being provided. As hungry as he was, Jake didn’t really care, and reached up and started spooning in the closest thing he could reach which was some almost mashed potatoes. The main course also included crumbly meat loaf, and some truly delicious peach cobbler.
When Nurse Bonnie came to take away the tray and present his medications, something Jake didn’t really want as he thought they were probably contributing to the vague stuffiness he still felt in his head, she asked if there was anything he wanted.
“A pencil and some paper,” Jake told her.
She nodded, and waited for him to take the pills in her presence. She told him they were supposed to help the swelling, so Jake relented and swallowed them down. She nodded happily, took the empty cup, and left to return in about ten minutes with a small tablet with lined pages and a ballpoint pen.
Jake took the offering, and sat for a minute before jotting a few notes to himself. He wanted to write a note for Karin to read privately, but he had a number of things to include and wanted a list from which to guide his composition. He had just completed creating his list, each point vague enough not to have meaning to anyone else, when Nurse Bonnie returned.
“Exercise time,” she announced. “We have orders to see if you can stand and move around on your own.”
After setting the tablet down on one of the tables, Jake turned around so his bare legs dangled off the edge of the bed. With the nurse there to support him, he gently slid off the bed and placed his feet in the red slippers that Bonnie had positioned for him. When he stood erect he felt a moment of dizziness and had to reach back to the bed to steady himself. Bonnie also kept a firm grip on him.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jake admitted. “Let me just stand for a minute. The central processor has to get used to controlling again.”
Jake stood in place and after a couple of minutes felt the uncertainty of being upright fall away. He nodded to Nurse Bonnie who helped him walk to the door, out into the hallway and across to the nurse’s station. Jake felt the cool air on his open back, and was certain his bare butt was on display from the hospital gown which wasn’t tied very well.
“You did that better than I expected,” Bonnie said when they reached the long desk across the hall.
While she continued to support him, Jake retied the gown. Then he was led to a walker.
“See what you can do on your own,” Bonnie ordered, but stood close beside him as Jake made his way a short distance down the hallway. The walker had a seat he could use if he felt insecure. After they had gone about a hundred feet, Jake felt comfortable.
He smiled at Bonnie and said, “I think I’m good.”
“Let’s go down to the community area and back. If you can do that without a problem, then you can move around the floor on your own.”
The walk was uneventful, and soon Jake was making laps around the floor by himself. He walked for the better part of an hour, feeling stronger all the time. He felt some of the stuffiness recede, and felt his balance and motor control returning to normal. Finally he returned to the room, climbing into the bed by himself.
He worked on the note for a while, and had just folded it and slipped it out of sight under the mattress when Nurse Bonnie returned. She hooked him back up to his instruments.
“Shift change coming up,” she told him once she had everything working to her satisfaction. “Someone else will be watching over you tonight. I thought you’d want to know that Dr. Tracey called in and said to tell you your swelling had dramatically reduced. He’ll go over the tests in detail in the morning.”
With nothing beyond television to occupy himself, Jake drifted off to sleep early, waking just after two AM. Unable to get back to sleep, he dug out the note, made a few changes and then added a section on how to access the secure video system. Karin would have to take the call from Susan Carlson that Jake knew was coming later in the day.
Karin and Janna arrived at eight-thirty when visiting hours opened, but it was another hour before Dr. Tracey suddenly appeared. As before, he quickly scanned