I was hanging out in the dining room of Side By Side Assisted Living which had been my new home for several days now since I moved out of that awful nursing home that I referred to only half-jokingly as Hell-Crest Commons. Although I’d only been at Side By Side a few days I’d already commandeered myself my only little spot by the fake fireplace that actually emanated heat. It was the perfect spot for finishing up finals for my BA in Writing from Elms College.
Everyone else was eating dinner, but because I have gastroparesis and global dysmotility I am unable to eat by mouth and instead am fed via a tube that goes through a hole in my abdominal wall into the middle part of my intestines called my Jejunum. Because my intestines are affected as well I have to run my tube feed at a really low rate and so it’s a constant fight to maintain my body weight, but I also get IV fluids with sugar, potassium, and salt in them as well and those run in by a pump all day long.
After dinner when John and Jeff came by to meet up with me around 6:30 PM. John was a tall and large ex-military guy who was in charge of the computer systems at Side By Side, and Jeff was the funniest, sweetest, and smartest man I had ever met and I was completely in love with him. The two of them were going to come over to my apartment to fix my internet and spruce up my laptop.
The first night Jeff and John came over, everything went smoother than silk.
“Are you ready to go to your place soon?” John asked me.
“My aide will be here at 7 and then we can go over there. There are four steps into my apartment and I can’t do steps, so my aide has to carry me up the steps every night to get me inside.” I explained.
“Can you walk at all?” Jeff asked, but he didn’t ask like I was messed up for not being able to walk, or abnormal, or not trying enough, he just asked with pure curiosity and an almost childlike innocence.
“I can take a few steps on a flat surface, with a walker, but that’s about it,” I explained, and then explained my disease to him a little bit. He listened intently drinking everything in like I was spewing God’s words out of my mouth.
“Wow, and I thought I had it bad,” he shook his head. “I can’t imagine not being able to walk or eat. I think I’d go nuts.”
“You learn to adapt,” I explained.
He just shook his head again.
“I don’t think I’d be able to handle it either,” agreed John. “I like food too much.”
When Lesley showed up I introduced her to John and Jeff and explained to her how they were going to fix the internet connection in the apartment while she got my meds ready. Then she grabbed my wheelchair and the four of us headed out of the building and down the hill toward my apartment.
Once we got out of the main building Jeff pointed to the house that was on the far right.
“That’s my house,” he showed us. “I’m on the second floor. I have the whole second floor to myself. Eve even gave me my own desktop and printer, she gives me whatever I want, I have her wrapped around my pinkie finger. All I have to do is move some boxes around for her every once in a while and she pays me $20 for it. She’s awesome.”
Eve was the owner of Side By Side, her office was on the first floor of the main building. She never really showed much positive interest in me, but apparently, she loved Jeff. For a second I was worried that she was my competition, but then Jeff started talking about her husband Dave and I was reassured.
“They were both police officers in New York City,” Jeff was saying. “They were involved in 9/11 and it totally traumatized them, after that they left the police force to stay at their summer homes, which is here in the Berkshires and they got more involved with Side By Side. Never bring up 9/11 or the police office thing to either of them though, it upsets them too much.”
Jeff seemed to have his finger on the pulse of everything going on everywhere. That has always amazed me about Jeff.
Once we were in the apartment Lesley got to work on prepping my meds and John and Jeff grabbed my laptop and phone out of my bed and went to the modem to start checking things out. I wheeled over there to chill out with Jeff for as long as possible, they were so focused though that they barely noticed I was there, and then Lesley needed me because she had to give me my meds and everything so I had to go back over to my bed and transfer into bed.
Once Lesley was done doing my whole nighttime routine we checked in with the guys who were at the other end of the room hunched over the modem and the laptop.
“How’s it coming guys?” Lesley asked them.
“Well, I sort of have an idea of what the issue might be,” John said, but I’m going to have to come back tomorrow or another day to finish fixing it.”
“Well, I think we have to call it a night anyway,” Lesley told them, “My time is up, and Becca just got a bunch of really sedating medications, including Trazadone which is a med that’s supposed to help her sleep, so we should go home and let her sleep. That’s the best thing we can do for her tonight. She can use the internet at the main building tomorrow morning and we have tomorrow and the next day and the next and the next…. To fix her internet here.”
“All right,” Jeff agreed.
“See you in the morning,” John said.
“Have a good night,” Jeff told me.
“Sweet dreams,” said Lesley.
After everyone had left I kept sniffing the air because I could smell Jeff in the air. Jeff had been in my house. Jeff was interested in being my friend. Jeff and I had had some good conversations. This was beyond my wildest dreams. I was friends with the hunkiest, cutest, sexiest man I had ever come across and he was funny, kind, caring, smart, and creative too. Part of me dared to wonder if we could ever be more than just friends, but I knew that would be asking a whole lot considering the condition that I was in.