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Chapter 7
Reversing the process at home, Barbara smiled as Jake wandered out to meet her and asked how her day was. She filled him in as they went inside and straight to the kitchen so he could make her coffee. She told him all about the re-takes and the woman helping her out when she was stranded, she puffed air to blow an errant strand of hair from her eyes.
“Are you thinking about getting another shot?”
“I know I said I wouldn’t, but maybe just one more until a lot of these transfer scenes are done. It was so much more efficient and all the able-bodied scenes are finished so it wouldn’t matter if it lasted longer than expected.”
“But didn’t you hate the restrictions it put on you outside of filming?” Jake could understand sacrificing for your career, but Babs seemed to be getting a little carried away. He enjoyed helping her out of course, chivalry was his middle name, but he wondered if she was actually enjoying this whole thing too much. He knew method actors often immersed themselves completely in a character, but this wasn’t the character so much as a lifestyle she was immersed in.
“I find it interesting,” she replied. “Like today with the woman who helped me get the car out. She didn’t recognise me at all and I reckon that was because of the chair. It was kind of nice to have someone help me out for a genuine reason. Don’t you think sometimes we just get hangers-on doing things because we’re well known? Well this was different and I’m glad to have experienced it. Do you think I’m getting a bit weird?”
“Maybe, but I still love you anyway.” Jake carried coffee into the living room and then came back for Babs, lifting her and carrying her to the sofa with him. He sat down with her in his lap.
“Aww, you’re so sweet. I love you too. Now this I can get used to,” she purred in his ear and kissed him lightly on the neck.
“Good, I intend for us to enjoy more of this,” he grinned.
They drank their coffee and chatted more, kissed more and caressed each other. Eventually, Jake made noises about food so they ate a candlelit dinner together before retreating to bed.

“Bob? Hi, it’s me,” she spoke quietly down the phone. “I need you to get your doctor friend to come and see me again.” She spoke purposefully, not wanting to debate the issue.”
There was a silence on the phone.
“Can you get him to come over this morning?”
“I’ll speak to him, but I can’t promise. He got very jittery after last time.”
“Why?”
“Think about it. If it had gone wrong, he could have left you permanently paralysed.”
“I’m fine though, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I’ll ask him.”

An hour later the doorbell went. She rolled to the door and let the doctor in. He looked nervous.
“Sorry about last time, don’t quite know what happened.”
“No need to apologise, in fact I want the same again please.”
He looked surprised.
“I’m done with the walking scenes, and we have a few more weeks of filming. I’d like you to make it last as long as you did before, the same dose in the same place.”
He looked worried but acquiesced and followed her through to the bedroom. She slipped from her wheelchair to the bed and rolled over, looking every bit the practiced paraplegic she was trying to emulate.
It was over very quickly, the numbness spreading up her legs and lower abdomen swiftly. He was gone soon after and she lay alone on the bed. Jake was out for a morning run, so he wouldn’t be back for a while.
Struggling to turn over, she eased herself up and then into the chair. The bathroom was the first port of call to re-fit the catheter and leg-bag.
She didn’t tell Jake, in fact, she didn’t tell anyone. They were all so used to seeing her in the chair that they didn’t bat an eyelid at the studio. Filming went well, everyone noticed how well in fact. By the end of the day, the director was congratulating everyone for getting virtually every take right first time. He reserved a special thanks for Babs as she was readying to leave. Relieved, she slipped behind the wheel of her car and left for home.

It took a couple of days for Jake to notice, but eventually he did. He didn’t say anything to her, but wondered why she hadn’t told him. It had gone unsaid for a few more days before he put a hand on her shoulder and asked if she wanted to take a bath with him.
Nervously she agreed, not wanting to appear reluctant. She undressed in the bedroom and put on a robe as Jake filled the bath. He was already naked as she rolled in beside him. Slipping a hand inside the collar of her robe, he leaned in to kiss her and felt the goose bumps as she shivered with pleasure at his touch on her neck. He tugged at the belt and pulled the robe from her shoulders, tracing a line of kisses from her neck down to her boobs. Brushing them with his fingers, her nipples stood to attention and the goose bumps spread down across her chest. Jake pulled the belt free and the robe fell open all the way. He wasn’t surprised by the tube and bag fastened to her calf. Taking her slender leg he lifted it and unfastened the elastic and flipped the valve which shut the tube off. Removing the bag next, he dropped it in the basin to deal with later and looked at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d had another shot?” He asked the question without accusation, not wanting her to feel bad, but just with a hint of inquiry in the tone.
“I don’t know really,” she replied quietly. “No special reason; I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.” She was so open with her reply that Jake knew it was true. “I wasn’t really thinking too clearly when I had it done and then it just felt so natural that I sort of forgot that it was in any way unnatural. Do you think I’m going a bit crazy?”
“I’ve heard that method acting can affect people when they immerse themselves in a character. Are you Babs or Joanna right now?”
“I don’t know if there’s honestly a difference any more. I feel like she is part of me now and I don’t know where I end and she starts, or should that be the other way around?”
“I don’t mind either way, I love you both,” Jake smiled and brushed hair from her eyes.
He leaned in and took hold of her. “May I?”
She nodded and allowed him to lift her from the chair and carry her to the tub. He had her grip hold of the rail as he stepped in, just to be safe and then he sank with her in his arms until they were in the water; held safely against his body.
They relaxed in each other’s embrace until they were warm and comfy. He took a sponge and soaped her body from top to bottom and she reciprocated as much as she could. When he ran the sponge down her leg, she shivered.
“That’s so weird,” she whispered. “Watching you run your hands up and down my leg, rub the skin even, and not feel it. It it’s like it’s not even my leg in your hands.”
He shivered too. “Is it wrong that this is the sexiest thing I have ever done with you?” He inhaled the fresh smell of her newly shampooed hair. She smelled of strawberries.
“Is it wrong that this feels so good even if it is weird?” She retorted.
He ran his hand down her cheek and turned her head to face him. Their lips met in a long, slow kiss, full of passion and pent-up emotion.

Later, after he had dried her, Jake had held the cath tube over the toilet and opened it to drain Barbara’s bladder again, before shutting off the valve and taping the tube to her stomach. He watched as she transferred to the bed from her chair and saw her little belly had returned now that her lower abdominal muscles were paralysed again. It was strange to see, but he found it sexy, even though it wasn’t the usual washboard stomach she normally had. They made love for hours afterwards. The kind of slow, romantic love that spoke of more than just a roll in the hay.

Filming went well for the next week, but the week after that proved to be a bit of a chore. Lots of scene changes and as they were getting near the end of the project, everyone was tired and in need of a holiday. Barbara was especially tired. She had been in virtually every scene over the three months it had taken and there was a payback for so much emotional and physical energy expended. As the week wore on, she got more and more lethargic. It was hard work just getting out of bed in the morning. Filming had just finished for her on the penultimate day. The cast and crew were planning a meal out the following evening, and she was removing the wedding dress she had been zipped in for most of the day as the happy ending to the film was shot in the studio, with Joanna rolling down the aisle to marry Michael.
Babs was getting changed in her dressing room and found herself really hot and struggling to keep her eyes open, she was so tired. Eventually the dress was left on a hanger and she rolled out into the studio again. She was stopped by some of the others to discuss arrangements for the following evening and then rolled out to her car. As she opened the door and made the same move she had numerous other times, only she felt dizzy, weak and on the verge of collapse. Pausing to get her head together, she tried again to slide from the chair to the car seat, only a wave of nausea overcame her.
A colleague watched her struggle for a moment and realised something was wrong. Babs pulled her chair back a little, away from the car door and then puked her guts out. Her stomach contents splattered across the parking lot and then she fainted.

“Barbara, can you hear me?” a voice asked, full of concern.
She mumbled an incoherent response.
“She’s not very responsive, doctor.”
Babs overheard, but didn’t take in the entire conversation going on beside her, but it sounded like the doctor wanted a barrage of tests.
“We need to get her temperature down, but I need to know what’s causing it so we can give her the correct meds. She’s definitely got an infection somewhere.”
More talking and words she didn’t understand; she drifted off to sleep.

Time sort of stood still for Barbara after that. She didn’t remember anything for ages. Eventually, disorientated in the extreme, she began to come round. She could once again hear voices but couldn’t seem to move. Her head and back was exploding with pain and she couldn’t catch her breath. It was then she felt the tube in her throat. Her hand flew to her face to tug at it. Her arm moved but she couldn’t grasp the tube because her hand was so weak. She felt someone grip her arm and guide it back to the bed.
“Take it easy, we have a tube in your throat to help you breathe. As soon as we know you are breathing enough on your own, we can get rid of it.”
She didn’t recognise the voice but complied. As it turned out, she had been unconscious for the best part of two weeks.

When she was cognisant again, Jake had explained what had happened. He had been beside her for much of the time she had been out of it. “Hey babe, you look like you have more colour in your cheeks today.”
She was still pretty doped up, but she heard him clearly and the tube had gone even if it had left her with a husky voice at the moment.
“Thanks,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“You went down with a raging infection. They eventually found out what it was and have been treating you for it since then with high dose anti-biotics. Your breathing became so laboured that they had to put you on the machine until they could get you clear of the infection. It’s taken a while but you’re on the mend now. They’re not sure how much damage it did just yet though.”
“Damage?” She croaked, her voice rising in concern. She tried to sit up to check herself and realised something was wrong. “I can’t feel anything!” she exclaimed.
“I didn’t tell them about the injection,” Jake reminded her. “Don’t you remember?”
She scrunched her face up and then her memory cleared. Bob’s doctor friend had given her a shot and that explained it.

Or did it? “But I can’t feel my body,” her voice broke.
Jakes eyes fell to the floor briefly. “I didn’t tell them anything, but you had an infection in your spinal cord. They have been giving you steroids to take away the swelling but by the time they found out where it was…” his voice trailed off leaving words unspoken.
“How bad is it?”
“I don’t know, they don’t either. They have been waiting for you to wake up so they can do some tests. We were more concerned with your survival until now.”
“Oh God, what have I done?” She started crying.
“Ssh!” he stroked her hair and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Everything will be fine,” he tried to reassure her.
“How can this be fine? I might have ruined everything.” She looked distraught.
“There were reports in the press that you had been working too hard and too long and were suffering from exhaustion. I guess someone at the studio leaked that. No one here knows anything about the second injection, not even that director guy. He was here every other day to see how you were and hasn’t mentioned it.”
“I didn’t tell him; he made me promise I wouldn’t do it again.”
“Don’t say anything about it,” he urged. “They have diagnosed transverse myelitis.”

Indeed, that is exactly what the doctor told her some time later when they performed a whole barrage of tests on her to find out how much damage the infection had done.
The prognosis wasn’t good. After sensation tests and an MRI, the neurologist determined she had a partial lesion running from T4 to T9. It seemed obvious to Barbara and Jake that the infection had developed from the injection and her lack of feeling had resulted in her not realising something was wrong until her system just got overwhelmed with trying to fight it and function normally.

Barbara cried genuine tears when they broke the news, as did Jake. They held each other for a long time afterwards, neither knowing what was going to happen as a result.