My Life, Deleted Read Online Free PDF Page A

room.”
    She told the staff she was spending the night, so they brought in a foldout chair that flattened into a bed, which they positioned in the small space between my bed and the wall, which had a tiny bathroom on the other side of it.
    I still didn’t understand who she was to me and why she cared so much for me, but if I felt alone with her there, I didn’t even want to imagine what it would feel like with her gone.
    I got little sleep that night because the nurses came in every two to four hours to shine lights into my eyes and check my pupils, ask for my name and birth date, and have me do the push-pull tests. Every time one of them woke me, Joan got up too, asking them more questions, fluffing my pillow, and putting cool washcloths on my forehead.
    I was still throwing up, so Joan asked the nurse to try switching my nausea medications. She did this assertively but without angering them, and the new meds finally quieted my stomach. It was reassuring to have someone so medically informed to advocate for my needs.
    As morning approached Joan ordered breakfast for both of us—scrambled eggs and oatmeal for me, something my stomach would accept.
    â€œThat should be easy for you to swallow,” she said.
    Before breakfast we tried to formulate the questions we were going to ask Dr. Walker. Joan was growing increasingly concerned about the severity of my incessant pain and my profound memory loss, which only served to heighten my own anxiety.
    When Dr. Walker asked how I was doing, I told him my headaches were still unbearable. He asked me the same list of questions, and I was still giving him Joan’s birthday.
    â€œI know that’s not it, but that’s the only one I know,” I told him.
    When he asked me who the president was, I thought I knew the answer this time.
    â€œBarack,” I said.
    â€œThat’s his first name. It’s Barack Obama,” he said. “You’re getting closer.”
    He also asked me for the date and day of the week and the name of the hospital. I was still getting those answers wrong, but after he left I noticed that the nurses had written the date and day of the week on the whiteboard across from my bed. So when Dr. Goodell asked me those questions later that morning, I looked at the board and was able to give him the correct answers. I don’t think I was really fooling anyone, but at the time I thought I was outsmarting everyone.
    After Joan reiterated her concerns about the memory gaps, Goodell tried to reassure her that my confusion would likely resolve in a few days to a week. However, he finally agreed to order an MRI to see if they could find something that wouldn’t show up on the CT scan.
    Not wanting to leave me alone, Joan stayed while we waited for the test, describing past events and sharing more of our family history. Still on the morphine drip, I listened as best I could, but I kept fading in and out as she talked, so she waited patiently until I came to before starting up again.
    She told me, for example, that when we met at Northern Illinois University, she was on the gymnastics team and I was on the football team. I’d gone on to play professional football in the NFL for the New England Patriots and Cleveland Browns. None of this meant anything to me; I just nodded and tried to take it all in.
    The television was always on, so we often took breaks from the conversation to watch the shows I used to like. As she was flipping around on the remote, she found a Blue Angels flyover on one of the education channels. I was intrigued by the way the planes flew so close together in a V formation, spinning around without crashing into each other.
    â€œThat would be a cool job, to be a pilot,” I said.
    â€œYou are one,” Joan said.
    â€œI am?” I asked. “I don’t remember that.” Tears welled up in my eyes as the magnitude of this hit me. I not only didn’t recall the little things, I