part 19

                                 60

I count down every single day I have left in rehab. I really see no reason as to why I am still kept here. Technically I am still not being taught how to walk. I just lift dumbbells and I can do this at home. Gary gives me simple math problems, or a short story to summarize. I can do this all at home. The fact is, these things are not even challenging for me. They never have been. The first time I did them I was told that I did a ‘good job,’ yet I am asked to continue doing them. Who is this benefitting? There is a long list of people waiting to get into this rehab. I wish someone could just replace me here. My parents want me home, and I am kept here completely against my will.

I then count down the hours until 8pm, when I can take my sleeping pills and read myself to sleep.

I rest in bed and look through magazines I took from the small waiting room attached to Elizabeth’s office. I will give them back. Possibly. The two psychologists come by to see me. I guess it is still relatively early in the day, and I am annoyed that their work day is obviously not over yet.

"Hi Karina. How are you?" The older one says in a cheerful voice.

"Fine."

The younger one pulls out a chair next to my bed, and the older one does the same on the other side, as if I had invited the two of them to make themselves comfortable around me. I am still glad they have decided to go against taking up the telephone room.

"How was your day today?"

"Fine. You do know I’ve already seen a psychiatrist or psychologist today?"

"Yes, so we will make this a short visit." He smiles reassuringly.

"That’s good." I look over at the younger one who has busied himself writing. Something. Possibly making note that I have a bitchy attitude about me, again. Making a very long note. I can see he doesn’t want to be here.

The older one is a trooper and continues.

"How did your appointment go?"

"It was good. I found out that I was given antipsychotics, and so the psychiatrist discontinued them."

"Oh... do you feel that you are ready for this?"

"Ready for what? I was never supposed to be on them in the first place. I was never psychotic and haven’t taken it up recently."

"Okay... well I am sure they were given to you to be on the safe side. You know... just in case."

"Hmm." This line is so overused.

"I was also told that you decided to stop attending your ‘speech therapy’ class."

"Yes."

"Why is that?"

"Because Elizabeth was doing absolutely nothing that benefited me."

"I see..."

If you can ‘see,’ then just leave me alone already.

"Is there anything you would like to talk about? Anything you would like to discuss?"

"There is absolutely nothing I would like to talk about. Absolutely nothing I would like to discuss."

"Okay." He smiles. He’s a really good champ for putting up with my attitude. The younger one is still writing, trying to avoid me. Smart man.

"Okay." the older one smiles politely. "I guess we covered all we needed to, and we’ll be back tomorrow."

Of course you will.

"Thanks-bye."

I count down the hours until 8pm and then I call my nurse for my sleeping medication. It’s Consuela tonight, and I smile.

"It’s just gonna be these tonight." She tells me when she sees me. "They discontinued the other ones."

"Yeah, I know. I finally talked to a psychiatrist. He didn’t understand why I was on them. I didn’t even know I was on them."

"I actually wondered about that myself. I just didn’t feel it was my place to say anything. I didn’t understand why they felt you needed them. Well in any case, I hope you have a good night."

"Thank you Consuela. I hope your night goes well too."

Around 9pm I fall asleep. I also wake up at around 3am. I have collected some sleeping pills, because thankfully Consuela doesn’t demand to inspect my mouth when I take my medication. I brake a pill in half. I do not want to take the whole pill. I want to leave some behind to take home with me, since I will not be running over to the drug store to get any sleeping aids. I fall asleep.

 

 

61

I wake up, as I always have every single day, at around 6am to the laughter of the nurses. They are preparing for their morning shift.

I get up, and head over to the shower room to wash up. I always dread it because it is very uncomfortable for me to either get my body into the bathtub or into the shower room. Either way it will still be a shower, even if I crawl into the bathtub, because filling the bathtub with water is never an option. A bath bench is placed in the bathtub, so technically it’s not that different from when I take a shower.

Physiotherapy is the same as usual. In other words, it is relatively useless to me. It makes me miss home even more. I am asked to stretch my legs. To mainly focus on my right knee. I do this already on my own time. I’ve noticed my right leg is able to bend a lot better. I know I would have been able to achieve the exact same results in my room at home. But unlike at home, I have constant supervision as if it is actually helpful. I look at the other patients walking, and their physiotherapists actually couching them through this. I look at them and I am jealous of them.

After I am finished, I meet with Gary and he gives me math problems to work on. I like doing this. I feel it is the most helpful activity I have done here. He always times me, and I always finish quickly. He comments on this, and it makes me feel smart, for that short moment. For the rest of the day, I have nothing to do. I watch some TV while the other patients are away from the common area.

As promised, the twopsychologists arrive to ‘help’ me. All they do is ‘help’ me become very annoyed. They of course arrive just as soon as I have found something good to watch on TV. I realize this has become an every day thing, and I wonder how I can possibly stop them from visiting me, without saying something that I will regret later. Then again, if they have any intelligence, they can pick up on the hints I give, that I have no desire to continue this process. They probably do, but they continue despite. It is their job, and they must make a very comfortable living doing this. In that case, out of the 3 of us, I am the only one who is not benefitting in the least bit from our meetings.

They begin with the usual,

"How are you today Karina?"

I respond with the usual, "Fine."

The older one does the great majority of the talking, while the younger one either takes notes, or studies notes.

We continue this conversation. I have no desire to encourage them to take up more time than need be. I give one word answers, whenever I can. These men cannot help me. The only way they could actually help is if they gave me my ability to walk without problems. To run again. They can help me if they can make the responsible police officer’s life miserable. I know I will never be able to even begin to forgive him. I will wish for him to taste the hell my life can sometimes be because he made it that way. To get a good taste of the excruciating pain he caused me, both physical and emotional. Just a small taste of it. I know I will wish this until the day I die, and I hope if God has mercy, it will not be a long wait.

These two men can not do this. This is not in their power. Therefore to me, they are completely useless. I bide my time until they have finished with me for the day. They finish trying to find something in me. I know that they are looking for something, but I do not know what. Maybe they expect me to tell them that I want to die, and feel all suicidal now. Maybe they want me to tell them that I’m scared the man who did this will come after me to try to finish what he started. I am in no mood to make things up to satisfy their inquiries. I wait for them to finish. Agitated. They wait for me to grow uncomfortable and try to fill the silence they keep creating. I do not. I do not care for this.

They check the clock and tell me, "That’s enough for today. We will continue this tomorrow." I do not know what it is they want to continue. I assume we will continue silently staring at each other. I do not enjoy I single moment of them coming around, so I am very relieved when they finally leave me alone. Until tomorrow.

I watch some TV. Patients begin to come to the living room, or whatever it’s called. One of the women tries to talk to me. She is convinced that she has known me for a few years now. Of course she hasn't, but on the 4th floor this happens often, and I have grown used to it. Many patients feel that they have met me before, and think I am being rude when I tell them we have never met. As time goes by, I give up trying to explain, and just end up rolling back to my room.

Helena’s husband has come by to visit, so we talk. Helena tells me that she is being sent home tomorrow. Her husband gives me a small box of chocolates, and tells me that it is a Christmas present from the both of them. I really appreciate this and I thank them both. I keep the chocolates in the original box, without removing the plastic cover. I decide to save them until my ability to taste things returns. They are expensive chocolates, so I will not waste them.

Time goes by, and dinner is brought. It looks nice. It always looks nice. I can tell that someone really tried to give rehab food a good presentation. I do not know what it tastes like, but from what I can tell it is good. I eat only because I am hungry, not because it tastes good. I am always hungry. I wait for time to pass. I read a book. I find that I am able to concentrate a little better now. The words do not seem to spin and blend together like they used to. I find that I am able to concentrate on the story. I do not care for it actually, but it gives me something to do.

I wait for 8pm, and call a nurse asking for the sleeping pills. I take them and wait. At around 9pm I fall asleep. I wake up at 3am, and take half a sleeping pill I have saved. Helena is now awake and asks me if I’m okay. I apologize if the light I have turned on is bugging her. She tells me not to worry. She looks forward to going home. I wish I was the one going home in the morning. I have a week to wait. I know it will be a long week. I no longer have any appointments in St. Frances’.

 

 

62

Basically all I do now is lift light weights, stretch resistance bands, do simple math problems, and count down the days I have left to wait.

The morning comes, and I get ready to go to my two appointments for the day, so I take a shower. When I’m finished I see Helena waiting in the hallway. I ask her what she is doing.

"Well Karina, they had told me I was going to be discharged at 2pm today, but this morning they said they have a new patient who needs my bed. So I was pretty much kicked out."

"Are you serious?"

"The new patient is in my bed now, and my husband had plans to come here at 2. So I called him and he’s trying to move things around so he can come pick me up. But until then I have to wait in the hall."

"Someone really dropped the ball on this one."

I haven’t been told what time I will be allowed to leave this place, but I imagine my parents will arrive early to get me. There is a lot of commotion in our room. The nurses are settling in the new patient. I decide to just wheel myself away.

At this time of day, no one is in the common area, so I wheel myself over to the TV and change the channel until I find one that I like. I watch TV. It is entertaining.

I have to use the washroom, so I roll myself back to my room only to find that the door has been closed. I grab the door knob and begin to open the door when I am told to wait. So I wait. After a few minutes, a nurse calls for me to come in. I do, and head straight to the washroom. I then make my way to my side of the room. The curtains are closed around the new patient’s living space, so I cannot see her. I hear her talking later. She has an accent. Her husband comes by to visit, and from what I can tell they are communicating in Greek. I find out later that I am absolutely right.

 

 

63

It is the next day, and I head over to the closet to get a sweater and I have to wheel past the new patient’s living space. She sees me and begins to speak to me. She asks me to call a nurse for her. The call button is lying right beside her, and I can see that she is trying to move her hand to pick it up, but has no luck. She is showing me that she is having difficulty, so I tell her I will do it right away. She rests her head on her shoulder, and I think then that this looks like an awkward position to be in. I use her call button, take the sweater from the closet and return back to bed to read my book. A nurse comes in. She asks the new patient how she can help. I feel deeply saddened by what I hear next. The patient asks the nurse to lift her head off of here shoulder, so she can straighten her neck. She can not do this herself. She then asks the nurse to put the call button in her hand, because she has difficulty reaching it even though it is an inch away from her. I realize then that she hardly has any control over her body.

I find out later that she has multiple sclerosis. I have no idea really, what the symptoms are. I thought it was mostly pain throughout the body... but this? She is basically paralyzed, but can still feel discomfort and probably pain. This reminds me of when Doctors ‘induced’ me into a coma. I could still feel everything, but they had successfully paralyzed me. I greatly sympathize with this woman.

Later on she tells the nurse that she needs to be taken to the washroom. It takes 3 nurses and a pulley contraption to raise her out of bed and get her to the washroom. The next time she asks, the nurse tells her to ‘just go’ in her diaper. She refuses to. She wants to keep some of her dignity.

As time passes, her husband comes by. He will be coming by every day. He is not a young man, but if she tells him that she needs to go to the washroom, he lifts her out of bed and takes her there himself. I imagine when they were young they must have been so happy and in love. A long, long time ago. But I have realized that life has a way of throwing crap at you. Unfortunately I’ve not only realized it, but I’ve experienced it. It is my last week in rehab, and I often hear her cry. I do not know much about MS, but I have a feeling it is not possible to rehabilitate it. In that case I am not sure why she is here, but then again I have no clue why I’m kept here.

Months later Gwen discusses with me how badly my neck and spine were broken. How if the smallest millimeter of movement occurred, and a nerve was hit, I would have been paralyzed. Either from the waist down, but more likely from the neck down. It is a complete wonder to her how this didn’t happen.

At this point I am still convinced that I will walk again, just the way I used to, when I am finally allowed to practice. And soon after that, I will run.

 

 

64

One day, I am told by someone that I am simply going through this because God is punishing me for my sins. After all, I lived for Friday and Saturday nights, when my friends and I would meet up and go out to a restaurant and drink beer. Drinking is a sin. On top of this, I had a habit of relaxing in my room, and sometimes drinking winewhile watching TV. Never mind that I was not causing anyone any harm by doing this. I kept to myself, and I was enjoying myself. Then I had the audacity to have Stephan fired, because even though I could take his emotional abuse, I could not take it when Stephan lashed out at my co-workers. Because of my actions he lost his job and it probably caused him pain. And for that God had me thrown off the 7th floor as punishment. Somehow the punishment does not fit the crime. I am actually unable to wrap my head around a God that can be that cruel. In that case, what kind of punishment will he come up with for the young man who caused all of this? Or is this young man thanked because he was doing God’s will? This God that is presented to me seems very vengeful. I thought that was more of a human characteristic.

My faith in God is shaken. Fear is instilled, and I worry that if he is punishing me, I better not piss him off any further, or else. He’ll come up with something that’s even worse than this? I can not imagine it getting worse. I do not want to imagine it.

In time my parents begin to tell me what a toll this has taking on them. I am not the only one paying for my mistakes. They have suffered greatly, and still do. After all, I am their only child. If only I didn’t go out that night... Slowly these thoughts begin to eat away at me, and finally now, reality begins to sink in. It will take me a very long time to make up for this. It would take the rest of my life to undo the damage that was done. The damage that... technically I helped cause. I gave a killer an incredibly good opportunity to commit this crime, and on top of that... get away with it. I had too much faith. I was beyond naive, and now I am not the only one paying for my stupidity.

It is now the weekend. Only a few days left until I go home and I can begin to fix things. I watch TV considering almost all of patients go home for the weekend. I have no way to get home, so I stay and watch TV, and I feel happy that time is ticking, and soon I will never have to see this place again. Only a few days left.

My parents come to visit me about 3 days a week. When I was in Green Meadows, they would visit me everyday, but I am now in a different city. They do not see me too often, and that is fine. When they come by we go outside. It is now very cold in Toronto. I ‘sign’ myself in and out, because I am afraid that if I don’t there will be problems. It’s just monkey work and doesn’t benefit anyone in the least. Sometimes hours will pass, and I remember that I forgot to ‘sign’ myself back in, so judging by what Dr. Abin told me, I would be screwed if there was a real fire. Someone will actually flip through the binder, see that I am signed ‘out’ and not bother to come and rescue me. To me this is a complete joke.

 

 

65

It is mid afternoon on a Monday. I lie in my bed, when Dr. Abin comes into the room to see me. I wonder what she wants now. Maybe she wants to lecture me about my neglect to ‘sign’ back in.

She pulls up a chair next to my bed with a somber look pasted on her face. I ask her what’s the matter now.

"Well Karina... last week you had a sample taken from your ankle." I nod.

"Dr. Hill had left the sample in a lab, and now the sample has grown a ‘bug.’ Your ankle has an infection."

I am actually annoyed a little, not worried. I have no doubt that there is no infection.

"And what is this infection?"

"It is an ‘unknown bug,’ and Dr. Hill is very concerned about this." I am very annoyed about this now. I remember weeks ago, Dr. Hasten had dedicated himself to searching for an infection in my ankle. Giving me tests and feeding me antibiotics to kill an infection that we later found out never existed. I have been through this before. I imagine the antibiotics did some damage, especially when you consider there was no point for me to take them to begin with. I’m guessing this is where this conversation is headed. I will be given more antibiotics... but I’ll be home in two days, and I have no intention of taking them.

"So I’ll be given antibiotics then?"

"Well I don’t know what course of action Dr. Hill will insist on taking. But until we know what he decides will be the best approach, we will have to postpone your discharge date from here."

Time stops. Everything stops. Everything grows silent. I feel my heart drop. Physically drop from my chest to the pit of my stomach.

"What?"

"Your discharge date was set for the day after tomorrow, but we have to keep you here until further notice."

"What?"

"You will stay here until Dr. Hill decides on the best course of action."

"What? How long?"

"We do not know at this point. It is the holiday season, so it will be a several days wait." She nods. This isn’t real. This is not my life. I had longed so desperately for Wednesday to finally arrive. I had wanted to be home so badly. Tears spill from my eyes, and I promptly begin to hyperventilate.

"Karina... this is for your own good. This ‘bug’ can cause serious repercussions if not treated."

I try to catch my breath. I can’t. I am hysterical.

"Karina... do you want me to call someone?"

"Why?" I say through sobs.

"Well you can talk to someone, and talking can help. I don’t want you to do anything irrational."

"Unless they have a way to send me home on the day I was supposed to be sent home, there is absolutely NOTHING you or anyone can do to help." I manage to say.

"Well maybe it will be better if someone comes to sit with you, I really don’t want you to hurt yourself."

She has labeled me a suicide case.

"I don’t want to ‘hurt’ myself." I want to hurt you.

"Well just in case... they could help."

I roll over on my right side and slowly respond,

"Please stop helping me. Just go away and don’t help me anymore."

She leaves, and I feel shattered. At some point I run out of tears. I may have started to dehydrate, but I don’t know and I really don’t care.

The tears stop, so I decide to call my parents. I roll over to the telephone room, simply because I can not afford to make the call on my cell phone. I don’t care who sees me. I call and my mother picks up. I tell her right away that the date for my release has been changed. I don’t know when it will be. The tears come again. There are more of them left after all. She asks me why, and I tell her that they now found some ‘unknown bug’ in my ankle and want to keep me."

"Well Kar, calm down. They are professionals after all. If they found something wrong they’ll fix it."

I sob like a child and respond to her,

"There is nothing wrong though. My ankle is just swollen, it’s been like this for months." I cannot stop the tears.

"They are medical professionals Karina. If they have found something wrong with it, there must be something wrong with it. You have to let them do their job. They are only preventing something horrible from happening." There is not much she can say to keep me calm.

We wrap up our conversation and I go back to bed and continue to cry into my pillow. It may seem like I am overreacting. After all, what is a few more days? Especially if something horrible is being prevented from happening. But it is not the case. There is no doubt, I know I do not have an infection. It hurts because I had anticipated and waited for this day for so many weeks. For months. And just when it is a day away from happening, I’m told it won’t. Emotionally I am wrecked. Physically I am in pain. It literally feels like my heart fell to the pit of my stomach and broke. And I have been kept alive to feel it. There is only one man to thank for this.

I pass the rest of the day in this state. I take one of my sleeping pills that I was saving to take home with me. I do not want to be awake. I want to escape reality very badly. After some time, I begin to feel very sleepy and I pray to God, asking him to have just a little bit of mercy and let me fall asleep. I do not want to be awake. I begin to drift off, and exactly at that moment, as only my luck will have it, the two psychologists come in to speak to me.

I ask them to come back another time. I would really like to sleep now. The older one responds,

"Well that’s why you have trouble sleeping. You take naps during the day."

It takes all the willpower I have to not say something awful to him. This would have been the absolute first time I would have taken a nap during the day, in this rehab, so I have no idea how this would have effected my sleeping habits in the previous weeks, but I’m not a Doctor.

"We’ve been told you will be staying a few days longer," he actually smiles when he says this. I want to punch him in the mouth to get that smile off his face. I am livid and I am devastated.

The older one talks. I do not listen to a single word. I cannot believe that this kind of emotional pain can exist. The only thing I waited for, because I so strongly believed it would happen was taken away from me. I no longer have faith in anything anymore.

He continues talking. The younger one studies my face. Probably put off by the fact that it looks like I’ve been hysterically crying. I do not give a s**t about what he thinks. I just don’t want to be here. I keep my mouth closed, and don’t respond to anything they are saying. After some time they seem to get the hint. I tell them I’m tired. My mouth says "I’m tired," my eyes say, "leave me the f**k alone."

They leave. I know they’ll be back. They always come back. My sleeping pill has worn off. I am only a little sleepy. I don’t take any more because I’m afraid I’ll develop a tolerance to them. I lie in bed in my own misery. 8pm rolls around and I receive my sleeping medication. I take it immediately. In the end I’m paying for my stupid choices. I could have avoided all of this if only I didn’t go out that one day in August. But I did, and I’m paying for it. I fall asleep.

 

 

66

I wake up and feel destroyed. I only get out of bed to use the washroom. I crawl back into bed. I have absolutely no intention to attend any appointments. Ever. I will not do physical therapy. I will not do any therapy they have to offer. If they feel such a need to keep me here, I will stay but not participate in a single thing. I feel that I have aged a century. After months of hospital stays, going home was the only thing I had to look forward to. And it was taken away. An outsider may think, ‘What’s another few days?’ Now imagine the lowest point in your life, and how crushed your soul felt. Multiply that by 5, and that is how I feel now. I have no intention to kill myself, because I cannot let the police officer win this one. I cannot let him have the upper hand any more than he already does. I know he will try to kill someone again. I feel I have to do whatever I can to prevent him from doing what he has done to me, to another human being. I know I have to go on, but I have no will to participate in any rehab crap. Ever.

I lie in bed. A nurse brings me my morning vitamins. I lie in bed. I lie there for several hours. Then Dr. Abin shows up. I hate her face.

"Hi Karina. I just wanted to let you know we’ve talked to Dr. Hill. He will see you tomorrow, but he says it’s not a problem to let you go home. So the plan is, we will send you with a porter to St. Frances’, and then straight from there we will send you home in a taxi. Now you’ll have to find someone to help you adjust when you get home... to meet you when the taxi takes you home. Will you be able to take care of that?"

"So tomorrow I am allowed to go home?!"

"Yes, and I know you raised concern about transportation to get home because your parents don’t have a car."

"We don’t drive."

"Yes, so we’ll take care of the transportation for you."

She is unable to finish the sentence before I start crying. She looks at me with concern, and I tell her that I’m extremely happy. She smiles and nods, and I am so happy I could just kiss her, if that was in any way appropriate.

In that one minute, I went from feeling gutted, so insanely happy. I’m finally getting what I wished for, for so long.

I’ve already missed all of my appointments for the day, but after all, I have no intention to participate in anything. Technically my stay here didn’t benefit me much, if at all. Maybe my biceps are a little stronger. I wash up and fix my face, and head to the common/ livingroom area. I find Axel and tell him that I will be leaving tomorrow. He congratulates me. I watch TV with him, and I am extremely happy. In a few hours I will never have to see this room again.

For the first time in a very long time, I fall asleep feeling good.

 

 

67

My appointment with Dr. Hill is in the early afternoon. I wake up in a superb mood. After a while the pregnant physiotherapist comes to see me. She brings a walker with her, and tells me that she has just been told I now have clearance to use it.

"Now you find out? In the last few hours I have left here?"

"It will be good for you to practice walking."

I know it would be good for me to practice walking. I thought that that’s what I was going to do from my very first day here, not on my last day here.

Out of habit, I pick up the walker and hold it off the ground. She stops me and tells me that I have to set it down with every step. Technically doing this only slows me down and does absolutely nothing for me, but I do it with no complaints for her benefit and piece of mind. I am after all in a very good mood.

"Karina, have you given any consideration to purchasing a walker? It will help you out greatly."

"Yes."

"And...?"

"There’s nothing to consider. I can’t afford it." I don’t mention that it will be nearly impossible for me to use it in the tight living space that is my apartment. She tells me she can sign me up for a program that will allow me to take it home for free... but I will have to return it when I am done with it. I ask her how I am expected to return it considering I live in a different city and do not drive. She tells me that this will have to be up to me. I tell her that in that case I am not interested. This decision will probably be blamed on my brain damage and the fact that I have no problem solving skills.

It is finally my last day of rehab, and my mother comes by to visit me and to assist me home. I’m excited. We spend some time talking until my porter arrives to take me to Dr. Hill. In the hallway I spot Axel and he runs up to me saying his goodbyes. He hugs me and kisses my face. He was my only friend here. We say our goodbyes and promise to write. The thought is there, but we never do.

I am placed in the cab, and we drive the short distance to St. Frances’. It is a long wait for the Doctor, as always. My mother and I sit in the room waiting for him and the porter is in the hallway. She is just waiting to take my wheelchair back and send me home. After a while Dr. Hill comes into the room with my file in his hand. He doesn’t waste time, and tells me right away that an infection has been found in my left ankle. He seems to be surprised that I hardly react to this. I know there is no infection, I have done this song and dance before, so he continues,

"Now the swelling alone indicates that something is really wrong."

"It has been swollen like that for months."

He frowns. "Yes... but the swelling has gotten worse..." I am not sure how he managed to come to this conclusion or how brilliant his memory has to be for him to remember the degree of swelling of my ankle after seeing it a few days ago. I live with my ankle every day and I know the swelling has not changed.

"We have to perform surgery as soon as possible to prevent the infection from spreading."

"What?!" I am at a loss for words. "Can’t you just give me some antibiotics?"

"I could prescribe some for you, yes, but because this is a bone infection they will not work."

"So what ‘bug’ is it?"

"It is an ‘unknown bug.’ It can be extremely dangerous."

If it is ‘unknown,’ it may not be dangerous at all.

He can see that I am not buying into anything he is saying, so he pulls out his scare tactics. He starts by saying I will experience a fever, and ends by telling me that I will lose my foot. I need surgery immediately! How can I not get this through my head? Brain damage probably. I ask him how long the surgery process will take. He tells me that the first day I am here I will be ‘prepared’ for surgery. On the second day I will have the surgery, and then stay however long it takes me to recover from the surgery.

"It takes an entire day to ‘prepare’ me for surgery?"

"It’s usually very quick. A Doctor just has to see if your body will withstand it okay. Then you go home and come back the next day for the surgery."

"Wait, wait, wait. So you’re telling me I have to come here for preparation, then go home, then come back? I’m telling you right now, I am not going to do that. I live in another city and no one in my family drives."

He looks dissatisfied. "Well, you can just stay in a hotel in the area."

Yes of course. I have money pouring out of my a*s. A side effect from the medication I’ve been given.

"I cannot afford that."

"Okay... Well we’ll schedule the surgery and I’ll try to find a vacant room for you."

Warning bells begin to go off in my head as I wonder why he is pushing this. I know I do not have an infection.

"Okay. Well I would like to have another test done, considering it’s a..."

"No!" He interrupts me. A very uncomfortable look has now crossed his face. "No, one test is enough."

I do not think about his reaction too much. It is only later that alarms will go off in my head followed by sirens, as I am finally able to put two an two together. But not right now.

He leaves the room and then comes back with an appointment slip. He has scheduled a surgery a week from now. He will also do everything he can to find a room for me, since I can not afford to stay in a hotel. I am just anxious to get home. I dismiss much of what he’s saying, and all of his scare tactics.

We leave the hospital and there is a cab waiting for me. I’m finally able to bend my right knee after a lot of dedication and discomfort, and am now able to sit in the back seat of the taxi with no problems. The porter takes my wheelchair and we say our goodbyes. Although I am very excited to finally go home, a cloud hangs over my head. I realize that I will now need two more surgeries. I will avoid this for as long as I can. My gut feeling tells me that not only do I not need them, but if I go through with them I will suffer greatly. I resolve not to have another surgery.

After a long drive we finally arrive at my apartment. My father is waiting for me with a wheelchair. It is by no means as nice as the one I had in rehab, it is obviously cheaper, but it does the job.

I can safely say that being held in rehab against my will has been the most insulting experience of my life.

By far.

I am finally home.