Crash- Station 19/Marina

Surgery round two

Carina tried to distract herself while Maya was in surgery but failed. She sat or paced and worried. An intern would occasionally bring her updated but she just wanted to hear that it was done. The surgery took hours, Carina knew it was a very delicate process but she couldn't help but worry it was taking so long because there were complications. Finally she saw Amelia walking towards her.

"She's out of surgery and heading to the ICU. It was a complex surgery, we had to go in from the front of her neck as well as the back but it's done. We won't know how it affected her function until she wakes up but there were no complications so I don't expect anything to be worse. There will be some swelling so she might not have much movement at first but that should improve quickly. If everything goes well with recovery she should be able to move to rehab in four days." Amelia says. Then she brings Carina up to Maya's room.

Maya's laying on the hospital bed hooked up to all sorts of monitors, in a neck brace, intubated and on a ventilator. Carina tried not to cry seeing her.

"She needs time for the anesthesia to wear off before we can extubate but that should happen in the next few hours. Page me if you have any questions or if she starts to breathe on her own or wake up. I'll come check on her every hour." Amelia says, Carina just nodded and pulled a chair up beside Maya's bed, holding her hand and playing with her hair so Amelia left.

It ended up not being until the next morning that Maya started breathing on her own and was extubated. She woke up fully an hour after that and Amelia came to check on her. She could move her shoulders but could barely move her arms. Amelia told them not to worry since it was less than 24 hours after surgery, she'll probably gain more movement over the next few weeks.

A while later a group of people came in to get her up and do some exercises to get her moving. They used a lift to put her in a wheelchair, not her wheelchair, one from the hospital that had a tall backrest, a headrest and reclined so she wasn't completely upright. They only let her stay up for 15 minutes before moving her back to bed, saying they'd be back later to try again. Maya was exhausted just from that and hated that she was so tired from doing so little but reminded herself it was only the day after surgery.

After 7 days, slightly longer than anticipated due to some complications, Maya was transferred to a rehab facility. She had to go in an ambulance since she couldn't sit up for long periods yet. At rehab they gave her a power chair to use since she couldn't use her manual chair yet and although she didn't like having to be back in a power chair, she loved the freedom it gave her. Freedom to move herself that she hadn't had since surgery and if she was honest, weeks before that. She could move her chair before this surgery but not well, she relied on Carina pushing her for any distances, inclines or bumps. It took a few days for her to learn to fully control the power chair with her current, very limited, arm function but she did.

She spent the first 2 weeks at rehab working to get back to where she was just before surgery and was starting to feel defeated. She hadn't expected it to take her this long to recover, 3 weeks after surgery and still no improvement from pre-surgery. She had been expecting to at least get back to where she was before she started to decline, where she could push herself and do some transfers, where she had some independence.

She didn't notice it herself but she started withdrawing, not taking initiative in therapy, talking less, even with Carina. She was doing losing hope and didn't see the point in all the therapy.

Carina noticed Maya withdrawing but didn't call her out on it, she knew the cause and although she'd never admit it, she was feeling the same. They were supposed to be rebuilding their life and moving on, not back in rehab.

After a few days when Maya was still withdrawing from everything Carina called Diane who came to the rehab facility the next day to see her. It took a while even for Diane to get her to open up but she did eventually.

"It's not the same as what you're going through but do you remember why I left firefighting to be a therapist?" Diane asks, Maya didn't respond. "I was injured on the job and never recovered enough to return to work."

"But you recovered" Maya said, still not looking at her.

"How do you know?"

"What?"

"How do you know that I recovered?" Maya was thrown off by this question.

"You can walk fine, you don't need help with things, you can have a life."

"I can walk, is that a requirement for having a life? People who don't walk aren't worthy of having a life?"

"That's not what I said!"

"Oh, so is it the independence part? People who need help can't have a life?"

"No, you can't, how are you supposed to have a life when you can't do anything for yourself!"

"So babies don't deserve to live?"

"I didn't say that! Stop twisting my words!"

"You're saying you don't deserve to have a life because you can't be independent right now. Babies need other people to do absolutely everything for them, so that kind of is what you're saying. What's the difference?"

"They learn, they need help to grow up to be able to be independent. I'm not going to get independent, it's not temporary."

"Neither is the help babies and kids need, they need help with most things for years"

"No they don't!"

"Is it possible that some of your struggles with accepting help and accepting that you may always need help come from being forced to be independent at a young age? Being taught that asking for help is weak?"

"Not everything is about my dad. No one wants to be completely dependent on other people, that's not because of trauma, that's a normal human response"

"You're right, it is normal to become depressed when there's a drastic change to your life, it even has a name. Situational depression, and it's real and it's something people need help to work through."

Diane started seeing her regularly and after a week she'd convinced Maya to try medication temporarily to stabilize her mental health. It was slow but over the next few weeks of seeing Diane regularly and medication, her depression started improving. She started putting some effort into her therapy again.

Maya sat on a regular chair balancing herself while one of her therapist moved a target around that she had to reach out and touch without falling. There was a backrest but nothing to stop her from falling forward or to the side. Carina watched from the doorway, amazed at how far her wife had come, a few months ago she couldn't lift her arms out, now she was doing it while keeping herself upright, occasionally even leaning forwards off the backrest.

This was her last session of inpatient rehab, she was finally going home again after 6 weeks. Once she finished the exercise her therapist got her transfer board in place and spotted her as she transferred to her chair, another thing she hadn't been able to do before this surgery. Carina waited until she'd finished transferring to walk over, not wanting to distract her.

"You did so good Bambina" Carina said as she approached. Maya smiled and reached for her, yet another thing she'd been missing, Maya's happiness. She'd made a lot of progress over the last few weeks with medication and seeing Diane regularly. "You're all sweaty" Carina added after giving Maya a kiss.

"I'll shower at home" Maya replied, happy to be getting out of rehab.

The two of them went back to Maya's room to gather the last few things, filled out some forms and left. Back at their apartment they showered then sat on the couch together, enjoying being together in their space without anyone else around.

A/N
Sorry it's been so long since I've posted and sorry this isn't very long/doesn't have a great ending. I've been busy and also stuck on what to write. I'd appreciate any suggestions, thanks for reading!