The Bad News?

187.

I am reminded of the secret once again. The answer to how to do anything is found in two embarrassingly simple, but majestically powerful actions. They are:

1) Take the first step.
2) Keep going.

Be it a marathon or election to public office, the actions necessary for achievement are the same. Start and move relentlessly towards the shining light of your goal.

This is not to say that there will be no challenges, setbacks, pitfalls, roadblocks, detours, obstructions, gunshot wounds, temptations, tests or tragedies, but that the committed spirit sees them all as part of the growth process necessary for survival and the eventual success of the primary objective. There will be bad news and occasionally worse news. If it doesn't kill you, you will be stronger for the experience. Yes, there will be the occasional alligator observing your drainage of the swamp, but, and I chuckle at the mixed metaphor, as the Arabs say, "Dogs bark but the caravan moves along.'

Step one accomplished, the decision to get back into the game, I see the gator and hear the hound, as I prepare for the medical prognosis. I need to know the odds. Am I looking at a year of convalescence? Have I suffered injuries that under normal circumstances render patients permanently disabled, handicapped, paralyzed or sentenced to a compromised live of limited mobility and motor function? I am looking for the truth. I can handle it.

Davis and Julie along with the hospital's speech therapist have been assisting with my ability to talk. It has been painful. But progress, the second part of the secret equation, has paid a decent dividend of improvement. I can carry a conversation, slow and meticulous, but successful. Both my partners understand my plight and, as teammates, support my efforts unquestioningly. Today is the first of many big days as I meet with the team of specialists and the showrunner, the lead MD, to discuss the current medical reality and their expert opinion(s) on the prognosis of recovery, full or otherwise. And of course the time it will take to get there.

My concept of the passage of time diminished, it seems like a sudden death enternity
until the staff assembles in my room to address the state of my state. There are four doctors and three of my teammates, Harlan, our lawyer, joining Davis and Julie in attendance. I have been cleaned up, propped up and topped off with the first non-intravenous food in eight months in preparation for the session. I am prepared for a good news - bad news session but concerned about my right arm being the weak link in the food to mouth utility of the fork tool.

The meeting, feeling more like a deposition, begins with the lead doc addressing me by what I assume to be an alias created for security reasons.

"Good afternoon Mr Larsen, you are looking great today, how are you feeling?" he begins.

I make the standard facial so-so gesture indicating that things could always be better and, of course a lot worse.

"At your request we have been asked by your counsel who holds your advance directive, to address your current physical and phycological state of being in order to provide a timeframe for recovery and an, I assume, a return to your former employment, however hazy the exact details of that position may be," he looks at my three colleagues over his glasses and continues, "so as much as I feel that this is premature, given the extent of the injuries sustained by the GSWs, we will provide our analysis and suggestions for the best possible course of action, which of course includes the element of time."

The others silently nod in agreement.

In sinister failure of appropriate bedside manner he nonchalantly flips a page on his clipboard, looks at me, at the half-eaten plate of scrambled eggs, back to me, and asks,

"Which would you like first, the bad news or the bad news?"