Free Don't Leave Me This Way: Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry by Julia Fox Garrison

it?”
    “No, dear—thirty-seven.”
    “And it definitely doesn’t say that I’m six fucking months old, does it?”
    She makes a little pout and squints at you.
    “Yes, I’m thirty-seven years old. And I’m not going to wear a diaper. Please get me tampons from supplies.”
    “This is all the hospital has.”
    “Are you serious? Is this some kind of joke you people play with the folks on the head-case floor? What the hell do other women do when they menstruate while they’re in the hospital?”
    “The hospital just doesn’t supply tampons. We don’t have napkins either.”
    “Well, I’m not in a coma. I’m coherent. I may lose track of time, and I may not be able to read very well, but I’m not wearing a fucking diaper, and I guarantee you anybody who tries to make me wear one is going to have a bad day. Please call my husband and ask him to bring me tampons. He’ll help me. You won’t have to do a thing.”
    She does.
     
    ON THE WEEKEND, they suggest that you get out for a “walk” with Jim. This means dressing and being wheeled outside. This is part of your therapy, to get dressed with minimal assistance.
    It’s a real challenge. You have to become Houdini escaping the straitjacket. You have never put on socks one-handed, and putting them on a foot you can’t raise or feel is a test. Your bra has hooks, which are impossible for you to do yourself, so the aide helps. Then the shirt goes over your head with your dead arm threaded through the sleeve. Your legs are threaded into loose pants.
    Now Jim takes over from the aide. He wraps a scarf around your head turban style, and the aide wheels you out the door and into the elevator, and you and Jim go outside for your “walk.”
    But there’s really no walking involved. You go outside to sit by the water and watch the ducks. Jim rests his hands on your shoulders. Tears are flowing down your cheeks. Your makeup is probably ruined now. Doesn’t matter.
    Jim doesn’t say anything, you don’t say anything, but the not saying anything says something. Something about being in the wheelchair staring at the innocent ducks with the hospital building looming over you both. The water reflects the ducks, two sets of them, up and down, ducks that didn’t do a damned thing to anyone. You wonder what the hell you are doing in this dream. You wonder when someone is going to wake you.

Let Me Give You a Hand
    YOU CAN’T STOP TALKING about having your nails painted.
    Mom doesn’t understand and asks, “Why are you so obsessed with your nails?” You realize she’s looking at you from her side; her big picture didn’t include fingernails. But it seems perfectly logical to you.
    “It’s the only thing I have control over right now,” you explain. “I’m constantly staring at this lifeless hand, so it may as well look nice. I’ll take the bubble gum pink polish please.”
    James locates a nail salon close to the rehab hospital. They don’t offer services outside the salon, but Jim insists and money talks. Once Jim agrees to pay the highway robbery fee, it’s scheduled.
    You: an impaired body, paralyzed left side with a face that sags, making it difficult to form clear words.
    The manicurist: a young Vietnamese girl who can’t speak a word of English. She timidly enters the room with her tiny suitcase of manicure tools and a small foot tub.
    She looks terrified.
    Ever so mindful of your recovery goals, you pick a bright red nail polish, thinking the bright shade will help you keep track of your left hand. She starts painting the left hand first, but it won’t lie flat. The fingers curl and become gnarly and clawlike. Every time she tries to paint, the evil hand curls and she lets fly a torrent of Vietnamese words. If she tries forcing the hand flat, it slides off the table and dangles on the side of the wheelchair.
    She has on a yellow T-shirt. When she finishes the nails, it looks like she was the loser in a bloody battle.
    Once the polish is applied,