Hollywood Rehab

Nick is a Hollywood brat whose life is changed forever when he breaks his neck and becomes a C3/C4 quadriplegic.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12 

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16 

Chapter 17 

Chapter 18 

Chapter 19 

Chapter 20 

Chapter 21

Hollywood Rehab

Hollywood Rehab

The last thing I remember before I broke my neck is this:

Wandering around some neighborhood around 2AM, very drunk but not so drunk that I blacked out.  It was summer and it was muggy and hot, even though it was two in the morning.  I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and the sweat was making my clothes stick to me.  Mason was wearing pants and he kept whining about how it was hot and we should go back to his house and get in the pool.  I think I volunteered to drive us, but Savannah told me I was too drunk.

"Shut the fuck up," I remember saying to Savannah.  And she gave me that wounded look that she had perfected over years of manipulating boyfriends.  

She tried to hold my hand, but it was too hot and sticky, and I didn't really want to touch her anymore anyway.  I never understood how a girl could initially seem so perfect looking, then turn out to be so ugly.  That happened to me a lot.  When I first saw her, Savannah looked impossibly beautiful.  She'd been wearing a yellow sundress, not that different from the one she was wearing now (although this one is blue and I hate it when girls wear blue), and her tits seemed so perfectly round and I could see her nipples.  And she had hair that was very blond without being white, and what seemed like a really classically beautiful face.  Also, a great ass.

Then somehow, over the last two months, I just wasn't seeing it anymore.  She went from incredibly sexy to only maybe moderately attractive.  Her face was too long somehow, too angular.  That was probably due to her eating disorder.  And oh yeah, she had crow's feet.  She was only 23, but she already had wrinkles around her eyes.  That girl was going to need a facelift before 28, guaranteed.  And I wasn't going to be the guy footing the bill.

When I wouldn't hold her hand, Savannah grabbed my elbow instead.  This pissed me off.  If I didn't want to hold her hand, why would I want her to do that?  "Can you leave me the fuck alone for a minute?" I snapped at her.

"I just want to be close to you," Savannah whined.

"I'm not in the mood, Helen," I said, because I knew she hated it when people called her Helen, even though that’s her real name.  Savannah is her stage name, ever since she moved to Hollywood from Georgia.

"What's with you lately?" she said.  I could tell if I were any other schmuck, she'd be throwing a full out tantrum now.  But she didn't want to blow it with me, so she was on her best behavior.  Unfortunately, Savannah was really fucking annoying, even on her best behavior.

I didn't bother to answer her question.  I had already decided that tomorrow, I was going to end it with Savannah.  I just didn't want her to mess up my night too badly and ruin my buzz.

I looked far ahead and I saw Mason and Denise had stopped at the fence surrounding a local house.  Mason was scrambling to climb the fence, but he couldn't quite do it.  Denise, his latest vapid blond, was cheering him on.  As we got closer, I could see Mason's beefy face was red and he had a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead.

"You know, that's private property," I said to him.  "I'm calling the cops."

"Fuck you, Nick," Mason said.  He tried again, but he was just too big a guy.  His center of gravity was too low.  It was pretty funny to watch and I laughed out loud at him.

Mason gave me the finger.  I've known Mason Lunt since we were about five years old and we tell each other to fuck off on a pretty much hourly basis.  That's what best friends do, at least where I come from.  "You think you could do better, Nick?  Be my guest."

I never turned down a challenge.  As I grabbed the top of the fence, Savannah tugged on my arm.  "Nicky, don't," she whined.  "This is someone else's house.  We'll get in trouble.  What if the police come?"

"Yeah, so what?" I retorted, shrugging her off me.  I've been arrested twice.  One call from my father and they let me go without question.  I never even saw the inside of a jail cell.  When your father owns one of the biggest movie production companies in the country, you don’t worry too much about breaking stupid little laws.

The fence had rungs in it that allowed me to get a reasonable foothold.  It wasn’t the easiest thing to do wearing sandals, although I’m pretty agile in sandals, considering I mostly wear nothing else these days.  I managed to scale the fence in under a minute.  My feet landed on the grass of some stranger’s lawn with a resounding thump.  For a second, a sharp pain shot through my ankles, but then it faded. 

I looked around, pleased.  These people, whoever they were, had a kickass pool.  It was lagoon-shaped, and I could see the water sparkling in the moonlight.  Better yet, I didn’t hear any dogs barking, alerting their owners of trespassers.

“Hey, quit jerking off and let us in, fucker,” Mason yelled on the other side of the fence.

I opened the latch holding the fence closed.  Mason and Denise rushed in and immediately start stripping.  I’ve seen Mason naked more times than I’d like to admit, so I’m used to the site of his hairy chest.  He’s about one gene away from being a wild animal.  Denise, on the other hand, was someone I’d never seen naked.  And she had the best body I’d ever seen.  I couldn’t stop staring.

“Do you think Denise is prettier than me?”  Savannah was pouting again.

“Yes,” I said.

Savannah’s eyes welled up with tears.  “How could you say that?”

“I don’t know, maybe you should lose some weight,” I suggested. 

That was kind of an asshole thing for me to say.  I was pretty sure Savannah was already throwing up after meals and she was practically a skeleton.  But really, I was just so fucking sick of her.

“Look,” I said, giving the fence an impatient shake.  “Are you coming in or not?”

“Okay,” Savannah said in a small voice.

Once she was inside, I started stripping.  I’d never been remotely shy about my body and why should I be?  I got blessed by the gene pool.  In spite of the fact that I never exercised, I had a near perfect physique.  I didn’t have bulging muscles, but I was trim and toned without even a trace of body fat.  Meth is great at curbing the appetite.

I looked over at Savannah, who was still wearing her stupid blue sundress.  She was hugging her boobs (fake, I’m 100% positive… she’s a liar on top of everything else).  “Are you getting undressed?” I asked her.

Savannah shook her head.

I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to coax her into the water or something like that, but fuck that.  I pulled my hair out of its ponytail and shook it loose.  I looked over at the pool, where a stark naked Denise was sitting at the edge, dipping her toes into the water.  The water must have been a little bit cold, because I could see Denise’s nipples harden.  That, in turn, was making me harden.  Not that I’d ever really be interested in Mason’s sloppy seconds. 

Mason was watching Denise too.  He noticed me looking, and he winked.  “She gives fantastic head,” he said, grinning.  He said it quietly, although loud enough for Savannah to hear.

“Yeah, what’s that like?” I replied in a voice that was definitely loud enough for Savannah to hear.

I knew I was being an asshole to Savannah, but I had given up on caring.  Really, she deserved it.  She was a crap girlfriend.  If she wasn’t so attractive, there was no way she’d ever get a date.  And her dream of becoming a famous actress was the most ridiculous thing of all.  I watched her going over lines a few times and she was terrible.  The best acting job she could probably hope for would be in a porno movie.

“Is anyone going in the water?” Denise asked, swishing her legs around in the pool.  She had a perfectly shaped triangle of pubic hair, which reminded me of the fact that Savannah didn’t wax nearly as often as she should have.

“Fuck yeah,” I said. 

As the others watched, I took a running start and dove head first into the pool.  The water was, as I expected, freezing.  Considering how hot it was outside, it felt pretty amazing.

And that’s the last thing I remember before I broke my neck.  Aside from Savannah screaming.

To be continued.....

Entire story

Hollywood Rehab (Part 2)

When I found out I was being transferred to a hospital to do rehab, my first thought was, “It’s about fucking time.” 

I’d been lying in bed for about four months.  I almost died about a dozen times.  I had pneumonia, urinary tract infections, skin infections.  I had so many surgeries that I had lost count.  For much of that time, I was drifting in and out of consciousness, not really aware of much going on around me aside from the fact that I was really sick.  I’d never been sick before.  I’ve gotten stitches and broken bones before, but I was never seriously ill, like life or death kind of sick.

So what happened?  The pool turned out to be much more shallow than I thought, or so they say.  I broke my neck between the C3 and C4 vertebrae.  I’d gotten mixed messages on what that means exactly long term, but for now, I knew it meant that I couldn’t feel or move most of my body.  So I was pretty happy when I found out I was going to a rehab facility, so I could start moving around again and eventually walking.  My father had ensured that I would be at the most expensive and best facility around.

Soon before my transfer to rehab, I had my halo brace taken off.  It had been screwed into my skull for three long months and it was intensely uncomfortable.  In its place, I just had a collar around my neck.  It was also uncomfortable, but it felt like a cloud compared with the halo.  I almost felt normal again without that fucking thing.

I was transferred to the rehab facility by ambulance on a stretcher.  Lately, I couldn’t go anywhere without a stretcher.  I knew I’d probably have to use a wheelchair for a short time while I regained sensation and movement, which I wasn’t exactly looking forward to, but I was willing to deal with it.  Anything to get out of the fucking bed.

It was hard to see much from the vantage point of the stretcher, but I could glimpses of things as I was wheeled past.  The rehab place looked very modern.  Dad had shown me some photos before we decided on a place, and I picked this one mostly because the nurses and therapists in the photos had looked so hot.

As I was lifted from the stretcher into my bed, I could hear the paramedics giving report about me to the nurses: “Nicholas Edwards, 25 years old, complete C3/C4 quadriplegia… got a trach and PEG, Foley catheter…”

She was referring to all my various tubes.  Due to my multiple pneumonias, they couldn’t quite get me off a ventilator and therefore did a tracheostomy.  I still had extra oxygen going in through my trach, but I was told I’d eventually be able to breathe on my own.  But since I couldn’t eat with all this going on, they put a tube in my stomach to feed me.  And one in my bladder, since I wasn’t exactly able to get up to go to the bathroom.

Admittedly, I wasn’t sure if that catheter in my bladder came out, that I’d know when I had to go.  I couldn’t tell when I had to go number two.  I just went and someone would clean me up.  I guessed that would get better with time.  Nobody told me so explicitly, but I knew for sure I wasn’t going to be incontinent for the rest of my life at age 25.

As soon as she finished getting report, the nurse came into the room to see me.  It was hard to hide my disappointment.  This nurse didn’t look anything like the women in the photos.  She was about fifty years old with close-cropped brown hair, and was built like a bull.  “Hello there, Nicholas!” she boomed.  “I’m Mary.”

           

I didn’t say anything.  I couldn’t because the trach didn’t allow me to talk.  If I could have talked, I’d have told her to go away and bring back her hot daughter.  And scratch my nose please, because it was itching like crazy.

“Do you like to be called Nick?” she asked me.

I nodded, which was not easy with a hard collar on my neck.

“Well, Nick,” she said.  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go ahead and do my assessment.  I’ll forego the questions, because I know you can’t talk.”

I was actually used to the drill by now.  Mary rolled me over on my side to inspect my back as well as checking the padding underneath my butt to make sure it was clean.  She pulled off the bag of urine hanging from my bedside and replaced it with a fresh bag.  She listened to my chest with her stethoscope, then rolled me on my other side.  This time she propped me up with pillows on that side, as well as putting a pillow between my legs.  She also placed two small rolled up washcloths in my hands, noting that, "Your fingers are getting stiff!"

When she was done, she bent over me so that I could see her face.  "You have a visitor already, Nick.  Did you want to see him?  He says his name is Mason Lunt."  

I nodded.  Mason had beat out my parents getting here, which made sense considering he drove 90 miles per hour in his Porsche.  I couldn't wait to ride in Mason's sweet car again.  

"How about if I deflate the cuff on your trach so you can talk to him a little?" Mary suggested.

I nodded again, more eagerly this time.  It was really frustrating not being able to talk.  Anyone who tells you they can read lips?  They're lying.

Mary motioned for Mason to enter my room just as she was deflating the cuff on my trach.  "Get in here so you quit scaring everyone in the waiting area," she said to him.

She was referring to the fact that Mason is 6'3", three inches taller than me, and nearly 300 pounds.  He played football in high school and college and had more tackles than any other player.  Despite his sandy blond hair and blue eyes, he looks like he could crush you.  Possibly by sitting on you.  

"Nico!" Mason grinned as he entered the room, nearly bashing his forehead on the doorway but remembering to duck at the last second.  "Nice place!  Your dad must be paying through his nose."

"Not worth it," I said.  My voice was low and just a bit above a whisper, as opposed to Mason's booming baritone.  

"What?  Why not?" 

"Nurses aren't hot enough."

Mason snickered as he pulled up a chair by my bed.  "They're not that bad."

"Hey, it's for you," I retorted.  "How many hot nurses' phone numbers have you gotten in the last four months?  Twenty?  Thirty?"  Mason had come to visit me at least twice a week since my injury and notoriously hit on every attractive nurse he saw.

"Thirty plus one!" Mason said, triumphantly yanking a post-it out of his jeans pocket with ten digits scrawled onto it.

"Someone here?" I asked in amazement.  He was fast.  I'd always been better at hitting on women than Mason was, but clearly he was getting better.  I had to work on getting out of here, so I didn't lose my touch.

"Uh huh," Mason said, shrugging.  Then he crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the trash.  

"You're not going to call her?"

He shrugged again.  "I don't know.  I'm kind of too busy."

“Got it, she’s a dog,” I said.  I yawned, noticing that I felt just a bit short of breath.  But I wasn’t ready to have the trach cuff inflated again.  I could handle being a little short of breath. 

“So when are you going to get out of bed?” Mason asked me.

“Hopefully today,” I said.  “I plan to be walking again by Christmas.”

Mason’s eyes widened and he leaned forward eagerly in his seat, which creaked under his weight.  “You mean your legs moved?”

“Not yet,” I said.  “But I’m guessing that will happen pretty soon.  It’s been long enough, right?”

Mason got this look in his eyes that I couldn’t read.  And that says a lot, because like I said, I’ve known the guy since we were kids and he’s the closest thing I have to a brother.  I could probably make a list for you of every piece of pussy that Mason has ever nailed, that’s how well I know him.

At that moment, a tall bearded man in a white coat with a stethoscope slung around his neck entered the room.  I have great eyesight and I could read his badge all the way from across the room: Daniel Greenly, MD.  When he spoke, his voice was scratchy, like he’d been battling a sore throat for the last twenty years.  “Nicholas Edwards,” he said.

“Yep,” I said.

 “My name is Dr. Greenly,” he said.  “I’ll be your doctor during your stay on our rehab unit.”

Mason stood up and hovered over my bed awkwardly.  “Should I go, Doctor?”

Dr. Greenly nodded and I felt disappointed.  Mason’s visits were the highlight of my week.  But before he left, Mason gave my hand a squeeze and said, “I’ll be back in a couple of days, Nick.”

Dr. Greenly rolled me onto my back and proceeded to give me the most thorough exam I’d ever had in my entire life.  He took a safety pin and stuck me about twenty times on both sides of my body, asking me what I could and couldn’t feel.  The answer was usually the same: I couldn’t feel it at all.  Until he got to my shoulders.  There I could feel the pinprick and accurately distinguish it from the dull edge of the safety pin. 

After that, he said he wanted to see how strong I was.  The answer was, not very.  There were times when I could have sworn I was moving my muscle, but I could tell from Dr. Greenly’s face that I wasn’t.  When he got to my arm, I watched him place his hand on my right biceps.  “Come on, Nick,” he said.  “Bend your elbow.”

I closed my eyes and focused all my energy on my right elbow.  What did I used to do to make it move?  I concentrated as hard as I could, and then finally there was a twitch.  I opened my eyes.  “It moved, right?”

“Didn’t feel anything,” Dr. Greenly said. 

I was getting pissed off.  How could he not have felt that?  Was he hard of feeling?

Lastly, Dr. Greenly wanted to do a rectal exam.  He rolled me back onto my side and he… well, I don’t really know what he was doing back there.  I couldn’t feel anything.  He asked me a few times, “Do you feel this?”  And I had to answer no.  Then he asked me to squeeze, like I was having a bowel movement.  I heard him mutter under his breath, “No voluntary rectal tone.”

Dr. Greenly peeled off his blue rubber gloves and washed his hands.  He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and offered me a thin smile.  “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay here, Nick.  I expect you’ll begin your therapies tomorrow.  Your physical therapist Jane is getting a wheelchair for you.”

“I don’t want to focus too much on the wheelchair stuff,” I said.  “I’d like to be walking as soon as possible.”

                                                  

Dr. Greenly stared at me.  “You can’t move your legs.  How do you expect to walk?”

“I mean, when they heal,” I clarified.

“You’re a quadriplegic, Nick,” Dr. Greenly said.  His brown eyes appeared magnified behind his lenses.  “Did someone explain to you what that means?”

“I’m not an idiot, Doctor,” I said.

Dr. Greenly didn’t say anything for a long time.  “Later this week, I’d like to have a meeting with you and your parents,” he finally said.  He glanced at a monitor at my bedside, “But for now, I’m going to have to reinflate your trach cuff.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said.

“No, your oxygen levels are getting low.” 

“Excuse me, Doctor, but I don’t think my parents are paying you to tell me what to do.  I want to be able to talk.”

But you know what?  That fucking doctor just went and inflated the cuff anyway.  By the time it hit me that he was really doing it against my wishes, I couldn’t even yell at him.  I attempted to call him a fucking prick, but it really doesn’t have the same impact when you’re just mouthing the words.

To be continued...

Hollywood Rehab (Part 3)

The next day, I met my physical therapist Jane. 

How can I describe this girl?  For starters, I hated her.  Her personality sucked.  If I were any other situation aside from the exact situation I was in right now, there is no way I would have spent even two minutes in her company.

I might have been able to forgive that if she were at least good eye candy.  But in keeping with my bad luck, Jane was definitely not eye candy.  My father warned me as a teenager against dating gingers, so I avoided girls with even a sprinkling of freckles on their faces.  But Jane looked like she’d been playing with a freckle machine and it had exploded on her face.  She wore her red hair tied back in a ponytail, which was not flattering to her thin face.  Ponytails are just unattractive in general.  No guy likes a girl with a ponytail.  And those gray shapeless scrubs weren’t doing her any favors either.

When she bounced into my room that morning, she looked like a fucking cheerleader.  All she needed were some pom poms.  I wish I could say she’d have been sexy in a cheerleading costume, but she really wouldn’t have been.  “Hi, Nick!” she said.  Too perky.  “I see you’re dressed!”

Mary had dressed me this morning.  I was wearing gray sweatpants and a white undershirt.  When Mary told my mother to bring in “Nick’s sweats,” she had responded that I didn’t own any such clothing.  So she had to call the housekeeper and ask her if she’d go out and buy some for me.

The first thing Jane did was deflate my trach cuff and put in a speaking valve.  Again, I only had that low, hoarse voice.  Still, it was an incredibly relief to be able to talk.  Last night, I nearly bust an aneurysm in my brain trying to communicate to a nurse that I wanted her to turn off my TV.

“I’ve got your wheelchair outside the room,” Jane said.  “But first, I want to make sure you can tolerate sitting up.  I’m going to slowly elevate the head of your bed.”

“I’ll be fine,” I told her.

“Well, humor me,” Jane said.

She started elevating the head of the bed very slooowwwwly.  At first I though she was being ridiculous, but then when we got close to ninety degrees, I started to feel a little dizzy and shaky.  Jane looked at my face, “You okay, Nick?”

“What the fuck did you do to me?” I demanded to know.

Jane grabbed a blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around my arm.  “I didn’t do anything,” she said.  “You’ve been lying flat for four months.  It’s going to take time to get you used to sitting up.”

“Fantastic,” I muttered.

Jane left me in the room while she went to get the wheelchair I was going to be using.  My experience with wheelchairs was pretty limited, but I have to say, I was sort of horrified to see the one Jane brought in.  It was gigantic.  It reached up to Jane’s shoulders, with a big black headrest, trays for my arms to rest in, and two legrests jutting out.  I didn’t want to sit in that thing. 

“I don’t want to sit in that thing,” I said to Jane.

She just laughed, if you can believe that.  I couldn’t help but wonder if Jane was a virgin.  It was a possibility, for sure.  She was young and she certainly wasn’t pretty in any traditional sense.  I guess there are guys out there who would date a girl like Jane though.  I wouldn’t, but other guys might.

“How are you feeling now?” she asked me.  “Your blood pressure seems all right.”

“Okay,” I said. 

Jane left the room again and came back with what looked like a sling attached to a little mechanical crane.  She positioned the sling over me and started putting one part over my head and the other part under my legs.  I wondered if this was some device to help me get movement back in my arms and legs.  “What are you doing?” I asked her.

“This is a Hoyer lift,” she explained.  “You’re too heavy for me to get into the wheelchair by myself.”

I guess she thought I was really just being funny before when I said I didn’t want to sit in that wheelchair.  “I don’t want to get in the wheelchair,” I said again.

Jane stopped what she was doing and stared at me for a minute with her overly freckled face.  She even had freckles on her eyelids.  It was a little freaky.  “Why not?” she asked.

What an idiotic question.  “Look at it.”

Jane frowned at me.  “What are you doing in rehab if you don’t want to get into a wheelchair?”

“I’m willing to do the rehab,” I said.  “I just don’t want to use a wheelchair.”

She was looking at me like I had given her some sort of impossible riddle to solve.  “But you…” she began.  Then she gave up.  Most people can look at me and know that they’re not going to win an argument.  I never give up.  “Look, how about if we use this wheelchair to transport you to the gym?”

I wasn’t crazy about that idea, but I guess the only alternative was a stretcher.  Plus I was already in this sling.  “All right,” I said.

I regretted my decision almost immediately.  I didn’t feel any better sitting in the wheelchair than I did looking at it.  Especially when Jane pulled straps over my lap, my upper chest and my feet.  Then she positioned my arms in the arm troughs and put straps over them too.  “Are all these straps necessary?” I asked irritably.

“Yes,” Jane replied.

She pointed to a tube in front of my mouth that she said was a sip and puff control.  She explained to me how it worked, although I wasn’t really listening.  There was no fucking way I was getting in this wheelchair again, so it didn’t really matter how to operate it. 

Jane pushed me out into the hallway.  Having never sat in a wheelchair before, it felt so bizarre.  I wasn’t crazy about the feeling, although I guess it wasn’t worse than the stretcher.

“All right,” Jane said, wiping her hands on her scrubs.  “Why don’t you give operating the chair a try?”

“I thought we were going to the gym?”

“Yeah, but we’ve got a big open space here,” Jane gestured to the long, windowed hallway.  “It’s a great place to practice.”

“No, I’d rather just go to the gym.”

Jane put her hand on my shoulder.  Generally, I wasn’t too crazy about people touching me without permission, but right now, I was sort of glad she was at least touching me somewhere I could feel.  “Nick, come on.  Stop messing around.  Let’s just do this.”

“You said we were going to the gym,” I said.  “You lied.”

“Yes, but this is what we’d be doing in the gym,” Jane said. 

Suddenly, I felt furious.  She had lied to me just to get me into this chair.  Who the fuck was this person?  She was nobody.  And somehow she was directing my treatment, getting to decide what I was and wasn’t allowed to do.  She had no idea who I was, who my father was.  He could destroy her. 

“Take me back to my room,” I said.

“Well, why don’t you navigate there yourself?” she suggested, blinking innocently.

I wanted to hit her, I really did.  “No.”

Jane folded her arms across her chest.  “Well, that’s the only way you’re getting back to your room.”

All right, enough messing around.  This girl needed to understood who she was fucking with.  “Do you know who my father is?”

She shrugged.

“My father is George Edwards,” I said, watching her reaction.  I remember the first time I said that to Savannah, how her eyes became huge and she looked like she was ready to tear her clothes off for me. 

Jane shrugged again.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled.  “Get.  Me.  Back.  In.  My.  Fucking.  Room.  NOW!”

“If you puff gently, the wheelchair will turn right,” Jane said.

“You fucking bitch,” I spat.  And by “spat,” I mean that I literally spit.  I couldn’t walk away and I couldn’t lay a finger on her, so that was my only option.  I recognize, in retrospect, it was kind of an immature thing to do.  Worse, I didn’t come even close to hitting Jane with my spit.  Most of it ended up just dribbling down my chin.

“Are you spitting at me?” Jane asked in amazement.  “Seriously?”

Some visitors walked by us at that moment, and I don’t think they would have been staring at me more if I had been dressed in a full ballroom gown.  I couldn’t even imagine what they were thinking about me, strapped into this giant wheelchair with saliva all over my chin and my T-shirt.  As I thought about how badly I wanted to get back in bed, a feeling of lightheadedness came over me. 

“All you all right, Nick?” Jane asked me, noticing my face.

“I feel a little funny,” I mumbled. 

I ended up getting my wish.  Jane checked my blood pressure and oxygen levels, and decided I needed to get back in bed right away.  I went back on oxygen and just had to lie there the rest of the day, which kind of sucked.

To be continued...

Hollywood Rehab (Part 4)

The next day, I flat out refused to get out of bed.  I told Dr. Greenly that I wanted a new therapist because I didn’t like Jane.  I wanted someone qualified and experienced, who had a definite plan about getting me back on my feet.  Not some freckled freak.

Dr. Greenly’s response was to set up a meeting with me and my parents.  My parents, by the way, absolutely agreed with me.  They didn’t like Jane any better than I did.  Also, Dad said that the view in my room was unacceptable.  Considering how much we had paid for this hospital, we ought to have a view of the Eiffel Tower (even though the hospital was in Southern California). 

The meeting took place in my room, since I wasn’t willing to get out of bed until the Jane issue was addressed.  It was Dr. Greenly, my parents, and to my dismay, Jane.  They each took seats around my bed.  Dr. Greenly was holding a skeletal of a human spine and I wondered if I was about to get an anatomy lecture.

“Does she have to be here?” I said, glaring at Jane.

“Yes, she does,” Dr. Greenly said. 

“Now, hang on a minute,” Dad said.  “If Nick says he doesn’t want her here, I think she should leave.”

Dr. Greenly gave my father a hard look.  “Mr. Edwards, Jane is Nick’s primary therapist.  She’s one of our best therapists.  I think her input here is crucial.”

I started to protest, my Mom patted my shoulder and said, “Just ignore her, dear.  Don’t worry, we’ll take care of this later.”

“Take care of this” was the code for saying they would make sure her ass was fired.

“Now, Nick,” Dr. Greenly began, “I’d just like to clarify with you what the goals of your therapy is.  It seems like you’re a little unclear on that.  The reason you’re here is to help you breathe on your own, get you eating again, to learn to be mobile in a power wheelchair, and to train your future caregivers to participate in your care.”

I shook my head.  “No, I don’t think so.  I’m here to learn to move and walk again.”

Dr. Greenly glanced at my parents then back at me.  “Nick, I thought someone had already spoken to you about this.  You are most likely never going to walk again.  The best chance you have is to gain some functional movement in your arms, but that’s not very likely either.”  He held up the skeleton of the neck.  “See, you had your injury right here, between the C3 and C4 vertebrae, so—”

“It’s only been a few months,” I interrupted him.  “I haven’t had time to heal.”

“Your spinal cord was completely severed, Nick,” Dr. Greenly said.  His voice wasn’t gentle.  “The spinal cord does not heal.”

“Well, fine,” I said.  “My father will get me into some experimental treatment then.  I’m sure there’s something with stem cells that I can do.”

“No, there isn’t,” Dr. Greenly said.  “Not right now.  Maybe years in the future, who knows.  But right now, the overwhelming likelihood is that you’re not going to regain any movement in your arms or legs.”

Dr. Greenly meant well, but he didn’t get it.  It’s different for people who have a lot of money.  “Dad, can you tell him?” I said.

There was a long awkward silence.  I have to say, that silence fucking terrified me.  There had never been a moment when I wasn’t 100% confident that I would recover.  But when my father didn’t immediately jump in and reassure me, I realized for the first time that I might be in trouble.

“Nick,” Dad said.  “I looked into it with Dr. Greenly.  There really aren’t any promising studies right now.  Most of them are still in the early stages, with the rats and all.”  He paused.  “There was one study that you might be able to do in the future, where they implant a chip in your brain and it helps you operate a computer with your thoughts.”  He flashed me an overly wide smile.  “Sounds pretty cool, huh?”

“No, it does not sound fucking cool,” I snapped.  “This is horseshit!  Are you really saying that after one little injury, I’m not going to be able to do anything ever again?”

“That’s not what we’re saying at all, Nick,” Dr. Greenly said.  For a second, I felt reassured, then he added, “You’ll be completely independent with mobility while you’re in your wheelchair.  You’ll have a lot of independence with the use of voice activated software.  But yes, you will be completely dependent for all your other care, including dressing, bathing, toileting, and transfers into your wheelchair.  And most likely for eating as well.”

I couldn’t talk.  I mean, I could, because I had my speaking valve in, but I felt too sick to say anything.

“This is why you need to get serious about your rehab, Nick,” Jane jumped in.  “I’m going to help you to maximize your independence and direct your caregivers.”

I realized then that I had started to cry.  Mom noticed first and she put her hand on my shoulder and cooed, “Oh, Nicky.  Don’t worry.  Your father and I will take care of you.”  And that just made me cry harder, because I realized that I was going to be dependent on my parents and other people for the rest of my fucking life.  I was going to be a fucking cripple in the lamest fucking wheelchair I’d ever seen.

“Maybe we should give him some time alone,” Jane murmured to Dr. Greenly.

“Oh, you think?” I managed to croak.

Jane and the doctor left me with my parents, although not before putting me back on oxygen.  That was fine because the last thing I wanted to do was talk about any of this.  My mother sat by my bed, stroking my hair and saying annoyingly cheerful things, like about all the automated equipment they were going to buy for me.  I mostly tuned her out, focusing on the soothing sensation of her hand against my skin.  It made me remember when I was a kid and my problems were small and she really did have the power to make it all right, usually by buying me shit.

My father hovered in the corner of the room.  Like me, he was used to feeling in control.  Despite my drug use and laziness, I know he always liked showing off his only son to his buddies and figured someday I’d take over his company.  Now that I was a quadriplegic, I don’t think he was going to want to show me off anymore.  

 *****

I was given the day off from therapy, since it was clear that I wasn’t up for it.  My parents stayed with me in the room for a while, then left to get some dinner.  Around that time, Mary announced that Mason was here to see me.  She didn’t ask me if I wanted to see him, which I didn’t.  She just let him march right in, then put on my speaking valve afterwards.

“Nico!” Mason said, like he always did as he bounded into the room.  Mason had always been taller than me, even when we were kids, but I realized now the height differential was going to be a lot bigger.  I was going to have to look way up to talk to him from now on.  We’d never be even close to eye to eye unless he was sitting like me.  “What’s going on, man?”

I cut right to the chase.  “Did you know that I’m paralyzed permanently?  That I’ll be in a wheelchair the rest of my life?  Are you aware of that?”

That wiped the smile of Mason’s face.  “Um, yeah,” he mumbled.  “I mean, I heard that, yes.”

“So why didn’t you fucking say something to me?”

Mason scratched his sandy hair.  “Well, they told you.  They told you lots of times.  So I thought…”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Mason’s blue eyes widened.  “No!  What are you talking about?  Why would I be enjoying this?”

“You’ve always been jealous of me,” I said. 

That was a fact.  Mason was jealous of me.  His parents were very wealthy, but mine were wealthier.  I was better looking than he was.  I was better at getting girls.  The only thing he was better at was football and who gives a flying fuck about football?  He’d spent his life being jealous of me and now he was here to finally gloat.

“I was never jealous of you, Nick,” Mason said. 

“Bullshit.”

“How could you say I’m happy to see you like this?” Mason shook his head.  “You’re like my brother.  This sucks for me as much as it does for you.”

“There’s no way in hell this sucks for you as much as it does for me.”

“Okay, okay…” Mason chewed on his lower lip.  “I know you’re feeling like shit right now.  What can I do to cheer you up?”

“You can get the fuck out and never come back.”

“Nick, come on…”

Mason was blinking his eyes, and for a second, I thought I saw a tear well up.  Except he wasn’t that great an actor. 

“Get out,” I said again.

He hung his head.  “All right, if that’s what you want.”

I watched Mason’s hulking shoulders sag as he walked out the door to my room.  I felt a twinge of regret.  Maybe I had said some untrue things… Mason wasn’t the jealous type, not really.  And out of all my many friends, he was the only one who’d been there for me through this whole ordeal.  I heard the others came to visit early on, but it was Mason who kept coming two or three times a week through the entire time I was in the hospital.  Sometimes it felt like his visits were the only thing keeping me alive. 

But either way, it just hurt too much to see him right now.  And that was the truth.

 To be continued...

Hollywood Rehab (Part 5)

At way too fucking early the next morning, the light in my room was flicked on, and I heard Jane's voice brightly announcing, "Wake up, Nick!  Time to start the day!"

Unable to shield my eyes with my hand, I shut them as tightly as I could.  I tried to tell her to go away, but I couldn't do it until she put the speaking valve in place a minute later.  "Go away," I said.

"You had a day to feel sorry for yourself," Jane said.  "Now I'm getting you up before you have a chance to wallow in self-pity."

"Too early," I said.  "What time is it?"

"Seven," she said.

"Fuck," I said.  I never got up before 10AM as a general rule.

When it was a little less painful, I opened my eyes and saw Jane in the process of dressing me.  She had strapped the bag of urine to my thigh and was pulling a pair of sweatpants over my legs.  It occurred to me that I was never going to be able to dress myself ever again.  That was kind of a depressing thought.

Before I could focus too much on that though, Jane bent down over my leg to tug harder on my pants and I caught a glimpse inside her gray scrub top.  She was wearing a black lace bra and she actually had some pretty nice cleavage going on.  I was careful not to let her see me stare though—it was an art form I had perfected over the years.

"You ready to try the wheelchair again?" Jane asked me.

I just stared at her.

She sighed and put her hands on her hips.  "The way I see it, Nick, you've got two choices.  Either you can decide to spend the rest of your life in a bed, or you can actually get a little bit of independence back by learning to get around in a wheelchair.  It's your choice.  If you decide to stay in bed, that's fine.  We'll discharge you right now, and your parents can put you up in a bedroom on the third floor of your house, since you'll never be leaving the house again.  Except maybe to go to the hospital for bed sores."

"Okay, fine," I grumbled.  "Get me in the goddamn wheelchair."

"That's the spirit," Jane said.

Sitting in the wheelchair wasn't any better this time than last time.  I didn't feel any more independent, that's for sure.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Jane was right.  I definitely didn't want to spend the rest of my life in bed.  A wheelchair was better than that.  Slightly better.  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad... it would be like getting to drive a car all the time.  Getting to drive a really, really, really lame car.

Jane took me out into the hallway again like last time.  It was empty, which was the good thing about getting up so early to do therapies, I guess.  I didn't like the idea of people gawking at me in this giant chair.  

"All right, now if you give a long puff, you'll go forward," Jane instructed me.

I leaned my head forward just a bit and put my lips on the straw that controlled the wheelchair.  I exhaled into it, and the wheelchair jerked forward.  But not straight.  I actually turned right.  What the hell was wrong with this chair?

"So you've got to puff a little harder than that," Jane explained.

I put my lips on the control again and blew harder.  The wheelchair lurched forward again, but this time it went straight.  I kind of felt like a kid learning how to drive his dad's stickshift and looking like an idiot.  I guessed I'd get better at it, just like I got better at driving a stick.  Which reminded me, I guessed there was no chance I'd ever get to drive a real car again.

"Good job," Jane said.  Lying bitch.

We spent the next hour just messing around with the wheelchair in the hallway.  I managed to go all the way down the hall in my wheelchair, make a complete turn in both directions, and go backwards (almost running over Jane's toe in the process).  I have to say, it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.  At one point, I almost caught myself laughing.

******

The next few days were busy ones.  In addition to my sessions with Jane, I also saw an occupational therapist named Cam who got me into a shower for the first time since my injury.  It felt great to finally get really clean and get some of that grease of out of my hair.  What didn’t feel so great was seeing myself naked.

My last image of myself naked was that night when I had jumped headfirst into the swimming pool.  My body looked like it belonged to another person now.  My tan was completely gone, my skin now white as paper.  I’d lost a lot of weight and my arms and legs had become downright bony.  The muscles in my chest had faded away to nothing, and my torso looked just as thin as the rest of me.  Aside from my belly, which bulged out like a drunk’s.  Well, a drunk with a feeding tube in his belly.

I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter.  It wasn’t like anyone was going to see me naked aside from my caregivers.

What made it worse was the fact that Cam was my age and had bulging muscles all over his arms.  When he was scrubbing my arms and legs, I couldn’t help but hate him a little bit, even though he seemed pretty nice.

There was also an awkward moment when Cam was scrubbing my penis.  I realized that from now on, people were going to be touching my penis a lot in a nonsexual way and it was something I’d have to get used to.  I badly wanted to ask Cam if there was any way I might be able to get an erection again, although it was clear that wasn’t going to happen with a catheter stuck in there.  The thought of never having an erection or an orgasm or sex ever again made me sick.  But then again, even if I wanted to, how would I jerk off?  I couldn’t exactly ask an aide to do that for me.

“Something bugging you, Nick?” Cam asked me, real casual.  No big deal, just scrubbing another guy’s balls.

Something bugging me?  Where did I begin?  “Can guys with spinal cord injuries have sex?” I asked. 

Cam grinned.  “Of course you can.  We even have a sexual education lecture we give to patients with spinal cord injuries.”

“Great,” I said.  Although my next thought was, Who the fuck would have sex with me?

After showering with Cam, I had speech therapy with Kathleen.  Mostly she was working on eating with me.  She held out mashed food for me on a spoon and watched me swallow it.  I felt about six months old, especially when the food dribbled down my chin and onto my shirt.  But Kathleen said I was swallowing really well and gave the nurses the go-ahead to feed me.

When I asked her about it, Kathleen said that if I got some movement back in my biceps, I might be able to feed myself with set-up.  It sounded like there was some possibility of that, so I clung to that hope.  It seemed surreal that I might never be able to feed myself again for the rest of my life.

******

While I was in rehab, my parents were renovating the house for when I came home.  I wasn’t that thrilled about the idea of living with my parents again, but I guessed I could deal with it temporarily.  Eventually I expected them to buy me an apartment and hire people to help me with my needs. 

My parents came to go over the plans with me.  They took seats at my bedside, while I lay in bed, quarter-turned to the left.  There was a pillow between my legs and Mary had applied cushioned boots to my ankles because she said my heels were looking a little pink. 

“Your mother is interviewing candidates to be your primary personal care assistant,” Dad told me.  “We have a guy who she thinks is very qualified and we’re just verifying his references.”

“I don’t want a male,” I said, thinking of how crippled I felt next to Cam when he was showering me.  “I want a woman.”

“Nicky, honey…” Mom began.

“I want a woman,” I said, more firmly this time.  “And I want someone attractive.  Consider 120 pounds to be the upper limit on weight.”

My parents exchanged looks.  “Fine,” Dad finally said.  He cleared his throat and shuffled through some papers on his lap.  “We also put in a ramp to the entrance and are widening the doorways on the first floor.”

“What about the second floor?” I asked.

“Honey, you won’t be going up there,” Mom pointed out.

“You mean, you’re not going to build me a lift?” I was shocked.  “You’re just going to say, Too bad, you can’t go to half the house?”

“An elevator?” Dad stared at me.  “You want us to install an elevator?  Do you know how much that costs?”

“Boo hoo,” I said.  “Just build it, okay?”

Dad’s cheeks turned pink.  He put down the papers in his hand and stood up.  “No, Nick, I’m not going to build it,” he said.  “You know what?  You’re a spoiled brat.”

I couldn’t believe he just said that to me.  “I’m a spoiled brat because I want to go to the second floor of my house?”

“It’s my house, actually,” Dad snapped.  “We are allowing you to live there because your only other option is to go live in a nursing home.”

“So you’d really let your only kid end up in a nursing home?” I said. 

“Truthfully, I don’t give a fuck, Nick,” he said.  “You already wrecked your life.  What’s the difference?”

With those words, my father stormed out of the room.  I was fucking shocked.  He’d never spoken to me like that before in my whole life.  Dad and I always got along really well.  I asked for shit and he gave it to me.  We had a great relationship.

Would he really put me in a nursing home?  I was scared the answer was yes.  He seemed pretty damn pissed off.

“Don’t take it personally, Nicky,” Mom said, rubbing my shoulder.  “He’s just upset because the latest movie he backed was a huge flop.”

“Which movie?”

“You know,” Mom said.  “That one where Adam Sandler gets stranded on a desert island and he falls in love with a coconut.”

“That movie flopped?”

“I know, it was quite a shock,” Mom said.  “It had all the elements of a hit.  In any case, we lost a lot of money, and your medical expenses have been very high.  He’s pretty angry that you didn’t bother to get health insurance and we had to pay for everything out of pocket.”

“Well, it seemed dumb when I was never sick…”

“That’s why it’s called insurance, honey.”

“But what about the lawsuit?”

Mom frowned at me.  “What lawsuit?”

“Against the people with the unsafe pool,” I said.  “The one I broke my neck in.  Can’t we sue them?”

“Nick…” Mom was giving me a weird look.  “You broke into their yard and trespassed in their pool.  You’re just lucky there were no charges brought up against you.  You really think you could win a lawsuit against them?”

I stared up at the ceiling, trying to absorb what she was telling me.  “So… what?  We’re poor now?”

“Of course not,” Mom said.  “We still have lots of money.  But maybe just don’t talk to your father about building an elevator for you.”

“Okay,” I said.  I was upset about my father’s outburst, but I guessed it was a long time coming.  I tried to smile but it felt a little crooked.  "So, um, does that mean I'm not going to a nursing home?"

"Oh, sweetie," Mom sighed, rubbing my shoulder.  I really appreciated that she knew to touch me in a place I could feel.  "As long as I'm alive, you have a place to live in our house."

Well, so much for getting my own apartment.