Take me Home

Chapter 37

"Don't you touch this fucking chair. I'm not a fucking cripple." She watched and joyful Jane became jumpy Jane.

"I'm sorry." She whispered as a timid mouse and Jade pushed herself out of the room and Jane didn't follow.

"Jade you finished 15 minutes early." Her father commented when he saw Jade angrily pushing herself out of the room.

"I want a different OT. Preferably someone who doesn't make my ears bleed and someone who isn't so fucking happy all the time it made me want to vomit." Her father said nothing as a timid, shy girl came out of the same room, but she was smiling with a skip in her step. One look at the young OT and Mark knew this was not the OT for Jade.

"We can find someone new." Her father said as he grabbed her handles and pushed her out. Jade didn't mind her father pushing her chair because the truth was,  her arms were so sore she thought they would fall off. Over the months she had lost her upper body strength, and she knew the moment her body was healed she was getting back into the gym.

Her father pushed her 2 levels down where they went to wait to talk to the doctor about the results of the CT she had yesterday.

Jade waited in the same stark white room as she did yesterday, so she closed her eyes for a few minutes of shut-eye. It gave her time to think and rest her mind for just two seconds.

"Jade Jennings." The reception called for and she opened her eyes and nodded towards her father to help push her in.

"Good afternoon Jade. Congratulations on your first therapy appointment." She just shrugged her shoulder. Nothing was accomplished, and she felt even more like a failure than ever and Joyful Jane wasn't any help.

"Can I request a different OT I can't stand the one they have assigned me." The doctor looked at her file and saw who Jade's OT and even he knew that would have been a terrible idea.

"No problem. I have just the person in mind." He grinned to himself because he knew Andrea wasn't going to take any of Jade shit.

"So, your scans are looking good." He pulled out her brain scans and showed them onto the screen.

"This here is still a little swollen, so we will have to keep an eye on it, but otherwise it is looking good. This darker shade is slightly worrying though. This your frontal lobe which controls your emotions and impulses. The darkness is where the trauma has occurred. We expected t to improve from last time you were here, but it hasn't. I see Helen has prescribed you the right medication to help control this through a mood stabiliser. The damage to your temporal lobe is still the same." The doctor pointed to all the area's and Mark was concerned because there was a lot of darker shades on Jade's brain.

"So, what can we do to help?" The doctor looked at Jade's father and smiled.

"At the moment the best thing for Jade is to keep up therapy, monitor her moods and just keep moving about. It's hard to tell if any of this is permanent." The doctor kept talking jargon with her father and her zone out.

"What about my legs?" Jade eventually question, and the doctor sighed.

"I'm not sure Jade. It's hard to tell, the damage to your nerves in your legs was severe. Not only with nerve damage, but your legs are also being held together by a lot of metal pins and rods. Here let me show you." The doctor pulled down the picture of her brain and pulled up an x-ray of her legs and Jade frowned.

Looking at the amount of metal that now lived in her legs was stockily a lot. She didn't realise, just how much of her body was now made of metal.

"I am not sure what happened, but you are very lucky to even have legs, Jade. You had multiple infections throughout your time in a coma and we considered amputation of both legs. It would have been a full leg amputation because there was so much damage. Your body was rejecting the metal and even now there is the worry that your body still might reject it." Jade looked down at her lap and wondered if it would have been better if she lost both her legs.

"However, there is also a chance your body may repair itself, but it is hard to tell because it is such early stages." Jade nodded her head in understanding and tuned out for the rest of the appointment as her father and doctor discussed the next stage in her recovery.

Jade wasn't sure how she felt. She knew she should be happy to be alive, but there was also a part of her that wished she had just died. To avoid all this pain both physical and mental she felt on a day-to-day basis. The guilt that was eating her up inside that she wasn't able to save everyone. She didn't know how anyone else was doing, but she knew 100% with everything in her heart that Taylor was not coming back. That she didn't have a dream that what she saw yesterday was real and it was killing her she couldn't save him. That he felt the need to give up his own life for her's.

"Jade." She hummed and looked towards her father and doctor. "Did you have any other questions, Jade?" She shook her head and her father stood up. And said his thanks and pushed Jade out. She was silent the whole trip back to the car and when her father helped her into the seat, they sat in the car park for some time.

"Jade, you don't have to do this." Her father said, but she needed to do this otherwise the guilt would eat away her insides until there was nothing left.

"I need to please." So, her father agreed and started the car. It was a silent trip but, not uncomfortable, each was lost in their own thought as they drove through Sydney. Traffic wasn't bad, so they arrived a little earlier than Jade intended.

She looked up at the single-story house and wondered if this was the right thing to do. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she saw a man walk out the house Jade nodded towards her father who opened the door and grabbed Jade's chair out. She saw the man stop what he was doing and watched as his face crumpled with loss and grief as she wheeled herself around the side of the car, so he could see who it was.

"Thanks, Dad. I'll call you when I am done." Her father placed a gentle, firm hand on her shoulder as she pushed herself over to the man who was still standing where he was.

"Hello, Mr Taylor. I was wondering if I could speak to you and your wife."