Reader's Digest

116 | July• 2018

I SURVIVED A STROKE

“Yesbutthat’sdifferent”shere-

plied.I’mafraidyou’llhavetocon-

tinue taking nourishment from the

IV.”

Asthenursedisappearedbeyond

thecurtainImuttered“Swallow

Lady. What’s next?”

Nicolesatontheedgeofthebed

withalookofconcern.Shetookmy

hand and squeezed it. What Nicole

saw when she looked at me must have

been scary – my incomprehensible

speech my general confusion my

mood swings. I was like an incom-

plete sketch of myself. I was begin-

ning to feel as though I was no longer

apartofthisworldandoverthe

next few weeks this disengagement

intensiied.

Pat stood up and announced she

wasgoingforawalk.Iwashappyshe

wanted to take some time for herself.

Besides this would give me an op-

portunitytobewithNicole.

“Youkeepkickingme”Nicolesaid

andsmiled.“AreyouhintingthatI

should leave?”

“No of course not” I said. “hey’re

spasms.Ican’thelpit.”

Iwassuddenlyafraidshemight

go.Istruggledtoindawaytolether

knowhowgratefulIwasthatshehad

come to visit. hen she smiled again.

“Justteasing.Didyousayspasms?”

I realised I needed to speak more

clearly.“Yeslikecramps”Isaid

slowly.“Theyhurtlikesomeone is

jabbingmewithaknife.”

“Can they do something?”

As she took out a sudoku I recalled
the last time I was this hungry was
during a trip I took to Europe. I closed
my eyes and searched through my
reel of images. I was amazed at how
much I remembered of living cheaply
in London and Paris.
“Soyourdaughtertellsmeyou
thinkwearestarvingyou?”hiswas
notavoicefrommymemorybuta
youngnurseleaningoverme.
“I’m hungry” I said. “Even a bowl
of gruel would be nice.”
She took my pulse. “We’re not al-

lowed to give you anything to eat. Not
until the Swallow Lady has been to see
you.”
Istaredupather.“SwallowLady.
Who’s that?”
“The speech therapist. She’ll be
by tomorrow to give you some tests
to see if your swallow mechanism is
working. We don’t want you choking
on your food.”
“Icanswallow”Isaid.“I’veswal-
lowed a bucket-load of pills in the last
two days.”

I WAS BEGINNING

TO FEEL AS THOUGH

I WAS NO LONGER

A PART OF THIS WORLD

A FEELING THAT

WOULD ONLY INTENSIFY