He tossed her his best “so what” face, straight out of the teenage contrarian handbook. It didn’t faze her.
“You might think it does all the work, but this little baby will keep you in tip-top shape.” She stopped herself from saying more, but he understood she was about use the “D” word—“deteriorating”, and take the broad-brush approach for life expectancy in paraplegics.
“Look, I get it, Mary. My tough-love doc showed me a video early on when all I wanted to do was shut down.”
That notorious video, which he could tell from the change of expression on her face she knew of, used time-lapse photography to document a young man’s demise. Hell, she probably carried around a copy of it in her bottomless shoulder bag, to use on uncooperative patients like him.
The patient in the video had been eighteen at the time of his skateboarding accident and had quickly given up on himself. The photographer had crunched ten years down to one minute. The brutal video transformed a young generally healthy man into a shadow of his former self and had shocked the defeat right out of Wes. Mission accomplished. From that day on he’d worked at his rehab with a vengeance. Never wanting to quit, even when hospital personnel pleaded with him to slow down, he’d refused to give up. Since he’d been home, if the rehab PT didn’t like his work ethic in the gym, he’d fire him or her. He didn’t care which gender they were, out they’d go.
“So I don’t have to paint that graphic picture for you, right?” Little Miss Sunshine returned.
“Right. I’ve seen it and I never want to go there.” The thought terrified him; his worst fears had been laid out before him by that video. Never, ever, did he want to wind up like that. Not without a good fight.
“So I can order this for you, then? It says they can have a rush delivery here in a week to ten days.”
The room went thick with silence as they carried out a staring contest. Why was she pushing this bike so hard? Did she have stock in the company, or know something he didn’t?
She used her thumb and forefinger to pull back the hair above her forehead, a frustrated gesture, for sure. His stubbornness had gotten to her. “You’re still a doctor, Wesley. It’s completely possible for you to go back to being one and performing surgery again.”
“Ha! That’s rich.” He let his honest reaction slip through the cracks. Been there, done that. Failed! Now he didn’t believe a word. She may as well be selling snake oil. “I’ve already tried to go back to work and it was a miserable failure. My department head sent me home.”
“Because it was too soon. How can someone as smart as you be so dense?” He saw determination in her eyes as she sat straighter, and he let the slur slide. Maybe he needed to listen to her. “As long as we keep your motor skills intact and your mind alert, there’s nothing to stop you from going back when you’re ready. The key phrase being ‘when you’re ready’.”
Mary went back to her large bag, which apparently held the world in it from everything she kept taking out. She lifted a stack of medical journals and handed them to him. “Here. Why not catch up on the latest in neurosurgery?”
“Look, I appreciate your enthusiasm and concern, but I’ve got my own plan for getting back on the job.”
“Sheer will and body sweat isn’t a plan, Wes. My plan can’t make you perfect again. No. But I guarantee it can and will help you improve and increase your chances of performing surgery again.”
“How can you guarantee that?” He dug in, because he wanted what she preached so badly it hurt, but what if her promise never came to be? So far his Neanderthal work-out-until-you-drop approach hadn’t panned out. Sure, he was buffer, but ready to go back to work? She was right. Not yet.
She pushed her face right up into his, those daring green eyes seeming to have X-ray vision over the battle going on inside his head. He tensed, shutting down a little, but he didn’t look away.
“Prove me wrong.” She put the journals on his lap. “Prove it. Give me a month and you’ll see and feel the difference, then give me another month and you’ll be amazed. I know it and totally believe it, and you’ll just have to prove otherwise. Of course, all things considered, I’d rather you co-operated.”
He couldn’t deny the determination in her stare, or the genuine look of caring. She gave a damn. About him and his situation. And from the fire in her gaze, she wouldn’t give up.
Then he felt it, that tiny flash of hope that throughout all of the trauma and disappointment and pain he’d suffered had refused to die. That pinpoint of faith in modern medicine and optimism for the future suddenly beamed brighter, because of her enthusiasm, and he found his mouth moving before he could stop it. “I doubt that I’ll be amazed, but I’ll take your challenge. Hopefully, you’ll win.”
Her eyes widened, she was obviously as surprised as he was, a sweet beam spreading across her face. She clapped her hands then pumped the air with a fist as if she’d just scored the winning point. “Yes! So does this mean I can order that stationary bike?”
“Order the damn bike,” he said, rolling himself out of the gym.
* * *
The next morning Mary arrived with a mug of coffee, and found Wesley waiting for her in a halfway decent mood. She chose the stairs, two at a time once again, as he took the elevator to the second-floor gym.
“The first thing we need to do today is get you loosened up.” She pointed to a thick floor mat beneath the workout bench. “Can you lower yourself to the floor?” She didn’t have a clue how much he could or couldn’t do for himself, so today would be one of discovery.
“Sure, but I don’t make a habit of it.”
“You should, you know. You have perfectly good arms, so I’m sure chair presses are a cinch for you.”
“Let’s find out.”
She laced her fingers, stretched her arms and cracked her knuckles, then rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck side to side, like she’d be the one to do the lift and lower. He got a kick out of it, but didn’t let her know. Then he put his hands on his locked chair wheels and pushed up until his hips left the seat. She stood back and let him move himself forward, repositioning his legs on his own, using his arm and shoulder muscles to their capacity as he lowered himself as close as possible to the mat and plopped down.
“Great,” she said, helping him lie down and straightening his legs for passive range of motion. “Okay, you know what I’m going to do, right?”
He tipped his chin upward. “Yup.” Reminding himself to be tolerant, that she wanted to help.
Positioning herself beside Wes, Mary took his right leg, carefully lifted and bent the knee and pressed the leg toward his chest, noticing how tight he felt. How long had he been ignoring the parts that didn’t work? She ran him through several basic exercises to loosen his hips and knees and then concentrated on his ankles. He watched her intently as she repeated the same exercises on the other leg.
“Once I loosen your joints, I’ll show you how to do all of this for yourself.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Yeah, so why haven’t you
