January 2007 arrived, and it was time for me to transfer to my new facility, I was like, wanting to leave, but wanted to stay, at the same time. I was scared to go to a place that I didn’t know existed. However, it wasn’t a matter of choice, and I knew it.

I arrived at the great London House of the city of Sonoma, California, in a room shared with four residents, including me. I was really sorry, scared, and sad, the only paralyzed, nonspeaking, Mexican, and the youngest resident of the nursing home, most of the others were above 50 and older. The first few days were tough for me, I got very depressed and lonely, missing my nurses at Healdsburg hospital; I didn’t even want to get in a wheelchair, I cried and cried, like a sick puppy for a few days, I put myself together, and started to get up the bed. I asked my brother-in-law for a desk to set up the computer, he did find one and brought it up to the room. I was in the corner, so there was no space for me to set up the desk, two of my roommates occupying the first two beds at the entrance of the room, were scheduled to leave soon. I had to wait for my roommates to get discharged. They left two weeks after my arrival. I moved from bed C to bed A. Now I had almost the whole room to myself, there was another person, a Filipino elderly, in the last bed of the room, bed D. 

I had the desk set up, and the laptop turned on, and I started surfing the web. I was getting good at the computer, I don’t know what happened to me, but I was like smartypants since I woke up. Furthermore, I wasn’t too stupid before, but since the accident, I feel more intelligent and thoughtful about life, in general. Anyway, I used to get very tired, while using the baseball cap with the pointer stick because my head bend down all the time. I was quickly adjusting to my new home. I wasn’t adjusting or getting used to eating my food smashed, and drinking thick liquids, they were not tasty and satisfying! I wanted to get regular meals and water, but in my condition, it was not possible. I knew I could swallow regular food, I knew I can, but the hard thing was to make them believe, and that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

I started trying to figure out how to get the food and liquids regular. I asked around and got some information on the best, and legal procedures, once I knew what to do, I went ahead. What I was told on the food and drinks issue was, in short, to sign a paper, basically, giving up my legal rights, if something bad happened to me, I was responsible, not the facility. I liked that finding! So I asked the management about it, and they tried to talk me out of it, but it was decided already, nobody was going to tell me otherwise. I started getting regular meals csoon after, I could eat anything I wanted to, YAY, VICTORY!