Metamorphosis

{TRIGGER WARNING: emotional, physical, abuse, serious illness, mental health}

Across the hallway, at the Nurse’s Station, I hear the frenzied murmuring of voices. Something really must have stirred the hive to get them buzzing like that. Over the barely moving air, snatches of conversation; like little scraps of paper wafted across the sanitized hallway.

“I’m not gonna be the one…”

“….The Dragon Lady…”

“…it’s not our fault the Rehab Unit doesn’t have their shit together …”

“…I’m working today of all days! No fucking way; they don’t pay me enough…”

I’m certain I know what’s going on before one of them walks like a whisper across the hall, approaches my open door, and raps smartly upon it. It’s ridiculous. I’m looking directly at her. She could have just said my name. I do still have one! She gingerly steps into the room, yet hovers in the doorway.

“What?”

“Mrs. Smith?”

“That’s what they call me…”

“Um, you see, Mrs. Smith, unfortunately—“

“Let me guess?” I fix her with a death stare, "YOU drew the short straw and had to come let the Bitchy, Old Dragon Lady—"At this, I stare menacingly at the gaggle of nurses lined up at the u-shaped desk of the Nurse’s Station, “know that some inane, incompetent IDIOT fucked up more shit and as a consequence of their STUPIDITY, I am stuck on this ward for another night with you and the busybody bitches out there? Does that about cover it?”

The young lady’s badge showed her smiling brightly and gave her name, Nichole. Nichole's face falls and she turns quickly around, ponytail flapping, and leaves the room. I felt a flicker of remorse. Though it certainly was my voice shrieking the baleful words at that young girl, it wasn’t. It couldn’t be! My daughter is about the same age as this poor girl who probably just went through the apex of COVID Hell-- plus she’s working Thanksgiving… I heard laughter across the hallway and my irrational irritation was instantly re-ignited.

I had a stroke roughly three weeks before and had been told about all the different kinds of therapists that would be coming by that would work on the affected side of my body. At that time, I had been given a pamphlet with the words, “Changes to Expect Following a CVA.”

My first thought was, “What the fuck is a CVA?” I did what any logical person would, I grabbed my cell to Google it but forgot… I could no longer type the way I was used to; I tried to hold it with my left hand so I could type with my right, only to watch it slip from my grasp and clatter feebly to the floor. I gazed at it from my plastic recliner, a galaxy away, on the hideous linoleum. I considered leaning down to get it but put that thought in check quickly. I wasn’t going through THAT humiliation again!

As a result, I had to press the button on my fancy remote that summoned help.

Help arrived wearing a lanyard that proclaimed her to be, “Amy!” What a vibrant, infantile name for this youthful, graceful girl. I despised her on sight.

After she handed my phone to me, I began to realize voice-to-text was my new best friend! So, I politely asked Google what the fuck a CVA was: “A stroke, also referred to as a cerebral vascular accident (CVA) or a brain attack is an interruption in the flow of blood to cells in the brain.”

A Cerebral Vascular fucking Accident? For real though! An ‘accident’ implied that I did something to bring this about. As in, “I walked on the wet floor and accidentally fell down, thereby suffering a Traumatic Brain Injury.” I eventually flipped through the pamphlet that was going to explain this new life to me and found it lacking in most areas. I learned a bit about all the different areas of rehabilitation out there: physical, occupational, speech/language, and audiology, and they even (re)taught people how to fucking swallow soft food, Bless Their Little Hearts!

Meanwhile, it was definitely me being a cranky old bitch. I tried to care but found I couldn’t. Earlier, all of my belongings had been shoved hastily into large, white plastic bags labeled, “Belongings,” so I could finally move to the ARU. I had suffered through Halloween and Thanksgiving in this hellscape; I was beyond ready to stare at other boring walls. COVID had just begun to subside and the nurses were either from the C-team or, they too, were just as fried, horrified, and frazzled as I was.

Nichole knocked on my open door, again. I rolled my eyes and sighed… LOUDLY. She cautiously walked to my bed and began moving my Belongings from it to the corner of the room that served as a closet area as there were not many surfaces to choose from. I glared holes in her the entire time. I imagined leaping from the bed, grabbing that flopping fucking ponytail, and spinning her around the room. Let’s face it... I would never leap again. I wouldn’t even be able to hop with my granddaughter to that asinine song. At the thought of her, hot tears blurred everything and despite my herculean efforts, I broke down, weeping and sobbing.

My hand was clenched so tightly around my phone; that I thought it would surely be pulverized. All I wanted to do was move on to ARU, kick some ass in PT and OT, and get released to go home.

All I wanted, dreamed of and needed was to fucking go home! I knew that if I could just get home and be around my family and friends, return to work, and be in MY home where it was familiar, things would begin to make sense again. Because right now, not one damned thing did.

“Would you like to try to use the potty chair before you get back in bed, Mrs. Smith? It’s time for your medicine and I want to get you lying down and comfy before I give it to you,” the bobble-headed, moron asked me in a cheerful voice. Once again, I glared daggers at her.

I didn’t want to admit that I actually did need to urinate before lying down but detested another nurse or aide having to be called in to help me pivot from my wheelchair to the appalling ‘potty chair,’ have to push the button to summon them when I was finished, so they could help me then pivot to the bed and swing my legs up into it. As I had little function on my left-side, getting comfortable was challenging.

Why was it suddenly time to lie down? Was it because I was crying? The nurse administered the medication and for a while, I rested on a warm, cottony, pleasantly pink cloud; a brilliantly opaque bubble that I floated comfortably inside. I welcomed the medicine. I enjoyed that big needle full of morphine… I didn’t have to feel a damned thing.

I suppose several hours passed because when I awoke, it was dinnertime. I wasn’t hungry. I was rarely hungry anymore. Each time I tried to do something or thought of doing something that once took minimal effort and found I could no longer do it, I either exploded in rage or broke down crying. Each time I discovered yet another thing that I had been robbed of, I felt sick.

It stacked up until all I could see was the things that were gone; and not one thing that remained. The next morning, bright and early, the ARU Folks were ready for me. I sat in my wheelchair with various bags hanging from every available location. I was settled into a room with cool blue walls and a bathroom with a shower stall that had a bench seat.

It had been 17 days since I had showered, since I had washed my hair, since I had washed my face, or even brushed my teeth properly. I was elated. I could do 10-14 days in here! I was going to be good for these nurses because they held the key to my exit. I put my game face on and vowed to keep it there.

I found that I really liked my physical therapist and adored my very pregnant occupational therapist. The first thing the OT said we were going to master that day was using the grab bars and remembering how to pivot safely from the wheelchair to the bench seat in the shower. Once I achieved that, she told me to get undressed without standing up or, if I had to, to use the grab bars or ask for help.

After I had shed my peek-a-boo gown and was naked and shivering, she started the shower, testing its temperature before eventually handing me the shower head. I put it above my head and water; glorious water cascaded down my back and sluiced between my breasts or simply, over them, collecting into a small pool in my lap. She offered me strawberry-scented V05 but before I could even try to reach for it, I felt a flood of emotion crash into me like a wave from the ocean and I bowed my head and wept.

I made it through that shower and several more. I was weaned off the pain medication and was beginning to feel like a person again. I worked my ass off in both PT and OT and re-learned how to walk (with a walker, naturally), how to climb stairs, how to safely get in and out of a car. There was literally half of a car in the therapy room they used for practice.

One day, Cassie, my physical therapist had me get in the wheelchair rather than grabbing the walker and she pushed me down the hallway and straight to the set of doors that said, “DO NOT EXIT! Alarm will sound!”

“What are you doing?”

“I thought you might like to go outside! It’s so pretty out!” she smiled as she reached for one of the doors.

“Wait! Won’t the alarm go off?”

“That thing… hasn’t worked in years! Don’t try to run away though, I’d notice… And, I bet I’d catch you!”

She slammed it open with the flat of her hand. I looked at her, mouth agape, and then I started laughing. It felt so incredible to laugh. It shocked the shit out of me that I could still do it. She opened the door and wheeled me outside.

It had been almost twenty-five days since I had taken even a gasp of outside air. I filled my lungs deeply with fresh air as if I were about to go diving. As the sun broke over the crest of the parking garage and hit me in my upturned face, I began gasping for the oxygen I was just breathing so fluidly. I suddenly felt a vise ensnare my heart to the point it might burst. Then—the dam simply broke.

The gasping turned into the most primal keening. Sobs wracked my body as I mourned for all that was lost and the things I randomly remembered and then sadly realized, I’d most likely never do again: take a morning walk with my 4-year-old granddaughter and marvel at the simplicity of the things that caught her fancy, hold my 7-month-old grandson and sing him to sleep, dance with my husband under the stars, and simple things like do the dishes, prepare a meal, wash my hair with both hands, tie my own damned shoes, clasp my own damned bra, fuck; to clasp my own damned hands!

Cassie didn’t say a word or try to comfort me; she just let me cry until I seemed to run out of tears. Then she handed me an unused tissue from the pocket of her scrubs and wheeled me back inside as if nothing had happened.

“We have about half an hour left of this session. Do you want to go rest or do you want to try the stairs today?”

I chose the stairs and took every ounce of anger and poured it into mastering those five fucking stairs. By the time I got back to my room, I was exhausted. That’s another thing that the pamphlet didn’t cover… the sheer exhaustion caused by performing basic, everyday tasks. That joke of a pamphlet didn’t explain how pissed off I would be at everyone and everything. It didn’t tell me that I’d have to damn near storyboard how I was going to squeeze the toothpaste while holding the toothbrush. It was these little tasks, the ones you never give much thought to, that really get you.

I stopped listening to music; completely. The memories they evoked simply hurt too much and I knew they were all on a one-way ticket. My husband, came to see me every day I was a hostage patient there. He worked all day and then drove an hour and a half, each way, to spend three hours with me until Visiting Hours were over. I was fortunate they even allowed him to visit. The hospitals were only letting in one visitor at a time and masks were still mandatory.

This also caused problems because I, like others, have families and friends. However, the person I clung to was my husband. If someone could be there, I wanted him over anyone else. People’s feelings got hurt, things were said via text and phone, and I smashed not only one but two Google Pixels during my stay in the hospital, one that was actually thrown at a nurse as she left the room.

I told my children not to come. I was out of the primary danger area, I was fine.

Not even a week later, I sent a group message to the children lamenting their lack of concern. I admonished them for being such inconsiderate brats and then promptly blocked all of them across the board.

I needed to go home.

I always felt like such an asshole after lashing out at someone. As such, I eventually unblocked the children. My oldest daughter kept sending me these adorably, heart-melting photos and videos of the grandchildren, and during one phone call that did not go the way I intended for it to, in a sudden flash of blind fury, told her, “Stop sending me pictures and videos of every fucking thing I am missing out on!" Then I hung up on her, knocked my plastic water pitcher off the little table in front of me, and promptly burst into angry tears. I longed for my grandchildren so much!

I obsessed about making it home before Christmas and after much negotiation and temper tantrums, on December 21, 2021, I was granted my heart’s deepest desire. On the ride home, my husband tried to turn some music on. I viciously snapped at him and almost broke the volume control knob off of my own vehicle. I felt like a total psycho.

At least, I was on my way home to my ‘Normal.’

When we arrived home, I was immediately upset. My daughter and son-in-law were not there, nor were my grandchildren I had missed so terribly. What the fuck? I survived a major stroke and had been in the hospital for a month and no one cared that I was home?

My husband helped me manage our outdoor steps up to the deck and I opened the front door. As soon as the scent hit me, I would have dropped to my knees right there, if I could have. Instead, I took in how much things had changed: my living room was rearranged (somewhere in my now dimmed brain, I recognized it gave the children more room to play), there was a change-up in our dining room in the form of a new addition in seating; a beautiful wooden highchair. When I left, we were still feeding him in his Bouncer. Nothing looked right.

I hobbled down the hallway, opened the door, and snapped on the light to my granddaughter’s room. I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of senses that barreled me over. Her toddler scent overwhelmed me. Her light grey walls with Winnie-the-Pooh decals, her tiny pants hung neatly in her closet, and her/our favorite book on her bedside. I walked over to her big-girl bed, sat down, clutched one of her Stuffies, and grieved us.

I was home! Yet, it wasn’t right…

When I had the stroke, I was working and on the go constantly: with nail appointments, hair appointments, and Girl’s Nights at the local wine bar. I prepared huge Sunday Dinners and invited my parents and anyone else who might want or need to come. I was everyone’s Mama. I was vital. I was The Wife, The Mother, The Grandmother—but it seemed that in my month-long absence, life... kept going. It made me afraid and that made me mad as Hell. Our Family went through a lot as we all tried to re-adjust.

It's been three years and I’m still learning how to function in my new ‘Normal.’ I’m still discovering limitations and learning how to process all of the emotions that come packaged with a life-altering event. It was kind of like I died and I had to both grieve and bear witness it. I had never felt such despair!

However, I learned that life does move on, even after you’re gone (but not). I’ve learned that I don’t have to be in control of everything. I’ve learned that pamphlet sucks and that learning to tamp down those huge emotions is necessary. I’ve seen the brink of divorce. Most importantly, for me, I think, has been learning to be alone with myself, my thoughts, and my feelings without losing my fucking mind. I’ve also finally learned to see at least one thing that remains… life.