The next day Kira was visited by each of the family members, as well as Lulu, to make her Christmas go by quickly. Staring at the four walls of her room would have made it intolerably long otherwise. While Bo and Kim were there for their visit Kira even was able to talk to the kids and Jebb. He and Bo had worked it out that they'd call during the visit and Bo was able to tell the kids what Kira wanted to tell them when her words failed her. He and Kim had set Kira's room up with a phone that had a speaker option so that both she and Bo could hear the kids at the same time and he could jump in when needed.
Kira was given a few gifts to make her stay better. When Lulu was visiting and gave her some caps that she'd knitted for Kira it was the first time that she realized that her hair had been shaved back when she'd first been brought into the hospital. It had been needed for the brain surgeries that she'd had to have. Kira wouldn't have been able to explain it if Lulu had asked why that bit of news hit her so hard. It was just that each time she'd lost her hair in her life had been due to the fact that she was in a fight for her life. This time being no different. Her hair was now a fuzz since it had begun to grow back out while she was still in her coma; it looked like a buzz cut that had started to grow out. Lulu had knitted her the hats to keep her head warm in the cool hospital while she was regulated to staying while she worked on her therapies to get her back to her old self. When her last visitor of the day left Kira spent the rest of the evening listening to a book on tape and drifted off to sleep listening to the monotone of the narrator.
As sunlight began to filter into through the window to light up the darkened hospital room Kira woke up to the surprise of finding Jebb sitting next to her bed.
"...ebb?"
"Happy anniversary. Ten years today," Jebb stood up to kiss Kira on the forehead. When he saw Kira's look of confusion he grinned. "What? I told you over the phone that I'd be seein' you today."
Kira moved her hand to gesture to the clock on the wall where it showed that it was barely seven in the morning.
"So I drove here after the kids went to bed last night. I told them that I'd be back to pick them up for the boys' birthday."
Jebb sat back down, but this time sat on the edge of the bed while preparing himself for a conversation that he knew he needed to have with his wife. He adjusted the bed and helped her get comfortable in the sitting position.
"Kim told me about the tests that she ran. That you don't exactly remember the last few months; well the months leading up to your attack." Kira gave a shrug as a reply. "That means that you don't remember but I think- No, I know that I owe you an apology for some of my behavior during those months. You see, the accident that Kim used in her test to determine the time-frame of your memory loss... Well, I hit my head pretty hard. Hard enough that I had some memory loss, as well."
Jebb saw the concerned look on Kira's face as she tried to sit up more on the bed.
"H-" Kira wanted to scream in frustration of not being able to really speak in a full sentence.
"How much? I lost about twenty years." Jebb saw Kira's eyes widen. "And I know that you don't remember but for the first two months you watched me struggle with the fact that I couldn't remember you or the kids..." Jebb paused as he thought back to those rough months. "At the end of September you suggested that I go stay with my parents. I jumped at the chance, unfortunately. You even said that you understood if I- Well, you kind of set me free. Looking back, now, I realize that you wanted to be chosen but that's not how I handled things. I hurt you and the kids."
Kira saw the regret in Jebb's eyes and wanted to comfort him with a hug. She could only move her hand across the bed toward him to which he took in his own hand.
"I didn't start really getting much of my memories back until after your attack. Actually fighting Shawn seemed to trigger some of them. Who'd have guess that the jackass would be good for something."
"Nah... m," Kira did her best to reply. "Yu... 'kay?"
"Are you kidding? I won't ever get all of my memories back but I got back enough. I'm all healed up. Even from..." Jebb suddenly remembered that Kira didn't know about the house fire either. "Oh, speaking of which, that's something else that I know I need to tell you about. The night that Shawn attacked you he also came to the house and set fires in both stairwells."
"Wh-?"
"Relax. You've seen the kids. They didn't get a scratch on them. I'm just glad that boys had that huge tree outside their window." Jebb was glad that Kira had indeed seen the kids on the evening that she first woke up from her coma so she knew first hand that the kids were fine. "But I did burn my feet just a bit. But, again, you've seen that I'm okay now."
Jebb stood to show that he was back on his feet; even if he wasn't able to stay standing for long stretches yet. Kim had told him that he was healing well, though. That he needed to pace himself. As he sat back down he then went on to tell Kira of how far along with the renovation of the house had come. The second floor and attic were complete losses but the main floor was salvageable. It had sustained smoke and water damage that the other Duke men had begun to repair. Even Cooter and several other men from town had helped. The stairwells were blocked off so that once the repair work on the main floor was completed Jebb and the kids would be able to move back to the house instead of waiting for the renovations to be completed. With the number of people who had offered to help he was sure that the repairs would be well on their way to being completed by the time she'd be released from the hospital.
"I've figured that since it is clear that we won't need the large dining room at the house while we are rebuilding the top floors that the room would be better used as a room for the kids. Its bigger than the guest room downstairs. Plus, even though they will still all be sharing a room it will be better since right now they are sharing a room with not just all of their siblings but their father, too. I know that Jesse and Daisy don't mind us being underfoot over at the other farmhouse but we really are just kind of on top of one another." Jebb explained. "Oh, but this whole thing has made it where Chris wants her new bed to be a bunkbed. Turns out, she really likes being able to use the blankets hanging over from the top bunk as cave or something. Plus, I think that the privacy that comes with it has helped since she's not used to sharing a room like the boys."
Kira sat and listened as she was caught up on what had gone on in her family's lives. She hated that she couldn't really add to the conversation much. She tried to get out some questions every now and again but doing so only frustrated her. Fortunately Jebb seemed to know what she wanted to know and did his best to answer the questions that were still mostly unspoken. After a couple of hours a woman in a hospital uniform came in. She was the Occupational Therapist and was there to work with Kira to for a while. She suggested that Jebb should get himself some breakfast while she worked with her patient. The therapist's goal was to help Kira be as independent as possible. Among those tasks would be simple things like working her back up to being able to use her muscles well enough to feed herself. Knowing that her patient was scheduled for a swallow test later in the day the therapist decided that working on grasping items on the hospital tray to simulated a spoon or fork would be the best place to start. She put a few wooden dowels on the tray of varying sizes. To Kira they looked an awfully lot like the boys' Lincoln Logs.
"Alright, Mrs. Duke. Let's just start with picking these up one at a time and then putting them back down."
The therapist watched as her patient moved her arms with some difficulty, though just a bit easier than the last time that she'd seen her two days prior, and did her best to reach out for the wooden dowels. However, after a couple of tries of over-reaching the objects the therapist smiled while trying to reassure Kira that it was natural as she placed one of the objects into her hand. She worked with Kira to simulate lifting the mock eating utensils in the same manner that she would while eating. Kira's muscles were doing well with the new task after months of being sedentary and the therapist told her so; that the next day she would bring real utensils to work with instead. Still, there was something that concerned her. Throughout their period to work together Kira wasn't able to actually reach out to any of the objects that was put before her without first overshooting them. A notation was placed in the paperwork to have Kira's vision checked. With the head trauma that had been sustained it was quite possible that her depth perception had been damaged.
When the therapist left Kira was taken out of the room for her swallow test, leaving Jebb alone in the hospital room for what seemed like forever. Finally, rather than Kira it was actually Kim who joined Jebb in the room.
"Jebb, I heard you got back to town early this morning."
"I wouldn't have been able to just stay back in Placid. Not with today being mine and Kira's anniversary and her finally being out of the coma. So how is she doing? Really?" Jebb watched as Kim took one of the seats in the room and took that to not be a very good sign.
"Well, its kind of a mixed bag. She's doing well for how long she was out, she has retained more muscle control than I thought that she would have. I think she may even be able to try to get out of bed in the next day or two to start working on walking again."
"But?"
"But, it looks like her vision has been impaired."
"Impaired? How? She seemed to be able to see everything well enough when she was in here earlier."
"She sees everything fine. But her depth perception has been severely impacted. And with the fact that she's been healing for the last few months from her injuries and surgeries already, it will likely be permanent."
"So what will that mean?" Jebb asked.
"It appears that she sees everything in two dimensions; much like a drawing on a piece of paper. Many things will be difficult. She'll have to learn how to adapt so that she can do simple things like walking safely so that she doesn't end up in the middle of road or walk into walls. And of course, driving will be out. Which I know for a Duke is one of the worse things that I could tell any of you," Kim tried to make that last line come out as a joke while at the same time knowing that there really couldn't be a truer statement. "I'm not going to lie. This won't be easy and it will change a lot in her life going forward. Coming to terms with that will take time and it will be like a part of her died. She'll grieve for what she's lost. May even become resentful that others can do what she can't. This will be a normal part of her healing process."
"But at least she'll be alive to go through it."
Kim nodded. "Yes. I just wanted to make you aware of what to expect. There will be some things that we'll discuss going forward to make some small things easier."
"Like what?"
"Well, like the new flooring in the house as the renovations are completed. We can choose designs that can help Kira keep track of where things are in the house. Like a checkerboard pattern in the kitchen. She can learn to count the squares to know that the kitchen chair is on square four or the stove is ten squares away. Things like that. She'll also be taught to use a white cane to help her locate items in her path to help prevent her from tripping over them."
"I thought only people who were blind used those," Jebb said as he creased his brows.
"A very small percentage of those who are visually impaired are fully blind. You can still have some sight while needing a little extra help, like from a cane," Kim explained. She wasn't surprised by Jebb's assumptions since that was actually very common for many to assume that only those who can't see at all would use a tool like a white cane. "Now one other thing, we did a swallow test today and we'll work on getting Kira back to eating. Her feeding tube hasn't been removed from her stomach, yet, since I want to make sure that she can get enough nutrition without it. However, she's not likely to be enthusiastic with the food that she'll be eating for while. She'll be regulated to foods that are pureed."
"You mean like baby food?" Jebb tried to imagine Kira eating food like that. Or even himself. The very idea sort of grossed him out. "She's going to hate that."
"I know. But hopefully it will not be for long. As she regains her muscle control we'll slowly work our way up to regular foods. I just wanted to warn you so that you can go and eat in the cafeteria before Kira's dinner is delivered since I think we can agree that her watching you eat a regular meal while she is fed her meal may not be a good combination to start right out of the gate with."
"Right. No sense in rubbing salt in the wound. I'll make sure that- Wait. You said fed her meal?"
"She's not got enough control, between her muscles and her depth perception to feed herself yet. But this is just the first day back to actually eating, and is to be expected. It will all be a process. Just be patient."
Nearly a week later Jebb walked behind the children as they headed down the hall toward Kira's room. He picked the kids up early that morning after they spent Mikey's birthday (New Year's Eve) with is parents to then allow them to spend Jay's with the rest of the family today. On their way to Hazzard they stopped off to see Kira at the hospital and to have lunch. Well, lunch first at a diner nearby since he didn't really look forward to having hospital food yet once again.
As the family all walked into Kira's room Jebb saw that her lunch had been delivered. It was on the tray in front of her but still had the warming cover on it. He stepped forward without thinking and went ahead and prepared himself to help his wife with her meal.
"Looks like we got here just in time for you to have your lunch," Jebb said as he lifted the cover from the plate to reveal Kira's pureed lunch for New Year's. "Let's see, looks like greens, mashed potatoes, and that smells like it's supposed to be pork of some kind. I'll assume that the brown stuff is black-eyed peas. All you're missin' is some cornbread for a traditional New Year's meal."
When Jebb went to grab the spoon Kira spoke up, "No... I... can."
Jebb stepped back in surprise since he hadn't expected her to refuse his help. Each of the family members had been working together to make sure that one of them was at the hospital for each meal to help her since they knew that she'd hate to depend on strangers instead. Then he realized that this was the first time that the kids had seen their mother since that first night that she'd woken up from her coma. She didn't want the first thing that they saw of her now being that she had to be fed like a child.
"Alright." Jebb then realized that there was a placemat on the tray today that resembled a checkerboard. Similar to how Kim had told him that they could help Kira when they renovate the kitchen. The mat would help Kira keep track of where things were in relation to her on the tray. Kira slowly grabbed the spoon before choosing the potatoes to try eating first. Once she had somewhat clumsily gotten some potatoes onto her spoon she then closed her eyes since it was easier to allow her muscle memory direct her spoon to her mouth so that her vision didn't confuse that action.
"That looks gross," Mikey said staring at the pureed food on the tray as he saw his mother take her first bite.
"Mike, that's not nice," Jebb reminded him quickly.
"Not... wrong... Gross." Kira put her spoon down as she spoke.
"Kira, how badly could the potatoes be?"
"Bad... You... Taste."
Jebb rolled his eyes and took a bite of what had to be the safest food on his wife's plate. They were mashed potatoes. What could the hospital really do to them? When he took a bite he gagged as he forced himself to swallow the substance that was supposed to be food. "Alright. So they could use a little salt. And some butter." Jebb searched the tray for the salt packets that were usually sent along with the food. "We'll fix it up."
"No... Not... Hungry."
"You've got to eat, Kira."
"No..." Kira then pointed to where her feeding tube was still implanted into her belly beneath her gown. "I... don't."
Jebb wanted to argue with her that she wasn't supposed to use the feeding tube as an excuse to not eat but decided not to in front of the children. Especially since it was Jay's birthday. The two boys always celebrated together but it still was his day. "Alright. But when Bo comes by to help with your dinner I'm going to make sure that he sees to it that you eat."
Kira then did the most normal thing that he'd seen her do since she'd come out of her coma. She rolled her eyes at the idea of being mothered by her husband. Jebb couldn't help but chuckle before he then had the kids to share how their Christmas went with their mother as well as the birthday party that John and Pauline had thrown for the boys the day before with some of their cousins in Placid. For a little while it was almost easy to forget that they were still in the hospital.