Perrie
The doctor was right, but I don't think there was anything that could have prepared me for the this part. Jade being in a coma for so long was stressful for its own reasons. Mainly because there was the fear that she might never wake up.
Her being awake now is stressful too, because now I have to watch her struggle to get back to some kind of normalcy, and it hasn't been a pretty sight at all. I think I'm crying more now than when she was unconscious.
It's been about two months now, and things have gotten a lot better. Still not perfect, but we're not where we started, and I'm grateful for that.
In the first few days after she woke up, she couldn't do anything. All she did was lay there and blink, and when she would go back to sleep, I would be scared to death and stay up all night watching her.
When she first woke up, she was confused. She was almost unresponsive to everything, and couldn't remember anything that had happened. That was another thing that scared me. I though she'd lost her memory, but the doctors explained that it was normal, and that her memory should gradually come back.
She needed a lot of therapy to relearn very basic things like drinking, chewing and swallowing, and sitting up on her own. Then she progressed to having to relearn other things like tying her shoes, feeding herself with a fork or spoon, and to help with her memory.
Then there was even more therapy for learning to walk and talk all over again. Watching her struggle to do basic things that she could normally do in her sleep was so hard.
On TV, it always seems like someone in a coma wakes up right away, looks around, and is able to think and talk normally. But let me tell you, that is rarely the case. Especially not in this situation. Very far from it actually.
She was eventually moved to a rehabilitation hospital and had to have therapy every day for hours at a time. I could tell that she was determined to get back to herself, which is what I think helped her recover a bit quicker. I think that in a situation like this you also have to want to get better. If you don't do anything to help yourself, then nothing will change.
I'm about to have a baby soon. Like, next month soon. And I think her seeing that and the state that she's in, knowing she's nowhere near ready to care for a newborn made her want to try harder to get better.
The thing about recovery though, is that it's not always straightforward. It's not linear. Setbacks are bound to happen, and we definitely had some bad days.
Days where she didn't want therapy at all and she just wanted to be left alone. Like she'd given up. Days where it seemed like the progress she'd made in the days before had disappeared. Days of anger. Days of frustration. LOTS of days of frustration that resulted in yelling and arguing, and tears from both of us.
Of course those days were followed by apologies and even more tears. I understood. I could've done without the arguments, but I understood that she was frustrated with herself, and that her anger had nothing to do with me, so I didn't take it to heart. All I could do was show her that I was here for her, and that I wasn't going anywhere.
"We'll get through this together." Is what I kept telling her, and every time, she'd just cry.
The more rehab she did, the more she used her brain, and the more time that passed, the more she was able to take on information. And that was in addition to the physical therapy she was getting as well to strengthen the muscles in her arms and legs. It was really like watching her start from zero, almost like a newborn, and it hurt me every single day to watch.
