One of the early barometers of my recuperation has been my ability to perform simple bodily tasks.
In the early days of my rehabilitation, I would regularly be asked three things:
1) To smile;
2) To raise my hands into the air; and
3) To write or draw various things.
Mercifully, speaking hasn't been hard for me to do. It's just been hard for me to speak clearly. Half of my face remains numb, including most of my tongue. And though that's improved dramatically over the last few weeks, it was bad enough for a while that I was much tougher to understand than anyone who was tasked with trying to speak with me.
I shared all that to say this: When doctors would ask me to demonstrate how my facial paralysis was evolving by smiling, I would try to jump in and say, "Look. I'm gonna try to smile. But I've always smiled without my teeth. So I'm gonna look awkward no matter what."
Apparently, even before I could articulate this clearly, the loved ones of mine who were in the room when I attempted to answer this question were vouching on my behalf. "He's a toothless smiler. He always has been."
It got to the point where one of my longtime loved ones went home, retrieved a few photos from my childhood, and brought them in to show the doctors that I've always been a tooth-free grinner.
With my 44th birthday approaching, I'm proud to say that my smile is as broad as it's been since the accident. But I'm still working my way toward a full, proper smile, and a clear, lisp-free voice.
Raising my hands into the air was much harder for me to do initially. A considerable chunk of time spent at Dodd Hall, OSU's wonderful rehabilitation facility, was working with an occupational therapist on trying to build up my strength and flexibility enough in my still-healing shoulders so that I could do more than shrug.
By the time I went home a week later, I could crawl use a wall to climb my hands up, so that my arms were above my head. And a few weeks later, I could lift my left hand above my head without the leverage of a wall; and soon thereafter, my right hand followed.
And on Saturday, thanks to a dear family friend's invitation, we went to an Ohio State football game.
And at game's end, I could participate in Carmen Ohio without hesitation.
(If you're not an Ohio State alum, that means I could spell "O-Hi-O" above my head.)
And writing. I've had dreadful penmanship since college. I had to type up an illegible bluebook, handwritten English exam when I was a sophomore in college. And my handwriting has only devolved more into chickenscratch since. This accident didn't help.
My neurologists have had me handwriting a decent amount. And I've told them each time, "I had shit handwriting before. Don't judge me too harshly!"
I do wonder how they account for this in their notes. Whatever they may have thought early on, my handwriting has at least returned to its pre-accident state of barely legible from absolutely unreadable. I am inexplicably proud of this achievement, if for no other reason than that my handwriting is remarkably similar to my father's--his was much neater than mine, but you can see the genetic impact when you look at his handwriting compared to mine.
I lost something of his in the accident, and I didn't want to lose anything else. The program from his funeral services was in the sun visor of my Accord; like so much else, and so much of infinitely greater importance, it was destroyed by the distracted driver who hit us.
But I found something else this week. Or my mother did. Since I went through Confirmation in the Catholic church in which I was raised, I've worn a cross around my neck that was my grandmother's. And from the time I came to at the hospital until this weekend, I'd thought it was lost in the detritus of the day.
I was lamenting this to my mom, and mercifully, one of the nurses had given it to her in the early hours of this mayhem. It'd just been forgotten in the melee of these months. So I'm wearing it again, another happy achievement in this rehabilitation.
~
Logically, I cannot understand how I survived this accident. I know and have seen too much to understand it. Some days I wake up and wonder for a moment if I am a ghost in my house, unaware that I've crossed over into some transitory world between this life and the next.
But then I lean out of bed, with less discomfort than when I did so a month ago, and I hear Lori and Elijah getting ready for work and for school, and know I've got work to do to get better, faster.
And this week, a new hurdle was overcome. After an X-ray to assess my shoulder recovery, my doctor said they're all healed up. All I have to do is keep working to get them stronger, and a full recovery will come in time.
~
I woke up yesterday and my friend LC Johnson had texted me a selfie, wearing a t-shirt I once made with my friend Ryan for the hardest days of Covid that says, "We can do this."
So I went to therapy and I did a ridiculously hard shuffling exercise. And I tossed a medicine ball over and over again while I did it. And then I threw a baseball back and forth against a trampoline while standing--precariously--on one foot. And I jogged on a treadmill faster than I feared I'd ever go again.
When it got hard, I imagined Teddy standing there, cheering me on.
And I kept going. And I thought to myself.
We can do this.
And when I was done, one of my fellow patients--an older gentleman, like most of my fellow patients--asked me what I was recovering from. And I told him about the 18 broken bones.
"It's too bad you didn't hurt your knees," he told me. I said what?!
And he sang to me, "Head, shoulders, knees, and nose. Knees and nose."
We had a good laugh, and I felt as normal as I've felt in far too long.
