​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.
 

​When I was young and still living in Argentina, I never went to services: like many Argentine Jews, I’m an agnostic. Our Eastern European ancestors were observant, but most of our immigrant grandparents were not. I had a socialist parental grandfather, and my parents used to take me to services when they visited my mother’s parents in the High Holidays – that was the extent of their observance. Yet we celebrated Passover and Rosh Hashanah, and my parents considered themselves deeply Jewish. And despite their lack of connection with Jewish religion, they sent me to a Hebrew day school, where, in addition to the language, I was taught the Old Testament along with Jewish traditions and songs. So, although I didn’t believe in god and avoided services, I knew religious songs fairly well and could read the prayers and psalms in their original language.
When we moved to Beacon, as Nathan started to become a toddler, I wanted him to get a Jewish education. And in a small town, the only way to join a Jewish community was through a synagogue. Luckily, the only synagogue in Beacon turned out to be full of open-minded, community-oriented members. So, we felt at home there, even though I was a secular Jew, and Eric, a son of Quakers. We became friends with a lot of them, and with the cantor as well (I talk about Ellen in several chapters).  
As I’ve mentioned before, since recovering from my injury I’ve had plenty of time to read. A friend recommended The Weight of Ink, a historical novel about the life of Portuguese Jews in eighteenth-century Europe. As I was reading, I came upon a translation of a song we usually sing at services. I immediately remembered the lyrics and melody, and started singing it in Hebrew. And I felt joy as I sang. The lyrics didn’t matter; picturing myself joining my voice with other voices in the synagogue’s basement brought a sense of comfort. Alone in bed, I traveled to the past, to a small room where I was surrounded by affection.

​A few days ago, Eric remembered riding in a car with his parents around this part of the state. Every time they crossed the bridge, he would hear the same song playing on the radio – a 1970s hit. He tried to recall the name of the song, but it wouldn’t come to mind. I suggested “I will Survive” sung by Gloria Gaynor, and he thought I could be right. The conversation segued into Motown and R & B, and I asked him to play “I will Survive” on YouTube. We started dancing right away, Eric standing up, and I, in bed. I had so much fun that I decided to pedal the bike with my hands to the rhythm of “I will Survive” and “Hot Stuff.”
When the day came, I asked Eric to play those songs again. Eric obliged, and as soon as I heard Gloria Gaynor’s powerful voice, I started pedaling faster and “dancing” (aka moving the top of my body) all the while. And as I was dancing, my eyes welled up: I recalled another conversation with Eric, in which I’d learned about what had happened to me after I was already settled in a room in the hospital waiting for the operation; how I’d stopped swallowing and breathing, and the neurosurgeon and his team had to intubate me and perform an emergency operation. Eric said the neurosurgeon had saved my life. I remembered nothing about this episode – all my memories were about the (non-existent) first operation to extract my hemangioma.
After more than three years, I found out that I hadn’t had one but two death-threatening experiences. This discovery lent the song its actual weight. Listening to “I Will Survive” elicited in me the combination of three feelings: euphoria, desolation, and a will to look forward instead of backward. My cousin had been right (I write about her comments on another chapter). Doing my exercises faithfully meant more than listening to self-imposed high standards – it meant having a strong determination to live.

​As part of my rehab, I have to do exercises with my left hand: I have to relearn to move my wrist and open my fingers. This means that the muscles in charge of extending my fingers (the extensors) have to learn to obey my brain’s command to tighten. This means doing ten reps of the same exercise: relax my fingers; once they are beginning to relax, pull them very slowly with my right hand, and combine relaxing with pulling until I feel resistance from my left fingers; then, let go of these fingers and wait for them to close; and make a tight fist.
Since my injury, the extensors have been paralyzed, which has let the flexors (the muscles in charge of bending the fingers, in other words, of closing the hand) take over. As a result, the flexors have been dominating my hand’s movements. Yet, thanks to the action of a splinter that we’ve been placing on and off, my fingers have gone from totally to partially closed. So, this exercise is a dynamic between pulling to the outside to open the fingers, and pulling to the inside to close them.
I think of it as a battle between the right and left fingers; the right fingers want to pull the left to the outside, but the left resist. Both enemies are determined to win – it’s a battle to the death. To teach my fingers to open and thus be able to grab things (which would make it possible to do almost anything, from cooking to reaching a bottle of shampoo), I have to strengthen the extensors gradually. That way, they will take over my fingers’ movements and the victory of the right fingers will be assured.
Kelly, my former occupational therapist, came over to assess my (limited) progress and device new exercises that would help my arm movements improve. When she came, she referred me to Sabashni, one of her colleagues from the time she used to work in New York, whom she recommended warmly. Eric and I called Sabashni, and she agreed to help me. I went to her office on Saturday, and she was pleased with what she saw. So now she will teach me and Tammy, my nurse aid, new exercises to improve the movements of my left arm and hand. Then, I will do endless repetitions of these exercises, and the right fingers will triumph.

​ It was my walking day, so I was walking with the crutch inside the wooden rail. I did one lap, handed the crutch to my nurse aid, turned (I usually walk with the crutch and turn while holding on to the bar), and started walking around the rail again. When was about to hand her the crutch to start turning, she told me to keep walking. I was puzzled by her instruction – I found it unusual – but kept walking. Then, she repeated it, and repeated it once again. And I kept going despite my bewilderment until I got to the wheelchair. Then, she told me to turn and sit down.
I asked her why she had told me to keep going. Because I’d said I wanted to move my walking to the dining room, she answered, and she wanted me to feel confident about taking that step.
The Sunday before, I had mentioned that I wanted to go back to walking from the dining room to the kitchen and back, as I’d been doing every Sunday before the side effects of the Fycompa started (I write about it in a previous chapter). But she’d said she thought I wasn’t ready yet. And she was right: no sooner had she finished her sentence than I’d realized I was still scared. What if I lost my balance? It had been a long time since I’d last walked with the crutch without the sense of safety I experienced thanks to the boundaries of the rail. Yet this time, a week later, I’d crossed the threshold of the rail and kept walking with the crutch without anybody’s help, and nothing had happened: I hadn’t fallen. I felt so happy. It was progress! A tiny progress, but progress no less.
This improvement seemed small but was actually huge. By crossing the threshold of the rail, I had crossed a boundary –  the boundary of my fears. And I had crossed another boundary: the boundary of self-criticism and high standards. According to my standards, the progress I’d made was inconsequential, but I was able to feel happy to have made it. My happiness meant that I could pay less attention to quantity and more to quality. It meant that I had crossed a barrier and would start walking forward.

​Each coming day is slightly shorter. And when a new day starts, I do my exercises, take turns reading, writing, and translating, and enjoy the ever-absent sun. After a while I get tired and need to rest. Once in bed, I struggle with tiredness; I look for something else to do: phoning friends, doing crosswords, drafting and revising poems, or typing the drafts into the computer.
Then, the light coming through the window has dimmed too much for crosswords or drafting, Eric gets dinner ready, and the three of us eat and chat. The ceiling light has been on for quite a while. When I’m done with my food, Eric starts making my meds. It’s time for the ritual that precedes sleep. And envisioning sleep brings fear with it, and I stay awake for hours in the middle of the night. Insomnia is the invisible evocation of death – no image comes along with evocation.
Increasingly shorter nights mean an increasingly quicker fear.

​After a successful exercise day my nurse aid, Eric, and I started talking about what made an exercise successful.  My nurse aid said that I would do well if I really wanted to do it; if I put my mind into it; if I did it with enthusiasm. If I started with the inner conviction that I would fail, I would. Then, Eric went farther: he gave dogs as an example. They never gave up; they would persevere against all odds. I was very puzzled and asked for an explanation, which Eric promptly gave me in the fashion of an account.
An anthropologist who was living with the Kalahari bushmen went with them to a baboon hunt. Baboon hunting is customary among bushmen, and they do it with the help of a dog pack. Since baboons are incredibly strong, dogs corner them so that the bushmen can spear them. This time, however, the anthropologist noticed a change. Amid the pack chasing the baboons, he spotted a three-legged dog running energetically after them.
Who knows what could have caused him to lose a leg? Perhaps a previous encounter with the apes, or a near-death clash with a member of the species. Yet despite his loss, the dog kept running along with his pack, the baboons on the mire. I remembered what my friend had said to me. To persevere, I had to believe –  to believe in life, and in myself; to believe in my ability to triumph. I had to celebrate my small achievements, even if they were small. I had to keep doing my exercises as a gesture of love for Eric and Nathan.
I had to learn from the dog, I thought. I had to want to walk, climb on and off the books, do all my arm exercises: move back and forth, up and out; lift and cross over, move across my right arm and leg; and try to reach my chin, over and over. I should practice without seeking perfection. No matter my tiredness, my reluctance, my sense of defeat, my high standards, I had to want to do my exercises; I had to keep my recovery on the mire.