A Love Story with a Little Heartbreak
Page 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
It was the last week of September. Another Indian Summer was in play in central Wisconsin. Connie sat in her wheelchair in the front yard on Main Street, enjoying the warmth of the midday sunshine. She had just wheeled herself up the street for several blocks and back again with Penny scampering at her side the whole way. It was a good workout, and when she returned to her yard, she rested. She liked the openness of sitting in the sun or in the dappled shade under the giant elms that sat on the corners of the property. Fresh air, to her, was the perfect tonic for the small rooms in the house and the limitations of her wheelchair. Even on rainy days, she wanted to sit outside, but Ruby insisted that she stay under the shelter of the front porch.
Today was a glorious day, a day with sunshine, a faint breeze, and very little humidity. The leaves on the trees had lost their luster and now hung on aging stems in the prelude to autumn. They rippled when a soft breeze ran through them, but not enough to suggest to anyone that it was a windy day. Penny jumped up into Connie’s lap and snuggled into the blanket that Connie had thrown over her legs. Connie then looked upward, into the sun’s warmth, closed her eyelids, and recalled the first days with Penny. Her memory of the first day that she and Penny had played fetch made her smile.
Penny could play fetch all day if someone would play with her. Henry was the first to discover Penny’s love for fetching when he threw her toys into the front yard one Saturday from the porch. Once Henry had discovered Penny’s talent for fetching, he got his hands on a rubber ball and tossed it into the yard. Penny was all over it in a heartbeat, and brought it back to him every time. He was having fun with the game and pleasantly surprised at Penny’s retrieving instincts. After making Penny do a few runs into every corner of the front yard, he chucked the ball into the apple orchard in the lot next to the house. It landed beyond the first row of apple trees into some very tall grass. Penny followed the flight path of the ball and went after it like a rocket before it was lost from Henry’s sight. But in less than a minute, the ball was at Henry’s feet. She was an all-star.
Connie basked in the warmth of the sun’s rays and enjoyed recalling the events of that day when Penny’s obsession for fetching had become evident. Connie was confident that anybody could throw anything and, as long as Penny saw it, she’d get it and bring it back to the thrower’s feet.
Unfortunately, the fact that Connie was in a wheelchair presented something of a challenge for Connie and Penny to work out. Because Connie’s feet weren’t on the ground, Penny didn’t really figure them into the equation. Instead, the wheels of the wheelchair seemed to be feet to Penny, so she would drop the ball at the base of either wheel. The very first time this happened, they both realized the problem. Without uncomfortable contortions, Connie wasn’t able to reach the ball at the base of either wheel. Her fingertips were about two inches too short, but it was a long two inches for her to overcome from the wheelchair.
This obstacle to playing fetch led to a profound demonstration of Penny’s intelligence. Penny solved the problem. The solution was so astounding that Mama and Henry had trouble believing Connie when she told them about it. To prove it, Connie set it up later that day so that Penny would have to repeat her trick. The demonstration began with her request of Henry to clear the area around her wheelchair, specifically, to get rid of the apples on the ground. Penny had to be restrained while Henry threw them back into the orchard. Apparently, Henry thought to himself, cleaning up the apples was necessary for the performance of the trick. Connie was ready and confident that Penny would repeat her trick.
Connie then got Penny’s attention and threw the ball across the yard, toward the orchard. Penny returned it to her to no one’s surprise, dropping the ball at the base of the wheel of Connie’s wheelchair. As Ruby and Henry watched, Penny and Connie stared at each other, just as they had earlier over the same impasse. The ball sat on the ground, just out of Connie’s reach, inches below her fingertips.
“Go, Penny, help me,” Connie said, pointing to the orchard, “Get some apples!”
Suddenly, Penny spun and ran away, heading for the orchard. Seconds later, she returned with an apple in her mouth and dropped it next to the ball, where Connie simply sat, waited, and watched. Penny turned around and ran to the orchard again, returning in seconds with another apple, which she dropped alongside the first one. Both Ruby and Henry watched this process unfolding, neither able to guess what would happen. Penny made a few more trips, and then Connie counted six apples on the ground, fairly bunched together near her wheel, all just below her fingertips, but none in a better position than the rubber ball.
Penny stopped at the base of the wheel, overseeing all six apples and the ball, and looked up at Connie. After a few moments of panting, Penny picked up the rubber ball and gently placed it on top of the apples. To everyone’s surprise, but apparently not to Penny’s, the ball was now within the grasp of Connie’s fingertips. Game on!
Connie praised Penny and beamed over Penny’s intelligence. Ruby and Henry applauded, quite in disbelief over what they had just witnessed, but they couldn’t deny it because they’d just seen it.
After that amazing apple trick encore, Henry left an overturned wooden fruit box at the corner of the walkway and sidewalk so that Penny would have a readymade platform for the ball after each retrieval.
It was a good memory for Connie, and it pushed a couple of the bad ones aside.
From then on, whenever Connie and Penny played fetch, Penny literally danced in circles around Connie’s wheelchair, when her nose wasn’t fixed on the rubber ball that sat on the overturned box. Two hours of fetch with Penny every day was just fine with Connie, an hour in the morning and one after lunch. During each hour, she spent roughly thirty minutes throwing the ball with each arm as far as she could. Even in one month of fetch with Penny, Connie could feel the difference in her arms and noted that every few days she was able to throw the ball farther than before. Nothing made Penny happier—and Connie, too, enjoyed their game, especially whenever she threw the ball farther than ever. It was a good sign that she was getting stronger.
The weeks passed, and warm days had given in to cooler ones; autumn was well underway. Cold nights had already made their presence known, as windows were no longer left open at night, not even a crack. Air that was already too cold trumped fresh air, so the windows would stay closed until spring arrived.
Every day Connie would work on her legs and arms. The arms were easy to exercise. She had her two-pound barbells and, when the weather permitted, a game of fetch. Exercising the legs wasn’t as easy, but she had figured out a way to do some work on them. For this part of her Plan, with the help of a couple of elastic, wraparound bandages, she would fix each hand weight to an ankle and then lift her legs at the hip, making her knees rise upward so that her feet would rise off the footrest of the wheelchair.
In mid-August when she first tried this leg-lifting exercise, neither foot moved, not even once in the entire first week. Not only were the leg muscles seemingly non-existent in each leg at that time, but the feeling in her bad leg, the left one, hadn’t returned. That leg was almost entirely numb, as it had been since she had left the hospital.
There was no doubt that this absence of feeling was attributable to nerve damage, and it presented the question that no one could answer, not at St. Agnes, not at The Mayo Clinic, not anywhere: Was the nerve damage permanent or was the nerve simply caught in a slow healing process? Dr. von Hoerner reminded her that nerves are, indeed, very slow to regenerate and that she shouldn’t lose hope. Connie refused to accept the possibility that the nerve damage was permanent.
She tied the weights to her feet every day in the ensuing weeks and continued with her daily commitment to think only happy thoughts. Thus, she remained upbeat and optimistic, despite the pain and frustration. Progress in lifting her legs was miniscule, but by the end of September, she could lift her knees a couple of inches, and then in October, a couple of more inches. It was
progress, slow and steady, but progress nonetheless.
Connie and Penny had developed a bond that made them inseparable. There was no doubt that Penny was, indeed, Connie’s dog. Not surprisingly, Penny followed Connie everywhere; she went where Connie went. She spent hours on Connie’s lap when Connie was reading and, to no one’s surprise, slept on Connie’s bed every night.
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