I woke up and no one was laying with me anymore. At first I panicked a little bit, because Nate was my feeling of safety right now
“Nate?” I called out. No response. I couldn’t get up to look for him either… I flopped back down onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. It was stupid of me to be alarmed that he wasn’t there. He wasn’t even my boyfriend officially, I can’t be overbearing. I convinced myself not to be worried, he’ll be back. He just told me that he really liked me, so I’m sure he’ll be back. I talked to myself in my head for about 20 minutes, until Nate came in.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“Hey, Steph, how are you feeling?”
“Ehh...I could be worse, could be better.”
“How does your stomach feel though”
“Surprisingly better today.”
“Well, today they’re going to try to get you to walk, and if you do well, they’re going to send you home with crutches.” He said with a huge smile. I smiled back at him. I was both nervous and excited. I knew I was in for a lot of pain today.
“I’m scared…” I blurted out.
“Oh Steph, don’t be scared. It’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll stay with you the whole time.” He gave me a comforting grin, “Doctor Parker said we have an hour, so I brought you a bagel to get some food in you,” I didn’t even notice he had a bagel in his hand until now, “Come on, let’s eat!”
“That sounds so good, I’m starving, and I don’t feel like I’m going to vomit!” I think maybe I was a little too excited, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t kept a meal down in what seemed like forever, and the moment my nausea went away enough, dammit I was going to eat! I held my hand out eagerly for the bagel. He handed it to me along with the small container of cream cheese. I had always ripped off pieces of my bagel and dipped it in my cream cheese.
“Holy shit! You do that too?!” Nate looked at me, in the middle of dipping his bagel in the cream cheese, just as I was.
“Wow… I thought I was the only one!” I continued to eat my delicious bagel. I finished my bagel before Nate did, and his eyes widened.
“Someone was hungry…” He laughed at me, and I started to laugh too, we were laughing uncontrollably. Soon I had to stop myself, because it hurt my stomach too badly. When Nate finished his bagel, he climbed into bed with me and we were sitting criss cross, facing each other. We talked for that whole hour until Doctor Parker came in.
“Good morning, guys.”
“Morning, doc. Hey can I call you Will? It’s like we’re living with each other now, we should be on a first name basis.”
“If you please, Stephanie, that’s fine with me.” He smiled kindly and walked over to me. He pulled out the wheelchair from behind the hospital bed and unfolded it. He held out his hand for me to take. He helped me up, and sat me down in the wheelchair, “We’re going to head to the physical therapy part of the hospital, Nate can come too if you’d like,” Nate didn’t even respond, he just followed, “You will have to come back regularly for PT, but after today, depending on how well you do, you’ll be able to go home. I have faith in you though. I think you’re going to do well today,” he smiled at me, and wheeled me down the hall towards the PT office. When we arrived, he showed me how to log in, and handed me off to the next doctor.
“Doctor Lewiss, this is Stephanie, Stephanie, this is Doctor Jamie Lewiss.”
“Hi Stephanie, you can just call me Jamie. Who is this gentleman?”
“I’m her boyfriend, my name is Nate,” My heart nearly flew right out of my chest and straight up to heaven, but Nate caught it when he put his arm around me and pulled me close.
“Well don’t you two make a lovely couple!” she said excitedly.
“Awe thank you,” I said with a smile spread across my face, “I was planning on him coming to our sessions. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely! Let’s get started.” She led me into the room we’d have our sessions in. Nate wheeled me in, and then him and Jamie helped me up. They both helped me walk to a mat that had two bars on either side for me to hold on to as I walked across, “Okay Stephanie, I want you to hold on to these two bars, and when you have a good grip, tell me, and we’re going to let go of you.” I held on to the bars for about a minute, and then decided I was ready.
“Okay, you can let go.” They both let me go, and I fought to hold myself up.
“I want you to stay there for about a minute. After that, it will get a little easier to hold yourself up. You’re very used to not walking right now.”
“Alright,” I whimpered, nearly in tears from all the pain.
“Nate, I want you to stand in front of her. Stephanie, if you can’t do it anymore, just grab onto Nate. You get as many tries as you want,” she said with a smile. Nate moved in front of me, and looked at me with hopeful eyes.
“You can do this Steph. I believe in you, I really do.” That was all I needed. I took my first step, and paused to breathe. Then I took my next step. Then the next. And the next, and soon I was at my 25th step.
“Stephanie, you are way past the goal. You are exceeding where we wanted you to be. There’s no question in my mind the Doctor Parker is going to let you go home today.” I couldn’t hold back my smile. I was just so excited to get out of here, and most of all to be with Nate, “Now it’s up to you if you would like to keep going. You can try to walk back to where you started, you could walk halfway, you could walk just a few steps, or you could get back into the wheelchair right now. Either way, you did very, very well today.”
“I think I’m going to walk back to where I started.”
“That’s a girl!” Jamie said happily, “You can do this!” I started to walk, and it felt so good to walk, even though it was painful. I was so determined to get to the other side, but I didn’t know if I could do it. I set my sights on the end of the mat, and headed for it with all my might. I stopped a few times in between when I thought I was going to fall, but I didn’t. When I felt strong again, I kept going, and I finally made it to the end.
“I did it!” I yelled, “Thank you so much Jamie!”
“There’s no need to thank me, this was ALL you,” she smiled at me, “I’m going to go tell Doctor Parker how you did. Have a seat and I’ll be back.” I sat down in my wheelchair, and Nate sat down in one of the waiting chairs.
“You’re unbelievable Steph, I couldn’t have done that. I don’t know many people who could have exceeded those goals by so much on the first day. You did amazing,” he looked me in the eyes, and pressed his forehead against mine, “Never give up.”
“I never will. Not as long as I have you.”
