Returning to the scene

I recently drove back to the location of my surgeries for first time since my injury. I scheduled an appointment with my lead surgeon to discuss hardware removal and other issues. It was fun to finally speak to him in my own voice and see him face-to-face, rather than looking up at him from a hospital bed and trying to talk through the fog of the drugs. After our visit I went next door to the hospital where I spent 14 days way back in January. It was strange to see the place in its entirety. When I was there I was always on drugs and usually viewed the facilities as I was being wheeled down hallways towards the surgery rooms. The only time I saw the world outside my room from a vertical position was near the end of my stay when I was required to struggle down the hall – with three people helping hold me up – to the rehab room where I mustered my last remaining ounce of energy to walk up three steps. This procedure was the exit exam for the hospital, and it was a miserable exercise in pain and struggle. But when I returned I was upright and the place seemed cleaner, brighter, and smaller than I had imagined. I met a few of my nurses and thanked them for their help, and I stopped by that rehab room to speak with one of my therapists, the one who got me up those stairs and out of the hospital. It was strange to be back. As I peeked into my old room I recalled the world of misery that revolved in that room. I wondered how many people had suffered in that space before and after me. Strange that so much pain and struggle can be compressed into 14 days in one room. As I exited through the front door of the hospital, the same door through which I was wheeled in a stupor 9 months ago, I was thankful to have come so far but mindful of the long road ahead.

My old room, awaiting its next patient.....