Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [53]
“Scary. Scary. Medical,” Gabby said, and then touched her head. “Glasses,” she said, but as soon as the word came out, she knew it was wrong. She tried again. “Helmuh . . .”
“Yes!” Angie said. “The motorcyclist is missing a helmet. And without a helmet, he could hit his . . .”
“Head,” Gabby said.
“And what would happen?”
“Bump, bump,” Gabby answered.
“What else?”
“Brain injury. Brain injury.” Gabby had come to know those two words very well. They came easily to her. Her answer was a good one.
Angie held up a third photo. It was a picture of someone drinking a glass of water. “What’s the matter with this?” Angie asked. “There’s a safety concern with this glass. Try to use words to tell me.”
Gabby couldn’t answer.
Angie prompted her. “The glass is . . .”
“Green,” said Gabby. She could often come up with a common phrase or a snippet of a song lyric, though not always precisely.
“Well, the grass is green, yes,” Angie said to her, “but this glass is . . .”
Now Gabby found the word in her head. “Broken.”
Angie wanted Gabby to think through the steps. “If you’re out for dinner and they give you a broken glass and you drink out of it, what might happen?”
“Brain injury,” Gabby said. That was her fallback affliction.
“No, not a brain injury, but you could get . . .”
“Cut,” Gabby said.
“What would you cut?”
“Cut lip. Lip,” Gabby said.
She’d gotten it. Angie smiled at her.
When I sat in on such sessions, I was pretty good at being upbeat and encouraging, complimenting Gabby on her progress and urging her on when she was frustrated or tired. But it could be dispiriting sometimes, watching how tough this whole process was for her.
Most of us have contemplated what it would be like if we were blind or deaf. I certainly have thought about that. But until Gabby was injured, I had never once considered how disabling it is to be unable to speak. What Gabby was dealing with was more debilitating. Those who are blind or deaf can engage with the world, they can communicate their needs and feelings. They can express themselves creatively. But especially in those early months, Gabby was locked inside herself. And that could be terribly disheartening, even for someone as optimistic and innately cheerful as Gabby.
At one low point, I fantasized about making a deal with God. If Gabby could just regain the full use of language, it would be OK if she’d never walk again. I thought Gabby would make that agreement without hesitation. To be able to talk, she’d give up the ability to walk.
There were no deals to be made, of course. All we could do was hope and pray and offer Gabby our optimism.
It was important for us to keep reminding her that she was definitely making progress. That’s why I’m glad I had a lot of her therapy sessions taped. She was far more on target in this late-March session than she was just one month before. I had the old footage to prove it. Eventually, I showed Gabby some tapes, so she could see for herself.
My forty-seventh birthday was February 21, and the day before, Gabby was in therapy with Angie, and they were singing together. My digital recorder captured it all.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine . . .”
Gabby was singing softly, but she seemed to be hitting every word. She wore a green sweater and a khaki cap over her short hair. She looked tired, but she was trying.
Then Angie asked her to practice “Happy Birthday” so she’d be ready to sing for me.
Angie and Gabby sang together, but when they got to the third line, Gabby sang, “Happy birthday, dear chicken . . .”
“You’d better not say that on Mark’s birthday,” Angie said. “It’s ‘Happy birthday, dear Mark.’”
Gabby tried again. Again she said “chicken” instead of “Mark.” Angie wrote my name on a piece of paper and held it up for Gabby. Again, she sang “chicken.”
You could see how frustrated Gabby was. Angie decided to move on to looking at photos. She held up a photo of a hairbrush.
“Comb,” Gabby said.
“It’s not a comb, it’s a brush,” Angie told her.
Gabby said the words “boo hoo” and