Sunday October 18, 2009

On Sunday morning I went to church with my husband and kids.  I don't generally cry throughout a service, but this morning everything was different.  Thankful doesn't seem like a big enough word. After church I made a quick stop to grab a gift that an out of town friend asked me to deliver to Shannon, a  few basic toiletry items and an orchid for Shannon's room, then headed for the hospital.

As I arrived at the hospital Janine and Kristen were walking out of her room and told me that visitors were asked to leave so that Shannon could have a nap.  I decided to drop off the things I had brought with me, and then come back later.  When I walked into her room Shannon was sitting up in bed again and greeted me with a garbled, but easy to understand "Hey! How are you?"  Blown away I said "Oh my goodness!  I can't believe how much you have improved since yesterday!" She replied slowly and deliberately "Really?  I don't think I am?" to which I replied "Well, yesterday you could not have said 'really? I don't think I am', so YES you've improved so much!".  She beamed and said "oohhhh" and looked proud of herself.

Just then, Nurse Wendy popped in again and told me it was time for Shannon to have a nap and I would have to go.  Shannon told her "No, I don't want."  but then yawned as though the mere suggestion of a nap was enough to make her sleepy.  I told her I would come back later, but she still insisted that she was not tired and wanted me to stay.  Wendy clearly has children, because that woman delivered the classic mothers disapproving 'look' flawlessly.

In an effort to appease everyone I suggested that I stay, but not talk, and only until Shannon fell asleep.  Wendy apparently accepted this, because she closed the curtain all the way around the bed and left.  I started to stroke Shannon's hair and whispered "Now, you need to pretend to go to sleep or we'll both get in trouble!"  She nodded and smiled a devious little smile.  Within 30 seconds her breathing slowed and she drifted off.  Just then, one of Shannon's roommates began to shout  "R! M! T!  3! C! 9!"  Shannon opened her eyes, looked at me and made a face that said "That chick is craaaazy" and then closed her eyes and fell back to sleep.

These little hints of her personality and sense of humor were so bitter sweet in a strange way.  Even though she was right in front of me, and even though she had only been at the hospital for 3 days, and even though it is so encouraging on the surface of it, I suddenly missed Shannon SO much.  I left the hospital silently praying we'd be back to our old shenanigans, boobie-trapping people's houses, going on long walks with tea and non-stop talking very soon.

~

I arrived back at the hospital shortly after 3pm.  The sleep had served her well, as she seemed even more alert, and her speaking was even more clear than just a few hours prior.  She began to try to tell me about the things that she was worried about.  She had clients and appointments this week and she couldn't remember most of them.  I assured her that I would get her phone (which Janine had, along with her purse, since the chaos of the emergency room on Friday night) and go through her appointments and take care of everything.  The more we talked, the more she remembered.  I got out a piece of paper and started to write things down.  A couple of times she looked at what I was writing and asked me what it said, or what a particular word was.  Each time I told her she would smile and say "huh" or "oh". I was continually amazed with her memory.  There were 'holes' in it sure, but to suddenly be able to recall a specific address, or a time & date she knew she was supposed to be somewhere after what she had just endured, is impressive to say the least!

After a while I had a list of addresses (for what or whom I wasn't sure) and a list of names or the first letter of a name she couldn't quite recall and a couple of dates that she knew something important was happening.  It was a start!  I showed her the list and told her not to worry about anything, I would figure it out, and take care of everything.  She just needed to focus on getting better and nothing more.  She looked at me with a very solomn face and said "have room?" and then corrected herself without prompting to "have time?".  I said that of course I had time, and not to spend one more minute worrying about it!  Shannon began to cry, just a little at first and then as cried, she began to give in to it.  We hugged and she kept saying "thank you" over and over.  I kept saying "don't thank me for goodness sakes.  Its nothing. Really, its nothing!" 

Thankfully at that moment Joanna arrived for a visit.  Shannon and I wiped our eyes and welcomed the smiling face of sweet and lovely Jo.  We spent the several hours laughing, and being entertained by Shannon complaining about her feeding tube, IV's and showing us all the things she could do. (which included slowly lifting her right arm and capturing her chapstick using two slightly bent fingers! Right side paralysis be damned!!)  She pulled out her picture chart and began to demonstrate (at times rather sarcastically) that she knew what each of the cartoon drawings on the chart were.  We talked about hockey (as much as Jo and I CAN talk about hockey) and began to plan in detail the legendary 'balls to the wall' trip to Vegas we would all take when this was over.  Shannon seemed genuinely happy.

She began to ask again about what had happened.  It was the first indication that she wasn't retaining information.  I asked her if she remembered what I had told her the day before.  She said no.  Would she like us to explain it again?  Yes.  We started at the beginning and could see that the information was as much of a surprise today as it was the day before.  We answered her questions as best we could and tried to tell the truth, while at the same time doing our best to keep her spirits up by leaving out some of the scarier details.

Then we asked her a few questions.  Did she remember Thursday morning?  At first she said that she didn't, but as we described thing we found in her room that to us, were clues to what she may have been doing prior to her stroke (bags from a store etc) she started to piece it together.  She kept gaining momentum. It seemed as though the more little bits of information she could recall, the more the memories came.  I asked her if she remembered having the stroke.  She did.  I asked if it hurt.  No.  Did she know what was happening to her?  She didn't, she just felt confused.  We started to talk about how Joanna found her and what an incredible blessing it was that she came home and then made the series of choices that she made.  Shannon said she remembered seeing Jo, but that by that time she was very confused and in her words 'knew she was in trouble'.  We sat in silence for a moment, all of us on the verge of tears, each of us processing the what-ifs in our own way.

Shannon's mother and Father came back, and shortly thereafter, Janine and Kristen arrived for another visit before bedtime.  Knowing that we were pushing our luck as far as visitors and out of space in the corner of her shared room, Joanna and I excused ourselves and went home to have a much needed glass of wine to celebrate Shannon's incredible progress.