I am well aware that for a lot of people, the saga of my brother Nathan’s remarkable comeback from a serious brain injury has played out like The Feel Good Story Of The Century…. with one dramatically encouraging development after another in an essentially uninterrupted journey from Near Death to Full Restoration. Yesterday afternoon was a disconcerting reminder that such journeys are almost never painless or predictable.
I don’t want to say too much in such a public forum, but I will say that my little brother found himself in a very, very dark place yesterday … engulfed by feelings of bitterness and frustration. In an odd sort of way, it was probably part and parcel of his continued progress towards greater mental clarity … which up until now had seemed entirely positive. But yesterday, it felt like Nathan was emerging from his mental fog not into a sunny meadow of hope and promise – but into the very dark place I mentioned yesterday, feeling trapped, hopeless, and even betrayed by those who love him most. I wasn’t there to witness any of it, but my dad was …. and my brother Steve made the mistake of calling Nathan right in the midst of it all, and hung up the phone feeling very shaken by what he had heard. At that point, he called me – hoping it might be possible for me to head over to Madison, not knowing that I was already planning to do so that evening. What his phone call prompted me to do was to be excused from playing piano for Carthage Choir rehearsal (Dr. Garcia-Novelli could not have been more gracious and understanding) and make arrangements for my Chamber Singers to rehearse without me …. which meant that I could hit the road the moment I was done with Opera Workshop.
I drove myself to Madison with an overwhelming sense of dread, and I did the only thing I know how to do under those circumstances: I pulled out old Morning Show CD’s, one after another, to try and immerse myself in something that had nothing to do with brain injuries or hospitals or therapy or the fact that my youngest brother was experiencing such pain (more mental and emotional than physical.) I tried to imagine what I could possibly say in the face of what Nathan was feeling. (And as my dad said with half a chuckle on the phone, it was still a day of progress because Nathan was expressing himself extremely well. It was what he had to say that was the problem- although we both said that it was probably healthy and helpful for Nathan to be venting in a way that up to that point had been largely impossible.
(With an eye towards irony, I stopped off in the hospital gift shop to buy Nathan a balloon for his room, and decided on a bright yellow one with a big smiley face on it. I thought a balloon that was so diametrically opposite of how he was actually feeling would perhaps be amusing to him.)
As I walked into his room, I immediately saw a brightness and clarity in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before – but as he began speaking, I could tell that his agitation and his unhappiness had not yet expended themselves, and I wondered if the next three hours were going to be the longest three hours of my life.
And then came the moment that changed the day completely …. when one of the nurses walked in carrying a dinner tray. Nathan had been cleared by his doctor to eat his first solid food since suffering his brain injury. Earlier that day, he had undergone a Swallowing Test, and he had passed half of it (the one for thicker substances, oddly enough) quite convincingly, while the test for pure liquid had not gone quite so well. But it meant that Nathan was in a position to actually eat his first post-injury meal of any kind. The strict stipulation was that he had to be fed by one of the CNA’s and not try to feed himself, so they could make absolutely certain that he was eating his food one teeny tiny bite at a time. Nathan’s CNA for the evening, Aja, (who had what sounded like a lovely Jamaican accent) could not have been kinder or gentler – but she was also a tough cookie who watched Nathan’s neck like a hawk to make sure that she saw evidence of swallowing before going on to the next bite. She also knew how to crack a joke or two without turning this into fun and games. She knew full well that it was of the upmost importance that Nathan do well and be authorized to eat food himself.
And he DID do well! And on the menu for that night? How about mashed potatoes and gravy, tomato soup, applesauce, orange sherbet, and chocolate pudding. And while he had only a tiny little bit of the first two, he totally finished the last three and actually asked for more orange sherbet. That was incredibly exciting – and at that moment, Nathan seemed more like the gutsy, positive young man who had watched the Packer’/Vikings game with Dad and Sonja Sunday night, and talked up a storm on a plethora of topics. True, Nathan wasn’t feeding himself – he was being fed as though he were an infant – but he allowed it without complaint, seemed well focused on the matter of swallowing, and basically had no spit ups or other mishaps. (I joked with Aja at one point that if this had been an event at the Olympics, the scores would have been 9.95’s across the board!) It was a huge milestone and one could sort of feel this lightness in the room that had definitely not been there before.
A few minutes later, I was finally able to pull up Facebook on my laptop (the hospital’s wi-fi had been on the fritz) and spent a few minutes paging through his page, my page, and Steve’s page, so he could see some of the expressions of concern that were there. And eventually I invited Nathan to dictate something for me to post on his Facebook page, so his friends and relatives could hear from him directly for the first time since his injury. It took awhile, but Nathan eventually dictated these words: I am doing okay, but it is stressful to be here at Meriter Hospital and I am anxious to go home. Thanks for your support and for your prayers. (Or words to that effect.) Several times during that dictation, he asked to be sure that I had typed the part about how stressful it was, so clearly that was the main message he was most anxious to convey. But in some ways at least, his feelings are to be expected. He is much clearer, mentally, so he is more vividly aware of his surroundings and his situation (although the fact that he kept asking for his clothes and shoes because he wanted to go to the library were a pretty good indication that he really didn’t fully grasp the seriousness of his situation.) He is being kept busy with a gauntlet of physical and occupational therapy, which is both exhausting and frustrating for him. And let’s face it: this is not a situation that anyone would want or would easily accept. But even through the course of the several hours that I was there, I sensed that Nathan might have been coming to a somewhat more peaceful acceptance of his current reality. And my parting words to him, aside from I love you, were to encourage him to work as hard as he possibly could on his therapy, because that was his ticket out of there. I think he believed me. I hope so.
There were very encouraging signs- including the fact that he remembered both his email address and his password for his Facebook account. He was speaking in complete sentences, for the most part, and seemed to have no significant difficulty in formulating his thoughts. And in the moment I appreciated above all others …. at one point, he turned to me and said – without prompting of any kind – “’m really glad you came, Greg.” In the last twenty years, I am sure I have never heard those words or anything remotely like them emerge from Nathan’s lips, at least to me. That’s just not ever been his way. But on this occasion, he felt compelled to thank me for being there – which in turn made me feel like a million dollars! My hope, however, is that he takes some of that gratitude for his wisecracking brother from Racine who puts in a few cameo appearances now and then …. and directs that gratitude to those who are with him through the thick and thin of this ordeal – Dad, Sonja, and the incredible staff at Meriter.
One last thing. During Nathan’s meal, the CNA asked me something about Nathan’s stay in the hospital, and where he had been before coming to this particular room. I replied that before this he had been in room 850, but before that he was in 750. At that, her eyes grew huge as though she had just been told a significant surprise. She then explained that if Nathan had been in 750, that meant that he had been in very grave danger and had been receiving care in that part of the hospital where patients received the most intense Intensive Care possible. It was another indication of how far Nathan has come….. from death’s door to finishing his orange sherbet and asking for more.
Another sign of hope.
