Well, I guess we could say that recovery is its own reward, eh? I think today I can safely say that I feel one hundred percent recovered. I just did a five mile hike, with a rest of an hour and a half or so in a café in between, in the woods, without tiring myself or feeling in any way weak or challenged. The process began for me the day after I was admitted to hospital. It took the form of hope but a sense of hope that felt for me very tangible and very real. I had just wrestled with a sense of despair that I would not fully recover this time, that my health and strength and energy would go on being challenged and undermined and that I would either have to quit my job and try to get on disability, in the meantime having first to spend all my savings before the government would dole out a single nickel. That was how I felt my first morning.
I don't know what happened but I at that point made this decision. That I was going to recover. That I would accept whatever restrictions and limitations that my health condition would place on me for however long, but that I was still going to triumph and flourish within these restrictions and continue celebrating this gift of life that is so dear and so precious.
I think this is also when the change in my body began. I chose to accept and celebrate these moments in the hospital as a kind of gift from God: the care from the nurses and doctors, the opportunity to rest, learning more about my condition from the various tests and examinations. Then came the visits, the gifts, the support from others, always so very important to recovery. It also became clear that I had not lost my sense of humour.
I began to do eye exercises to combat the double vision. I began to flex, stretch and exercise my hands and feet to contravene the paralysis. Although they didn't want me to walk unassisted, I stubbornly would go back and forth to the bathroom unassisted, using the wall for support. When one of the nurses, the only lousy nurse I had to deal with during my hospital stay, alarmed my bed without notifying me first, I let her have it. I stood up to the bitch and told her if she ever did anything like that again to undermine my trust then there would be consequences. Then I demanded that she not work with me again. This standing up for myself I believe helped strengthen and further prepare me for recovery.
Tuesday morning I noticed that with some effort my eyes could sustain a single image, but it was hard. I kept practicing. The physiotherapist gave me a walker and I dressed in hospital pajamas along with the gown so with some sense of decency I could wander the halls with my new toy. Monday I had already begun a new drawing, despite the partial paralysis of my hands only to discover that I could still draw quite well. I found the computer lounge and struggled with my paralyzed fingers to write emails.
Wednesday I dressed in my street clothes, went for a walk in the roof garden and sat in the cafeteria for a while. My eyes were already focussing better though I still needed to keep one eye shut while walking. I also practiced walking short distances without the walker.
Thursday I was given a cane by the same physiotherapist. I had my second shower since Wednesday. My eyes were focussing nearly perfectly. Most of the strength had returned to my right hand and foot. I was walking better.
Friday morning, with my cane, I took a two and a half mile walk in the West End before breakfast. I asked to be discharged by noon. When it turned out that the doctors were taking their sweet time to see me I indicated to the nurse that they had better hurry up because one way or the other I was leaving by twelve. They hurried up.
A friend drove me home and we visited for a while, then, without the cane I walked to a local coffee shop to visit with another friend, followed an hour or so later by one of my supervisors and a co-worker coming by with a lovely cash gift and card and we had a very enjoyable visit together. After this I hobbled home, feeling already tired, and made my first dinner in a week, a lovely vegetarian stew with pasta.
The days that have followed since I have gradually been rebuilding my strength, each day walking a little bit more, sitting to rest a little bit less. Each day, I have been feeling stronger, less wobbly, less tired.
Today I would say that I feel completely well again. I believe that I had a virus, likely picked up in Colombia and that my immune system was down from the rigours of travel. I also am still viewing this time of illness, hospitalization and recovery as a kind of initiation into my senior years. This does not mean that I am going to lose anything, simply it is helping me focus constructively on the fact that my time on this earth is limited and I have to take great care not to squander or waste the years that I have left.
Thank you Lord Jesus.
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