The long and winding road

I'm here in Boston, at the hospital with Emma.  She spoke for the first time last night, which is awesome, and has been much more responsive, both verbally and nonverbally.  Her first utterance was to ask her mother, "what happened to me?"

Seeing her has been both wonderful and daunting, emotionally.  Wonderful because the outlook is positive.  The doctors are incredibly encouraged by her progress of the last 48 hours -- one of the neurologists deemed it "spectacular."  And another doctor, doing the rounds, explained that she has given us cause to be optimistic.

But all I can think is how frustrating this must be for her.  To wake up in the hospital, with arms restrained, a wall of medicines next to the bed, and people coming in at all hours to poke and prod and ask things like, "can you stick out your tongue?"  Her progress is terrific, but she is still barely speaking and is easily tired and has difficulty moving her right side.  She has people hovering over her, strangers coming in to bathe her, strangers coming in to give her basic commands.  I'm sure it gets annoying as all hell.  She will undoubtedly require extensive rehabilitation, which, for a driven honors student who not only excelled in school but in multiple sports, will be tedious and difficult at times.  I wish I could take it all on myself, so she doesn't have to suffer through it.

But today, as I stood by her bed holding her hand and giving her water, I told her about a surf trip in December that I'm trying to plan with some of the cousins.  "It's going to be sick.  Amazing surf in an awesome beach house.  I'm going to try to convince your parents to let you come with us, if you're up to it by then."

She gave me a raised eyebrow look, like, "hell, yes!"  She's a really good surfer.

I feel like we're getting her back, a teeny, tiny piece at a time.