When I was in the hospital recovering slowly from the AVM,
I could not walk hardly at all, but I proved to be a person
that was hard to keep in one place, and the nurses called me Houdini. I don't remember all those times twelve years ago, when I slipped from their care, but I do remember the following:
One time I was in my wheel chair and I slipped past the
nurses and got in the elevator and got to the ground
floor. I wanted to go home in the worst way! But they found me and brought me back to my floor.
Later, they had me sleeping in a bed with screen sides to it that could be zipped up on the outer sides. I was given a buzzer so that I could be let out if I really needed to, and they thought that would keep me in. They were wrong. I remember the very early morning when I buzzed for them and they did not come to let me out...so I used my finger nails to pressure the outside of those zippers until I could get my legs out and get out and get in my wheel chair. Then when ready I wheeled into the area where we were given breakfast and later I got back in the "secured" bed to go back to sleep. I guess it was the next night that they had my zipper secured very well, and I could not get out that way in the morning. So I found a zipper I could open at the head of the bed, and pushed at the wall on the other side of the screen until the bed moved some so that I could escape and have my early breakfast again.
Now it wasn't long after this that I was released from the hospital and my wife came and drove me home.
You would think that I would be happy to get what I wanted, my freedom, but I was still in poor condition and I worried that I was not able to yet go home and exist. I was wrong, and in time I did fine. These are all times
that I now remember with a laugh at my own behavior.