Dissolve the floors of memory
James was sleeping when we arrived. I think he was under the impression that we were not coming to visit. We entered his room pretty late in the day. Imogen and I slept in and when we awoke, she made a lovely Mother's Day pancake with peaches breakfast served to me in bed. I actually read a little--a new bookstore opened in Williamsburg which Imogen and I perused yesterday. We both purchased two books--taking advantage of James's absence--he would have said, "You do not need to buy any more books--go to the library!" He might be right.
The day room in which Imogen passes her time during our hospital visits was occupied by a family for a single patient family gathering. She had to stay in James's room. He was slightly uncomfortable but we all adjusted to the moment.
A few friends have noticed that James was back on Facebook yesterday and posted a video of a wobbly walking lizard. It is true that James posted that himself. He identified with the lizard and said to me, "I feel like this" and then I saw his hand move to repost it. I thought it was pretty funny of him and in keeping with his sense of humor.
He does not want to be in the hospital any longer and rightfully so. James does not have a grasp of time passing, any self-awareness of his improvement, or short term memory. He is constantly in the present which makes him impatient for homecoming since he cannot fathom that a month ago, his own doctors were not sure if he would survive. He's made a terrific comeback but for someone that has no memory of being in intensive care nor really, the past four weeks, it feels like dull business to be in rehabilitation.
I try to review the progress he has made with him every day without scaring him. It's a fine line. He complains that his arms are so weak and my response must be, "Well, a few weeks ago you could not move your left side at all, you could not do this..." and I turn my left hand over from palm down to face up--a simple, slight gesture. James mirrors my motion but does not entirely believe me--it seems impossible--he cannot fathom that he was under water for so long and his prospects in the near past had appeared to be very dim indeed. I told him that the neurological doctors in the intensive care unit seemed skeptical that he would have function on his left side yet, here he is, walking today and using his left hand. His range of motion is limited but that will improve with time and work.
I now understand why his occupational therapist wanted me to film him on day one. They knew his body would move faster than his cognitive capability to grasp the recovery process. The therapists were able to have faith in his recovery--that he would make rapid gains. They saw something in him and I am glad for it because they have been proven right! Their optimism had seemed like hubris to me at the time. I had witnessed James's deterioration to the very edge of death. I will never forget the moment when I helped the nurses clean him in his bed and I saw him completely naked, near the end of his time in the NICU. He was a lifeless skeleton. When they turned him in the bed, the little flesh he had left was held inert by the nurses, as if he were a corpse. It made me shiver with complete dread and fear. How could he possibly recover.
I am still nervous thinking thoughts of recovery despite the progress James is making every single day.
James wants to go out into the world and be. In his own thoughts, he is ready to rejoin life but in reality, James does not yet have enough of the recovered ability in mind or body to accomplish it. He has an unknown, unknown. James is not aware that he is not aware. It is a somewhat complicated state to be in, even though it seems straight-forward and simple from the outside. Errol Morris has a nice series about the known unknown in the New York Times. He quotes Robert Browning which I think would be an appropriate thought for the end of this evening:
O Thou, - as represented here to me
In such conception as my soul allows, -
Under Thy measureless, my atom width! -
Man's mind - what is it but a convex glass
Wherein are gathered all the scattered points
Picked out of the immensity of sky,
To re-unite there, be our heaven on earth,
Our known unknown, our God revealed to man?
The day room in which Imogen passes her time during our hospital visits was occupied by a family for a single patient family gathering. She had to stay in James's room. He was slightly uncomfortable but we all adjusted to the moment.
A few friends have noticed that James was back on Facebook yesterday and posted a video of a wobbly walking lizard. It is true that James posted that himself. He identified with the lizard and said to me, "I feel like this" and then I saw his hand move to repost it. I thought it was pretty funny of him and in keeping with his sense of humor.
He does not want to be in the hospital any longer and rightfully so. James does not have a grasp of time passing, any self-awareness of his improvement, or short term memory. He is constantly in the present which makes him impatient for homecoming since he cannot fathom that a month ago, his own doctors were not sure if he would survive. He's made a terrific comeback but for someone that has no memory of being in intensive care nor really, the past four weeks, it feels like dull business to be in rehabilitation.
I try to review the progress he has made with him every day without scaring him. It's a fine line. He complains that his arms are so weak and my response must be, "Well, a few weeks ago you could not move your left side at all, you could not do this..." and I turn my left hand over from palm down to face up--a simple, slight gesture. James mirrors my motion but does not entirely believe me--it seems impossible--he cannot fathom that he was under water for so long and his prospects in the near past had appeared to be very dim indeed. I told him that the neurological doctors in the intensive care unit seemed skeptical that he would have function on his left side yet, here he is, walking today and using his left hand. His range of motion is limited but that will improve with time and work.
I now understand why his occupational therapist wanted me to film him on day one. They knew his body would move faster than his cognitive capability to grasp the recovery process. The therapists were able to have faith in his recovery--that he would make rapid gains. They saw something in him and I am glad for it because they have been proven right! Their optimism had seemed like hubris to me at the time. I had witnessed James's deterioration to the very edge of death. I will never forget the moment when I helped the nurses clean him in his bed and I saw him completely naked, near the end of his time in the NICU. He was a lifeless skeleton. When they turned him in the bed, the little flesh he had left was held inert by the nurses, as if he were a corpse. It made me shiver with complete dread and fear. How could he possibly recover.
I am still nervous thinking thoughts of recovery despite the progress James is making every single day.
James wants to go out into the world and be. In his own thoughts, he is ready to rejoin life but in reality, James does not yet have enough of the recovered ability in mind or body to accomplish it. He has an unknown, unknown. James is not aware that he is not aware. It is a somewhat complicated state to be in, even though it seems straight-forward and simple from the outside. Errol Morris has a nice series about the known unknown in the New York Times. He quotes Robert Browning which I think would be an appropriate thought for the end of this evening:
O Thou, - as represented here to me
In such conception as my soul allows, -
Under Thy measureless, my atom width! -
Man's mind - what is it but a convex glass
Wherein are gathered all the scattered points
Picked out of the immensity of sky,
To re-unite there, be our heaven on earth,
Our known unknown, our God revealed to man?
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