SUZIE WANTS MAKEUP!

If you haven’t visited Suzie yet, now is the time.

Her progress after two days of physical, occupational and speech therapy is truly inspiring.

When Mia Pinto and I visited on Monday, Suzie’s nurse Clare told us that she had started speaking – calling the nurses by name and thanking them. She wasn’t able to -- or didn’t chose to -- speak to Mia or me on Monday. But today she was talking up a storm.

Danusia arrived first, just after 12, with flowers. I arrived about ten minutes later. As I walked the corridor toward Suzie’s room I heard her voice strong and clear, all the way down the hallway. It was a great surprise.

If you’ve known anyone who has suffered a debilitating stroke, you know the process of re-learning can be extremely frustrating. And Suzie is clearly frustrated. I suspect that what she is thinking in her head is not matching what comes out of her mouth. And her frustration often results in crying, or growling with anger, or lowering her head to compose her thoughts.

Or cursing. There was a lot of cursing today. At one point she just yelled “Fuck!” And then variations on it, i.e. “fuck it” and “fuck this” and “fuck you.”

So, if you visit and she tells you to fuck off, don’t take it personally.

But she is speaking, saying words, phrases, the beginnings of sentences. That is huge, and bodes extremely well for the future. She is determined to communicate. And she wants to ask questions.

Suzie said to me, “Forget. Did you forget?”

“Did I forget you?” I said. “Of course not.”

“Did you forget,” she repeated. “When you had an…”

The word she said next sounded like aneurysm. When I visited on Monday I had told Suzie that I had an aneurysm too, back in 1997. Unlike Suzie’s, mine was discovered before it ruptured, and treated before I had any lasting neurological problems. But she must have remembered that conversation, because she asked me about it.

And then the questions kept coming.

She asked me if I was “fucking my neighbor.”

“I will, if she’s hot.” I said. Suzie smiled.

Then she asked me if I was gambling. Suzie has done enough shows with me in Vegas to know the answer to that question.

I asked her if she was hungry and she said, “McNuggets.” She and I had talked about how hard it is to be stuck in the hospital, watching TV commercials for fast food. Later on she said “hamburger.”

And she also said some things that I didn’t understand. She kept saying “Eunice” and repeating the numbers 52820. If anyone can shed any light on these mysteries, please do.

Later on, I grabbed a tissue to wipe her nose and she said, “Makeup.”

I asked her if she wanted makeup and she repeated it. “Makeup!” A few moments later Patty Chabrier and Erin Aftisse showed up with a Sephora bag – FILLED WITH MAKEUP!

Great minds think alike.

Suzie’s mom told us that Suzie had had a few sips of water yesterday. She’s still being fed through a feeding tube, but something tells me a 6 piece McNuggets is in her future.

I was very nervous before I went to see her on Monday, and now I can’t wait to go back again. I can’t wait to see how she progresses -- and to help her with that progress.