​These were Ellen’s, my cantor friend, last Friday services at the synagogue. The tables were packed. There was a lot of yummy food brought by the members. When we finished eating, it was time to celebrate. Everybody opened their prayer books; Eric and our drummer friend took their drums and sat, prepared to start drumming; and Ellen began leading and singing.
Before my injury, I would sing and find pleasure in singing. Eric and I would go to all Musical Shabbat services because we appreciate music. For a secular Jew and a non-Jew, music is the single and best connection with Jewish religion. I love hearing and singing old and known songs: cherished memories come back to me, and I feel at home in a foreign country. Hearing and making music, beautiful music that is an appeal to a god, as well as hearing Ellen’s powerful and gorgeous voice, touches Eric’s feelings. That’s why he wants to attend services. After the injury, Eric’s and my connection with Judaism has still been music. So, we both went to these services.
That night, I experienced a pleasant surprise. As I’ve told in a previous chapter, the bleeding over my brain stem changed my voice: I speak and sing at a softer volume, my pitch is low, and I have a limited range. So, when I joined the members’ voices in singing, I knew that mine couldn’t stand out in the group. Yet that had a good rather than a bad effect. In the past, I would take pleasure in singing, but also in hearing my voice sing. Every time I sang I could confirm the “beautiful” sound of my voice. Now, because my voice was no longer “beautiful,” I could delight in singing and in hearing others sing – especially Ellen and her gorgeous and moving voice; I could delight in hearing the others’ buoyant voices, and feel at home.

​ After all the long wait, after Eric’s careful and repeated shaving and washing of my head, after the neurosurgeon approved of the pictures of my scalp and the plastic surgeon saw it and gave the green light, a date for the surgery was set. Eric had to shave my head and wash it with an antiseptic shampoo a few days earlier. Then, I had to get a PCR test, and it had to be negative; I had to eat my last meal at midnight; and we had to get to the neurosurgery floor at 6 AM for pre-operation.
I was anxious for the entire time. What if we did something wrong? The surgery could be a disaster. I could have an infection. What’s more, there was another cause of anxiety. I had to go to the very same hospital where they’d done all the previous treatments: surgeries, intravenous antibiotics, anti-seizure meds, emergency surgeries, and potential emergency surgery that ended up in discharge, they all had been accompanied by hospitalization and an IV.
We arrived promptly at 6 AM. They weighed and measured me and changed me into a robe.  They put me on a stretcher, placed an IV in my arm, and rolled me into the operation room. I was very cold. They put a lot of warm covers over my body and took off my glasses. Minutes later, I was asleep.
I woke up feeling drowsy. I was outside the room, and Eric was holding my hand. He left, and I was moved to the ICU. I hated it; it reminded me of the recovery room, where I’d spent two long days after the previous surgery. There weren’t fake walls and glass doors covered with curtains, as in this one. And you could hear constant yells and moans there, while a calming silence reigned here. But the atmosphere was just the same. I was relieved when they moved me to a regular room.
I spent my last and best three days there. No EKG cables, no Oxygen monitors, no pressure cuffs, no constant sounds, and three very kind and efficient male nurses. Once the blood stopped coming out of the drainage, the plastic surgeon cleared me for discharge. I could go home, hopefully for good! I hadn’t infections or nightmarish complications. Despite all my fears, nothing had happened to me. I could go out after a mere four days of stay – a dream come true, and a surprise to me.
I’ve been home for a month. The only effects are tiredness, low blood pressure, high heartrate after exercise, and a difficulty reading that tires my eye. And probably they will go away over time. Every now and then, I think how mild they are, and I marvel at the lack of fulfillment of my worst fantasies. And I smile.

​ 
My brain injury happened in April, 2018, a little over four years ago. Despite four years of constant exercise, I’m still unable to walk or move my left arm and hand. I can’t move around except in the wheelchair (I’m still practicing to walk with a walker). So, I spend most of my days lying in bed or sitting in the wheelchair on the deck and reading, writing, and translating. The only exception is when I’m doing my arm exercises or practicing to walk.
 That’s why I devote a long time to thinking; since I can’t walk, I walk with my imagination. I see with my mind’s eyes a lot of different scenes in the books I read: Greek and Trojan armies facing each other in the battle field; Hector and Achilles fighting in front of Troy’s castle, Achilles full of wrath for the death of Patroclus; a tall, slender, and bespectacled man strolling down the streets of Lisbon; a woman taking a revolver out of a drawer and shooting her husband.
My inability to move around has enabled my mind to travel – has expanded my mind and caused it to develop new eyes. I can see things that are located farther away than I could reach before my injury, when I could walk and travel practically anywhere. When I was writing poetry before the injury, I always had to make an effort to conjure up images that would illustrate an idea. Now, I hear something from a friend or a feeling makes an impact on me that I want to transform into a poem, and images come to me right away.
I’ve changed in another way: What I doubted four years ago, I accept today. And I accept it because I can see it with my new eyes; my mind can travel to it. And because I accept it, my mind can open to new horizons. In this way, a cycle is set in motion that will make my world larger and richer.

​The days have started to get sunny and warmer, and the snow has melted on the deck and the backyard. You can see the green grass, and green buds have slowly sprouted from the trees and turned into leaves. So, I’ve made going out on the deck after lunch part of my daily routine. Bright colors surround me, for the bushes and the peach tree have blossomed. My computer and my Kindle are on my garden table, and while I read and work, I enjoy looking at the life around me. A friend had recommended a book to me, Braiding Sweetgrass, and I’ve started listening to it on YouTube.
The author is Native American. She’s a poet and an ecologist. Her book compares this culture with Western culture: their traditions, their cosmologies, their relationship to the land (both connected), and their notion of property and the consequent economies. But the book is more than that: she also compares scientific (Western) and Indigenous ways of knowledge; she writes about Indigenous culture and language, especially about language as a way of knowledge; and most importantly, about the oppression of Native Americans and the elimination of their culture and language (and, therefore, of them as a people) by the US government.  
The book really struck me and resonated with me. I knew about the US government’s attitude toward the Native American peoples (very similar to the Argentinian government’s), but not in such detail. And it resonated with me because since we moved to Beacon, my relationship to nature has significantly changed. At first what appealed to me about my new home was the quiet, the river, and the mountains. Then it was the green and the multiplicity of colors in the spring, the summer, and the fall. Yet after the injury everything changed. Ever since I’ve started going on the deck, the backyard has become my friend and my source of solace. That’s why Mary Wall’s definition of plants as sentient beings stirred many feelings in me. As I was listening, I pictured a forest full of trees laden with leaves, full of life that will create life in further generations. I saw myself surrounded by trees and felt a strong sense of comfort and protection.
And that’s why I welcome this season and the gift of peace she gives to me. That’s why when I finish eating lunch, I’m always eager to go out with my Kindle, computer, and earbuds. I’m ready to receive my gift and thank her for it.

​When my nurse aid gets here every morning, the first thing she does is preparing my breakfast, which consists of a fruit and yogurt shake, prune compote, pieces of bread pudding, and water. For quite a while, swallowing the shake was an operation: to avoid it to go down the wrong pipe, I had to take half a spoon on my tongue, push it down with my tongue muscles, and tighten the muscles of my swallowing apparatus to send it through my pharynx. Since my hemangioma’s bleeding, I’ve lost my ability to swallow hard solids and liquids, especially thin liquids. That’s the reason for the operation. And when I’m swallowing water, I have to focus on each step and do it very slowly so as not to choke (I talk about it in the Water chapter).
Recently, my nurse aid brought me breakfast, shake included. I stirred it and started the steps of the operation: I filled half a spoon, put it on my tongue, and pushed it down with my tongue muscles. But when I was ready to concentrate on tightening the muscles of my swallowing apparatus, they tightened on their own without my effort! I was both happy and doubtful. Didn’t I need to make a big effort? Maybe just a tiny one?
After breakfast, it was time for speech exercises: breathing, flexing my mouth against the resistance of face flexors, blowing water with a metal straw, saying “a” and “e” for seven seconds or longer, sing a song, and read an excerpt of a book. Every exercise after the first two requires the use of my diaphragm to push the air I inhaled across my open mouth. And after the “a” and “e” exercise, I have to practice swallowing water (a thin liquid) four times. When it came the time to swallow water, I did the first steps (put the water on my tongue and pushing it down with my tongue muscles) veeery slowly. But when I was about to focus on tightening the muscles of my swallowing apparatus, they tightened on their own!
Ever since my success in swallowing liquids, I’ve been waiting for the tightening of the muscles to come, ready to tighten them; and every time, the muscles have tightened by themselves. I’m still doubtful, but despite my doubtfulness, and despite my need to verify the restored ability to swallow, deep down, I feell a quiet happiness, and a sense of achievement goes with me wherever I go.

​After I answered “yes” to the nurse (see Decision chapter), the neurosurgeon and his office got the ball rolling. Sophia, the nurse who worked closely with the neurosurgeon, called us and asked if Eric could drive me to the hospital so that I could have a CAT-Scan. Then, we would both see him. The neurosurgeon checked my scalp and told Eric that it needed to be shaved and washed daily to take off all the dirt and dandruff. That way, it could be checked for any sign of infection. This will be the last surgery, he said. And he was right; there were traces of the many surgeries that had been performed on my head to take out the hemangioma, to take out the temporal bone, to put in the prosthesis, and to take out the infected scalp, as well as the bone plate, as a precaution. That meant a lot of incisions and sutures. Performing yet another surgery was a big risk to take. When we asked him if he had set a date, he said that it would be within four weeks. I did the numbers and came up with April 12th.  
From then on, Eric started to shave and wash my head thoroughly, treating my exposed brain with great care. After a week, he emailed pictures of every angle of my scalp to Sophia. She was very happy with the result and said she would show them to the neurosurgeon. She ended the email asking Eric to send her pictures the next week. Eric continued to shave and wash my head and emailed pictures to her again. But this time he got a different reply: the neurosurgeon wanted to show them to the plastic surgeon. Then, Eric got a call from the plastic surgeon’s nurse.She said that he wanted to examine my scalp because he’d seen a red spot. The nurse suggested an online appointment. Guess for what date. Yes, you’re right. For April 12th! I was very disappointed. I had such hopes of throwing away the helmet and sitting up to read and write.
And there’s still another consequence of this delay. When I look at myself in the mirror, I’m faced with a foreigner. My mind stored pictures of my wedding, my trips with Eric and with Eric and Nathan across Argentina, and our family walks on the beach in Newbury Port. The face in my mind has nothing to do with the face I see in the mirror. Now Eric and I will have to wait for the surgeons to approve of the state of my scalp and, based on their approval, decide on the right date of the surgery – provided that there are an operation room and a recovery room available. So, as always, I’ll have to wait patiently. And never brush my teeth…

​Last Tuesday Eric and I went to the hospital for a double appointment with the neurosurgeon and with the plastic surgeon. They wanted to examine my scalp to assess its condition for surgery: they needed to put back the bone plate that the neurosurgeon had taken out (see Adventure chapter). The neurosurgeon was concerned about the health of the skin because of the number of surgeries I’d undergone. That’s why he wanted discuss with a plastic surgeon the need for skin expansion. Our first appointment was with the neurosurgeon. Since it was in the morning, we had to leave early. Eric made my breakfast, and I ate it quickly. Then, we left for the city. We got to the hospital, put on our masks, went through several checks of vaccine shots and proof of negative tests, took the elevator to the neurosurgery department, and went inside the office to wait for him.
After lunch, we went to the plastic surgeon’s office. There, a resident saw me because the surgeon was performing an emergency surgery. The resident was new to the profession, as he told us over and over. So, he talked to me about methods and complications in such a way, that after hearing him I was convinced that I didn’t want to submit myself to this surgery. Fortunately, the surgeon came back. He examined my scalp and said it had already been expanded. Although he admitted that coplications might develop, he didn’t attach such significance to them. Then, he described the potential surgery step by step. In short, his attitude made me feel confident about having the operation (but my fear, though diminished, remained). After this appointment, it was time to go home.
When we got back, our conversation with the surgeons was fresh on our minds. We discussed the pros and cons of replacing the prosthesis: safety and quality of life (I would no longer have to lie down in bed all the time!), versus complications such as infection, bleeding, and clots. We promptly chose for having it. Yet I couldn’t but feel haunted by memories of my past coma, even if I was aware that this operation was fundamentally different.The next morning, when I talked to my older brother about it, he had no doubts about the need to replace the bone plate.
Then, in the evening Eric and I received a call from the neurosurgery nurse asking if I had made a decision regarding the surgery: was I going to go ahead with it? I said yes. After she hung up, I felt relieved and content. Today, several days later, the fear is still haunting me, but I think of myself without a helmet and going on the deck in my wheelchair, and I’m happy that Eric and I leaned toward the replacement.

​After the surgery, when I was transferred to the Recovery Room, Cy, the sweetest and most compassionate nurse, found a real bed for me. I could raise it by pressing a button, which I did promptly – I was concerned about not being able to swallow my post-nasal drip and saliva. Then, when I was transferred to the ICU, I asked the night nurse to help me sit up. When I woke up the next morning, my arm and hand looked very different from what I remembered prior to the surgery: they were bent at the elbow and the wrist, and my fingers were closed. What‘s more, both felt very weak. When I recovered and my sutures evolved as expected, I was discharged with a PICC line, an extension tube, and a vial of Oxacillin in order to finish the course of antibiotic. As time went by, I kept doing what I usually do: reading and writing, having lunch, doing my exercises, and resting. There were some changes, though, because Oxacillin is quite strong and it tired me, and because I had a PICC line in my left arm.
Gradually, my arm and hand got increasingly weaker; I couldn’t “feel” where my arm was; I had a hard time moving my leg and couldn’t balance; I couldn’t find the words to speak, either in Spanish or in English; I couldn’t distinguish left from right; and I lost vision with my left eye. At first I thought it was a setback caused by the surgery and it would go away soon. But it never went away: it just got worse. When Kelly, my occupational therapist came to work with me, she advised us to call my neurosurgeon’s office. Eric did so, and the nurse called him back to say that he should drive me to the ER.
We went there the next morning, and they did a CAT Scan to know if I’d had another hemorrhage. The image was clean. So, I had a brain MRI, and it showed no infection. It was 7:30 in the evening. The neurosurgeons came in and said that since there was no sign of a stroke, it was time for the neurologists to decide, but in the meantime they wanted to do an experiment. They asked me to lie down in the stretcher, and I agreed despite my discomfort and nervousness. The woman neurosurgeon lowered the back of the stretcher, and we waited for about fifteen minutes. When the fifteen minutes were over, my English became fluent. Eric and I were relieved, and the neurosurgeons had proved their hypothesis: taking out the bone plate had caused my brain to go up. So, when I sat up, the blood couldn’t reach it. That was the reason for my gradual loss of brain function. The nurse rolled me back to the ER “room,” and I stayed there lying down flat for the rest of the evening. Then, a neurologist came to tell me that the doctors had decided to discharge me. I’d never felt so happy in my life. Eric came to get me at 2:30 in the morning under pouring rain. We were home at 4:30 and went to bed at 5 AM. Eric said, “I’m happy you’re back home.” “Me, too,” I answered.
            Now my arm and wrist are stretched; I recovered my balance and the use of my leg; I can flex my foot; I can feel my hand and know where it is; my left vision is back; I know what’s left and what’s right; and best of all, I can speak fluently both in English and in Spanish! There’s only one throwback: I have to spend most of the day, and sleep, lying down. But that will be over once the neurosurgeon puts the bone plate back in its place. Although that’s a topic for another chapter…

​In the days I spent in the hospital, since the surgery until discharge, I met all kinds of people and learned to see life from multiple perspectives. Norma, the Jamaican nurse aid, taught me to face the challenges of immigration and foreignness, always confronting new obstacles with a smile. Isaiah, the hospital chaplain, taught me to throw away the arrogance of agnosticism and hear what religion has to talk about. I learned that we’re not independent but interdependent; someone’s always waiting to push us out of despondency into optimism.
And there were many more: Rosalba, the Latin American nurse aid; Karen and Yedbavni, the Jamaican nurse aids; and all the rest of the nurse aids who behaved toward me with compassion and understanding, and showed me how to treat a sick woman who can’t fend for herself and can’t even express her needs.
The ten days that seemed like a century gave me time to stop, step aside, and think. Yes, I spent ten days feeling lonely and helpless, and fear overwhelmed me. But these days gave me the opportunity to meet and chat with new people, and to reflect upon the questions life poses us. While I won’t find the answers, I will be different from the person who was admitted to the hospital a year ago.

​On Tuesday about three weeks (a year!) ago, when I was doing my customary downward stretch (a yoga pose for hemiplegics, as I call it: sitting on a chair, interlacing my fingers so that I can stretch my left arm, and bending my wrist down and curving my body backward as much as I can), Nathan noticed blood on the floor. Eric picked it up with his fingers and looked at it, and saw that it was mixed with clear liquid. Then, he looked at my scalp and saw deep marks. I told him to call my neurosurgeon’s office, and the nurse told him to take pictures and email them. After some time, she called back and said that he should drive me to the ER at the hospital and someone would be there waiting for me.
The trip marked the beginning of a rough journey: from the ER, to the image department to have a brain MRI; from there, with an IV on my arm, back to the ER; from the ER, to the operation room to have surgery; and from the OR, to the recovery room, where I had to wait until Thursday 5 AM when they transferred me to a room in the ICU. The ER was full of noise. Nurses were running back and forth responding to emergencies. There were screams and loud conversations. We had to wait for hours dazzled by strong lights. Finally, the results showed an infection on the scalp, which called for brain surgery. The morning after, the neurosurgeon told me that the surgery had gone well. They’d taken out the infectious tissue and sent it for culture. The bone plate was clean, but they’d taken it out just in case. And I’d be moved to a room, despite the hospital’s being full to the brim.
I was finally transferred to the ICU, to a beautiful room overlooking the river. Yet, I experienced the sense of helplessness that being far away from potential help makes you feel. Everywhere you looked at I was hooked on lines: to monitors that checked my Oxygen, blood pressure, and heart rate; to “boots,” as the staff called it (inflating cuffs put on my legs to prevent blood clots from forming on my veins); and to plastic bags with fluid and IV antibiotic. I was prisoner on my bed; when I had a need that required me to move away from it, I had to press the call bell and wait for the front desk to call whoever would be free – the hospital was in dire need of staff because of the COVID epidemic.
After ten days of IV antibiotic, they discharged me. I spent ten day days in solitude after Eric had come visit and left NYC for Beacon to stay with Nathan; ten nights in solitude, in fear, waiting for the sedative to make me sleep peacefully. The day I was discharged, I spent twelve hours full of mistrust, checking if they’d sent the form for Eric to sign and if they’d brought me the wheelchair (Eric wasn’t allowed to bring our wheelchair from home). Finally, when we crossed the threshold of the hospital and my chair’s wheels hit the sidewalk, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Eric and I felt very happy to be in Beacon. When we finished our daily routine, I fell fast asleep and didn’t wake until twelve hours had gone by. It was a great New ¥ears Eve celebration: despite the fear and anxiety it caused in me, I was very, very happy to be home.