Page 26 of Sing it, Sam

I can’t help but laugh. I’ll have to do something about Sam’s glasses. Maybe they’re in lost property. Is that why he’s avoided reading all this time?

“I can come read some more at lunch, if you want?” I offer.

“Yeah, cool. I think I’ll be done with physio by twelve, so whenever after that.”

I take a long look at Sam and decide now is the time to hit him with the big question. “Can I ask you something?” I blurt out before I lose my nerve.

“Sure.”

“I mean, tell me if I’m overstepping the mark, okay?” I add with an assuring nod.

“Now you’ve got me interested.”

“Is this a permanent thing? You living here?”

He lets out a loud breath and closes his eyes for a moment. When he re-opens them, crystal blue orbs stare right through me. “It’s not supposed to be.”

My heart beats that little bit faster. “How did you get here?”

“Long story. That’ll take more than a minute to explain. I don’t wanna get you in trouble. You’re supposed to be working.”

Kathleen said take my time, so I will. If he’s prepared to talk I’m not about to rush out of here. “Nah, I’m sweet.”

He takes in a deep breath. “I spent eleven months in hospital, but they needed the bed. If I had someone at home to care for me, they might’ve released me, but without enough funded carers in the area they had to look at other options. I had to be somewhere that could meet my needs with physio and meds, and other stuff. There was a bed here, so this is where they dumped me.”

He says it like they were disposing of waste. My heart squeezes tight. “Where do you live? You know, normally?”

“I had a townhouse on Badenoch Street. Near the school.”

“That’s only a few minutes’ walk from my place.”Wait a second.“What do you mean by you had?”

“I couldn’t afford to pay rent while I was in here, so Ben sold my furniture and put the rest in storage. The real shitty thing is that I had to give up my dog.”

My breath catches.Noooooo. I’d die if I had to give up my fur-baby. A member of my family. “That sucks. I mean, the whole thing does, but saying goodbye to your dog, that’s—”

“Yeah, pretty sucky.”

“How did you end up in hospital in the first place?”

Sam rakes his fingers through his messy hair, and scratches at the back of his neck. “I had a pretty horrific case of gastro. Lasted a week, and then I had to be admitted for fluids. When I got home, things started to taste strange, then a few days later I thought I was having a stroke. Went numb down one side. Luckily, I rang the ambo before I collapsed. They had to break the door down. Things went downhill once I got to hospital. Before too long I was paralysed from the neck down.”

My hand rushes to my neck. “That’s horrible,” I say and gasp. “I’ve never heard of anything like that happening from gastro.”

“It wasn’t gastro that paralysed me. It took the doctors nearly a week to diagnose it. After they did a spinal tap, they confirmed GBS.”

Huh? GB what?“What does that stand for?”

“If you ask any of the physical therapists, they’ll tell you ‘getting better slowly’, which pisses me off no end, but it stands for Guillain Barré Syndrome.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“I hadn’t either. I was on a ventilator for two weeks, then they eventually weaned me off and I could breathe on my own. Once the breathing tube came out, I started to get better every week, but the process was incredibly slow. I spent nearly a year in hospital in the general ward. Had physio every day to stop me from getting bed sores, and the rehab was intense. I had to learn how to do simple things all over again. Toughest thing I’ve ever been through. I’ve come a long way, though.”

“So, you’re still getting better?” I grab a hold of that glimmer of hope and lock it up tight in my heart.He’ll get through this.

“It’s hard to tell some days. Sometimes I won’t have any improvements for weeks. Then there are days when I do something and it dawns on me that I couldn’t do that before.”

My god. I couldn’t even imagine. “How about your legs? Can you feel them?”

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