ng me into the chair. Getting out of the chair and back into bed proved more difficult, but I soon developed a method of grabbing the sheets with one hand and the traction bar with the other. I wouldn’t win any gymnastics competitions, but it worked. I often wondered what the nurses and therapists would have done if they’d seen me struggling on my own.
Once sure I could return myself to the bed from the wheelchair, I began to tackle a walker that had been left in my room by a former hospital roommate. If the nurses noticed that the wheelchair and walker were not where they had left them, they weren’t saying anything. I wondered if a conspiracy of silence had developed: I wouldn’t say anything about my secret therapy sessions, and they kept quiet as well.