I'll be Home for Christmas

Thank you, Janet, for your kind review... as I could not reply directly. And thanks to ALL of you for sticking with me... well with Curly, I mean :-)

Chapter 3

Rehabilitation! Now that was the critical part. Because I had to make a decision. The toughest decision of all.

I guess the fact that Mom was there helped me to take the leap.

Therefore I talked to the surgeons and once more, I told them I wanted the truth. No sophisticated terminology or jargon. Just the words. Was I gonna recover or not?

They both looked at me with so much sorrow, but I did not care. Even if I had been hurt before, my body had been in excellent shape and I knew for sure I had enough inner strength to turn the machine back on. They talked about some trauma classified in between posterior cord syndrome and cauda equida lesion. Nice huh? How the medical staff can easily turn the most dramatic injuries into some almost poetic phrase! Whatever!!

All that I could remember from the gibberish they fed me with was reduced to two simple facts.

One, if the bullet had hit me higher in the spine, I would have lost the use of my arms as well.

Two, they were not one hundred percent sure I would recover either partially or totally.

No one ever pretended medicine was an exact science anyway! That's one of the reasons why I became a cop. At least when I used to operate on the streets, I could see the results, at least for a while, until some crooked lawyer got the bad guys out of their cell.

°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

And guess what? I don't wanna be a statistic. Period! Or even better, I wanna be in the percentage of those who make it. Now comes the big decision. Either I stay here and get whatever medical care is available, which is good but not adapted. Or I go to New York and become a patient at the Mount Sinai Hospital. (*)

I heard the place is one of the top hospitals in the country, especially dedicated to the treatment of spine injuries. They even developed a Research and Training Center. I could be one of their lab rats. But frankly, I'd rather take my chances with them and benefit from the state-of-the-art medical techniques. If I stay here, I'll just be a burden to everyone. To Mom, who would eventually need to go back to New York. To Hutch. How could he bear to see me like this and keep on nursing me, despite all the love and attention he is capable of? Yet, right now, I need much more from a medical point of view.

I need him to remain my friend, not to become a permanent care assistant with all the unpleasant and uncomfortable aspects that are involved.

I am aware that I may not regain control of my bladder or my bowels for a long while. It is already humiliating enough as it is not to involve Hutch any further. I need a special bed, which has to be turned through the night, to prevent pressure sores and possible pneumonia. I need to have regular injections of MP and blood thinner to prevent blood clots. I need special devices with pumps around my legs to help circulation. I need to go through customized respiration exercises to help my lungs function normally. And last but not least - this would most please Blondie - I need to start a high fiber diet and drink a lot of water. Yak! No more hamburger and alcohol for a long time! Gee, that might be the hardest part of this program.

Let's face it. This is all done to help me survive. After the survival comes the rehab' part. If I leave my muscles dormant for too long, they may atrophy. The whole picture is I'll need to go through a complete course of physio-therapy, occupational therapy, psychological follow-up and so on and so forth.

Enough!

I'll manage when I get there, okay?

My head is already full of everything I gotta say to Hutch. And I don't know how to tell him.

°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

God, I wish I had never told him. I never saw such turmoil and pain, anger, disbelief in his eyes. He has been hurt before, by women who dropped him or cheated on him or died. All through the pain he always knew he could count on me. And look at me now! I feel like a traitor. Please forgive me, Blondie. I feel that even the smile I try to offer you will not compensate for stabbing you in the back. See? I still have the feeling you're more fragile than I am. Will you ever forgive me for going away from you? I'm sure you will. I'm actually doing this for your own good too.

It would take time to explain the reasons I made this decision. Of course the official reason is that this NY hospital is the best place for my rehabilitation, plus Mom will be around. The real reason I'm doing this to you is that you've seen enough pain. You were there for me each and every time I was hurt. Bellamy... Terry... You regularly poured all your energy, your comfort and love into my heart to rescue me. If I let you do it this time, I fear it will destroy you. I just hope you'll understand one day that my choice was not an easy one.

Right now I prefer to see you angry than hurt.

Let's make a silent deal. I go to New York. I get better. I come back. How does that sound?

I've made up my mind. I'm going.

The sooner I take care of myself, the sooner I get back to you. I love you, Gordo, you're my pal, Hutch, my brother. That's why I have to go.

°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

I told Mom to let Hutch be by my side in the ambulance taking us to the airport. She said she would have done it anyway. Mom, I love you so much for caring the way you do.

°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

Your hand on mine, Blondie, that's good. Let me feel your warmth and take a little of it with me. Let me smell your lousy new aftershave, take a good look at your face. Gee, I'm gonna miss you so much but I can neither show you nor tell you.

No soapy scenes between us, right? As Always.

I'm gonna fight my own battle and come back a winner. I promise.

°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

New York...

It was like entering a giant science-fiction movie studio. This place seemed huge! Was it because I was seeing it from a different perspective, still being trapped in a horizontal position?

Soon after whilst I was being settled in my room, two surgeons came and explained the whole shebang with simple words - thank God! I suddenly felt like I was being reincorporated in my unit ready to be baled out over Vietnam. Yet this time, the enemy was more vicious. He was within. I couldn't shoot at him. I couldn't blow him away. He took the first shot and drew first blood!

It's gonna be one hell of a road back home, I realize that now. But whatever the price to pay, the efforts, the pain, the screams, the tears, I will not let go. I can't!

For Mom. For Hutch. For me.

°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

/tbc/

(*) a bit out of period, perhaps. Yet Mount Sinaï is currently well known to be one of the top hospitals in that field.