Ok, after lots of background information about what you'll need as a wheelchair user who wants to live as independently as possible within his own four walls, you'll get more "Steve and friends" in this chapter. Enjoy :) K.

This chapter starts the day after the previous chapter so we're still in the tenth month after the explosion.


Chapter 22

REHAB, Steve's room, the next day

"No way, I won't accept those extra payments. At least not from the Navy. They do nothing without any ulterior motives and you know that better than anyone else. I'll be dependent on the support of strangers for the rest of my life, but I won't give up my last freedom. They didn't want me after the transplant, they didn't want me to go to rescue Joe, and now I shall accept their payments? No, Danno. I cannot do this!"

Steve was angry. He was so upset that he was gasping for a deep breath and looked at Danny with a determined look.

"Steve, calm down and think just once in your life. What do you think do they want you to do, huh? This is not a favour they are doing to you for them to call in afterwards. You are a hero. You have been on so many successful missions, don't you think you deserve a little compensation? A payback for more than a decade of your life you gave them? H***, this is no blood money! Don't you get that? Could you just try not to be stubborn one time in your life? Those requirements that need to be done will cost a fortune!" Danny was as angry as Steve, but for other reasons. This morning the construction company had sent the estimate of costs for the remodelling. The amount had left Danny breathless, even if the expenses were covered.

"I have a good amount of savings in the bank, I'm going pay for it by myself." Steve was stubborn to the point.

"No buddy, I don't think that you own that amount of money and even if you do, you're going to need it in the future. We still don't know if you'll be able to go back to work and if yes for how many hours a day, and there will be unforeseen situations in the future where you will need your savings, so please, be reasonable and take that incredibly generous offer from uncle Sam." Danny felt like talking to a five-year-old who wanted to wear a t-shirt in the snow. "What happened to that SEAL I knew. I mean, the Navy was like the holy grail for you. You've been living and breathing their principles since like forever!"

Steve became very quiet, a sad look in his eyes, and answered with a soft voice "That's the point, Danno. The Navy IS my holy grail, will ever be. You don't have to understand this, but the military has been the most important influence in my whole life. Without them, I wouldn't be here, and I don't mean literally here at REHAB, but I wouldn't be the man that I am without the Navy, without the SEALS. And now, I feel like I let them down. Yes, I felt like they betrayed me more than once, but to be honest, I don't think that I deserve that kind of compensation." Steve looked at his best friends with his trade mark puppy eyes look.

"Wow. Just wow. You, my friend, have serious issues. Really. First, you try to make me believe that you are afraid of the Navy calling in any favours, what is f*** BS and you know that, and then, when I thought you were – by accident – somehow reasonable, you tell me you've got the feeling that you don't deserve the Navy supporting you? Honestly, stop physical and occupational therapy and spend all your time with your shrink. You need it!"

Danny looked at his wheelchair bound friend and tried to talk some sense into him. How could someone so smart as Steve McGarrett have such a weird way of thinking?

The two friends sat for a while in silence until Steve took a deep breath. "You really think I should accept their offer? I'm afraid of the consequences, Danno."

"Buddy, there are no conditions attached to those payments. I had a meeting with the governor this morning and he assured me once again that the only purpose of that agreement is to make you feel comfortable and make sure that you can stay at your own house and live as independent as possible without having to worry about such profane things as paying the bills for a remodelling of said house. So would you please sign that f*** contract?"

Inhaling as deep as Steve could with his weakened respiratory muscles, he took the pen and signed the agreement.


REHAB, PT gym, one week later

"Commander McGarrett, I'd like to introduce you to Peter Goodall, he's the SCI peer mentor I told you about and the two of you will spend the next hour of therapy together. I'll recede and leave you alone, I'm pretty sure there's a lot you can do without me. If you'll need me, just call." Alexander Greene introduced his patient to his peer-to-be and left the training area.

"Hello, I'm Peter, we prefer to go on a first-name basis here." The friendly looking man in his sixties who sat in a wheelchair similar to Steve's smiled openly at his opposite.

"I'm Steve, nice to meet you, sir", Steve smiled shyly at his peer and lowered his look to the ground.

"Get loose of the 'sir', son, just call me Peter. By the looks of you and your behaviour, I would assume military even if I hadn't some information about you. So, Steve, I know this is kind of a weird situation, I've been there myself. To make it easier, I suggest I'll give you the cliff notes-version of my own story and then you'll tell me what happened to you, who you are and why you're here with me now. How do you think about that?"

Steve liked the man by instance. His friendly smile encouraged Steve to shake off the shyness, a feeling that he had barely known before the injury and that now overtook him whenever he had to face someone or something new.

"Ok, my name is Peter Goodall, I am 62 years old, married with two daughters, I have 3 grandchildren and I'm a T2 complete for 12 years now. I fell from a tree while trying to remove a string of lights that had been decorations for my fiftieth birthday party two days earlier and shattered three vertebrae. The fall itself wasn't that high, maybe 10 ft, but I crashed backwards on a pile of wooden folding chairs that had not yet been put away. When I came to in the ICU I had no longer any feeling or movement from the armpits down. I thought my life would be over. I didn't know if I would ever be able to do more than being cooped up in a bed, I couldn't even sit up for months. When I came to REHAB I was so eager to get home asap and worked out like a maniac to achieve my goal. Unfortunately, one serious setback after another ensured that it ended up taking me almost 2 years to get back to living at home instead of the 15 months of total recovery time they had originally scheduled. I had to learn the hard way that there are so many things that I cannot change and I guess I wouldn't have accepted it from someone able-bodied talking to me. I had a wonderful peer, we're still very close friends, who was the first who understood how I really felt, what I was afraid of and how my life had changed. The therapists can only do so much but they'll never know how it really feels if from one moment to the next your life is shattered in pieces. As soon as I was discharged I joined the SCI peer mentorship program and underwent the training and certification. It has become a huge part of my life ever since and it makes me very happy. I know from experience how important the mental stability is for a recovery, and this program here is meant to help someone like you to stay stable while going through the challenges of getting fit for recovering as an outpatient. So here I am not only to show you the tricks of hopping over a threshold with your wheelchair but above all to talk and listen to you about the awkward side effects of our condition. These are the sometimes humiliating things that you simply have to process and learn to live with, but which a person without such a paralysis cannot understand."

"Oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I sometimes feel betrayed by my own body. Not being able to walk is the easiest part of all this. I cannot really cough because my respiratory muscles are weakened. Therefore, I have to remove the mucous from my lungs by breath stacking twice a day. I hate this so much. And knowing that this will be on my schedule for the rest of my life is sometimes hard to take in. At least I manage to do the breath stacking without assistance by now. In the beginning I really felt humiliated, I mean, that's disgusting to spit your mucous into a cup in front of a caregiver who just helped you to get this stuff out of your lungs. This is at least as disgusting as having someone else emptying your bowel with digital stimulation. I still can't do it by myself because I cannot sit up without grabbing a safety rail with at least one hand and as my right hand isn't strong enough I hold myself up with the left hand. The fingers on the right hand won't cooperate, so I cannot empty the bowel with that hand. Therefore, I need someone to do it. I don't have to explain you that this doesn't work if you sit on a toilet, so the whole thing takes place while I lay on my side, in bed, on a blue pad. Worst case scenario is I'll never be able to do it by myself without assistance if my right hand isn't getting any better. And now try to explain the feelings that go through your head at moments like those to someone who is healthy." Steve was surprised by himself. What was it with the man facing him that he could open up so easily? Until that moment, he had never mentioned to anyone how difficult it really was for him to endure these procedures, which he found so utterly disgraceful.

"I went through the same feelings as those that you describe. I even stopped the breath stacking for a few weeks, because I found it so disgusting. The result was a severe pneumonia that landed me in the ICU for several weeks. That was one of the more serious setbacks I mentioned before, that prolonged my stay here. After I had overcome that pneumonia and the resulting weakness, I swore to myself that I would accept any procedure – as disgraceful as it may be – that kept my body healthy. Obviously I had to learn it the hard way, please don't make the same mistake."

The two men continued to exchange their experiences and feelings and were deep in discussions when Alexander Greene joined them an hour later.

"I see, you have a lot in common in addition to your injuries. Commander, I don't want to interrupt your discussions but we still have little wheelchair training to do today. You should start to learn how to safely wheel on uneven grounds today and I guess it would be good if Peter joins you for that session, too. I'm not sure if your core stability is already strong enough for you to avoid falling over, so we should put the extra chest belt on the chair. I know, you hate that thing, but trust me, you'll need it."

Peter chuckled at Steve's pouting look. "Seems you are even more stubborn than I was at that time, Steve. I also hated those extra straps, even if you don't feel them, the knowledge that you are bound to a chair is not a nice one. One day during therapy I convinced Alexander here to put off the straps and boom, the next threshold I tried to hop over send me flying. Every wheelchair user will fall from his chair many times in his life, but to fall during therapy because you denied to put a safety belt on, is an avoidable risk. And getting back on your chair is one of the most difficult transfers ever. We will practice that at some point. It took me really long to learn how to get off the floor back to my chair and there are still moments today, when I'm too weak to do it without assistance. So be reasonable and put on that d*** belt."