Day four at the rehabilitation center started the same as the two days before. Annie woke up to her alarm at 7am. She grabbed the pant leg she slept in with one hand, then used the other hand behind her to push herself up to a seating position and waited for someone to come help her out of bed.
That was one thing she hated most, having to have help with the most basic things. But for now, she had to accept help. Her upper body strength was just not strong enough, nor was she confident enough to attempt it on her own.
Annie had always been proud of the fact that she was not one of those girls that had to spend hours getting ready for the day. Once upon a time, she could be up and out the door in fifteen minutes or less. However, now, since the shooting, Annie took forever to get ready for anything. Just getting out of bed, for now, took someone picking her up out of bed and placing her into her wheelchair. The doctors were still hesitant about Annie transferring to and from her wheelchair until her surgery sites where completely healed. They did not want her accidently opening up the wounds. It had been a mere two and a half weeks since her last surgery. The scars were healing, but it was a slow process.
She was getting stronger. Every day she was a little stronger than the day before. But what was not quite getting stronger was her confidence. After the agonizing process of getting ready in the morning, Annie rolled herself to breakfast. The rehab facility was rather large and it took her five minutes to roll herself to the cafeteria. The first couple days she had opted to stay in her room for her meals, but after Auggie so eloquently put it on her second day, "You really should try to learn to get around here. You will be here for several months and secluding yourself will not help you. Plus, you need the practice with your wheelchair."
From that day forth, Annie ate each meal in the cafeteria with the other patients. She ate alone the first few days she went to the cafeteria, but at least she was there. She actually kind of enjoyed watching the other patients. It reminded her of her days in the field, observing potential terrorists, arms dealers, or otherwise crooked characters. For now, she was content watching fellow wheelchair users and imagining what their back stories might be.
After the third day, Auggie stop coming every day. Joan had him working a lot and by the time he got off work he didn't have time come see her. Annie understood. It would take two hours for him to get there and two hours for him to get back home. Plus, he always wanted to stay long enough for the trip to seem worth it. So for now, they texted, emailed, and called each other. Auggie always made sure he called Annie every night without fail. Annie enjoyed talking to him; it was almost like old times. Having him talk to her for long periods of time, asking about her day, encouraging her to do her best, giving her suggestions on what to do next- it was almost like she was on an extended mission, needing his support to help her achieve the mission's goal.
Only, this was not a mission. It was Annie's new life. It was a reality that could not be escaped. It was her personal worst nightmare come to life, but it was something Annie was learning to live with. Each day she overcame another obstacle, whether it was within herself, learning a new skill, or mastering a skill she had been working on.
Days at the rehab facility were long. However, this morning, she had to wait longer than usual. The last four days when it was time to get ready, either Jennifer or Sarah had come to help her-and they were always there within fifteen minutes of 7. But it was already 7:30 and no one had come to help her yet. Annie thought momentarily that maybe she should go ahead and try to start the process by herself, but Annie quickly rethought that. She was not ready for that step yet. As much as she did not want to accept the help of strangers, she also did not want to fall and hurt herself.
Although, it seemed that Annie's therapist thought she was ready to be more independent. Around 7:45, the daily living coach came in to Annie's room. Annie had only seen Christina once, the day before. As it was explained yesterday, Christina would be helping Annie learn to live her life from a wheelchair. She would help Annie learn to move to and from her wheelchair, dress herself, cook, clean, drive, and essentially take care of herself from her newly acquired accessory that she seemingly could not exchange. Upon meeting Christina, Annie had thought she was nice, but a bit abrasive in her demands of Annie. She expected a lot from her. This morning was no different.
"Good morning Annie. Still in bed I see." Christina commented matter-of-factly
"Good morning Christina, yes, no one has come yet to help me get out of bed, go to the bathroom or get dressed. I don't know why." Annie replied.
"That's easy, I told them not to. I wanted to see what you would do if there was no one to do everything for you. I guess you chose to do nothing."
"That's not fair! I can't do it by myself." Annie said defensively.
"Yes you can Annie. You have the ability to do all those things by yourself. You just have to want to. You have to know your limits of course and there are different ways to doing those things, so you have to do a little experimenting for yourself for what works for you. But, Annie, there are people here a lot worse off than you. Your legs don't work, but your arms do and you still have a good bit of core support that many others don't. So I need you to get over this self-pity you've got going on and get ready to work harder than you have ever worked before." Christina stated rather harshly.
She was a petite woman, appearing to be in her late 30s, possibly early 40s. Her short brown hair danced around her ears as she animated to life scolding Annie. Annie wasn't quite sure what to make of her. She seemed nice, if you could get past the hard shell. In this respect she reminded Annie a lot of Joan.
"Now, you're going to use the transfer board, like we have shown you. You will transfer yourself from the bed to your wheelchair, then go to the bathroom and transfer yourself to the toilet. Then we will work on how to dress you." Christina added.
Annie blinked a couple times and just looked at Christina who still stood by the door. No one except Auggie or Joan had ever talked to her this way, at least no one that Annie didn't immediately put in their place. Annie was not used to feeling like she couldn't do something. She was a strong independent CIA spy just a months ago. And now, Annie felt like she couldn't do anything on her own. Auggie and Joan pushed her, but she was used to that. Christina pushing her felt like an invasion of her privacy. She didn't like being spoken to like she was a child, but as harsh as her words were, Annie knew they had some truth to them.
After several minutes Annie finally said. "Okay. Let's see if I can do this. Can you help me if I need it?"
"Of course, that's why I'm here." Christina said more cheery than she had been since she walked in.
The process of transferring herself off the bed to her wheelchair took five minutes, and then getting from her wheelchair to the toilet took another three. By the time Annie got there, she discovered that she had had an accident on herself. Christina seemed unphased by this, but Annie was mortified. It had happened numerous times in the hospital, but not at all since she had arrived at the rehab facility. Apparently the change in routine this morning meant a lot of embarrassment for Annie.
"It happens Annie. You will learn to cope with it and learn how to avoid it. Make sure you always have an extra change of clothes with you, just in case. Oh, and always go to the bathroom thirty or so minutes after eating or drinking. You will learn your own body and how often you need to go to the bathroom. Everyone is different. But trust me when I say, your bathroom routine is nowhere near as complex as most paraplegics and simple compared to a quadriplegic's."
Annie realized it was useless to argue with Christina. She knew what she was talking about and Annie could learn a lot from her. After dealing with her bathroom needs, Annie got dressed. This process took forty-five minutes. Putting her pants on took the longest. Annie had to get back on the bed to put her pants on. In order to put the pants on, she laid them out on top of her legs, then took each leg and put it into its respective pant leg until the pants were covering her legs. Then Annie would alternate turning to each side by grabbing the side of her bed and then pulled the pants up over her behind. This took several times of turning on each side before her pants were up completely. After the pants were on, she zipped and buttoned them before bringing herself back to a sitting position, putting her legs over the bed and then transferring back to her wheelchair with the aid of the transfer board.
Putting on a shirt was easy. The process of putting shoes and socks on seemed pointless to Annie, but she did it anyway. This required her to reach down and lift her foot to the opposite leg's knee in order to reach her foot to cloak it in a sock and shoe. She could have probably just reached down to do this whole process, but the action left her feeling dizzy when she bent at her waist for the amount of time it took her to put both socks and shoes on by herself-she had experienced that the second day when she had tried putting her socks and shoes on.
After fully dressing herself, Annie decided she wasn't hungry and wanted to go ahead and start her day's session with Christina. While she knew part of her session today was about getting dressed in the morning, she didn't think that was all Christina had for her-and boy was she right.
The next hour was spent with Annie in Christina's office moving from couch to her wheelchair, to another chair, back to her wheelchair. Part of Christina's work space was set up with different types of chairs, couches, benches, and other types of seating. The space was large enough that Annie could easily maneuver her wheelchair between the spaces, but a couple of the chairs were hard for Annie to get into or out of.
One particular oversized recliner caused Annie a great deal of frustration. By the time Annie got into it from her wheelchair, over half her time was up. Christina gave her fifteen minutes at four of the locations in the room. She had to get in each seat and back out again. Between getting in and out of each seat, Annie was allowed to spend any leftover time just relaxing. But spending eight minutes to get into this particular chair, Annie knew it would take her longer to get back to her wheelchair. This recliner had sat up a lot higher than most of the other seats, so it took Annie a while to figure out just how she was supposed to get into it. She finally decided to put her wheelchair directly in front of the chair, then hoist herself onto the chair and then pivot her backside to sit in it. Then she would bend down and move her wheelchair. It was always harder to get out of a recliner then into it. Her wheelchair could be locked, but this recliner rocked as Annie tried to move from it. Add to that, the fact that Annie was physically exhausted. Furthermore, the confidence Annie had gained from successfully transferring to and from the other seats was beginning to waver slightly.
In order to get out of the chair again, Annie had many options. She had already practiced this many times, but not from this height. She was trying not to use the transfer board because she had not had to use it since the first chair she moved to this session. But, this chair sat up higher than her bed. She knew that the easiest way, would be transfer to the floor by sliding down the front of the chair and then transferring from there to her wheelchair. However, right now, she wanted to try something else. She was feeling successful, confident, and even a little adventurous to try something new.
Instead of transferring to the floor then to the wheelchair, Annie moved the wheelchair so that it sat perpendicular to the recliner, and then slides herself on the edge of the recliner. She moved her feet and legs away from where the wheelchair sat. Then she put her left hand on the wheelchair and tried to pivot her bottom to her chair. However, as she went to pivot she realized, too late, that she forgot to lock the wheels of the wheelchair. The motion of her trying to get to the chair, pushed the wheelchair backwards, and caused Annie to land embarrassingly hard on her bottom and left arm.
After her session with Christina, Annie's pride was very bruised, not to mention her body. She was extremely sore and her body ached all over. The worst part, it was only 9:30am by the time Annie got back to her room. Now she was hungry, but she knew breakfast stopped being served at 9:00. She wondered if she could go ask the cafeteria staff to make her something. But after more thought, she decided she did not want special treatment.
She decided that later she would ask Joan or Auggie to bring her some snack foods, meal bars, and quick meal options that she could keep in her room. For now, Annie needed to rest. Practicing transferring to and from multiple locations was much more work than Annie had done in over a month. More importantly it was more than she thought she could do. But, to her surprise, she did it. She had gotten a bit breathless a couple times and her heart pounded in her chest when she fell, but she did it nonetheless. Christina had told her she could do it and now, she felt a little better about the coach's opinions.
The rest of the day went off without much incidence. Annie went to physical therapy at her usual time before lunch. Today she felt a little better about the progress she was making, and her therapist could tell the difference in the energy she put froth during their exercise regime. After eating lunch, Annie went back to her room and took a nap. Before the shooting, Annie never needed naps. She always had the energy she needed to complete the activities in her day, but now, it seemed her body couldn't handle everything the rehab facility put her through without a recharge in the middle of the day. When she brought this concern up later in her session with her counselor, he pointed out that her body was still recovering from major heart surgery and another surgery and that the new psychical demand of paralysis would take some getting used to.
Later that evening, Annie dealt with a concerned Auggie. He couldn't believe the difference he was hearing in his best friend's attitude:
"Annie, you sound different tonight. Are you sure everything is okay? I can be there in an hour and a half if you need me." Auggie stated with concern when Annie just seemed too cheerful.
"Auggie, I'm fine. I'm learning that I can't sit around and mope all the time. I'm grateful you want to be here for me, but you need rest too. Joan will not be happy with me if I let her head of tech ops stay up all night because he doesn't think I'm sincere. Let her come check up on me herself if you're both that concerned. Auggie, it is not necessary though. Today was the first good day I've had, but I know there will be more. I'm not so naïve to think I will never have bad days too, but I'm positive this change is for real. Auggie, I'm back. The old Annie is making a comeback." Annie stated with so much passion that even she herself was beginning to question it. Perhaps her attitude really was changing.
If only Annie knew what changes really were in store for her…
Later that night, Annie was getting out of the shower and preforming the nightly routine Christina had helped her perfect on her first night here. This was only the second time she had went through it and the first time alone. But Annie's confidence from the day seemed to be unwavering. As she transferred from the shower seat to her wheelchair, Annie wheeled herself over to the sink where all of her toiletries sat. As she began putting body lotion on her legs and massaging each leg deeply to get some blood flowing Annie's hand slipped as she went to put her leg back to a resting position causing the leg to drop against the foot petal. Suddenly a searing pain went through her leg as she massaged the heel of her foot. "ouch!" she shouted to no one in particular. "Did I just feel pain in my foot? She again spoke to no one, just wanting to hear it for herself. As a smile came to her face she hoisted herself up onto the bed. Once there, she lifted her foot and dropped it back to the bed again. Nothing. After three more attempts she felt it again. A little tingling in her foot. Satisfied with her discovery, she got back off the bed to finish her nighty routine.
Annie went through the routine of finishing putting lotion on her body, sitting on the toilet once more to make sure all the body fluids were out for the evening, putting her pajamas on, and brushing her teeth. Annie wheeled herself out of the bathroom and locked the wheels of her wheelchair beside the bed, Annie realized something-this meant she might be able to walk again.
Finally, what she had been waiting for since this nightmare started a month ago. Finally, there was hope. Annie had hope of walking again, she just knew it had to be true.
A/N: Please enjoy and review.