And so, how to continue. After waking up on November 9, I spent another week or so lightly sedated, coming in and out, fighting the ventilator, finally getting some movement on the right side. The improvement was up and down, like a whack-a-mole game at the fair. One thing is better, something else happens and gets worse – but gradually, gradually things were on the upswing.

My memories of this time are fragments – snapshots, really, of someone else who was in trouble. I remember Kenny right in my face, telling me how important it was for me to concentrate on “getting well” – whatever that might be.

There was constant encouragement and everyone was universally thrilled when I was able to do something, anything. Pathetically, I retained the idea of being the best patient, ever, who would do more than anyone else and be nicer than anyone else no matter what. And I would have the best manners, with a “please” and “thank you” for everybody. Was that a good thing or not? I’m undecided, even now, because I tried so very hard.

There are some memories – there was a day when I had finally had enough! Attached to every kind of tube and life support, turning red with anger, signaling everybody to GO AWAY! I don’t blame me. I was so tired of it all.

But between my memories and Kenny’s notes, there are some things I’ve pieced together. You don’t want a trach tube that’s too big for your throat. They figured out that might be the cause of some of the coughing and sputtering; it required a surgical switchout.

I remember a swallowing test. They rolled me to an x-ray room, and it was somewhere cold. I was convinced it was in the middle of the night on a Saturday, but it wasn’t. My eyes didn’t work right so I felt blind. Did I sit up in the machine? Surely not, but that’s what I think. Then the attendants gave me something to drink and some kind of radioactive applesauce they watched me swallow on their screens.

This is the kind of procedure that makes you feel you have lost your mind. I’m sure they explained it to me. I’m sure Kenny did. Obviously I have some memory of what I was doing and why. But the sense memory is of being cold, sitting on a box, and swallowing glowing applesauce.