Don't Leave Me This Way: Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry Read Free Page A

shimmers and twists as it sees fit.
    Morning snaps into place and your family is now visiting you. Flies are swarming around your mom and dad. You keep swatting them with your right hand, the only hand that will move for you. You keep saying, “Don’t you see them? They’re all over Dad’s head.” Waving that right hand, trying to swat the flies.
    “No flies on me…but they are sure loving Mom and Dad, aren’t they?”
    Silence. Quizzical faces.
    “You don’t see them, do you?”
    Your parents shake their heads.
    Your mind is capable of manufacturing flies. But it cannot manufacture sensation on the left side of your body.
    Morning wobbles and collapses and it’s dark outside and Jim is watching as they change your bandages. You don’t know what you look like because no one will give you a mirror, not even Jim. Dr. Neuro has told Jim not to give you a mirror.
    It occurs to you that this is not good.
    You try to catch a glimpse of yourself in the window across the room.
    It’s only a second, the picture you see in the dark night window, but it makes your heart feel hollow and cold. The right side of your head is void of any hair and there is a huge S-shaped incision starting at the top of your scalp and extending below your right ear. The incision is stamped shut with staples.
    Was that another illusion your mind conjured up? Or was that really you?
    You look away and ask the nurse to pull the curtain on the window so the reflection doesn’t show. She starts to do this but twists into nothingness before her hand touches the curtain.
     
    “TAKE THIS PEN. Draw a clock showing the time ten-fifty. Ten five oh. Draw the clock right here on this sheet.”
    One of the neurology residents is speaking to you. Apparently you’re in the middle of some kind of test. Bright daylight again.
    Jim says, “Come on, honey. You know how to do this.”
    “What time am I drawing on the clock?”
    “Ten-fifty. Ten five oh.”
    You take the pen and draw this:

    Jim frowns and urges you to do it again. The neurology guy takes notes. You don’t want to disappoint Jim. You ask to try again. The neurology guy says, “Okay.”
    It comes out the same.
    “Now draw a clock with all the numbers, one to twelve.”
    You draw this:

    Half a clock. It looks utterly wrong. But you can’t think what will fix it.
    Nothing exists on the left side of your world. You glance up at Jim. His face is completely crestfallen. You can sense he’s beginning to get an idea of the magnitude of your injury. It’s not just the left side of your body. It’s your brain. It’s your command center.
    The neurology guy sniffs and nods and writes something down.
    “Okay, let’s try something different. Count backward by sevens from one hundred.”
    You take a deep breath.
    “Okay. One hundred…”
    Silence.
    “Go ahead.” He is so damn smug.
    “One hundred…”
    “Yes.”
    “Nothing’s coming.”
    The neurology guy smirks and sniffs again and takes more notes.
    “Don’t write that down.”
    It’s Jim. He’s mad.
    “Why not?” the neurology guy asks.
    “Because she couldn’t have counted backward from one hundred by sevens before the stroke.”
    The resident stares at Jim, then looks down at his clipboard and keeps writing.
    You shout out: “Stop writing!”
    He stops and stares at you.
    “How the hell do you know,” you demand, “that I wasn’t stupid before my stroke?”
    “You are suffering,” the resident says flatly, “from left-side neglect. It’s a common symptom of a right-hemisphere stroke. It may or may not go away.”
    “Does that mean,” you ask, “that if I don’t like listening to you, I can have you stand on my left side, and you’ll go away?”
    He stares at you both like you have just escaped from a lunatic asylum. But he stops writing. He puts the clipboard on the wall and leaves.

Your Encounter with the Tapioca Lady
    A ladder and a choice.
    Going to be there climbing it.
    But going to have to choose,