Don’t Leave Me This Way
Or When I Get Back on My Feet You’ll Be Sorry
Julia Fox Garrison
To Jim, for your unwavering support. You are
my rock; I am honored to be your “hard place.”
To Rory, for understanding and accepting that I
could still be a mother. You are my inspiration.
Because of you both, I continue to strive and thrive.
Contents
Part One
One of the Rats in the Race
You Want a Smoke?
Karen Croaked, Too
Half a Clock
Your Encounter with the Tapioca Lady
Shit Happens…but Only Occasionally
Chat with Nurse Doom
Eek! A Mouse
Don’t Leave Me This Way
Click Your Heels Three Times and Press the Call Button
Impulsively Yours
Which Hand Was That?
With Apologies to David Letterman
Case in Point
Cry Me a River
Facing the Chicken
Who’s Squinting?
Brace Yourself
Numbness Is in the Eye of the Beholder
The Babe
Your Friend Pays a Visit
Let Me Give You a Hand
Part Two
Judge Judy Gets Hammered
You Can Keep the Dime
Coming to Terms with Shoe Envy
Reflections from a Metal Cage
Dad’s Question
Ray-Bans and the Search for Cool
Déjà Vu
Residents Out for Blood
Testing Your Patient
A Piece of Your Mind
Return to Sender
Pardon Me, but You’re Incompetent
A Lot of Fuktion
Honey
It Ain’t Spring Showers
You Have to Be Dead to Get That Arrangement
Where You Aren’t
The Moaning Lady
Disabled Chariot
Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight
The Quasimodo Walk
Musical Chairs
What You Do Best
Option C
Potty Perils
Jurassic Meltdown
Brain Delayed
This Party Will Self-Destruct in Thirty Seconds
The Incident
Part Three
Beating the Odds, but Still Coming Up Uneven
A Pothole in the Journey
Steady
Bodyguards
You Shall Be Released
Welcome to Headquarters
Foreplay Takes On a New Meaning
Can You Say “Denying Denial”?
On Your Back
Now Lie in It
Recipe for Success: Ignore Authority Figures
My Gait Ain’t What It Used to Be
Balancing Act
What Is Left…Is Only Right
The Dirty Words
Going Nowhere—Slowly
Part Four
A Little Prick
Plastic Cup Blues
Your Money’s Worth
Poof, You’re Healed
Coincidence Is in the Plan
Daisy and Audrey
Chestnuts Explodingon an Open Fire
Riptide
All Shapes and Forms
Driving Miss Julia
Homage to Your Hemorrhage
Have Two Massive Mood Swings and Call Me in the Morning
Bright Lights, Big Electrodes
What Goes Up…
Not Exactly the Therapy You Had in Mind
Dealing with What You Have
Bitter Prescription
Potted
A Walker Disguisedas a Stroller
Moving On
Limping for Joy
Your Own Problems
A Trip to the Bahamas
Over the Edge
The Blockhead Club
“You’re Incurable.” “I Want a Second Opinion.” “Okay, You’re Also a Pain in the Ass.”
In the Mood
Slip-Sliding Away
You Must Be So Proud
End of Discussion
Edie Sees Her Husband
“What Are You Going to Do After Your Stroke?” “I’m Going to Disney World!”
Out of the Blue
Push Harder
Another System
Promises
Part Five
A Stroke of Luck
Wings and Ladders
Acknowledgments
Appendixes
A Prescription for a Productive Doctor’s Visit
An Open Letter to All Doctors
Basic Dos and Don’ts for Doctors
About the Author
Praise
Copyright
About the Publisher
part ONE
One of the Rats in the Race
July 17, 1997
SHE WAS SOUTHBOUND ON ROUTE 128, driving to work and doing her daily ritual, thanking God for her son, Rory, and her husband, Jim, and all of her family and her friends and her job and the fact that she and Jim were talking about having another baby and the fact that she had lost weight thanks to that stuff she was taking and the fact that she had a good marriage, and she finished thanking God and quickly glanced in the rearview mirror and changed lanes confidently and safely and started thinking about precisely how she was going to handle the switchover of the phone system at work while making everything look SEAMLESS to the customers calling in, customers who didn’t know (and didn’t much care) that her company was moving from one building to another, or that BIG, BIG CHANGES were in the works. And she thought, Bring it on.
Southbound on 128. And she thought, Seamless.
And as she was driving it didn’t occur to her to thank God for the ability to stand, or to walk, or to drive, or to take a shower herself, or to dress herself, or to have a functioning circulatory system, or to make her way to the toilet unescorted, or to change her own tampon rather than watch helplessly as a total stranger did so, or to wipe her own ass for that matter. And had she thought of these things she would certainly have been thankful to God for them, but as of the morning of July 17, 1997, it had never occurred to her to even notice them, much less express gratitude for them.
Southbound on 128 and driving and thinking that last week her boss had sat her down and told her “Big, big changes are in the works,” and “I’ll be honest with you, the company is going through a major transition,” and “We need you to keep everybody in your department upbeat, that’s what you’re so good at,” and “Don’t get me wrong, this is a question of survival,” and “You’re the best team player we’ve got,” and “The transition has to be seamless.” Big, big changes in the works. “Don’t let them throw you.”
Southbound on 128 and remembering the huge cutout of Babe Ruth she’d put together for the party with the president when he introduced his new management team and the theme was “The Winning Team.” She’d managed to track down a life-size stand-up photo of the Babe and she’d put a baseball cap with the company logo on it and it got a standing ovation. She’d decorated her department with a baseball theme, even hiring a hot dog and popcorn vendor. There were different positions for her coworkers to play—the batting cage, the pitching mound. Boosting morale within the company. Big, big changes were in the works and everything was going to be seamless, goddammit, seamless.
Southbound on 128, a little sleepy, time to wake up now, thankful that she
knew the road as well as she did. Thankful she knew exactly what was in front of her. Bring it on.
A long time ago you had a vision.
“You’re going to be in a wheelchair for a while. But it’s going to make you a better person.”
You saw yourself in a wheelchair in the dream. When you woke up you felt confused.
HER NORMAL ROUTINE WAS THAT SHE WOULD take a lunchtime walk with Berkeley, the other customer support manager; together, they would walk close to four miles in under an hour, and discuss department strategies while they got in a little exercise. On July 17, they both had to go to separate manager events, so they decided not to walk at lunchtime. She was feeling congested and tired and was slightly relieved that they were not going to be walking.
She sent out a short e-mail to her department, asking if anyone had some kind of cold medicine. She wanted to use it to help relieve her symptoms so she could continue with her plans for the day.
A coworker responded: “I picked up some over-the-counter stuff at the pharmacy; you’re welcome to it.”
She swung by the cubicle, picked up the medicine, headed to the bathroom, swigged some water, and got on with her day.
AT NOON SHE WENT TO THE BUILDING cafeteria and made a salad from the salad bar.
She had the salad in her office while she composed an e-mail regarding her department’s imminent move to another facility, which was scheduled for the end of the week. She was planning on staying at the local hotel over the weekend to oversee the relocation. A coworker came by her office to ask if she wanted a ride to the manager’s event in Tyngsboro. She said she was still writing the e-mail with the details of everyone’s responsibilities for the move. “Go on ahead and I’ll meet you there,” she said.
At a little past two, she felt a throbbing pain in the right side of her head.
It was as if a switch had been flipped. The pain was immediate—a volcano erupting inside her skull.
SHE SAW RANDY, THE DEPARTMENT VICE PRESIDENT, and told him she had a throbbing headache. He suggested going to the bathroom and trying to throw up. He seemed to think that the pressure would release if she threw up her breakfast. The idea didn’t exactly bathe her in relief.
The pain was now excruciating.
She knew it was serious. She knew she had to go to the hospital. She was unsure what hospital she should go to. There was the hospital where she had delivered her son, but it was not a hospital her primary care provider was affiliated with. Her new primary care doctor was about thirty-five miles away. The sister hospital was about ten miles away. She had to make a choice. But her head wasn’t working in its usual optimal choice-making mode. She needed some help.
She asked Caryn, the department administrative assistant, to call her doctor and tell her she was experiencing severe head pain and that it was urgent. The doctor’s office put Caryn on hold for a few minutes.
Time started to shudder.
She heard Caryn shouting into the telephone.
She looked for a position that would alleviate the pain. She tried sitting, pacing, then lying on the floor. Nothing stopped the shooting pain.
She knew Berkeley would be leaving soon to attend the meeting that was being held in Boston, so asking him to drive to the hospital was out. She asked Caryn to drive her to the hospital. Time shuddered again, compressed and expanded.
She passed Berkeley in the corridor and realized she must look odd, because he was suddenly very concerned when he saw her. His face seemed to contort, mirroring hers. He asked if she was all right. Time compressed suddenly, then expanded again, and she was in Caryn’s car.
Caryn was hurtling northbound on 128. The pain was like a volcano. She thought about screaming at her to go faster. But for some reason she heard her own voice saying, in a matter-of-fact tone:
“I’m dying.”
You Want a Smoke?
CARYN’S CAR evaporates.
She’s in the hospital parking lot and for some lunatic reason she announces that it’s going to be too expensive to go into the emergency room. With her head steadily intensifying to Chernobyl status, she makes Caryn take her all the way up to the fourth floor, where the walk-in room for outpatients is located. Space is rippling visibly before her in the waiting room. When people talk, their words get heavy and thud to the floor before reaching her. The nurse says something to her but not enough words make it through the wall. The nurse seems Slow. Deliberate. Intense. And there’s no logic, at least none that she can make out.
Caryn translates. It turns out she’s supposed to go to the emergency room after all.
Time shudders again and the triage nurse is taking her blood pressure and it’s a little low but (according to Caryn, translating the nurse) “not an alarming range.” And she does feel calm for some reason, even with waves of pain that make the room flash and disappear. She realizes she’s in the emergency room’s corridor. An elderly man and woman, bleeding, are wheeled past her on two gurneys. She hears the words “auto accident.” The room goes white with pain again.
Now she’s on a gurney, a narrow corridor that smells of alcohol is consuming her, and Caryn is receding into the edges of her peripheral vision. She shouts out, “Call Jim. He’s my husband. Have him paged and tell him to get my entire family over here because I’m not going to make it.” Caryn knows Jim is her husband but for some reason she wants to make this point absolutely clear to her.
The corridor throws Caryn away and she listens to the wheels rattle and stares at the ceiling as it hurtles past above her. Time shudders and then Caryn is back again next to her and she’s still staring at the ceiling but she’s not moving anymore. The only thing that’s moving is the wave of white pain in her skull.
She says, “Caryn, hold my hand.” She does and she squeezes her hand hard because the pain is right on top of her skull and she thinks she is going to die then and there. She doesn’t know it at the time, but every time her heart beats, every time her pulse throbs, it releases blood into her brain. On the count of two. Every time she counts to two, she hits a wave of pain. It bursts and explodes. She can’t catch her breath.
Time quivers and the room goes bright with the pain and when it lightens up again she is throwing up, just like Randy had suggested back at work, only it doesn’t seem to be helping much. As she vomits, people are taking off her jewelry and shouting and she hears scissors cutting her blouse and bra away and a tube goes down her throat and the gurney is moving again and Jim flashes by and they lead him away and she feels bad that he has to see her this way and the tube in her throat comes out again and a male nurse is running next to her as she plunges down the corridor on her gurney and he’s telling her to grab his fingers hard.
She tries, but she can’t see his fingers.
They’re a blur, moving slowly in the air. It’s like some trippy sixties film, moving frame by frame. She can’t manage to get a fix on them. She orders her hand to reach out to where his fingers ought to be, but her hand refuses to respond.
Is he doing magic tricks with his hands to make his fingers fade in and out?
She’s having a stroke.
Instantly she feels a calm place in the middle of the pain and she says to the guy pushing her down the hallway, “Am I having a stroke?” And the ceiling is getting lighter and lighter because another wave of pain is coming.
He doesn’t look at her, though, he keeps staring straight ahead, but he smiles on purpose and says, “What did you say? You want a smoke?”
She realizes he’s making a joke for her and she thinks it would probably be polite if she laughed, but then the ceiling vanishes, white.
She is gone.
Karen Croaked, Too
Don’t worry.
Life will go on.
You’re a fighter.
You have purpose.
You have a mission.
SOMEONE IS TELLING you to wake up.
You open your eyes, feeling empty in a white room that won’t tell you anything about how it met y
ou. Your head is throbbing and you are staring at the ceiling and your peripheral vision says you are surrounded by your family and you can hear some of them saying you should wake up and they sound dangerously, oddly happy, purposefully happy for your benefit, and it is obvious to you now that Something Has Happened.
You try to turn over to look at your family. But the left side of your body refuses to obey any command from you.
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