Oreo Cookie Balls and Latex Gloves

At the hospital, I did 3 hours of therapy a day – physical, speech, and occupational (which is just doing stuff you used to be able to do, but now you can’t.)

A favorite memory from this period is when I made Oreo cookie balls. It should be said that I did every thing I could to avoid group therapy sessions. I didn’t want to be around the other patients. I’m not proud of this, but I would look at them and think “you poor bastards” – then I would look in the mirror and realize I was one of the poor bastards, too. And it broke my heart.

But one day the OT came and said, “Come on, we’ll make some cookies” and it was close to the holidays so I said, sure. Then we walked into the therapy room and everyone was there. Damn. The very people I had tried to avoid. I remember saying to the therapist, “What fresh hell is this?” She may not have heard me.

At my table was an unresponsive guy, and a guy who understood directions but would always “choose” to do something different. A couple of others. In all, we were not an impressive group. I was not seated at the head table. (Do you see what I did there? A pun on “head”?)

A note here - I worked hard, and the therapists were uniformly delighted with my progress. But I was frightened, deep inside. I wanted to know that when I closed my eyes, they would open again. No one could give me what I wanted. What I wanted was a couple of days off, to go back to my regular life, promising to return to this madness when I felt better.

Instead of being able to give voice to my fears, I did rehab instead. Day after day, practice your skills. You try to come back from wherever you have been. You try to knit yourself back together.

And that is how you find yourself making Oreo cookie balls. You wear latex gloves. You put 4 Oreo cookies and 3 or 4 tablespoons of cream cheese in a sandwich bag. Then you mash up the cookies and the cream cheese to make crumbs, then you roll the crumbs into little balls, then you dip the little balls into melted chocolate, then you sprinkle the balls with holiday sprinkles.

I hated every minute of it. With the kind of unreasoning choler that can only come when you’ve had brain damage.

After this was over, I walked (on the walker) back to my room, Kenny saw the balls, asked me what they were. “You want those?” “Hell, no.” I threw them out.

It went on and on. At some point they came in to have me agree to get blood. I am not enthusiastic about this. I don’t like the idea of getting blood. I’m sure it’s screened and I’m sure I needed it, but the reason WHY I needed the blood was because they had taken so many samples for blood testing that I was anemic. And my right wrist hurt…dozens of little red scars where they had pulled blood samples. But if they give you blood because you are a quart low, then they keep testing the blood, whose blood are they testing?