Jordan and Eric

The next day starts off like any other day at Charlie Gairdner. I would wake up in the morning at around 7 or 7.30 to begin my day by receiving my not so delicious breakfast to be delivered into my room. While waiting for it to come, I turned on the TV to watch the news only to find out that Donald Trump had been elected as president of the United States and was making his way faster into the oval office. I got the notion that I may have slept a little too long while I was in my coma and I have woken up in a dystopic future where the leader of the most powerful country in the world is an orange-haired baboon with a narcissistic personality and a capitalist temperament to disregard important issues such s civil rights and the current environmental crisis we are currently facing. You could say I felt like Rick Grimes from the walking dead when he woke up from a coma only to find out that humanity has gone down the drain and the population had been eradicated by a zombie apocalypse, however, my case was different since there weren't any zombies but rather an increase of human stupidity and the glorification of intellectual retardation.

I felt more like Joe Bowers from the 2006 movie idiocracy where Joe slept into a coma for many decades and woke up only to find out that the human intellect had drastically deteriorated and people perceive stupidity as the norm of society. After realizing this inconvenient analogy to describe what was going on in the world while I was in the hospital, I dreaded what awaits me in the future. Thankfully it started with breakfast as it arrived at my front door. The catering lady dropped it off on the table next to me,  dragged it closer and lift up the lid to see what the menu was. Sadly it was only eggs and some porridge, not the most exciting of all breakfast menus but getting the eggs was something new so I was delighted. I ate them immediately and afterward focused myself on trying to move my paralyzed arm, in hopes of making further improvements. As I was training my arm, I heard a knock on the door. I said," come in" and to my surprise, it was Jordan and Eric that came in, my two best friends from high school. they had come to visit me bearing gifts. I was delighted to see a familiar face in the room and be able to socialize. We chatted for about an hour and a half, discussing my ongoing health dilemma and exchanging questions regarding our area of interests.

I asked them about their studies and they said that things were going peachy and this made me realize that the majority of my friends at Uni have already passed their subject and will be graduating without me. The world outside was moving on without me, I was left crippled in the next coming months. I did feel depressed about this but I told myself to chin up and accept the fact that if shit happens, that means I'm on the right track to success. All I could do was accept my problems and apply a stoic philosophy to view things with positive eyes. One of the positive attributes of being in the hospital was that I got to meet some really beautiful nurses who are taking care of me during my stay, each time they come to take care of me or to talk to me and I would feel like a young lad who was blessed with more than one mother.

Speaking of mothers, a few minutes later Jordan and Eric's mum entered the scenes of my room. She had come all the way from Bali to accompany her boys on their visit to the hospital to visit me and it's mostly because their mother is a close friend of my mum and they were pretty shocked when they heard the news that I was hospitalized and had a craniotomy. I was pretty happy to have a couple of visitors inside my room to talk to me and improved my social life. Therefore it should be reminded to all brain injury patients that being social is good both for the mind and soul as it improves mood and speeds up recovery. If patients can't find someone to socialize with within their close circle of friends, then they should socialize with other patients and with hospital staff. Some of them have interesting stories about themselves and they are worth to be probed into. This is what I exactly did throughout my time at the hospital, asking doctors or nurses on the current condition that I was having and to see whether or not they have current or former patients with the same condition and asking them on some advice on how I can speed up recovery.

At around quarter to noon, I could hear the kitchen staff from the end of the hallway with their trolleys carrying lunch for the patients, it was apparent that I was time for me to grab something to eat. I was happy that food was on its way, hell that was the only thing that I was looking forward to. Eating helped me escape the reality that I was trapped in a hospital with minimal movements on the left half of my body. Jordan, Eric, and their mom heard the sound of incoming lunch trolleys from the hallway and realized it as the time for me to have my lunch, so they decided it was best to end our little chat and leave me in peace with my food. Before they left, they placed a bouquet of flowers with a greeting card that said: "get well soon" on the sink. In all honesty, I don't really need these things but I appreciate their kind gesture of showing their care towards me. Once they left the room, I was alone again with my mother and proceeded with watching the television with her. As I watched the Television she would search up for quizzes and riddles to ask me in order to stimulate my cognitive ability in hopes of speeding up neuroplastic recovery that would help me return to my normal mental state.