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points of my body that hurt most of all. And, afterward, warmth. And relief that it’s over.
    â€œCome back in six weeks,” he says. “If you’re still not responding, we’ll talk about other options.”
    Other options : I have no idea what this means. But whatever these options are, I will take them, I’ll obey, I’ll be the model patient—not like I used to be.
    Home again, I can’t stop thinking about the years leading up to my first medical leave: what I should have done, what I might have done, how I might have prevented all this from happening. If I’d taken a medical leave after my first year at the Peabody Conservatory, if I’d given myself even a month away from the piano, might that have made a difference in my hands? If I’d stopped jogging with friends, would my legs have healed by now? What if, after leaving the Conservatory, I’d gone home to my parents right away instead of staying out east the way I did, working in Connecticut, Florida, Maine, scrambling to make ends meet? What if I hadn’t enrolled at the University of Maine, if I’d let college slide for a while? If I’d seen better doctors when I’d first started to limp? If I’d used my crutches consistently instead of cheating, forgetting to bring them with me, finding reasons to leave them home?
    I think about how there was a time in my life when I believed that having to give up the piano was the worstthing that could ever happen to me. I think about the Conservatory, and my friends there, and the rhythms of my old life. I think about the new life I’d tried to make for myself in Maine. I joined a bird-watchers’ club, but could not keep up on the hikes. I enrolled in an evening dance class, flung myself around, told myself not to be such a baby, nothing could possibly hurt this much. The pain, I told myself, had to be all in my head. I would get on top of it by sheer force of will. Then, one night, I was truly afraid I might not make it home. I stopped to rest on benches, on retaining walls, coaching myself along: three more blocks, c’mon, just a little further .
    The first campus doctor I saw prescribed the same anti-inflammatories that the doctors at the Conservatory had recommended. These anti-inflammatories had given me gas-trointestinal problems when I’d taken them before, but the campus doctor said I’d have to deal with it, it couldn’t be helped. He also prescribed vitamins. I was, he said, “shockingly” weak. How long had it been since I’d stopped exercising? This, he told me sternly, was only making my problems worse. It was important to keep moving, to do low-impact exercises, to swim at the university pool. When he heard that I’d spent my childhood at the piano, the past two years in a conservatory practice room, he’d shaken his head. “We’ve got to get you in shape, young lady,” he said. “Your ankles are so weak that I don’t see how you can stand.”
    He gave me a pair of crutches, demonstrated how he wanted me to use them. The prescription was for three weeks.
    I forced myself to crutch briskly to the end of the block, then sat on the curb, arms and legs burning. It seemed as if a week couldn’t pass without the realization that there was yet another thing I couldn’t do without pain: hurry across the street as the light changed, climb stairs, walk between classes without stopping, keep up taking notes. The anti-inflammatories smoldered in my stomach. Nights, I lay awake thinking, What the hell is the matter with me ? Thinking, I can’t believe this is happening . Thinking, I must be losing my mind .
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    There is a period of time, after someone falls ill, when the world is acutely sympathetic. Friends visit, acquaintances phone; co-workers not only offer to help, but sometimes, they actually do. People collect anecdotes about others who have overcome illness and misfortune