Driving Force

chapter 22

Madison Marshall POV

"Okay, Madison. You ready?" The physical therapist asked as she turned me on the bed so my legs ar ehanging over the edge. They want to see how well I do with standing and walking today. It's the first time I'll be out of bed since the incident. I requested Jessie, Dawn, and Cameron to be with me as I do it wanting their support. Even though I am upset with Cam for telling everyone about my home and family life, I forgive her. It happened and I can only deal with it.

"As re-ady a-as I ca-an be." Good news though, my stuttering is getting better.

"Okay, so put your hands on the walker and scoot forward so your feet are firmly on the floor." I do as she says even though it takes me an embarrassingly long time. "Okay, now I am going to help you stand and Dawn is going to be on the other side of you to help too. Ready? 1,2,3, up."

I push myself up and feel myself going right back down to the bed.

"It's okay!" The PT says. "You're okay. Let's try it again. 1,2,3, up."

This time hands support in helping me up and stabilizing me on my feet. I feel a wave of dizziness hit me as this is the first time I am standing in a couple of days. I see Cameron come into my line of sight telling me to look up and focus on her instead of the floor. I listen as my vision clears up.

"Okay, we are going to walk to the door and back." The PT speaks again and I nod. My legs feel so heavy as I try to pick them up to walk. "Small steps to get started."

Eventually I manage to pick up my legs and shuffle them, but Dawn tells me to actually pick them up which toughens my job a lot. 

"I'm ti-red." I stop and say. As the words leave my mouth I notice I only walked maybe six steps and not even halfway to the door.

"You got this. To the door." The PT says giving me no space to argue, but I don't move.

"Madi." I turn and see Jessie moving from her spot by the bed to the door. "Walk to me. I believe in you."

I sigh knowing nobody is going to let me stop. Eventually after an extended amount of time I am finally a few steps from Jessie and see her smile trying to encourage but I just feel like a child taking their first steps. I am physically and mentally drained. As I go to take the next step forward, I feel my legs give out. Multiple hands grab me and manage to get me onto a chair before I land on the ground.

"Sorry." I sigh exhausted.

"You did exceptionally well for your first time out of bed since the incident." The PT smiles.

"She didn't make it to the door." Cam says speaking my thoughts.

"I wanted to push her to see how she can do it with a far reached goal. People usually can only take a maybe four steps but she went well beyond that."

"Bed." I say not caring how well I did. I am exhausted. Dawn and the PT go under my arms putting most of my weight on them and they get me onto the bed. Jessie brings me a cup of water and I reach out to get it but when I grab it I notice my hands trembling. What the hell?

"Um her hands are trembling." Cam notices as well and tells the PT.

"You didn't have it before?" I shake my head. "I'll make sure to tell the doctor." But I notice her tone changes from the confident one she was using before.

"May-be I'm jus-st tired." I say out loud but more for self reassurance.

By the looks on their faces they know I'm lying but they don't argue and just tell me to rest for a couple of minutes before another type of therapist comes. I see the worry cross their faces and it pains me that I am the cause of it. We sit in silence stuck in our thoughts before a knock on the door pulls us to face the new guest.

"Hi, my name is Amber Kold. I am a neuropsychologist." She says coming over to me and shaking my hand.

"Madison. B-u-t call me-e Mad-di." I say politely.

"Hello, Madi."

"This is Dawn, and Jessie," Cam states, pointing to them before introducing herself.

"It's nice to meet you all. So I am just going to take a few minutes to assess and get a baseline on Madison's cognition. If she is comfortable, you guys may stay or-"

"They can stay." I interrupt her.

"Okay, so I have a few images here. I am going to show them to you and you just let me know the name of the object." The therapist says. Sounds easy.

She shows me a picture of an animal first. "Do-og." She nods and a couple of more passes, but then she shows me a picture and it looks familiar and I know what it is but I can't gather the word. I scrunch my face, but she decides to skip it saying there's nothing to get frustrated about.

"Wha-at was it?" It will kill me not knowing.

"A hammer." She tells me and I whisper saying the word to myself. How didn't I remember the word?

She shows me another one, "Knife." I say, but her face and the faces in the room tell me I am wrong. "It's a kn-ni-ife!" I say not understanding why I am wrong. 

"It's a fork." The therapist tells me. "Don't worry, it's okay."

"No. I can't-t-t put wo-or-ds to images!" They are simple images! Then I think of something else. "Gi-ve me." I point to a paper on the counter.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." The therapist tries to stop me knowing what I want to do. "It's still early to read anything."

"I need to," I plead to her and she gives in. I grab the paper with trembling hands from hers and start to read it. My vision is blurry making the words unfocused and jumbled on the paper so I blink my eyes a couple of times to focus. As I feel like I blinked enough, I try again but I am met with the same issue as before.

"You need to understand that these symptoms you are having are common for people with TBI's." The therapist tried to tell me.

"I can't read." I say in shock.

"You just need time. Your body is recovering. The journey to recovery is going to be tough and draining, but things will get better." She says.

"Can-n we be don-ne?" I ask.

"Yes, but we will pick up tomorrow around the same time. It was nice meeting you."

As she leaves, the company in my room decides to speak up.

"Madi, you heard her. Things will get better with time." Cam tells me.

"I can't fu-cking walk. I can-n't t-a-alk. I can't ev-v-ven fucking read!" I say feeling the weight of everything happening. Tears of frustration build and Cam goes in to comfort me, but I push her off harshly making her stumble a few steps. "I'm s-o-o-rry. I didn't mean it. You se-e-e I-I-I can't even control my actions."

"It's okay. I'm fine." Cameron says but I know she's as scared as I am.

"It's not okay." I shake my head and lean back on the bed with my eyes closed. "I'm not okay."