Relief hit so hard I started crying. Michael climbed into the hospital bed beside me, careful of all the tubes and wires, and held me while I sobbed.
I was alive. Against six-percent odds, I was alive.
The tumor was gone.
I got to keep living.
Recovery was slow.
Agonizingly, frustratingly, want-to-scream-into-a-pillow slow.
They moved me to a rehabilitation facility two weeks after surgery. A place that looked more like a nice hotel than a hospital—but was absolutely, definitely a hospital. Physical therapists and occupational therapists and speech therapists descending on me with clipboards and encouraging smiles and endless patience for my limitations.
My left hand didn’t work right. The fingers wouldn’t grip properly. I couldn't hold a pen or button a shirt or do any of the thousand small things I’d taken for granted my entire life.
“Try again,” my occupational therapist said. Her name was Maria and she had the patience of a saint. “Squeeze the ball.”
I squeezed. The foam ball barely compressed.
“Good. Again.”
“This is pointless.” At least the words came out clear. Speech was getting better. Small victories.
“It’s not pointless. You’re building strength. Yesterday you couldn’t squeeze it at all.”
“Yesterday sucked.”
“Today’s better.”
She was right but I didn’t want to admit it.
Physical therapy was worse. Relearning to walk like I was a toddler. My balance was shot. My left leg dragged slightly. The therapist—a guy named David who was aggressively cheerful—made me walk between parallel bars over and over until I wanted to throw something at him.
“You’re doing great,” he said.
“I’m walking like I’m drunk.”
“You’re walking. That’s what matters.”
“I hate this.”
“I know. Keep going.”
Michael was there for all of it. Every session. Every frustration and each moment I wanted to give up.
He’d sit in the corner of the therapy room and watch. Solid and constant and refusing to let me quit.
When I’d collapse in my wheelchair after physical therapy, exhausted and frustrated and close to tears, he’d push me back to my room and sit with me while I caught my breath.
“I can’t do this,” I said on one particularly bad day.
“You’re already doing it,” he said.
“I mean I can’t keep doing it. This is too hard.”
“So take a break. Rest. Try again tomorrow.”
“What if tomorrow’s the same?” I pouted.
