Page 54 of In the Shadows

Chapter

Eleven

Day one, hospital PT

They took him down for a CAT scan while the rest of us waited in his room. I told them about our conversation last night, and while Joey had been irritable, he understood what was said between us. That was the second night I slept in bed with Joey, and the second night I had with no nightmares.Huh, go figure.

When they brought him back, I helped him slide into the sweat-pants and loose tank top I found in the bag Easton had brought for him. We then followed the orderly pushing him in his wheelchair down to the Physical Therapy rooms. Once inside, we had a brief meeting as a team touching on what would be taking place. First, he would begin with a massage similar to what we’d been doing daily while he was in bed to help loosen his muscles. We watched as they showed us how to properly get him out of the wheelchair without hurting him since we would be leaving with our own wheelchair. They didn’t want Joey overexerting himself.

The orderly grasped him around his midsection, since his arm was still casted while Carla lifted him from the armpit of his good arm.

“Joey, try to stand,” Carla directed him. “Your legs will be wobbly, but we’ll have ahold of you so please don’t panic.” And she was right, as soon as he tried to stand, his legs shifted and his knees buckled. I automatically flew forward, arms outstretched to catch him, but they didn’t let him fall. After situating him on the massage table, they began working his muscles starting with his legs.

When they had his muscles loosened up, they put him back in the wheelchair and wheeled him over to the entrance for the parallel bars. I had no idea how this was supposed to work one handed, only hoped they’d kept that in mind.

“Okay, we need two big guys for this,” she said scanning us. “Ricky, Diamond is it?”

He nodded.

“Both of you come over here and stand on either side of him. Which of the two of you are the gentler one?”

In stereo everyone answered, “Stoli,” and Diamond growled making Carla laugh.

“Ricky,” she started.

“Stoli, please,” I corrected her.

“You kids and your nicknames, okay Stoli, I want you to stand on the side with his injured arm on the outside of the bars and Diamond the same on the other side.”

We took our places as she stood between the bars in front of Joey’s chair and the orderly stood behind him. Mickey and Joe waited nervously nearby.

“When Colin,” we learned that was the orderly’s name, “pulls the chair out, I’m going to help Joey stand. Joey, wrap your arm around my shoulder and on the count of three I want you to push up using the lower half of your body as best you can. I will be here to guide you and as you can see, you have many others around that won’t let you fall.”

Joey bit his bottom lip, staring up at me.

“We’ve got you, babe,” I assured him as best I could.

“Stoli,” Carla spoke, “make sure you reach for his waist and not his arm just as you saw Colin do when we lifted him onto the table if the need arises.”

“Got it.”

“One, two, three.”

Joey pushed up, her arms were poised on both sides of his hips guiding him up. Colin had the chair out of the way and was positioned behind Joey within seconds of removing it. Joey grabbed the bar with his free hand and stood on shaking legs.

“It’s okay, Joey, don’t get frustrated. It takes time to remind your muscles of what they’re capable of. Stand there for a minute or two and wait for the muscles to relax. You’ve got a great support system here,” she said, trying to distract him from overthinking this. “There’s a lot of love in this room.”

He scanned our faces, finding each smiling back at him.

“And I love every one of them,” he returned, taking a deep breath. “Fuck it, let’s do this shit.”

Joe laughed at his son’s sudden outburst. “There’s my boy!”

Once the vibrations in his legs had somewhat subsided, Carla began again, “Joey, I want you to take a step moving the leg you normally step first with forward.”

Slowly, he lifted his sock clad right foot forward. When it touched down, it once again wobbled.

“Great, and now your left.”