Kevin
“Wow, you just can’t catch a break with these caregivers, huh?” Sam said sympathetically the next morning when I filled her in on what had happened with Greg.
“Apparently not,” I said with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling as I lay on my back in bed. “You’re the only one who hasn’t flaked out on me or stolen from me, so thanks for that.”
She let out a dry laugh. “Wow, that’s a pretty low standard to live up to. You’re welcome?” She disconnected my night bag and walked into the bathroom to empty it. When she came back, she said, “So, what was Greg’s deal, anyway? Is he a drug addict? Or a dealer? Or do you think he was just after money?”
I had been asking myself these same questions since the day before as I debated over what to do. I knew I should probably call Greg and have this conversation with him, but I still felt so hurt by his betrayal, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to confront him directly. Of course, he also could have called me to apologize and attempt to explain his actions. He hadn’t done that either.
“I have no idea,” I said, shaking my head. “I thought I paid him pretty well…”
“No complaints here,” Sam replied, smiling at me. “Where did he work before?”
“UCLA.” I had spent part of the previous afternoon going through Greg’s paperwork from the pile of caregiver applications my mom had carefully filed away for me. I had pored over his resume, paying attention to his past job experience. I called every place he had worked and spoke with someone from the human resources department, trying to find out if he had ever been fired for stealing before, but they would only confirm the dates he had been employed there.
“The hospital?” Sam raised her eyebrows. “What department?”
“Neurosurgery. He was a nurse there.”
“Hm… I’m in my neurology block now; one of my professors is a practicing surgeon in that same department,” she replied, pulling my boxer briefs down over my hips. “I’ll have to ask her if she knows him.”
“Would you? That’d be great.” I paused as she rolled me over to reach the back side. “I guess it doesn’t really matter now, but I wanna know if he’s done something like this before. I mean, he had good references… I just don’t get it.”
Sam finished removing my underwear, sliding the stretchy fabric down to my ankles and lifting my feet to ease them through the leg openings. “I’ll do some digging and see what I can find out,” she offered with a wink, ducking into the closet to toss my dirty shorts into the hamper.
“Thanks, Sam,” I said when she came back over to the bed. “You’re the best.”
She smiled, her brown eyes twinkling. “Maybe you should have just hired me from the beginning, huh?”
I smiled sheepishly back at her. “My mom said the same thing. She wanted me to hire you then, but I didn’t want a woman doing all this,” I admitted, watching as Sam set up the supplies to change my catheter. “I don’t mean to sound misogynistic; it wasn’t that at all. It was more of a… modesty thing, I guess.”
“I get it,” she said, nodding. “You wanted someone with the same anatomy as you.”
“Yeah,” I replied with relief, glad she understood. “We actually didn’t even realize you were a woman when we set up your interview. We saw the name ‘Sam’ and assumed-”
“-that I was a guy.” Sam smirked. “Yeah, I get that a lot. It’s my own fault for not using my full name on applications, but if I’m being honest, I do it on purpose. I kinda like having a gender-neutral nickname. It takes away some of the bias associated with being a Latina woman, you know? I want to be judged based on my qualifications and personality, not my name, gender, or ethnicity.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. I obviously don’t mind now. You’re doing a great job.”
“Thanks.” She smiled, snapping on a pair of surgical gloves. “So, what are you going to do on weekdays?” she asked as she went to work. “Do you have another caregiver lined up yet?”
“No,” I said with a sigh. “I asked around at the rehab center yesterday, and they hooked me up with a home healthcare agency I can call, but I was hoping to avoid going that route. I just want someone consistent who I can trust, you know? Not a bunch of different caregivers coming and going all the time.”
Sam nodded. “Totally understandable. That’s why my parents did most of the caregiving for my brother themselves. They didn’t want to deal with the home care aides either.”
“See, I think I’d rather have it be someone who’s not related to me, though,” I replied. “It’s less awkward that way. My mom wanted me to move in with her so she could take care of me, but I told her no. I didn’t wanna put that burden on her.”
“It’s not a burden when it’s somebody you love,” Sam said softly.
“Yeah… Nick offered to help until I hire someone else, but I dunno…” I shook my head. “He’s like my little brother… and he’s handled all of this with more maturity than I expected out of him, to be honest… but it’s still a lot…”
“It is at first,” Sam agreed, a frown of concentration appearing on her face as she leaned over my lower half, “but you get used to it.”
I couldn’t really see or feel what she was doing down there, but I felt a sudden rush of heat, almost like a hot flash, which meant my autonomic dysreflexia was kicking in. My face felt like it was on fire. Sweat broke out on my forehead as my blood pressure skyrocketed, my paralyzed body reacting to the discomfort far below my level of injury. I lay back against my pillow and took deep breaths, trying to relax and keep my blood pressure from climbing too high while I waited for Sam to finish and the unpleasant feeling to pass.
“All done!” she announced a few minutes later, dropping the used catheter into the trash can I kept beside the bed. She stripped off her gloves and tossed them in, too. “Time to shower.” Taking hold of my arms, she pulled me into a sitting position.
I sat up with relief and waited for my legs to stop spasming so I could transfer to my shower chair. My body was racked with chills, which always replaced the hot flashes as my AD went away. I felt freezing cold and couldn’t wait to get under the warm water.
I was glad it was a short day, in terms of my morning routine. It took a lot longer to get ready on days when I had to do my bowel program on top of everything else. I was already dreading Tuesday, which would be the first long day without a hired caregiver around to help.
“Do you think you could talk Nick through my program tomorrow?” I asked Sam as she pushed me into the bathroom. “If I don’t have someone else by Tuesday, he’s gonna have to do it himself, and I don’t think he really knows what he’s getting himself into.”
“Of course.” She parked me outside the shower and reached in to turn on the water. “But, actually, I was thinking… I could also take on some more hours if you want my help on weekdays.”
“Really?” I said hopefully. “It wouldn’t interfere with your school schedule?”
“Well, that’s the thing – I can’t come every day,” she added quickly. “Mondays and Fridays, I have class at eight a.m., so that won’t work unless you want to wake up at the crack of dawn. But the other days, I don’t start until ten, so as long as I could be done here by nine-thirty at the latest, I’d still have time to get over to campus. It’s not too far from here.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you saying you’d be willing to work every day except Monday and Friday?”
“Sure,” she replied with a shrug. “Why not? It’s a five-day work week… just divided a little differently. And it’s only a couple hours a day – not a big time commitment. I could always use the extra money. Med school’s expensive, you know?”
“I’ll give you a raise,” I vowed right away. “Hell, I’ll pay you whatever you want. You’re a godsend, Sam.”
She laughed as she stuck her hand under the stream of water. “I’m happy to help. I’ve always been a morning person, anyway.”
“Not me,” I said with a sigh as she wheeled me into the shower. The hot water felt like heaven. “I love sleeping in. But Mason wakes up with the sun, so whatever time works best for you to come over on weekdays will work for me, too.” I tipped my head back, letting it wet my hair. “I’m sure Nick’ll be happy to hear he’s off the hook for some of those days.”
“We’ll still have to teach him how to do your bowel program, though. Some weeks it’ll fall on Monday and Friday when I’m not here to help,” Sam pointed out, squirting shampoo onto the crown of my head.
I groaned. “Yeah, I guess you should go ahead and show him tomorrow. Then he’ll have time to back out before I need him to do it next week.” Leaning forward, I reached up to rub the shampoo into my hair with my fists. “I could deal with the home healthcare people coming two days a week if I had to.”
“Aww… have a little faith in Nick,” Sam said as she washed my back. “He’s been a good friend to you. He’ll be fine.”
I smirked, using my knuckles to work the shampoo into my scalp. “Yeah… we’ll see…”
***
The next morning, Nick followed Sam upstairs to my room.
“You ready for this, Nick?” I asked him as Sam went into the bathroom to get my medication.
“Sure,” he replied with a shrug. “I told you, bro, I’m willing to do whatever needs to be done.”
Yeah, you say that now, I thought skeptically. Just wait. But I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Nick stood back and watched while Sam did the first few steps in my daily routine: doling out my meds, stretching my legs, emptying my night bag, and stripping off the underwear I had slept in.
“And now, we begin the bowel program,” she said with a little flourish, as if she was announcing some sort of performance. In a way, I guess she was; I certainly felt like the spotlight was on me as I lay naked under the thin towel she had draped over my waist to give me some illusion of privacy. So far, it was nothing Nick hadn’t seen before, but I still felt exposed and embarrassed.
“We always start on the bed, then work our way to the toilet. You want Kevin to be lying on his side like he is now, with the bottom knee straight and the top knee bent,” Sam explained as she pulled my legs into the proper position. “Which side doesn’t really matter for this part; it depends on which side of the bed you want to stand on. I’m right-handed, so I find it easier to have him lie on his left side. Are you right-handed, too?”
“Yeah,” said Nick, raising his right hand and flexing his fingers.
Glancing back at him, Sam suddenly gasped. “What happened to your hand?!”
“Oh…” Nick’s gaze fell to the bruises on the back of his hand. “Uh, this is from hitting Greg in the face.”
“Oh my god! Let me look at it…” She took his hand and held it in hers, gently running her fingertips over his swollen knuckles. “Did you get an X-ray?”
Nick scowled. “No. Why, you think it’s broken?”
“I don’t feel anything out of place, but it’s hard to tell with all the swelling,” Sam said, frowning. “You could have a fractured metacarpal. You really should have it X-rayed. Does it hurt?”
He shrugged. “Not too bad.”
“Well, if it doesn’t get better in the next few days, go to the doctor, okay?”
“Will do, Dr. Torres.” He smirked at her.
I cleared my throat. “If you two are done with your orthopedic consultation, do you mind if we get this show on the road? I’m gettin’ kinda cold without any clothes on.”
“Sorry!” Sam gave me a sheepish grin. “Here…” She handed Nick the box of surgical gloves. “Put on a pair, and I’ll show you how to insert the suppository.”
I glanced up just in time to see the first look of horror flicker across his face. “Wait, what?” I probably should have warned him first, but I couldn’t bring myself to explain exactly how my bowel program worked.
Sam bit down on her bottom lip like she was fighting the urge to laugh. It would have been funny to me, too, if I wasn’t the one lying bare-ass naked on the bed, waiting for said suppository to be inserted. But she quickly composed herself and explained with more maturity than I could have, “It helps stimulate his bowels to move so he can go to the bathroom, since he can’t control those muscles to make himself go.”
“Oh,” said Nick, nodding. He put on a brave face, trying to pretend he wasn’t totally disgusted by this, but I could tell he was. He’s a terrible actor.
“Nick, man, you don’t have to help me with this,” I told him. “I know it’s gross. I can get someone else to do it.”
“N-no, it’s okay, Kev,” he stammered, squaring his jaw. “I can do it.”
Maybe he saw it as a sort of dare – a way to one-up AJ, who couldn’t even deal with a dirty diaper. Meanwhile, Nick was never one to turn down a challenge.
“C’mon,” said Sam, putting her hand on his shoulder and steering him around to the other side of the bed, so they were standing behind me. “You always want to put an absorbent pad under his butt to protect the bed, just in case. Then you take your lube…”
I couldn’t help but cringe as I lay there and listened to her talk through the process, remembering how horrifying it had sounded the first time I’d heard it in the hospital after my accident. It had become a normal part of my routine since then, but that didn’t make it any less awkward. “Don’t worry… I can’t feel anything down there, remember?” I tried to reassure Nick. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“Thank god,” I heard him mutter.
“Gives new meaning to the name ‘Backdoor Boys,’ huh?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood. Nick laughed, which made me feel a little better.
“Oh my god, you guys,” Sam giggled as they finished. “Okay… gloves off. Everything goes in the trash. Then we wash our hands.” She and Nick went into the bathroom. Sam came back first, wheeling my commode chair. Nick followed, carefully avoiding eye contact with me. His face was as red as a tomato.
My own face felt flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and autonomic dysreflexia, which Sam must have noticed right away. “Inserting the suppository doesn’t cause any physical pain Kevin can feel, but it does tend to trigger his AD,” she explained to Nick. “See how he’s starting to perspire?” She brushed the hair back off my sweaty forehead. “So now, we need to sit him up and help him transfer to the commode. Being in an upright position will bring his BP back down.”
“AD?” asked Nick blankly, a beat behind.
“Autonomic dysreflexia,” I said. “It’s when my blood pressure rises because of-”
“Oh, right, right… I remember now,” he interrupted me. “I just didn’t recognize the letters. I think Greg may have mentioned something about that the other day… before I punched him in the face, I mean.”
I caught Sam’s eye as she helped me sit up on the side of the bed. She just shook her head, grinning. “Anyway, as long as it goes away after we finish his program, it’s fine.”
Nick nodded. “Makes sense. Sometimes I break a sweat trying to drop a deuce, too.”
Sam raised an eyebrow, but chose to ignore this comment. “If it doesn’t, that’s a different story,” she continued seriously. “It could be a sign of a bigger problem, like a pressure injury or an infection. If you ever can’t find what’s causing the discomfort and fix it, one of you needs to call his doctor right away or take him straight to the ER so they can figure it out.”
His eyes widened as he nodded again, seeming to absorb every word now.
With Sam’s help, I transferred onto my commode chair. She fastened the seat belt around my waist to keep me from falling out of it and folded the towel over my lap to cover me. Then she pushed me into the bathroom and positioned me over the toilet. She handed me my cell phone, which helped to pass the time, then turned to Nick. “Now we wait for the suppository to work its magic,” she said with a wry smile. “This is when I like to go downstairs and grab a cup of coffee ‘cause it can take a while – usually fifteen to twenty minutes. If nothing happens in that time frame, it means we need to try another tactic: digital stimulation.”
“Digital stimulation?” Nick’s brow furrowed for a second before his eyes dropped to the phone in my hand. “What, do you have to, like, watch videos for… inspiration… or something?” he asked me.
It took me a moment to make the connection. “You mean, like, porn? Poop porn?” I caught Sam’s eye, and we both burst out laughing. I felt bad, but I couldn’t help it. It was hilarious. “No, Nick… it’s not like giving a sperm sample.”
A faint blush rose in his cheeks as he realized he must have misunderstood. His face was going to fry when he found out what it really meant.
“‘Digital’ as in ‘with your digits.’” Sam paused, waiting to see if he would catch on. When he continued to look confused, she added gently, “Fingers.”
I watched Nick’s face turn from red to white as it dawned on him. “Do you mean… stick my finger up his butt?” he asked faintly, his eyes wide with fresh horror.
“Basically.” Sam offered an apologetic shrug. “Gross as it may sound, sometimes it’s the only way to get things moving.”
“What?! No… no way,” said Nick, shaking his head. “That cannot be a real thing. You guys are just messing with me… right?” His eyes darted desperately from Sam to me. I stared down at the floor in front of me, wishing I could sink right through it. I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle this part.
“No, she’s for real,” I replied, finally forcing myself to meet his eye. “I’m sorry, Nick… I should’ve been more upfront about what exactly this entailed. You don’t have to do it.”
He took a step backward. “I… I just need a minute,” he muttered before ducking out the bathroom door.
“Take twenty!” Sam called after him as he hurried out of the room. Then she turned to me. “Wanna take bets on whether or not he comes back up here?”
I snorted and shook my head. “Why the hell would he? I should have warned him…”
She laughed. “Yeah, probably. You were right – he had no idea what he was getting himself into. Poor guy. Like you said, it’s a lot to take in.”
“No shit,” I said with a sigh. “No pun intended.”
Sam put her hand on my shoulder, her lips curving into a sympathetic smile. “At least he showed a willingness to learn, which means his heart’s in the right place. Give him some time. He may surprise you.”
“Nick does have a good heart,” I agreed, nodding. “But I don’t expect him to be a saint. You… you are a saint for doing this.”
“I get paid,” she reminded me with a wink. “But, in all seriousness, I don’t know that I would ever have applied for a position like this if it hadn’t been for my brother. Helping someone else with a spinal cord injury is my way of honoring him – sort of like paying it forward, you know?”
I appreciated her honesty. “That’s admirable,” I said. “Sometimes I wonder, if this had happened to one of the other guys instead, would I have stepped up to help out the way Nick and AJ have helped me? I’d like to say yes, of course I would. But the truth is, I don’t know. Because, yeah, it is a lot. They both put their lives on hold to be here for me and Mason, and they don’t even get paid for all they do – not just caregiving, but babysitting… housekeeping… cooking… chauffeuring…” I shook my head as it hit me just how much Nick and AJ had sacrificed to help me with the transition home… and just how much I had come to depend on them. “I honestly don’t know what I’m gonna do when they go back on tour this summer. Hire more help, I guess.”
“You’re lucky to have such a good support system. They won’t leave you hanging.” She smiled and patted my shoulder again. “Listen, I’m gonna go get that cup of coffee, okay? I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.”
I nodded, forcing a smile back. “I’ll be right here.”
True to her word, Sam returned about ten minutes later. To my surprise, Nick walked in with her. “We can’t ever tell AJ about this, okay?” he blurted as he grabbed the box of gloves out of the supply bin and tugged one onto his hand. “He would never let me live it down. What happens in the bathroom stays in the bathroom. Got it?”
I looked up at him in surprise, wondering what Sam had said to him. “Why the hell would I wanna tell AJ? I didn’t even wanna tell you.”
Nick snorted. “Yeah… now I know why.” He paused, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Kev. I’m sorry you have to go through this. I had no idea. God… I’ll never take the ability to take a shit for granted again.”
“It’s okay, Nick,” I said, swallowing hard. “First of all, none of this is your fault. And second, like Sam said yesterday, it’s a lot at first, but then you get used to it. At least, I have. This is just another part of my life now. As much as I hate the expression, it’s my ‘new normal,’ and I’ve learned to deal with it. But I don’t expect you to-”
“Bro,” he interjected, holding up his gloved hand. “Look who you’re talking to here. I’m the guy who took a shit in a sock, remember?”
“What?!” cried Sam, her head whipping toward him.
“I can handle shit. And if you can deal with this shit,” Nick continued, picking up the tube of lubricant, “then so can I.” He turned to Sam, who was still staring wide-eyed at him. “Let’s fuckin’ do this.”
I cleared my throat. “I appreciate that, Nick, but you don’t need to do anything.”
“I know I don’t need to, but I… well, okay, I don’t want to either, but I’m going to,” he replied firmly. “What are friends for, right? If our roles were reversed, I’m sure you would stick your finger up my asshole to help me take a shit, too.”
I was not sure about that at all, but I didn’t tell him that. It was beside the point. “No, really, Nick. You don’t need to do that,” I repeated. “The suppository did the trick.”
His eyebrows rose, changing his entire expression. “Really?” he said hopefully, the forced bravado fading from his voice. “Oh, thank god.”
I laughed as he sagged to the floor in relief. “Yeah… it’s all good, brother. But thanks anyway.” I paused, remembering what Sam had said about him earlier. “I really appreciate your willingness to learn. You have a good heart, Nick.”
As he responded with a crooked grin, I glanced over at Sam to find her frowning at Nick.
“Wait a second,” she said slowly, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses as she held up her hand. “Can we go back to the part about you taking a shit in a sock??”
***