Don't Leave Me This Way: Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry

by Julia Fox Garrison

  “What happened to you was from an outside source. It wasn’t anything that was wrong with your brain or your body. I think you should keep listening to your intuition. It’s been correct all along.”

  Then you ask the question that’s been waiting patiently for its turn. “Nobody in the medical community—no doctor, no nurse, not even Dr. Neuro—has been willing to tell me flat out that I’m not going to die from this. My family has told me I’m not going to die, but no one with a white coat, not yet. Am I going to make it?”

  He takes off his spectacles and polishes them with a cloth, using the opportunity to look you directly in the eye with no barrier. “You will have deficits for the rest of your life,” he says. “Your arm and hand will be impaired and your left side will continue to be a problem in general, but you’re not going to die. Your films show that your brain has already healed. Go, live your life.”

  On the way home, you’re the happiest you have felt in a long, long time.

  In the Mood

  YOU AND JIM have not made love for nearly a year after your injury, a long time to be apart. So much has happened in between, emotionally and physically. You no longer feel like the same person Jim married; you feel more like half a person; half of your body just doesn’t exist in your mind. You feel crippled.

  If he could have seen the future in a glass ball, wouldn’t he have run as fast as he could away from the altar? This isn’t what he bargained for. You have aged way beyond your years; some days you feel as though you’ve been sent at warp speed to an age of seventy without the benefit of all the memories in between.

  You are both fearful of making love because you have had a tremendous assault to your vascular system. Jim is literally afraid he is going to kill you. Having an orgasm would cause your blood pressure to rise, and who could say that wouldn’t bring on another stroke? You’re scared, too.

  What a way to go, though. At least Jim could have the legacy of having killer sex.

  But the doctors had said intercourse is now okay, and on this point, for some reason, you are finally inclined to take their word on something.

  YOU’RE APPREHENSIVE because your body is not operating the way it had prior to your injury. If you can’t see your left side, it doesn’t exist—you can’t feel it. You have to be looking at your left side to know where it is in space. At night when you go to bed, Jim would hold your hand under the covers. Initially, you’d feel the warmth of his hand and the pressure, but within minutes that message would go away and you wouldn’t know he was holding your hand anymore. You’d feel pinned down and you wouldn’t know why. How’s that for a mood enhancer? “Hey, do you have my hand? What are you doing with it? Where is it? When you’re done with it, I want it back.”

  So you have your little black humor about the body parts.

  You discover quickly that you aren’t able to participate in the lovemaking the way you used to. You’re numb. Adjusting to the numbness of the whole left side of your face and body does not, at first, feel very sensual. Imagine having sex with the whole left side of your body on novocaine. Your leg is basically a Jersey barrier—dead weight. You can’t move the way you used to, and it doesn’t feel the same. The left side of your face lacks any muscle tone, which causes you to drool profusely, and although Jim has dealt with every body fluid possible, you’re grossed out for him. It certainly didn’t make you feel sexy or appealing. “Julia, it’s nothing new, you’ve always drooled over me,” Jim says lightly after sensing your reticence.

  But Jim thoughtfully leaves the light on so you can see your left side. He helps to move you. He does a lot of weight lifting, but he is sweet and devoted. It occurs to you that he has been making love to you tirelessly, in a nonphysical sense, from the moment you were injured. He has taken care of your every need, and always in a loving manner.

  Now is no different.

  WHEN YOU ARE DONE, you both cry a little and hold each other.

  “Now we’re a couple again,” Jim whispers.

  He’s been a nurse for so long. It is a huge relief to both of you that you’ve passed the caretaker barrier together, that you’re back to the intimacy a husband and wife are meant to share.

  Slip-Sliding Away

  WINTER IS TOUGH. It makes your muscle tone and spasticity problems really kick in. You find that you take more long naps in the winter than in summer. You’ve become a classic study in hibernation.

  IT’S A GRAY AFTERNOON in February. You aren’t feeling well. It’s sleeting outside and everything is coated with ice and pouring rain.

  Although the bus stop is only a block away, you don’t want to have to walk to meet the bus in this miserable weather, so you hop in the car to pick Rory up. You don’t bother to put your coat on, and you’re still in your slippers.

  You collect Rory without incident, and he’s very glad to see you. Once he is buckled in, you head back down the street and decide to pick up the mail from your mailbox.

  You know you can’t walk down the driveway in this weather, so you pull the car as close to the box as possible. There is a mound of plowed snow by the curb, though, so you aren’t able to get close enough to grab the mail from the window. You open the car door and step out.

  Big mistake.

  You slide on a slab of ice that is covered with a pool of water. Under the idling car you go.

  You’re flat on your back, and you quickly realize you can’t get up on your own.

  The car is rumbling above you, and you’re lying on a dark, frigid bed of ice and water. You can hear that Rory is agitated. He is calling for you.

  He is trying to open the door, and every time he does this he hits your head. You keep saying, “Rory, stop that,” and you know he’s starting to panic a little bit.

  He gets out the other door and makes his way around to where you are. He hears the car running and sees you under the car. It’s a scary thing for him. It’s no picnic for you, either. You have no idea how you are going to get yourself out of this ugly situation.

  Fortunately, you see your neighbor Charlie step out of his front door with his little girl and start toward his car. Thank God, he has to drive his daughter somewhere. He’s a big, strapping guy, just what you need at the moment.

  You call to him; he turns his head and looks puzzled.

  He comes over and hoists you from underneath the car.

  He says, “Julia, what are you doing?”

  You say, “I just went out for a little ice-skating; I do this every once in a while. It’s a new type of skating—you do it under your car. For a real adrenaline rush, the car should be running.”

  You’re being a smart-ass. Then you notice Rory is still looking at you with eyes the size of saucers. “Actually, I was just trying to get my mail, but it turns out that’s not a good idea when you’re wearing slippers. No traction. Guess that’s why they’re called ‘slippers.’”

  He reaches over and gets your mail and hands it to you. He buckles Rory back in. Soaked from head to toe, you get in your car and drive the six feet up the driveway and into the dry warmth of the garage.

  You Must Be So Proud

  “WHEN ARE YOU DUE?”

  You get this question from strangers quite often.

  “When am I due what? Oh, you thought I was pregnant. You must know something I don’t know.”

  You can handle any amount of pain, and you have become numb to most forms of public humiliation, but when someone asks you when you are having your baby, it feels like you are staked in the heart.

  The stroke caused hemiparesis, which means one side is affected and certain muscle groups either don’t work or are extremely weak. You never had a washboard stomach, and some of the muscle groups in your abdomen and your hips are weak or don’t work at all. You sometimes stand with your hips jutting out if you don’t pay attention. If you’re not doing a pelvic tilt and pulling your gut in consciously, which is difficult to do at a time in your life when everything has become a conscious task, including things like li
fting your leg high enough that you don’t fall when you walk, you’ll have sloppy posture. So it does look like you have an extra ten pounds or so. You have thin legs and your weight tends to gravitate to the stomach area. The way you stand can appear to make you look pregnant.

  But you can’t take it when people assume that you are and start talking to you about it.

  ONE WOMAN in a waiting room for one of your many doctor’s visits asks you what happened; she notices the brace on your leg and your cane.

  You explain you have had a stroke.

  She pats your stomach and said, “Oh…it can’t be that bad, at least you have a little one on the way.”

  “Actually, it’s not a ‘little one,’ it’s a big one that you just tactfully pointed out for the public at large. I’m not pregnant, but thank you for reminding me of my weight problem.”

  You can’t understand why complete strangers feel they can take liberties with pregnant women by touching their stomachs. Would they grab a big-busted woman and say, “Just wanted to feel if they were real”?

  YOU GO TO THE LOCAL PHARMACY to pick up your supply of prescriptions. This is during flu season and the pharmacy is crowded.

  There is a new lady at the register, and as you’re paying for your package, she says, “I sees you are about to have your baby.”

  Great. Not only do you look pregnant, you look nine months pregnant.

  You just look at her and say, “The only thing I am about to deliver is fifty pounds of fat. I’m not going to have a baby.”

  This produces a pregnant pause.

  Everyone is staring at your stomach; you try to suck it in with all your might. She is so flustered that she tries to give you more change from your transaction than you have coming.

  AT THE GROCERY STORE, a huge woman guides her cart next to yours, grins broadly, and says, “My, you’re getting big. You must be so excited!”

  You smile right back and say, “What a big ass you have. You must be so proud!”

  It felt good at the time. But later you feel a pang of guilt. Why are you so very sensitive about this issue?

  End of Discussion

  DR. NEURO has been keeping you on prenatal vitamins for a long time, supposedly on the theory that it is always a possibility that you will become pregnant again.

  Today, during a checkup, he informs you that this was not necessary after all, and that he has prescribed the vitamins simply to keep your mental attitude positive.

  “It’s time for you to know,” he says calmly, “that you really can’t have a baby.”

  It’s like a sock in the jaw, but for some reason you don’t argue or contradict him, which you would certainly have done earlier on in your recovery.

  “First and foremost, your body probably cannot handle the stress of becoming pregnant. Second, Jim has so much on his plate. Look at the whole picture for a minute, okay? The bottom line is that you very well might not survive the delivery—and you might not even survive the pregnancy itself. I know all that’s probably hard for you to process. But think about Jim for a minute.”

  The sentence rolls around in your head for a minute. Think about Jim.

  When you have mentioned to other people how committed you are to having a baby, a lot of them have asked, “Well, how does your husband feel about this?” You’ve always said, “Jim is behind me one hundred percent.” He always was, of course, but something tells you now, as the doctor says these words to you, that Jim has known for some time that this was a crazy idea, but has been unable to say that to you.

  Then it dawns on you. Jim needed Dr. Neuro to tell you.

  You respect your neurologist. He has been with you from the beginning, he has asked you questions instead of just issuing orders, and he knows who you were and what you are about. Jim knows all this. It was inconceivable that the neurologist would be talking this way to you without having talked to Jim about it first.

  You let this new reality wash over you for a moment. The doctor’s lips are moving, but you can’t make out what he’s saying.

  There will be no new baby. It’s a fact now.

  YOU PICK THE NEUROLOGIST up in midsentence.

  “…you had a stroke and you became totally incapacitated. Then what?”

  You shake your head briskly for just a second. You do want to be part of this conversation.

  “What do you mean?” you ask.

  “I mean, suppose, God forbid, you became even more seriously paralyzed, and suppose Jim was stuck with two children to take care of? And you? How fair would that be to him?”

  Think about Jim.

  He is putting it in terms that are not all about Julia, making you think about Jim, and not what your goals are.

  He’s right.

  The having-a-baby part of your life is over.

  You were always apprehensive when thinking of trying to care for a baby. When you tried to think it through, though, you knew you wouldn’t even be able to hold a baby without putting it in harm’s way. So you would just leave it that you were going to have another baby, but you couldn’t think about what would happen after the baby was born.

  It has always been an impossibility. It is something that you used to get you to where you are now, a form of self-protection. It was a goal that had a purpose, and supported you, but it was never going to be achieved—you couldn’t take care of yourself on your own. It must have been you who needed to hear it from the man who was taking care of you medically.

  “Let me ask you something,” you say. “When you put me on those prenatal vitamins, did you do that so I would still have the goal of having another child. To keep me from interrupting my recovery.”

  There really aren’t any question marks. You are asking questions, but stating them as facts.

  “I had to treat the mind,” Dr. Neuro says, “as well as the body.”

  So there will be no baby. It is a huge, cold, dark fact. But it is not really unfamiliar. It wells up inside your chest and says, You knew the time that you’d be asking him about babies was coming. And you realize you are weeping.

  He gives you some privacy. You weep for about half an hour there in the examination room.

  Something you have always wanted has been taken away from you, and it isn’t fair. You are devastated by this news, and it is not something you are going to be able to process quickly. You never gave close examination to how you would care for a baby. It was the goal. But now it is a fact.

  Jim leaves for work. Your mother finally comes to collect you.

  You immediately say to her, for reasons that you cannot quite understand, “Time to go visit Edie.”

  EDIE, WHO HAS BEEN suffering from cancer and is now in the final stages of that disease.

  Edie Sees Her Husband

  AFTER EDIE WAS ADMITTED to a nursing facility because her cancer was terminal, you and Jim used to visit her every Sunday, and Jim and Rory would play in the parking lot while you sat with your friend and chatted and laughed.

  Now she has started to decline, and when you come out of the neurologist’s office, it seems very important to go visit her right now.

  In the car, your mother asks whether you would rather go home. She can tell you’ve been crying.

  You say, “I really think we need to go visit Edie, because I just have this feeling that it is today that she’s going to go.”

  Everything falls into place. Your mother arranges for someone to pick up Rory from school and you and she drive up to the nursing home.

  Edie is in fact going to die today. It’s obvious. When you walk into the room, she is flanked by her two daughters on either side of the bed.

  A priest gives her the last rites. She is conscious and alert, and participates throughout the ritual. It’s a surreal experience.

  You are sitting next to her. She is very thin and her eyes are big, but she is totally coherent, and you can’t stop looking at her.

  Edie knew that you wanted to have another baby. She knew that you were hoping to again u
se all the bedding that she had made for Rory: the bumper pad, the rocking chair cushion, all the beautiful things that had made Rory’s nursery so cheerful.

  You say, “Edie, the doctor told me I can’t have another baby.”

  She nods and says, “You shouldn’t, honey. Think of Jim and think of Rory.”

  Think of Jim.

  You say, “Well, I really wanted to use your bumper pads again.”

  “Well,” she says, “save them for Rory when he has a child.”

  Here she is dying and you’re sitting telling her about your little problem. But it’s how you’ve always talked.

  BESIDES EDIE THERE ARE FOUR OF YOU in the room: her two daughters, Mom, and you. She says good-bye to each person individually. People take turns sitting in the chair next to her to say good-bye. It’s like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz before she clicks her heels three times to go home.

  IT’S YOUR TURN. She is holding your hand.

  She tells you she can see her husband on a hill and he is waving to her to come to him.

  She keeps saying, “Julia, how do I get there?”

  It feels close and right for her to say your name.

  “Julia, how do I get to him? How do I get there?”

  “Edie,” you say, “you have to do that on your own, and when you get there, what a nice welcoming it will be.”

  EDIE ALWAYS HAD the most beautiful silky white hair and gorgeous blue eyes, even at eighty-two. She was smart and she was beautiful.

  As soon as her soul leaves her body, her body becomes a shell. You stroke her hair, like you did on so many of your visits. Her once silky, snow-white hair appears to yellow instantly. It suddenly feels like hay. You notice her gaping mouth and see that her bright smile is gone and that her teeth seem to have darkened abruptly.