THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

The rest of the story is in a somewhat lighter vein. When they first lifted me from the bed and sat me in an easy chair for a few minutes, I felt as I imagine a jelly-fish might feel after being stepped on. My head wobbled about from one shoulder to the other like that of a newly hatched bird, and altogether I felt as if I had scarcely enough stamina to begin life over again. I well remember the comment of my nurse, who was so delighted with having “pulled me through” and at seeing me up in a chair that for a moment her Irish humor overcame the art of simulation. After viewing me for some seconds with an estimating eye she honestly confessed that I looked like the last piece at a remnant sale.

As I looked out of the window and saw figures moving about on the streets it seemed as if I had migrated to some alien world, where everything was topsy-turvy, and I asked the nurse why everybody was walking backward.

She smiled and shook her head.—“You’ve been very ill.”

My head went round and round, as if it were on a swivel. A blustering snowstorm was in progress and as the figures scurried about on the street I was puzzled to know why they all faced the wrong way—how they could tell where they were going, or when they arrived at their destination. I was barely conscious of having once lived somewhere, on some sphere, and I vaguely wondered if I should now have to begin life anew and learn everything all over again, or if I could pick up the broken threads and start where I had left off.

My wife having heard that I was sitting up, came in. We talked for a while, and somehow she appeared relieved to find how little I remembered of what had happened the past few weeks. She seemed glad that I was going to get well, perhaps because—among other considerations—it lessened the burden on her conscience for having pushed me into the first operation; and by way of making amends for this, and also for scolding me about my stubborn refusal to get well before the second operation, she said I had been a very good patient; that I had been right all the while, and I knew more than all the doctors, nurses and everyone else—even including herself—about what ailed me. After this tremendous concession—which made me a little suspicious that something had gone awry and some bad news must be impending—she asked if there was anything I wanted. This seemed odd, after getting used to being told what I wanted.

“Yes,” I said, “I want a new room.”

“But you have a nice room, with plenty of air, light, private bath and everything.”

“I don’t like it,” I said.

“What is there you don’t like about it?”

By this time I was becoming tired from overexertion. She afterwards told me that I looked wearily about, then resting my eyes on the paneled oak door I said,—

“The door is upside down—I want another room.”

In the weeks that followed I had the usual run of bad days and nights, when things looked gloomy and hope sank low, but all things considered, my recovery was satisfactory to the physicians, though it seemed slow, and at times uncertain, to me.

A few days after my first experience of sitting up, Doctor Will came in and found me nibbling on a piece of toast—the first solid food I had taken in many weeks—which prompted him jokingly to remark that since I was beginning to eat, the price of my board ought to be raised.

“Doctor,” I said, “that reminds me of something that’s been worrying me of late. You being one of America’s greatest surgeons, naturally I have a patriotic pride in being operated on by you; but when I came here I had no intention of giving you a steady job cutting me open and sewing me up. One operation at a time by a great surgeon is usually as much as any ordinary person can stand, either physically or financially, and my Scotch instinct warns me that you are running me into ruinous extravagance.”

“Never mind, my good fellow,” he said; “don’t let that bother you. We are here to cure you, not to get your money; and when you get your bill if it isn’t satisfactory all you need do is scratch out the amount and fill in your own figures—whatever sum is agreeable to you, and that will be our price.” But I was so elated over my recovery that it didn’t occur to me to acquaint the office with this generous proposal.