Читать книгу The World I Fell Out Of онлайн

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My right wrist, though, had something still going for it. There was still strength there. The hand therapist Leslie had come to see me and, upon her instructions, Dougie went shopping and found me a travel cup with the handle open at the bottom. I could wedge my palm under the handle and lift a mug of that precious baby tea high enough up to drink through a straw – my first independent action. Likewise, when the Gullet Controllers had carried out Protocol Two Testing, Permission to Take Solids, I was given yoghurts and found I was just about able, by myself, to dig in a spoon and then transfer it to my mouth. The feeding tube, a ghastly uncomfortable thing that had been strapped to my cheek and down my throat for weeks, was withdrawn – a peculiar sensation as the nurses reeled the long, thin pipe out of my stomach via my nostrils, as if hauling in the garden hose. At the time I took little notice of such progression, unimpressed, impatient merely that I was so feeble at simple tasks. As I mocked and fretted, denial built. Only later, wiser and humbler, did I come to understand the extraordinary significance of this hand–mouth coordination, and how lucky I was: so many people with broken necks, several of them in the unit with me, could not do this basic task and were doomed to total dependency in order to survive. Others needed months of hand therapy, and specially adapted implements, to be able to drink by themselves or reach their mouths with food.