November 7, 2009

Michael and I grew closer in such an easy, unhurried fashion that the change was barely perceptible. If he'd made some huge play for me, I'm sure Rudy would've put a stop to it due to the ethics involved, but it wasn't like that at all. Some people might say that Michael took advantage of my condition, but his gestures of comfort – holding my hand, an arm around my shoulder or waist, a hug – were desperately needed when he offered them and probably saved me from freaking out entirely.

For a few days after Michael told me that I'd died, the testing and the questions stopped entirely. Rudy felt Michael had gone too far – and I knew this because once again they were talking about me outside my room. (Admittedly, I should've been asleep, but there was too much going on in my mind...and in the hallway.)

Rudy's voice was as angry as I'd ever heard him (at least up to that point). "You shouldn't have told her!"

"She asked – and I wasn't going to lie!" I trusted Michael to tell me the truth, and he obviously knew that.

"It was too soon!"

"She has the right to know about her own condition," Michael said, quieting down just a bit.

"Of course she does, but a little at a time, in small doses!" Rudy, on the other hand, had not quieted down. "Now she's practically catatonic! We're lucky she didn't have another episode! For all she can tell us, maybe she did! Dammit, Michael – anything could've happened!"

"I had control of the situation – and I was watching her very closely. She was ready. It's going to take time for her to absorb it all, sure, but you either trust me...or you don't."

As much as I wanted to keep listening, that was all I heard. I don't think I fell asleep. My mind had absorbed everything it could and simply needed to shut down.

The next couple of days were very much like a kaleidoscope. All the teeny little shards and pieces – the things I'd overheard, the things they had told me and the pictures I'd been shown (even the ones I didn't recognize) danced through my head up, down, sideways and backwards. None of it made any sense because a puzzle never does without all of the pieces. I'm not even sure if I was sedated or simply zoning out on my own volition but when I could open my eyes and actually see clearly again, Rudy was there. He was instantly on his feet, checking me over.

"How do you feel, Honey?" he probed. "Any pain?"

I shook my head. There was no pain. How did I feel, aside from wondering if I'd taken up a new career as a professional patient? As always, overwhelmed, confused, disoriented...and lonely. I did the standard toe-wriggle and waving of my hand and fingers and Rudy seemed greatly relieved. "Where's Michael?" I asked. It was unusual not to see him first thing when I woke up. I remembered the discussion out in the hallway. Rudy hadn't sent him away...had he?

"He's down in the lab. I'll send him in when we're done here, if you'd like."

I nodded, then pulled up slightly in the bed to look down at my legs. "You...made them?" I asked.

"Yes, I did. I'll explain it to you one day – soon – when you're a little stronger. It's pretty complicated. But anything you could do before, you can do now. Or at least, you will do again, with some practice."

I nodded...and smiled.

Rudy was good to his word and sent Michael straight in to see me. I didn't need him for anything medical or even to discuss anything important. I just wanted to see his face. We spent quite a lot of time together that week as I began to get well in earnest. Michael encouraged me to test my limits, but always hovered close by as an emotional safety net. I started depending on him more and more, leaning on him as I re-learned how to remain steady on legs that weren't truly my own, and crying on his shoulder when frustration inevitably took over. Like an impatient toddler, as soon as I'd taken those first tentative steps, I wanted to run.

"One step at a time, Jaime," he'd remind me gently, at least a dozen times a day. "You have to walk the path and climb the hills before you can tackle the mountain."

One afternoon, I became so disgusted with what I thought was my lack of progress that I picked up the wheelchair and threw it into a nearby field. I was amazed by the distance it traveled! "How did I...?" I started to ask. But Michael was already retrieving the chair. I shook my head, being quite the stubborn little brat. "I'm gonna walk," I insisted, shoving the offensive piece of metal and cushion away again.

"Jaime -"

"I can walk!" I proceeded to prove my point by staring defiantly at him instead of watching where I was going. Michael caught me just as my first foot went out from under me – at the top of the stairs. I grabbed onto him and he held me with one arm and the railing with the other, stabilizing the both of us. Still off-balance, I tumbled into him and we both fell backwards against the wall. With our arms around each other, we'd managed to remain upright – although quite smooshed together. Our faces were just inches apart.

I didn't think about what I was doing just then. It felt so good to be that close to someone I trusted so implicitly and...I kissed him. Neither one of us had seen that coming, and in the stunned silence right afterward, we didn't move. My eyes met his and in that instant I felt not like a patient at all...but like a woman. We went from being smooshed together into holding each other close. I kissed him again, and this time, he kissed me back. His lips felt unimaginably soft and the kiss was long and sweet. When I got back in the wheelchair, we acted like nothing had changed – but of course, everything had.

So that was how it started. In some of his crankier moments, your father used to wonder why Rudy didn't put a stop to it right then and there – nip it in the bud before it really got started. I don't know the answer to that, but maybe Rudy could see how desperately I needed to be someone other than a helpless victim or a patient. Or (God forbid) a robot. I was a human being again, and it was a great feeling. Michael became my touchstone of safety and warmth in what seemed like a cold, complicated world. It was almost like there were two separate Michael's. When he first came to see me in the morning with his clipboard, he was all business. Vital signs, tests, questions – the whole routine. When he handed the clipboard over to Rudy and took my hand instead, then he was just Michael...and I was falling in love.

Then, your father suddenly re-entered the picture and everything began to change again. I was smack-dab in the middle of a good old-fashioned love triangle...and I didn't even know it.

* * * * *

November 8, 2009

I got a good chewing out from Rudy last night when he came in to check on me (it was pretty late) and found me still at the computer. I tried to explain to him how important this was to me (which he said he understood) and I pointed out that typing words on a keyboard isn't exactly taxing what's left of my resources. Still, he made me put away the laptop and lie down, just like I was a little kid. And he checked back a couple of times, too, to make sure I wasn't being sneaky. (Who...me?)

So the saga continues today, instead. Maybe I feel the need to more fully explain my actions when it came to Michael. Not that either one of us did anything wrong, but I do believe the situation was misunderstood.

When your father was reintroduced to me (as the only other bionic person on the planet), he wasn't your father in any sense of the word. He wasn't even the chubby little guy I grew up with or the shoulder I'd cried on too many times to count. He was simply Steve...and he was a stranger.

After I threw the wheelchair and instead of bouncing a few feet away from us it flew into the field, it was time to have 'the talk' with Rudy. No, not about sex – about bionics. Talking about it has always made Rudy's face light up like nothing else in the world. Bionics is his baby – his life's work – and he has every right to be very, very proud. He gave me most of the basics and told me that one of the keys was to never over think it. To use them exactly like normal limbs (well, above and beyond 'normal', but you know what I mean) and to never wonder if they would work. Just know that they would and use them. Doubt creates failure – in bionics, just as in life. Slowly, I began getting used to them again, testing the limits a little bit at a time and marveling at every step along the way.

I asked Michael if there were any other bionic people, and that's when I met Steve (again). I was still very shy and cautious about meeting anyone new, but Steve seemed even more reticent than I was, if that was possible. He had this shy little 'aw shucks' smile and he looked like he was afraid I'd shatter into a million pieces if he wasn't extremely careful. Apparently, I had known him before (he said we'd been friends) but like everything else from 'before', I drew a total blank. It made me feel terrible because he was obviously so happy to see me.

Rudy (and Oscar, apparently) had asked Steve to help me adjust to being fully bionic. Now that I was truly up and around, they thought it was best to help me discover my abilities rather than let me experiment on my own and either hurt myself or run into problems. Steve showed me the upper limits of what we were able to do and then patiently assisted me in moving toward those goals. Rudy and Michael were usually on the sidelines with their ever-present stopwatch and clipboard, but sometimes Steve and I took off on our own, too.

We'd hike through the woods on either side of the complex and every so often I'd catch a glimpse of something in his eyes, like he was forcefully holding himself back from what he really wanted to say. I was very careful not to ask questions that I wasn't prepared to hear the answers to. Michael was always waiting when we emerged from the woods. At the time, I thought he looked so anxious because he was worried about my health – now, of course, I know differently.

I found I missed him terribly, even during those brief times apart. Yes, I'd grown too dependent on him (he'd been the first one I saw when I woke up, tending to my medical needs and my emotional ones, too)...but I was also falling in love. I'd run into his arms the minute I spotted him – and now my heart aches at the thought of the way I left Steve behind to bring up the rear. A couple of times, I saw Steve and Michael talking together with such intensity on their faces but it was always when I was occupied with something – swimming, running or in a conversation of my own, so I couldn't use my new-found eavesdropping ability to tune in on them. I was dying to know what they were talking about, and why they kept looking at me with those pained expressions.

Eventually, they told me I needed a break – to get away for a little while – and Steve was going to take me to his ranch to ride the horses and just relax. It sounded like heaven (except that Michael wouldn't be there). I was so absorbed in the sign at the edge of town saying that Steve was an astronaut that the name – Ojai – didn't register when I first saw it. It was beautiful there! Steve tried to convince me that there was enough to see and do, right there on the ranch, but I was determined to see the rest of what that pretty little town might have to offer. Steve told me he'd think about it, but that wasn't quite enough for me, so I snuck off on 'my' horse to explore on my own.

The downtown matched the pictures Michael and Rudy had shown me, and that was when I figured out why we were really there. I'd grown up in this idyllic place and the doctors were hoping it might trigger my memory. In some ways, it did. In other ways, it was a sobering, frightening experience. I couldn't understand why people looked at me so strangely! One woman even dropped her bag of groceries on the sidewalk and backed away! Everywhere I went, it seemed people were staring and since I had no idea who they were (had I known them before or not?), I just kept walking.

Since Michael had told me I'd been a tennis player, when I found the tennis court over by the park, I stopped to watch for awhile. One of the kids there recognized me and begged to hit some balls with him, so I decided to try. The racquet felt odd and foreign in my hand, but the volleys didn't seem very difficult. Then, when he ran off to find his friend, IT happened.

PAIN. Not a memory this time, but real, honest-to-goodness, lay-you-out-flat pain. Suddenly I couldn't see, couldn't hear...and had no idea what to do. I felt hands grabbing me, keeping me from sinking to the ground, and Steve's voice, coming from what seemed to be miles away rather than right next to me. He took me to the military hospital nearby, where Rudy and Michael would arrive first thing in the morning.

That night, I had a dream so intense that I woke up screaming. I couldn't begin to describe the images that flashed in my mind's eye because they were too disjointed and unfamiliar. When I woke up, I was still scrambled to shake away the images when Steve came running in. I took one look at him and (he told me later) my eyes rolled back in their sockets and I doubled over, holding my head. Doctors today like to use what they call a Pain Scale (from 1 – 10, how bad is the pain) – and this ranked about a 5000! It was unbearable. I don't remember if there were needles or if Steve simply calmed me down, but eventually I fell asleep and when I woke up again, I was back at Rudy's complex.

They re-focused their efforts on making me physically stronger, in the hope that might lessen the number and severity of these new attacks. I had decided in my own mind that it was Ojai that had caused all of the problems – and the pain – and that the best thing to do was move on. For awhile, it appeared that I was right.

Slowly, with Rudy and Michael's help and Steve's ever-patient assistance, I was able to do everything they wanted or expected from me, almost as well as Steve could. And...I got bored. By now, someone had explained to me who Oscar really was, and I began pestering him mercilessly for something to do. Finally, he agreed that I was ready (or he couldn't take the constant pleas any longer) and he sent me on an assignment with Steve.

On the plane ride in (especially when we strapped on our parachutes), I started getting these flashes that were more feeling than memory – and the feeling was pain. Each little wisp of memory was so tantalizingly close but as my mind reached out to grab it, pain took its place, laughing at me like a grinning, evil deaths head. I pushed it aside as best I could, determined to do this, when I should've been paying attention to what my body was saying. It was too soon and there were issues that needed to be dealt with.

The mission was supposed to have been an easy one – in and out in less than a day – but my brain did another of its little freak-out dances and pulled my body along for the ride. Steve and I were lucky to escape with our lives! After this episode, everyone (myself included) realized that something needed to be done. Something drastic....

* * * * *

November 8, 2009

Brain cell regeneration surgery. I think that qualifies as a drastic measure. As much as I feared letting them cut into my head (my head!) and basically experiment on my brain, I knew I couldn't live like I had been any longer. The kaleidoscope of images was paralyzingly scary – and the pain was crippling. If they accomplished nothing else other than making the images recede and getting rid of that awful pain, well then I could live with that. Any memories that might be returned to me would be an added bonus.

Michael and Rudy had explained the risks of the procedure to me every day for the week or so it took to plan for the actual operation. They wanted to make absolutely certain I knew what I was agreeing to, that I understood what could happen (paralysis, death....or no effect whatsoever if the surgery failed) and had not changed my mind. What they didn't seem to get was that it's awfully hard to change your mind when that mind isn't really your own anymore.

Waking up after surgery was rather surreal. There were auras surrounding everything I looked at but they scattered when I blinked my eyes. I checked my fingers and toes. Everything moved – this was good. I hit the call button and waited only seconds. Rudy and Michael must have been right outside the door. I felt really foggy and a little frightened, still fighting my way up and out of the anesthetic, but they were smiling so I tried to smile, too. Not sure if I succeeded.

I showed them that I could move everything – that I wasn't paralyzed – and then the gentle, cautious questions began. I told them my name and their names, too. (No additional damage done – at the very least, I had retained what I already knew.) Then Michael leaned closer and asked me where I went to school. I didn't have to stop and think about it; the words just tumbled out of my mouth.

"Carnegie Tech."

Their eyes grew wide and their professional smiles became jubilant ones. It had come to me so easily and so naturally that it took a few seconds to realize that I remembered! Michael gave me as close of a hug as he dared, given my condition and the fact that Rudy was right beside him. Then he eased me back down onto the pillow. He asked me if I remembered Steve. Suddenly, I realized that Steve and I had grown up together. I couldn't quite grasp the tiny details yet, but we had been children and then teenagers at the same time, on the same block and our families had been close friends. No wonder he'd been so distressed when I couldn't remember him!

Next, Rudy asked me about my skydiving accident. Skydiving?!? I knew I'd been in a bad accident but this was the first I'd heard about skydiving. I thought maybe it wasn't true, that they were testing my memory by inserting a false fact or two. But by the way their faces fell, I knew it was a real question...it had really happened...and I couldn't remember it.

To have come this far and run flat-out into a brick wall was devastating. I was exhausted, discouraged and afraid. Before the doctors had even left the room, I'd given in to the tempting cloak of sleep.

My dreams became stranger than they'd ever been before – less threatening but far more confusing. So many new faces – some with names attached but most still without. The details alluded my sleeping self entirely, but bit by miniscule, agonizing bit, the waking pieces began to fall into place. At least, some of them did.

They kept pressing me about Steve (I couldn't figure out why) and about my accident, but I had nothing there to tell them. One day, they gave me a scrapbook full of old pictures and I devoured it eagerly, sitting beneath a tree on the grounds of the complex for most of the morning, fingering each picture and absorbing whatever I could about the people and places I was seeing. After lunch, I spent another hour or two beneath that tree and then looked up to see Michael standing there, grinning.

"I thought you might like to try this on for size," he said, handing me a tennis racquet. This time, unlike my trip to Ojai, it felt good in my hands and I thought that I just might know what to do with it. "There's a court just a few miles down the road," he offered. "I'll take you, if you'd like."

So, we went - that afternoon and for several more that followed. Michael admitted right off the bat that he'd be no match for me, skill-wise – but he was nonetheless a willing guinea pig. It was hard to learn to temper my strength and not send every ball sailing straight through the back fence, but as soon as I got the knack of it, I didn't want to stop. Once more, he'd known exactly what it would take to make me feel like Jaime again.

* * * * *