Hospital Diaries Pt. I
The month I stopped moving, literally.
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I haven’t left this hospital, or even felt the air through an open window, in 25 days. Through double-paned glass, I watch muted assembly lines of cars roll down the street like I’m watching a game of Frogger. As quickly as they emerge, they disappear behind ominous condos, each displaying a grid of windows and balconies offering glimpses into private worlds.
I feel like James Stewart in Rear Window—observing people outside for daily entertainment. A woman in the corner suite on the third floor of one building vacuums. A man two balconies above her is in his own imaginary (or virtual?) kickboxing class, punching the air in a repetitive sequence.
At ground level, a cyclist zips by a jogger making their way down the block. I close my eyes and try to imagine the crisp fall air (or winter air—how cold is it outside?) hitting the back of my throat upon each inhale, but I already forget the sensation. I took each outdoor breath for granted.
I had a bone density test a couple weeks ago, it was thrilling to leave the ward, if only to venture one floor below. I was brought downstairs by wheelchair. It was my first time seeing the world from four feet above ground. What I noticed most from this new vantage point was the feeling of being pushed by someone else, how it shaped my sense of movement and autonomy. Growing up with a disabled mother, I’ve always been on the other side of the chair; the one doing the pushing. I noticed the nurse’s pace, the way they slowed down to brace for bumps or sharp turns.
When I was a preteen, mom and I used to take trips to our local suburban mall. It was a big outing, we had to book the Handi-Bus weeks in advance. But once there, we were freed from our sometimes-troubled home. We torpedoed past the storefronts, weaving in and out of crowds. The wheelchair became an extension of my limbs; her eyes, mine; we became one. I pumped my little legs as fast as I could, to make up for her paralyzed one. She always reminded me to fasten her seatbelt, nervous she’d go flying out of the chair if I made a sudden stop. Maybe racing her around the mall was more for me than her. I wanted her to feel the sensation of movement.
Now, I’m forced to stay still, literally. Every day, I fill out an activity log, documenting every movement I make. This feels like a strange return, yet also a full 360, from my childhood. In the beginning stages of rehabilitation following my mom’s brain injury, movement was the goal; the twitch of a single toe would be recorded as a victory. Any tiny movement suggested the return of feeling, of literal sensation, which ultimately meant freedom.
“Can’t I just stretch?” I ask the nurses here. “Try stretching your mind,” they say. I think of my mom stretching her mind in physiotherapy; how her brain would tell her left arm to lift but the signals would misfire and her left hand would clench instead.
Witnessing my mom’s struggle to regain what she had lost was when I started to associate lack of movement with limitation, with missed opportunities, with muted sensation. Mom stretched her brain so hard that she eventually did regain some movement—she managed to walk with a cane, despite doctor’s predictions that she would be wheelchair-bound for life.
But still, the physical world became an obstacle course; her physical ability defined her sense of self-worth, set the limits of what she could experience. Ever since, I’ve been restless, always afraid I might face another unexpected loss, like she did, and so I fell in love with moving, to not take my physical ability for granted.
What do we lose when we can’t move? And what do we discover when we sit still?
Part two of my hospital diaries, next week (or sooner? I have no sense of time).
Best,
Anna
Reading 📖
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh feels timely, not just because of my current sedentary existence, but for those on the outside too, as Toronto goes back into lockdown.
Following the death of both parents, the protagonist creates her own DIY wellness plan: a year-long, self-induced chemical hibernation. As someone who has a hard time resting, her passion for sleep (which she eloquently describes as “velvet blackness”) is just the logic I need to hear.
Repulsion, particularly the protagonist’s disgust towards herself, is the recurring theme, giving the book a banal air that still feels relatable even 20 years following its 2001 setting.
I regret that I’ve read most of this book semi-sedated (ironically many of the pills she consumes are the ones I’m taking here). But where she uses them to forget her life, I use them to forget each day 🙊.
“Coming out of sleep was excruciating. My entire life flashed before my eyes in the worst way possible, my mind refilling itself with all my memories, every little thing that had brought me to where I was. I’d try to remember something else—a better version, a happy story, maybe, or just an equally lame but different life that would at least be refreshing in its digressions—but it never worked. I was always still me.”
Articles:
🏠 One COVID-19 rule to remember this winter: don’t be indoors with people outside your household.
🚶♀️ And why moving your body will be important for your mental health this winter (do it to feel better, not to look better).
🤝Have you heard of micro-progressions?
“Contrary to microaggressions, which are small but hurtful and accumulative comments or actions that show insensitivity toward persons who are not in the ‘white privilege camp,’ micro-progressions are small actions that communicate respect.”
📺 Is ambient T.V. becoming the new prestige T.V.?
“The current flow of ambient television provides a numbing backdrop to the rest of our digital consumption: feeds of fragmented text, imagery, and video algorithmically sorted to be as provocative as possible. Ambience offers the increasingly rare possibility of disengagement while still staring at a screen…you don’t have to pay attention to in order to enjoy but [it’s] still seductive enough to be compelling if you choose to do so momentarily.”
🍟Maybe it’s time we consider the roots of the “war on obesity.”
“It wasn’t just that I shouldn’t eat them; it was that they were sinful, bad, tempting [foods],” says Audrey Gordon. “My life was filled with self-flagellation, forced performances to display my commitment to changing an unacceptable body.”
👩❤️👩Kelly Dawson writes what it’s like becoming friends with a non-disabled person.
“The best question any non-disabled person has ever said to me about my disability: ‘How can I help you do what you’re already doing?’”
🍂 What do American Thanksgiving, Martha Stewart, the Gilmore Girls, and pumpkin spice have in common? They’ve all contributed to the whitewashing and commodification of fall; “tightening the connection between the modern white woman and romantic nostalgia for agrarian life.”
🤳How we consume media is not unlike how we consume food.
“Food companies are as good at selling food as they are at selling content. I’d call much of what’s available to readers on social media and in lifestyle food media ‘ultra-processed’.”
🐈 And for my fellow cat-lovers: yes, there is an app that translates your cat’s meow into human words.
Watching 📺
It’s been weeks since I’ve watched a full T.V. episode or movie. I need to be in a comfy setting to watch something through, and I still don’t feel settled here, because, well, I find a sense of security in knowing I can pack up and leave at any moment.
Instead I’ve been journalling and reading (and learning to knit!). It’s been a refreshing screen cleanse. It may sound masochistic but I find it hard to sit through an entire show or movie without getting restless, or giving in to the urge to be “productive.”
Email me your suggestions! I need to learn to rest, and an engrossing show might just do the trick.
Listening 🎧
What would society look like if people with mental disabilities were seen for the unique strengths they offer, rather than their challenges? When and why did something like homosexuality, for example, stop being considered a pathology (I.e. removed from the DSM) and considered “normal”?
I came to this podcast, Critical Nonsense, while researching for my previous newsletter on blands and ended up loving it for the discussion on mental illness instead. They highlight our cultural obsession with “normalcy” and and call for the embrace of neurological diversity.
“Thinking about how to unlock the potential of the people around us, is like trying to figure out how to mass program people to pay attention to certain things because our orientation [right now] is toward looking at normal. In so doing, there’s a voluntary vs. involuntary redistribution of that line [of normalcy]. Did the people that were not normal say they want it to move or did the mass gaze say that’s how it’s defined? Is it legal bodies, medical bodies, strictures in society that are drawing the line [of normalcy]?”
Wishing you a speedy recovery. thinking of you x I just watched Queens Gambit on netflix and loved it!
Your Uncle and I wish you good health soon Anna.