The sensation was a ghost, a whisper of pressure and warmth where for so long there had been only a void. But to Kyle, it was a symphony. The discovery that he could feel Arianna's touch on his paralyzed hand was a seismic shift in the reality of his recovery. The plateau was no longer an endless, featureless plain; it was a landscape he was beginning to map, one faint sensation at a time.
Brenda, his physical therapist, seized on this breakthrough with the fervor of a general who had just found the enemy's weak spot. PT sessions were no longer just about the frustrating, fruitless attempt to force movement. They became sophisticated sensory boot camps.
"Forget the motor cortex for now," she declared, becoming a zealot for the sensory nervous system. "We're waking up the quiet part of the party. The part that knows how to listen."
