Fallen: A Trauma, a Marriage, and the Transformative Power of Music (20 page)

“It’s a nightmare,” he says, angling his head in my general direction. I am on his left, so it is difficult for him to face me directly. “It’s a nightmare not having my legs.”

I know, I want to say, but it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. But I don’t say it. It is a foolish sentiment, and potentially untrue. Perhaps even cruel. How can I undermine the weight of what Simon is expressing with pat, pacifying assurances? Everything happens for a reason. It will all work out in the end. In every cloud there is a silver lining. All the little fibs we appease ourselves with to simply not have to face a moment like this. But the potential of Simon’s pain scares me more than anything I have ever faced in my life. I fear it will crack us both open. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again. Can we?

“It is a nightmare,” I say, swallowing a mouthful of tears. “I wish there was more I could do.”

Simon smiles, the same smile he gave me as we wheeled away from his hearing test. It is the second time today that smile has saved me and, even with the left side all droopy, it is gorgeous. Complete. “I’ll tell you what,” he says. “Why don’t you give me your pudding?”

BACK IN SIMON’S
room, the nurses once again prepare him to be airlifted into bed. It is a complicated procedure, maneuvering the sling under Simon’s body while he is seated in the chair. The sling must be aligned properly so that when he is lifted he doesn’t dip or tilt dangerously.

Marc and Lorna say goodnight, and as I walk them to the elevator, Lorna sighs. “He’s like a baby, in that sling,” she says, “a baby in the mouth of a giant stork.” It is a strikingly apt image, one that conveys the continuing horror of his helplessness, a horror that only deepens the further away he is from the coma days.

When I return, I pull the sheets back from Simon’s feet to check his bandages. He left the
ICU
with large pressure sores on the tops of his ankles; they are mostly healed now, though the still-delicate skin is discolored and scarred.

“Your toenails are really long, Dad,” Eli says from his seat on the window ledge. “Can I cut them for you?”

We exchange positions, Eli picking up the small bag of toiletries he and I assembled for Simon at the London Drugs across the street from our hotel. I pull my pen and notebook out but only pretend to update my journal, watching as Eli gently manipulates Simon’s swollen, unfeeling feet. He takes tentative little snips on the overgrown rind of the big toe.

I was terrified of clipping Eli’s nails when he was a baby. I let his fingernails grow so long he scratched his face, and when I did finally cut them I nicked the skin of his newborn middle finger, releasing a bright red bubble of blood. This, I fretted, was motherhood: despite my best intentions and best attempts, I was doomed to cause harm to my child. I insisted on deferring the task of nail cutting to Simon, with his steady hands and steadier nerves. I watch now as Eli returns the gesture while Simon inquires about his new job at the marina.

“I’m a glorified bellboy,” Eli says as he pulls the emery board out of the toiletry bag and begins filing his carefully clipped corners. “Only not so glorified.”

Since Simon’s accident, Eli has adopted a new look, buzz-cutting his hair and buying a
UFC TAP OUT
shirt, as if these trappings of the hypermasculine, the super-strong, can protect him. Still, the gentleness he inherited from his father flows through his every movement. After he finishes filing the nails, he buffs away the dead and calloused skin. We are okay, I think, as Eli squeezes a pearl of peppermint cream into the palm of his hand and slowly works it into the dry skin of Simon’s feet. We are okay right now. This time it does not feel like a thin lie, a rope bridge flung across an abyss; it is real and true. We are okay right now. This is all that matters.

Simon falls asleep. I leave the cell phone tucked into the side of his bed and a note attached to the bedrail—
Sweet dreams shhhugar; I’ll see you at sunrise
—and Eli and I walk along Laurel back to Broadway and the hotel, the heat of the day dissipating into a cool blue dusk.

When I return in the morning with tea and muffins, Simon is already awake.

“I liked the note,” he says. “Especially the ‘see you at sunrise.’ It was like a little prayer through the night. I had butterflies in my stomach waiting for you to come.”

His face is flushed. I recognize the look: it is one of new love, of falling head over heels, and my face warms with a reciprocating glow. Simon and I are a few years shy of our twentieth anniversary. After so many years, and despite whatever traumatic events conspire in provoking it, that spark of fresh love, that ache of anticipation, is delicious. There isn’t much time to savor it, though. Wilhelm is up and running the tap water at the end of the room and then Sean, Simon’s physiotherapist, arrives with a breakdown of the day’s schedule. After the nursing staff help Simon through his morning routine, we are to meet him in the Occupational Therapy gym.

The
OT
gym is large and busy, filled with both gym equipment and items of “daily living”—a mattress, a kitchenette—as well as work tables, where several people practice fine motor skills: picking up pennies, doing up buttons, tying laces. Sean waits for us by a raised exercise plinth, flanked by two students who will assist and observe Simon’s session. Sean is stocky and strong-looking but a good deal shorter than Simon, and I watch with barely contained anxiety as he prepares Simon for something he calls a sliding board transfer. Angling Simon’s chair next to the plinth, Sean places one end of a smooth, oval-shaped board under Si and the other end on the cushioned mat so that the body of the board bridges the gap. Simon leans his full body weight forward into Sean’s shoulder while one student steadies the board and the other, holding onto the fabric of Simon’s sweatpants, lifts from behind. In one smooth movement, Sean swoops Simon off the chair, across the board, onto the plinth, and down onto his back.

“And that’s how a sliding board transfer is done,” Sean says. He and the students then proceed to move all of Simon’s limbs, asking Simon to flex or extend, to lift or bend. The strength of each muscle movement is graded on a scale of 1 to 5—the Oxford scale, 0 being no muscle movement and 5 being full strength. Below his waist, Simon’s scores are all 0; the right hand and arm, for a variety of movements, scores 3s and 4s; the left scores 1s and 2s. Simon is unusually unchatty, focusing all his attention on Sean’s directions. The focus pays off: with Sean positioning his arm, Simon is able to raise it almost above his head. Despite the low left hand and arm scores, I am impressed by a whole new level of left arm movement I haven’t yet seen. It figures that Simon would save his best performance until there is an audience.

Sean accompanies us back to Si’s room and attaches rubber TheraBands to the headboard and side rails of his bed, instructing Simon in a few strength-building exercises.

“So you can keep working over the weekend. Get you ready for Monday,” Sean says, “when the real work begins.”

“What did you think?” I ask Si after Sean leaves. After the small physio room at
VGH
, the size and scope of the
OT
gym is impressive, and I like Sean: he is both gruff and friendly, and I thought he did a good job at establishing an immediate level of trust with Simon. But I’m not sure how it would feel to be the person lying on the plinth being poked and prodded and measured.

“Sean is very meat and potatoes,” Simon says, lids heavy with the pressing need for sleep. “That’s what I need: meat and po—” He trails off midsentence into a deep, impenetrable, well-deserved slumber.

WE ARE ALONE
the next day, or at least as alone as you can be in a massive rehabilitation center. Wilhelm’s wife picked him up Friday night so that he can spend the weekend at home. Lorna stays at Jer and Barb’s, taking a much-needed day of rest—her first since Si’s accident—and Marc is taking Eli to his annual soccer tournament in Chilliwack, along with my brother, his family, and my mother. Simon insists that we should be in Chilliwack too.

“We can’t miss the tournament,” he says over breakfast. “Let’s just go. We’ll come back here when it’s over.”

I understand the sentiment perfectly. There are so many times when I have a similar impulse: Simon and I just need a quick time-out from this hospital scene. A small break to take in a soccer game or go for a walk in the woods or snuggle on the couch, just to recharge. Then we’ll get back to all this. But I also see clearly now that Simon has not fully acknowledged the extent of his injuries. I explain in detail why driving to Chilliwack and staying for the tournament isn’t possible yet and end by making a promise: “Next year. We’ll go next year.”

Simon nods. It is half an hour before game time, and he asks me to dial Eli’s cell phone so that they can speak. They chat briefly about the lineup of games for the day and then Eli says he needs to go warm up.

“Good luck. I love you, man,” Simon says. He passes the phone back to me, his face betraying a kaleidoscope of emotions that resolves into sudden tears. It is shocking. In all our time together, I have never seen him cry. I have seen him tear up when his friend James died and when our dog Ananda was hit by a car, but I have never seen him cry.

“I am a full-grown man, but I’m living like a baby,” he says. “I hate feeling like a fucking baby.”

Hand pressed to face, his shoulders shudder as he gulps for breath. I sit beside him, paralyzed by my own helplessness.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I’m so, so sorry. I feel better for crying.” He dries his tears with his good right hand and returns to work on the left, pulling and pumping away on the TheraBands.

A SCHEDULE IS
quickly established at
GF
Strong. Mornings, Simon works in the physio gym with Sean; afternoons, with an occupational therapist, Melissa, in the
OT
gym. Simon will see various other professionals during his stay at
GF
Strong—his rehab doctor, a social worker, a neuropsychologist, a music therapist, a sexual health therapist—but the relationships that develop and deepen most quickly are with Richard (King Richard, as Simon and I come to call him), the nurse who initially greeted us at
GF
Strong, and with Sean. It had been challenging, Sean confides to me during the first week, to figure out a plan for Simon’s physical rehab program. Simon has three distinct injuries: a brain injury, a brain stem injury, and a spinal cord injury. Sean explains that, separately, he would approach each one of those injuries in a very different manner. It seems, however, that both Sean and Simon are up for the challenge: that first full week at
GF
Strong, there is a quantum leap forward in Simon’s ability to move. On September first, ten days after the move into rehab I write in my journal:

I can’t remember the exact day you started lifting your left arm independently. When we left
VGH
, you couldn’t lift it. Now you are holding it straight out for Sean. You are holding a teacup, cutting meat with your knife. Amazing.

THERE IS, HOWEVER,
a new development along with Simon’s increased activity: the onset of pain. This pain is not like the previous aches or soreness Simon experienced in his arms and neck at
VGH
. This is something entirely new, the mysterious and elusive neuropathic pain that often accompanies spinal cord injuries and usually starts a few months after the injury has occurred.

“It’s like random bolts of lightning in my bikini line,” Simon explains to Sean and me.

“Sounds like my college years,” Sean says, and we laugh. But it isn’t funny. At night, Simon is often woken from a deep sleep crying because of the pain that surges through his hips and lower back. It is cruel, the irony of an injury that robs one of sensation and movement, of everything but pain.

AT THE BEGINNING
of September, Simon has his first team meeting. His parents and I are present, as are Sean; Richard; the rehab doctor, Dr. Yao; the occupational therapist, Melissa; Mary, Simon’s social worker; and Janet, a representative from WorkSafe
BC
. We gather in a generic conference room, the unadorned whitewashed walls and uncomfortable chairs an ode to parsimonious practicality. The only dash of color is provided by Dr. Yao’s stylish turquoise pumps and matching handbag. The elegant cut of her skirt and blouse momentarily distract me, and I wonder how many days I have worn the same pair of jeans and crumpled T-shirt. Too many. A sigh escapes me as I sit down beside Simon, crossing my legs and settling my sneakered feet underneath me. We position ourselves in a horseshoe around Simon; introductions are made, roles are outlined, and Simon’s current health status is summarized. Next the team wants to know: What are Simon’s rehab goals?

“Aside from walking out of here?” Simon says from his tilted-back position in his electric wheelchair. “I want to see Eli play a soccer game. I want to play guitar. I want to get back home. Be a husband; be a father.”

After the meeting I meet separately with Janet, who is to become Simon’s caseworker in the Special Services division of WorkSafe
BC
. Janet is tall, dark-haired, very professional but also friendly. She congratulates Simon on his amazing progress in rehab, and they make a good connection. Still, I am wary heading into the meeting; I have no idea what to expect. Will I have to argue and fight for Simon to receive benefits? I have had no firsthand interactions with WorkSafe
BC
—or any insurance company, for that matter—but experience has taught me that large institutional bureaucracies tend to be less than helpful to the clients they are meant to serve.

It is a weird and one-sided meeting. I ask a few questions, but for the most part, Janet outlines what WorkSafe
BC
will and will not do. Previously, injured workers had the option of receiving either a single lump sum settlement or a monthly payout until the age of sixty-five. Now the only option is a monthly payout. Medically necessary procedures and equipment are covered, and there are allowances in a variety of areas: clothing, exercise equipment, recreation, and vocational retraining. Necessary renovations to make housing accessible are covered. The amount of the monthly payments is determined by the level of permanent injury, and the maximum payout is 90 percent of one’s pre-accident salary.