Part 1 – A Necessary New Lifestyle
It happens again. From a pleasant series of dreams – fishing deep blue waters, body surfing white fringed blue green rolling waves of energy, taking long walks through sun sprinkled woods – he awakes to darkness. Not shades of grey. No hint of light. Not even blurred vision to at least give him a clue as to whether it is day or night. Just interminable blackness.
It is always dark these days. He is always confused when he wakes up. Strange bed. Strange room. Why have all his bright adventures been restricted to these precious moments between sleep and awake – the time of dreams.
He stops himself from reaching for the bedside lamp. There is no bedside lamp. It wouldn’t help if there was. The darkness is his and no manner of domestic lighting will dispel it. It takes a few moments to orient himself. When he does, he wishes he hadn’t. He would rather stay in the land of green foamy surf and sun sprinkled woods.
Whenever his sister visits, if she ever visits at all, she says he has become bitter. He doesn’t think she’s right, but if her nasty attitude toward him keeps her away from him, she can think what she wants. The thought produces an ironic smile that doesn’t quite make it to his lips.
He learns new things every day; things he’d never thought he’d ever need to think about again, like tying his shoes. His sister kept saying that he ought to get slip-ons. He hates slip-ons – and probably her too. Always has – the slip-ons not the sister. So, he learns to tie his shoes in the perma-dark. It’s easy. You don’t need to look at your shoes when you tie them – but we do anyway, out of habit. Deleting the need to look is the victory. Looking, like second guessing, isn’t always the best way to do things.
He fumbles for the electric control that has escaped the clutches of the Velcro strap and fallen beside his bed, finds it caught between the mattress and the baby crib rail (they call it a “safety rail” but who falls out of bed anyway – Hell, you are blind when you are asleep, so what’s the dam’ point), and cranks his hospital bed to the sitting position. Another accomplishment – the first for today. Small victories are all he has. He’ll take them.
Sitting up and waking up, pretty much in that order, he tunes into the sounds around him – like checking the morning paper to see what’s going on. His hearing has taken the lead as his main source of information, so he sits quietly and listens.
The doctors say he is making remarkable progress. The caveat “for a blind man” is never said but he always hears it in his head. Remarkable progress “for a blind man.” “Pretty good, for a blind man.” If he hears that chipper “Wow, you’re doing great, Mr. Sandringham,” one more time there will be one less nurse in the world.
Sandringham? Who’s that?
It is almost seven AM – he knows because he can hear the nurses changing shifts. One of them asks, “What time is it?” another answers “6:58”. Yes! Three victories in as many minutes. Not bad, “for a blind man.” Hmmph!
The guy down the hall is complaining about the pain, again. Everyone is ignoring him, again. The pain is in a leg the patient no longer has. The pain will go away eventually, once the guy heals some more and is resigned to his fortune. He heaves a deep, silent sigh, wondering where that thought had come from. He didn’t remember ever before using phrases like “change of fortune.” With a shrug he dismisses his thoughts about his thoughts, swings his feet over the edge of his bed and stands. He wavers a bit. You wouldn’t expect sight to have much to do with balance, but it sure seems to.
Standing is a prerequisite, however, to relief. Nature isn’t just calling. She is singing – in three part harmony. No time to find his white (so they tell him) stick with the red (so they tell him) tip. He knows the confines of this room by now so he can find the bathroom without the cane – and he doesn’t need it in there! Certain things don’t need searching for. All the parts of his body are where they’ve always been – and everything works just fine – except his eyes.
The doctors can’t figure out why they have failed him. The orbs and optic nerves are fine. There has been no apparent brain damage that hadn’t healed once the swelling went down. Banging ones head around the confines of a tumbling automobile is bound to cause problems and there have been a few of those; but they are all fading now. All except one – seeing where he is going.
The resident psychiatrist has gone on and on about psychological trauma – all he has to do is accept his situation, understand the source of the problem, and work his way through it. That voice in his head assures him, gently, that he’ll solve it or get used to it, eventually. “Yeah, right. Whatever.”
He sighs, and moves in the general direction of the small bathroom. Like the living dead, he moves forward with his hands sweeping the air before him. He’s learned to do this the hard way and is no longer as clumsy as he used to be. A careless orderly had once moved a chair to get to a wall-plug, then forgotten to move the chair back to where it belongs.
That orderly was transferred – banished – to the morgue where such carelessness is inconsequential.
“Derek,” he says to himself, standing over the porcelain throne. “The orderly’s name is Derek.” He hm’s low in his throat; a mixture of pride in hearing his stream hit the water in the bowl dead center, and actually remembering the orderly’s name.
“And you?” the voice asks, as he hits the flush mechanism. “What’s your name, Sailor?”
Turning in the general direction of the mirror he strikes what he thinks might be a jaunty pose. “Sandringham,” he enunciates clearly. “Paul Michael Sandringham, if it’s any of your concern.” He likes his name – he is pleased at the way the syllables flow. He is especially pleased that he can remember it. When he first woke up after the accident he didn’t know his name. Then, when he did remember, he couldn’t pronounce it – at least not the last name.
His sister suggested that he change his name to “Smith.” For a moment, he thought it might be a good idea because she would no longer be recognized as his sister – but his stubbornness prevailed, and paid off. Now he clears his throat, deepens his tone, sticks his nose in the air and enunciates, “Paul Michael Sandringham.”
Once he was old enough to understand what it meant, it had always tickled him that his initials were PMS.
This time a chuckle makes it past his lips. It feels good. He reaches for the bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. He sleeps in his skin and now remembers that, at home, he walks around that way. He has the build of a man that takes care of his body and now the scars of a man who has survived a life-changing event. The scars are fading, though, they tell him. There won’t be much left to show his grandchildren, they tell him.
There are nurses running about. Though they are used to seeing everything, for the sake of simple modesty, attire’s required.
Tying the robe loosely around his waist, he steps back into the main room thinking to himself. “Grandchildren? What grandchildren?” The Voice remains quiet. It doesn’t always have an answer to everything.
“Good morning,” his day nurse is always cheerful. Too cheerful, though she isn’t one of those whose days are numbered. He’s quite sure she’s cute, so she can be just as irritating as she wants. She waits before mentioning his name. It’s one of the “games” they play each morning.
“Good morning, Florence. I’d like you to meet me, Paul Michael Sandringham.” Her name is Barbara Wolf, but he always calls her “Florence,” as in Florence Nightingale. He once told her, “The doctors saved my life, but you saved my sanity.” She thinks it’s cute. Now she laughs.
“How do you do, Paul.” He can hear the smile in her voice. Being smiled at by a (supposedly) pretty woman is another triumph, in his mind. “What are you so happy about this morning?” she asks him as she records his vital signs information.
“Being able to say my name without stuttering.” He braces himself as she says “ear” and takes his temperature. He still isn’t quite sure why it bothers him to have something stuck in his ears. He’ll have to remember to ask the psychiatrist. Anything to get the man to stop talking about “psychological trauma.”
“Well, all your numbers are textbook perfect so it doesn’t surprise me that your speech has returned to normal. The vision, we just don’t understand.” There is a slight hesitation as she replaces the instruments. “What do you think? How soon will you feel ready to go home?”
“When you’re willing to come with me.” He smiles when he says it, but he isn’t fooling her. She knows how worried he is at the thought of being on his own. He isn’t quite prepared to walk around in perpetual darkness. Nothing in his thirty two years of living has prepared him for that.
He tried marriage once but it hadn’t stuck. He now lives alone. Not even a dog. His only companion is that voice in his head and he isn’t certain that who or what belongs to the voice that talks to him in the still moments will be much help when it involves walls or stray chairs.
“Oh, Paul, such a sad smile!” Nurse Barb observes sweetly as she pulls up the tray table and swings it across the bed. They both hear the approaching breakfast cart.
“I was just thinking about… Well, about Charlene.” His voice is wistful, then he sits up straighter. “She would never have been able to deal with this. She was wrapped too tightly around her own ego. I have money enough for a day-nurse but she’d be too busy taking care of Charlene to spend much time with me.” He shakes his head, listening to Barb arrange the breakfast tray.
“Well, enjoy your breakfast and think about where you’re going rather than where you’ve been. That seems to work better.” She is suddenly all business. It would never do to allow herself to feel anything for this handsome, sandy-haired man with the wry smile. In a few days he’ll be gone. Then there will be someone else lying here, needing her help and life will move on. She starts to move away, but freezes when his hand wraps itself around her wrist.
“I almost got it right this time,” he smiles in her direction, as he adjusts his grip so they are holding hands. “I just want to say thank you. I know you’re just doing your job.” He pauses as she draws in a sharp breath.
“Yes you are, Barbara, you can’t deny it. It isn’t your fault if I’m just a little in love with you. I suppose you think that’s a natural reaction when one is feeling such gratitude toward someone. Maybe it is – a patient/nurse thing. Probably happens all the time. Right?”
“No, it doesn’t. What I usually get is resentment – irritation. Most men don’t like to feel dependant – even for a short time.” She indulges herself, placing her free hand over their joined fingers. “Most of the women start making plans almost as soon as they wake up. The men, especially the young ones have to be brought out of the dumps first.”
“Was I so bad?”
She laughs. “No, you were too confused to be resentful. You can’t resent loosing what you can’t remember having. Once you figured out what had happened you slipped right past regret and denial and went headlong into resignation. Then you started to heal.”
“My sister says I’m bitter.” Breakfast is getting cold, but this is more important.
“Your sister is an idiot. She just sees what she would see. She isn’t you.”
She pulls away gently. “I’ve got to see to my other patients. I’ll see you later. Eat your breakfast.”
He lets go of her hand. There’s a lot to let go of.
“Yes, Ma’am”.
He listens to her leave, then eats his breakfast.
