Page 123 of You First
“Waa-agh…” Gray closed his mouth and tried again. “Haagh da-aah…”
Oh shit.
“Where am I?”and“How did I get here?”were the questions he wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t leave his mouth intact.
A young nurse with a ginger bun strode across the room as Gray raised his hand to his head.
“Wait, Mr. Blakewood,” she cautioned. “Don’t touch your head. We’re working to keep the swelling down.”
The tumor. Was it gone? He’d had surgery? Why couldn’t he speak?
“Dr. Cates operated on you last night, and he removed the tumor,” the nurse said, smiling. “You did very well.”
“Baah… maaah….” he protested, humiliation and fear finding traction in his stomach.
She nodded as though she understood him perfectly. “The speech. This is normal. You may find that things improve in a few days as the swelling goes down, and then there’s rehabilitation.” She held up a pen light. “Now, first things first. My name is Cassie, and I’m going to test your responses.”
Cassie turned on her light and shined it in his eyes. “Good… Can you point your toes for me?”
Gray pointed his toes, but the action seemed to take much longer than normal. “Very good. Can you lift one foot off the bed?”
This seemed immensely more difficult, but he did manage to lift his left foot and then his right.
“It’s normal to be weak after brain surgery,” she said gently. “It’s the loss of cerebrospinal fluid. When that builds back up, you’ll feel stronger.”
This, at least, made Gray feel a little better. But as he shifted his hips in the bed, he became aware of something plastic and bulky on his thigh. He reached down and his eyes went wide.
“That’s a catheter, Mr. Blakewood. We’ll remove it when you are able to get up on your own.”
Oh, fantastic.And once he realized the thing was there, it was all he could feel.
Cassie pressed on, going through a series of tests and making notes on an iPad as she did. Then she looked back at him.
“Do you know your name?”
Gray opened his mouth to say it, and then closed it again. He nodded.
Cassie eyed him skeptically. “If I gave you a marker board, could you write it?”
He held his fingers and thumb together and pictured the letters of his name. He nodded.
Without a word, Cassie crossed the unit to one of the desks along the wall. She returned a moment later with a marker board the size of a binder and a red Expo. She put the board by his side, handed him the marker, and then raised the head of his bed a little more.
With the shift in position, Gray felt the pressure in his head change. He imagined he looked like a bobble-head doll in a hospital gown. It took him a little while, but he managed to remove the cap from the red marker.
“Grayson Kyle Blakewood.”The lettering wouldn’t win any penmanship awards, and it looked nothing like the handwriting he remembered, but he could write it.
He could write.
“Wow. Whole name. Very good.”
It was better than good. Gray knew immediately, instinctively, that he could put words together. He could form sentences. He could tell stories. For now, even if he couldn’t speak, he could communicate.
He wiped away his name with the heel of his hand.
“Family?”he scribbled.
The nurse smiled again. “They’re all here. I’ll go get them when we’re done.” She took the marker from his hand and replaced it with two of her fingers. “Now, squeeze as hard as you can.”
