what is a flight nurse

Now that I cannot walk my life has changed. I am so tired of lying on the pull-out loveseat in this basement apartment, looking up through the window at the tip-top green leaves of my neighbor's trees.

At least I can see trees.


Poor Hanna is bored and I do not blame her, so am I, in my fourth week now and still I can't stand on my own two feet.

How quickly the illusion of independence is shattered. How frightening to realize I am one bad step away from being completely dependent on the generosity of others. For nearly a month now I can't cook, or shower, or step out of this basement apartment and into the world without someone else by my side. I am simultaneously shame, knowing that I need not feel shame, frustration, despair, perseverance, and gratitude.  


I have lost all of the muscles in my right leg. Yes and I cried about it. I remember acutely coming back from my lung's collapse, retching on the side of the road the first time I tried to run. I told myself then I would never stop running, so that I would never have to come back again. Well here I am.

The black brace that has become my constant fashion accessory gapes around my atrophied calf. My right thigh spreads across the seat beneath me while my left quad holds firm. I know that it's just muscle, and I also know what it meant for me to build that muscle in the first place, after they told me I would never run again. And so I despair, and I know that there is no need for despair.


I am scared of camping amidst the throngs this weekend. I had been looking forward to it all year and now I find myself shrinking from it. Already I have pushed my comfort zone so much, teetering on my crutches into spaces and groups I do not know. Can I do it again, this time when porta potties are involved?

Of course I can do it again. Of course I can, and I will, because they told me I could not, and here I am. And here I will be, again and again, because even when my leg is atrophied I always have strength within me.