Rehab

About a week after I had a stroke they sent me to Physical Therapy. I also had open heart surgery. Recovery was painful so I basically just sat in bed til my sternum healed. I'd been having disturbing hallucinations and paranoid thoughts for the last week or so anyway. I was convinced, and still am to some degree, that the people in charge of looking after me were so nice when I'd have a visitor but would mess around and play mind games and get up to other hijinx with me when no one else was around. That was most of the time. Messing with my dick and stuff, for sure. They had to hook up a catheter and I'm convinced they were messing with me down there otherwise. I had no control. Then again I thought I was in a pizza shop or something at one point and was howling like a maniac (which I heard at least one other guy do as well). I also thought something on the wall was a robot and was going to attack me or something and I had to escape. I was convinced I'd jumped out a window, hailed a cab, went home, and came back somehow all while wearing hospital garb that wasn't manufactured or intended for such an adventure. Pretty intense acid trip but that obviously wasn't going on so I can't say what was real. I had a problem eating pudding as well and this did not make one nurse happy for whatever reason and that became another issue. They wound up putting restraints on my wrists to shackle me to the bed cos I would fight otherwise. I escaped from one pair somehow but after a brief struggle, they remedied that pretty quick.

After about a week in the hospital, they sent me to rehab. I was content lying in bed and watching reruns of South Park and Forged in Fire for a while. I'd pretty much lay in bed and watch tv most of the time. There was a sensor that would beep loudly if the pressure on the bed shifted, so I couldn't get up. A seat belt and an alarm would go off if I tried to get out of the wheelchair I had to be in when they carted me around. I later heard that as much activity as possible immediately after suffering the effects of a brain injury like mine is very advantageous. Womp womp. Other than that I went to one hour each Physical, Speech, and Occupation therapy. I really couldn't do much for the first few months, so there was a limit any therapist could do to work with me. I remember seeing a girl that worked there that I used to party with in my rave days. That was a trip. I also tried to play badminton with balloons, but I was terrible at that. I was playing with about 6 or 7 other people who were all much older than I was and their deficits were nowhere near as severe. I would have to notify someone that I had to shit and someone would come and begrudgingly wipe my ass. They hated their life and their job, understandably, and would make a single pass. I dunno, I think you need more attention than that. I tried to keep that sort of activity as infrequent as possible, as it was clearly unpleasant for everyone involved. Someone would come every night and bathe me in my bed as well. Not only was it embarrassing, but it was also painful as well cos I had to twist and turn my body into different positions and my sternum had just been cut open. Any movement at all was very painful, let alone all the positions I had to assume while some stranger hurriedly scrubbed my naked body down with a company-supplied washcloth or whatever they used. It wasn't until about a week or so left that I discovered you could "deny" being bathed so I guess I was dirty for that last week or so.

After they discharged me I went back for an hour a week every six months or so and they'd eventually discharge me after minuscule improvements. The exercises they taught me over the years were so useful but there's no way to make any kind of significant improvement on the timetable of just an hour a week. Now that I've got my own space to exercise privately I've been doing the workouts I learned in PT every day. After noticing a slight improvement I decided to go all-in and exercise like a maniac. My diet has completely changed, I'm exercising every day, and I'm a completely different person than I was before mentally. I guess there's a whole "new lease on life" thing that I'm going through but I'm trying to, I dunno, see beyond that or something and just focus on getting as well as I can. Or something like that.