BST21: Whaddaya mean I gotta get outa bed??

the 13th/14th of August, 3 years ago. Marked by one thing - the light at the end of the tunnel.

We could see the end of the road ahead, just had to get there. Through the occupational therapists, the physical therapists. The Neuro-psychs - who wanted to make sure I was not going to drool out of my left side and kill people with my right. The doctors had stated on several occasions that they had never seen a recovery quite like this one. Such a fast recovery, such a clean recovery. Such a nice boy....

Plans for my escape began. After all this time, my mother - father - and I really just wanted to get the hell out of there. I was eating like a pig, and sucking down grapes like there was no tomorrow. The shunt surgery had left me with gas pains like you would not believe, and for some reason - the grapes helped. Maybe something I could patent?

I was beginning to see more of the outside world. I had been to the mirror in the room a few times to get a good look at myself. Boy, was I a mess. And rather upset that I did not get the nice mohawk I wanted. I still was not sleeping much - and I still had not been to the bathroom for more than 2 minutes. But as I told them, its not easy to go on a bowl thats a good foot higher than the one you are used to. And it had handles like an easy chair. That was weird.

One of the therapists, don't remember which one, actually took me downstairs to the cafeteria. Now my parents had told me about the cafeteria, how big it was and how busy. I truly had no idea though exactly how insane the place was.

I took 2 bucks, and went down. Instantly I was inundated with the scenes and sounds of life. Lines snaking this way and that - but I saw my target. A cinnamon-rasin bagel with cream cheese, and a cup of coffee. Got it, paid for it, then I learned of the real task at hand. Not could I handle the cafeteria - Hell, I'd been on subways more crowded than that. Nope - getting back to the room with no help from the therapist.

Good one. In retrospect, it was a great idea. At the time, I was not happy. As I said - I probably could not tell you today where my room was, much less at the time. But he told me, 6th floor, and gave me the room number - then stood back as I went for the elevators. UVA only had about 5 different elevator banks, so I had to backtrack through the cafeteria to find the right ones, then up - then I got lost on the 6th floor.

Boy was I red when I found out that my room was basically right across from the elevators, around the corner.

Sheesh.

Otherwise, it was mainly monitoring - making sure everything was going well.

Tomorrow: BST22: Return of the Overly-Warm Boy.

PS - the updated Forgotten-Roanoke.com is nearly complete. I'm putting pages up as I have time, which is not much. But bear with me. It's all coming together.