I liked to ride on my mini-stool.

I had a room mate, not one that I chose of course but he talked a lot and we took classes together.  Some classes were down at the end of the hall.  Everyone walked, but me, I wrote my scooter.  It really wasn’t a scooter it was more of a stool with wheels on it.  I don’t know where it came from but I do remember I could ride it from my room to the hallway and then all the way to the classroom.  A nurse stopped me once and asked, “Why don’t you walk?”

Why walk?  I wondered, when you can ride!

I am not sure when classes started or stopped and what went on in the classes also doesn’t register.  All I know is that we met as a group and everyone sat in some chairs, in a circle of sorts.  There was an instructor of course who led the group discussions.  Sitting in the circle listening to the others in the group finally brought home the realization that this was not physical therapy.  Why was I there?  And why did I have a scar across the left side of my head?  It was plain to see, they had shaved the hair off of that side of my head.  Not everyone had shaved heads like me, but everyone did have difficulty putting sentences together, and this apparently was my problem too.  No matter what I thought on the inside, I couldn’t put it all into words.  

My wife came that day.  She came every day, but I don’t remember that.  She arrived at the ICU when I was being wheeled out of the operating room.  The first person she saw, I was told, was the priest.  She spent the night, and the next and two more after that before she finally left the hospital for a rest.  I was told that I awoke from the coma after a day or so and with tubes sticking in everywhere, mouth included, I spoke to her and others who came to visit.  I do not have any memory of this.  Later I was to learn about TBI and how the brain shuts down for a while when survival mode kicks in, and then slowly reengages.  For me, memory has been the slowest to reengage completely.

The first time I remember seeing her I was very happy.  And I know the first question I asked was, “when can I go home?”  She smiled, and like someone who has heard the question before, she patted me on the arm and said, “When you are better”.   There was so much more I wanted to ask, but it was time for my medicine. 

When I awoke she was gone, and I think I was upset.  I do not think my roommate liked my attitude, and so we had a discussion.  I must have told him a thing or two he didn’t agree with.  The next thing I remember was I had changed rooms.  I had a new roommate.  This one would be hard to talk to, he didn’t speak.