learn how to balance yourself sitting up, using just your upper torso. You'll do that by leaning slightly forward, so that your upper body weight keeps you from falling backward, and then it's sort of like learning
to ride a bike—you've got to find that sweet spot, where you're balanced evenly side to side. Work on that, and see if you can find it.”
Katie looked up at him, still sitting in his chair, and thought about making a rude comment, but she kept it to herself. She was, if she would admit it to herself, actually enjoying his praise and attentions, and that wasn't really appropriate for a girl who would be getting married in a couple of weeks—hopefully—so she pretended she wasn't feeling anything at all. She leaned forward so that she could lift her hands from the floor, and then began swinging her head and upper body side to side, gently, making herself balance in a vertical position. It took her a few minutes, but she finally got to where she could sit still for a minute or so at a time, without having to readjust her position.
Rob was beaming at her, and she felt a flush again. “That's great, Katie, you're doing great.” He rose from his chair then, and grabbed something that he set down on the mat beside her. It looked like the seat of a plastic chair, with wings that stuck out on either side to keep it from falling over, and another that stuck out the back. “Now, this is a stabilizer; slide your butt into this, and you can relax your upper body so that we can start on the exercises.”
Katie looked at the stabilizer, then at him, and thought some unladylike things. If he'd given her that right away, she wouldn't have looked like a fool for the past ten minutes! She got herself into it with trial and error, and then Rob said, “Okay, now, we need a volunteer from the audience.” Both Judy and Kylie played along, waving hands in the air and crying, “Pick me! Pick me!” Katie was pretty sure they were both playing up to him just because he was cute.
“Okay, how about both of you, then,” Rob said. “Come on down here on the mat with Katie, and you're going to help her practice a few things that we hope will get some feeling and motion back into her legs and feet.”
Judy and Kylie got down on the mat, sitting to either side of Katie and facing her. Rob got out of his own chair, then, and sat down near her feet. “Ladies, these are things that we want Katie to do at least three times a day, when she isn't here working out. You can help her out with them, but don't let her shirk the responsibility of doing these things. Everything I'm going to show you is designed to help her get back onto her feet, but there are going to be times when she gets discouraged and frustrated. Encourage her, push her if you have to; she has to keep going if she's going to make any progress, even if it seems like she isn’t making any at all.”