When Mike Conner fell five stories onto concrete, no one thought he would walk again. No one except him, that is. A spare, powerful account of one man’s fight with the odds, and with the agony that at times threatens to consume him.
When they rebuilt it, the hand could barely move. Rotation should be simple: The thumb turns away, the wrist is exposed, and then there is the palm. But Mike couldn’t do it. For three years he hadn’t seen the bottom of his own hand. Upright in bed, watching out the window as the kids played and the dads mowed, Mike squeezed clay. Later, he made jewelry, a necklace for his hand therapist. He told her about his palm, how much he wanted to see it, so one day she put her head down for almost two hours, working his muscles, twisting, pressing, from the elbow to the forearm to the wrist. She told Mike to try. He put all his strength into rotating his hand, turning the thumb outward, exposing the wrist. And then Mike Conner could see it. The palm. He broke down in that therapy office and cried, cried, cried.
