Page 22 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
‘Is my husband dead?’ I ask her.
She takes a step backwards, widens her eyes. ‘Your husband?’
‘David. Is he dead? Do you know?’
Angela puts a finger to her lips while the cuff inflates. She’s told me before that if I talk while she’s taking my blood pressure, it can skew the results. It feels like an eternity, but eventually she jots down the numbers on my chart and pulls off the Velcro cuff.
‘Whatever made you think that?’ she asks. ‘No, no one is dead.’
It seems a strange thing to say, because of course there are people who are dead. But I find it’s mostly a relief to hear that David isn’t among them.
Fern arrives then, all neat and smiley, and asks if I’m ready to have a go at standing up. Angela slowly raises the bed until I’m sitting upright.
‘How do you feel?’ she asks.
‘Fine.’
It isn’t true; I feel a bit dizzy. But I don’t want to give them an excuse to give up on this for another day. I’m desperate to be on my feet.
‘Well, your blood pressure is a bit on the low side, so let us know if you start to feel funny. Okay?’
She eyeballs me and I feel like she knows. ‘Promise,’ I say.
Slowly, slowly, they help me to swing my legs round until they’re off the side of the bed, and then Angela uses the remote control to lower it until my feet are touching the ground.
‘Remember,’ Angela says. ‘We can take this as slowly as you like. If this is enough for today, that’s fine.’
‘No,’ I say, because it isn’t enough. It isn’t nearly enough. I want to be walking up and down the corridors. ‘I’m good. I’m fine.’
Fern stands to one side of me, Angela to the other. They take an arm each and I stand, a little clumsily. It’s a bit scary, and I want to ask them not to let go, but I don’t want them to think I’m not up to it. And they don’t let go, anyway. I’m standing, for the first time in… how long? A long time.
‘Do you want to try taking a step?’ Fern asks, and Angela gives her a bit of a frown, as if she’s suggested a spot of skydiving.
I nod, eagerly. And it’s only then I notice that there are tears streaming down my face. Happy tears. I take one step, then another. They keep hold of me.
‘Right, now stand still,’ Fern says.
I do, and she lets go, goes across to get the chair Matt sits in when he visits and pushes it over to where I’m standing. They help me ease down into it. And then they both take a step back.
‘Now then,’ Fern says, ‘how’s that?’
And I can’t speak, because it’s incredible. And I never would have imagined that sitting in a chair would feel like an achievement, but right now I feel like I’ve climbed a mountain or swum the channel or something. Exhausted, and proud.
‘Can I stay here for a bit?’ I ask.
‘Of course,’ Angela says. ‘I need to fill out some paperwork but I’ll be back to check on you. You just let me know when you’re ready to get back to bed.’
‘I will.’
She goes to the nurses’ station, but Fern stays where she is. She’s looking down at her shoes, and then she looks up at me, and her eyes fix me to the spot.
‘It might not always feel like it,’ she says, ‘but you’re doing really well.’
I don’t know what to say. Usually, she is all business, which means this unexpected praise means a great deal. And still, she doesn’t go. She sits down on the very edge of my bed, tilts her head to one side, as if trying to decide whether or not to say anything.
‘I was married, once,’ she says.
She only looks about thirty, like me. It surprises me a bit that she’s talking about her marriage being in the past, at her age. And then I realise that I’ll be doing that, too, so I’d better get used to it.
