When Can I Go Home?

Christmas was over, and I had settled into a routine of sorts, only I have no idea what that was.  I do have more memories of this week in the hospital but as before, they are disjointed.  I do know I was taken in a group to the exercise area which was down the elevator and through a few turns in a long hallway.  I do not think I could find my way there alone but all I had to do was follow the leader.  So, in a sense we got to play a game to get to the treadmills. 

I had a roommate but he didn’t speak to me.  In fact he never got out of bed.  I was to learn later that his condition could have been mine if not for the grace of God and the helping hands of so many along the way.  I passed him a hundred times a day as I came in and out of our room.  His wife came to visit him every day, and his children, who were teenagers, like mine, came often.  Something about him and his family saddened me and frightened me.  I did not want to…

I was given tests while I was in the hospital, neuropsychological tests, though I did not know what they were at the time.  Now, years later I have gotten the nerve up to read the reports, and I must say that what they observed of my mental abilities is much different from what I was observing and thinking.  For me, everything was so clear.  Every night as I watched on television the cable news networks and listened to the editorial opinions from both the left and right leaning pundits I personally felt that the world’s problems were quite easy to define, and if one boiled down the thousands of different aspects of our human condition, the answers were not hard embrace.  But, like in my neuropsychological tests, I was unable to articulate my point(s) of view let alone to anyone who could act upon my recommendations. 

As much as I wanted to contribute to solving the problems we as a species on the planet earth were exposed to, there was no way to do that from within the confines of a neurologic ward.  I wanted out.  I think I began to ask my wife ‘when’ every time she came to visit and the only answer to this query was ‘soon’. 

            “Soon,” I asked, “when is soon?”
            “When they say you are better,” is as close to an answer that I can remember, though this may have been my interpretation.  Always hard to tell what I remember and what I wanted to hear.
            Perhaps this is why I started being nicer to everyone in the hospital, so they would think I was ‘better’.