Keith (Hathaway House #11) - Dale Mayer Page 0,17

started whatever physical therapy sessions they had in store for him here. She could only wish that he paced himself over the next few weeks because, no matter how bad today was, tomorrow would be a whole lot worse.

The visit to the cafeteria had been fine, and, after that, he’d gone on his own for dinner and then again for lunch and dinner the next day. But, on Friday, Shane walked into his room and asked, “You ready to get to work?”

“Well, I wish,” he said, “but it doesn’t seem like you guys have any work for me to do.”

Shane chuckled. “That’s all right. We’ll get started today.” He looked at him and said, “Shorts and a T-shirt.”

“My leg is pretty ugly. It might scare the nurses.” But he grabbed the crutches and went across to the drawers, where he had his clothes, and pulled out the shorts. “I only have this kind. Is that okay?”

“Swim shorts?”

“Yeah, I use them for both,” he said.

“That’s good,” Shane said. “I gather you swim then?”

“Yes,” he said. “So, if you want to work in the pool and build some water exercises into my program, that works for me too.”

“Will do,” Shane replied.

When Keith was dressed and the crutches were under his armpits again, Shane shook his head. “Better leave the crutches here and bring the wheelchair.”

Remembering his earlier words, Keith worried about it momentarily and then shrugged. “If you say so.” He laid the crutches along the end of his bed, and, using the edge of the bed, made his way to where the wheelchair sat waiting for him. Once inside he wheeled out to the hallway. “Where are we going?”

“Down to one of the gyms,” Shane said, walking beside him. “I want you doing some walking exercises first.”

“I don’t walk well,” he warned.

“I know that,” he said, “and you’re still in a lot of pain. But we need to know which muscles are pulling harder and which ones are bailing on their job.”

“They’re all bailing,” he said, “because the minute anybody even calls them out, somebody’s hacking on them and sticking them elsewhere.”

“Right,” Shane said, flipping through the photos in his physical file. “Wow. You’ve really been put through the meat grinder, haven’t you?”

“Frankenstein 2.0,” he said cheerfully.

“Still, it’s only bone and muscle,” he said. “You have full function of all your organs, and, by the time we’re done, you should walk and live a normal healthy life.”

“If you say so,” he said. He kept his voice deliberately neutral. He had given up hope a long time ago and couldn’t let himself believe that progress could actually be made. After the roller coaster of so many surgeries, he had eventually gotten numb to it all. The last thing he wanted was any more surgery, and he told his doctor that.

At the time, the doctor had nodded and said, “Good thing we’re done then, isn’t it?”

He had tried to tell them earlier too, but the doctors hadn’t listened because they had their own agenda as to what they wanted done. He was just the guy who had to suffer through it. He knew they were doing it for his own good and all, but having those words shoved down his throat enough times made him choke on them.

When he wheeled into the room that Shane pointed him to, Keith was surprised to see a beautiful hardwood floor, mats, all sorts of equipment and apparatuses, medicine balls, the whole works. “You guys didn’t skimp on the equipment, did you?”

“You have no idea,” Shane said. “A ton of equipment is in this place, and, believe it or not, we’ll get to most of it eventually. But not for a while. A lot of work for you to do first.”

“If you say so,” he said. “Honestly, I’m not exactly sure how much I can even do.”

“Which is why we’ll work on it,” he said, “because the one thing we don’t want to do is have you short yourself on future abilities.”

“Not sure there are any but whatever,” he said.

“That attitude gets to be a little rough too,” Shane said with a laugh. “You’ve got to feel something. Otherwise you feel nothing, and that’s not good either.”

“If you say so,” he muttered under his breath, but he kept his voice fairly calm. No point in pissing off Shane too. An amazing amount of goodwill was here, and Keith didn’t want to be the only jerk to them. It was just so hard when he was mentally so