Crash- Station 19/Marina

New chair

2 months later
Maya has regained most feeling in her arms, a little in her hands and most movement in her arms. She has a bit of wrist function and has learned to use that to move her hands a little. It's not much but she's learned to do a lot with the function she has. She's mostly independent when she's in her chair. She can do some transfers independently with the transfer board. They got an adjustable bed so she can get in and out of bed mostly independently. Her arms still get tired easily and it gets harder for her to do things but she's made a lot of progress. She's getting her custom chair today which was going to have power assist wheels which should make it a lot easier for her to push herself and be less tiring.

"Buongiorno" Carina says, waking up as Maya comes back into the bedroom
"Good morning" Maya says, wheeling herself over to Carina's side of the bed and leaning over to kiss her

"You got up without me!" Carina says pretending to be offended, she's actually very proud that Maya got up independently.

"You were fast asleep, I think that's the first time I've transferred out of bed without you helping at all"
"Fine, I guess that's ok. But you could make it up to me"
"Really, I wonder how I could do that..." Maya teases as she leans closer.

For some reason they end up being a bit late to Maya's appointment. After talking for a while Maya got in the new chair to check it out. Dan made a few adjustments then Maya tried it out just going around the room a bit.
"What do you think?" Kate asks
"I like how small it is. It's different but it's so much easier to push" Maya tells her as she keeps moving around
"Do you want to get out again and I'll show you how everything works" Dan says
"Sure" Maya says and transfers back into the loaner chair she'd been using

"So the wheels come off the same as the other chairs you've tried, push this in, pull the wheel out. To fold the backrest you twist here and fold, you can also take the cushion off, it's just Velcro, and then the backrest will fold more. The covers can come off the cushion and backrest to be washed" he explains, demonstrating everything as he goes. "Other things, obviously breaks. The anti-tip on the back here, is flips up but you can also remove it if you don't need it anymore. Handles when you need them but they also fold away"

After going over a few more things they were done and headed out, Maya in her new chair.

(Wheels are different than the picture and there's a seatbelt and chest strap)

On their way out Amelia got in the elevator with them.

"Hello! New wheels?" Amelia asks as she walks into the elevator
"Ya, just leaving the appointment. I finally got my own chair"
"Nice. I found some more info on that thing you were asking me about, I'll email it to you" Amelia says
"Great, thanks"
"What thing?" Carina asks
"Nothing"
"Maya"
"It's a surprise, I'll tell you soon"
"Ok" Carina says, not very happy about the secret

They go home for a bit then Carina gets paged back to the hospital. Maya takes advantage of her being gone to do more research into her plan. She knows she'll have to tell Carina and discuss it with her, it can't be a complete surprise but she wants to make sure its possible and know how it would work before telling Carina and getting her excited. She thought it was a good time, she'd switched to having therapy 3 times a week instead of 5 and didn't have any appointments anytime soon. Being more independent with transfers and most things would make it a lot easier and they both need something fun with everything that's happened.

She looks through what Amelia sent her then starts doing more research. After reading stuff for a while she starts finding videos, people have filmed themselves, showing the whole process and explaining everything. Then she gets distracted from her original research by a video suggestion and starts looking into that instead. Hand controls, driving. She hadn't thought about driving much, she's been focusing on other things, recovering, being independent, she didn't know there was a way to drive without using your legs. She didn't realize how long she'd been doing research for until she heard Carina come in, she closed the tabs she'd been looking at earlier as Carina walked in and came over to see her.

"Ciao bella" Carina says as she leans over to hug Maya from behind
"Hi, I missed you. How was work?"
"I missed you too, it was fine. What are you looking at?" Carina asks looking at the computer that was still open on the table
"I was looking at other stuff and this popped up. It's hand controls for a car, did you know these existed?"
"I think I maybe heard about it before but I'd forgotten. Is this what you were being secrety about with Amelia"
"Secretive and no, you don't get to know about that yet"
"Ugh! Fine. So how does the hand controls work?"
They did some more research together then moved to the couch when Carina pointed out that Maya should probably switch positions, having been in her new chair for a few hours.

Maya transferred and lifted her legs up onto the couch, sitting in the corner so it supports her.
"Hey, don't put your shoes on the couch, that's gross!" Carina says, moving Maya's legs so she can sit then laying them on her lap
"Why, its not like I stepped in anything!" Maya retorts
Carina takes one of Maya's shoes off and throws it at her
"These are not new shoes, they're gross"
"Hey!" Maya says, throwing it back at her. Carina just take Maya's other shoe off and throws that one at her
"Ok, fine! You win, no shoes on the couch! Can you pass me the remote?" Maya says
Carina hands it to her and she turns on the TV, seeing a fire on the news.

"Looks like a five alarm, I wonder if 19's there." Maya says, grabbing her phone from next to her to find more info. "It's been going for hours and its still just a 4 alarm, 19's been there for a few hours. They should really call a five alarm"
Just then the news announces that its been upgraded to a five alarm
"How could you tell that just from the news?" Carina asks
"I'm just that good!" Maya teases. "I love a good five alarm"
"You are such a fire nerd!"
"Andy's more of a fire nerd than me, her favourite place has been the station since she was little"
"That doesn't mean you're not a fire nerd"

They watched the fire on the news for a while longer before deciding to make dinner for 19 and bring it to the station for when they got back. When they got to the station they saw that the fire was almost out and decided to hang out there for a bit. Maya called Andy to ask if they were doing overhaul and found out they were about to head back since they were one of the first teams there. So they decided to stay and eat with 19 when they got. After they ate Andy made Maya follow her when she went to get changed so that she could ask how her secret planning was going, Andy had found out what Maya was researching since a lot of the time she was home when Carina wasn't. Then they went back to join everyone else. After a few hours Maya and Carina went back home for the night.

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What is Maya planning?? Comment your guesses!

Thanks for reading! I think I'm going to be updating once a week now that I'm back in school but I'm not sure how busy I'll be with school and my placement yet.