She called out to him and said, “Dennis, cheers to you for making this happen.” He stopped, looked at her as a big smile split his face, and he said, “Cheers to you for your part in it too.”
She laughed. “Okay, this mutual admiration society,” she said, “we’re both members.”
He howled with laughter at that. Then he said, “Well, when you guys are all done, I’ve got fresh raspberry cheesecake coming out too.”
They all just moaned in joy and tucked into their meals. She was having a steak too, but hers was about half the size of Lance’s, and her salad was twice the size of his. She skipped the baked potato, and, of course, Dennis had remembered. It had been more than perfect.
The whole evening produced a glow that lasted for days. Lance went back to play the piano for a few minutes at a time, trying to adjust his spine on the bench, wondering if he could do it long-term. Shane was working on strengthening his ability to sit on something hard like that. He could get a cushion, but it wasn’t the same thing. It was more the angle, where he had to sit with his back straight, yet get his arms spread out and his fingers as wide as they needed to go.
It was the leaning forward and the pulling back again that was absolutely killing his system. Shane had devised some very specific exercises to allow Lance to do it a whole lot easier. He paid in a big way for that concert and had ended up in the hot tub before going to bed, just to ease up on the cramps. Shane had even given him some muscle relaxants to hopefully stop the muscle knots.
But unfortunately he’d woken up early in the morning, nearly screaming in pain from muscle cramps anyway. The night nurse had come and had helped massage some of them down, had given him some more medication, but the news had gotten back to Shane first thing in the morning, and he was all over it. He also had Lance on some vitamins—calcium, magnesium, and a few other things that he didn’t recognize—in order to help calm down the muscles.
“When you overwork them,” Shane said, “they’ll spasm like that.”
“Well, I really hope not to go through that again,” he said. “It was painful.”
“I know it is,” he said. “It’s a movement we haven’t worked on at all.”
“We were doing so much,” he said, “and I didn’t tell you that the leg was really struggling too.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said. “I was at the concert and watched,” he said. “I could tell by the way you were moving what some of the issues were.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I keep hoping.”
“And don’t just worry,” he said. “You keep planning for success. You know what they say. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
At that moment, Lance stopped and stared at him. “Wow,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before.”
“You should have, and, if you haven’t, it’s something you need to emblazon in your brain,” Shane said. “Some things in life you have to take concrete steps toward in order to make them happen. If you want to get back to playing like you were,” he said, “then we need to strengthen some of these muscles, but we can’t do it and cause a problem with some others. So it’s got to be a full-body thing.”
“So, what are you thinking? Will I get there?” He lay on his back, exhausted from the exercises he’d been doing with Shane and his knees.
“Absolutely,” Shane replied. “Not only will we get you back there but we’ll get you better than ever,” he said. “That’s my motto.”
“If you say so,” Lance said, and he groaned. “I really would like to get into that pool and do some weightless water exercises,” he said.
“Good idea,” he said. “That’s a full-body workout too. How about we do that this afternoon? Meet you down there at what? Two o’clock? Or do you have any other appointments this afternoon?”
“Not today,” he said. “Two o’clock it is.”
By the time two o’clock rolled around, Lance wasn’t sure he should have signed up for anything more. Most days, Shane just wiped him out, and now he’d added in swimming. But, even though Lance was exhausted and in pain, he was also looking forward to it in a big way. He also wanted to make sure he got some sleep tonight, and, if this is what it would take, then that was fine. At the pool, he rolled up to the side to see Shane standing there, waiting for him.
He assessed the wheelchair and the look on Lance’s face. “Starting next week,” he said, “we’ll get you up on crutches. You’re using the wheelchair as an extension of yourself.”
Lance looked up at him, frowned, and said, “It is an extension of myself.”
“It is,” he said, “but, at some point, it can also become a crutch. And, for that to stop, you have to have crutches.”
“So, I get rid of one crutch and end up with two?” he asked sarcastically.
Shane’s smile was bright and flashy, showing his white teeth. “Okay, funny guy, into the water with you.”
Putting down the locks on his wheelchair, Lance slowly stood, hobbled the few steps to the railing, and, rather than making any attempt at a bit of form, he just fell into the water. When the warm water closed over him, and his body floated midpool, something was just so freeing and glorious about it. He slowly rose to the surface, brushed the water out of his eyes, and smiled up at Shane. “What is there about being in the water that is so awesome?”
“Well,
