"Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us."
Anne Lamott

Saturday, July 2, 2011

ThE dAy EvErYtHiNg ChAnGeD.......

So......

A month ago.....I got home and couldn't open my back door. It was a Sunday. I don't normally work on Sundays but it was a busy week & made an exception this day.  I was tired. Ready to relax....and thinking about dinner. I had no idea that my life as I knew it was about to change.

My door was stuck. I turned the key...but something was blocking the door. I pushed a little harder...and it slid open and I looked down and I saw my husband's face. Covered in blood, eyes rolled up in his head...tougue out....hands  in the posturing position....

I thought he was dead.

I'd been dreading this moment for years. He's diabetic. We've been through horrendous low blood sugars together. I've woken up to him *seizing* from a horrible fast crash in his sleep. I've called 911. I've made that 3AM ride to the hospital behind the ambulance. I used to live in fear constantly. That *today* would be the day I'd come home & find him dead. I used to panic anytime he didn't answer his phone.

SOMEWHERE along the line, I made peace with the fact that I can't be with him 24 hours a day & we'd do the best we could. It was that or be even MORE of a mental case I am as a baseline.

So when I opened the door, or course I freaked. You can intellectually *decide* anything, but when the actual moment comes? It's not so easy to process it. I didn't know where all the blood I saw on him was coming from. I didn't know how long the seizure had happend. He had wet himself. His skin was cold, clammy. His tee shirt soaked with sweat. His glasses off. I leaned close and heard breathing. Labored. I called 911. I think three times in the course of 10 mins or so it took for them to get there. A few times he stopped breathing.

It's weird what goes through your head in moments like that.
"Please don't die?"
"Did he have a STROKE?"
"Can he hear me?"
"My house is a mess for the 911 people"
"When were the dogs last let out?"
"Is he going to die?"
"I'm terrified"
"Where are his glasses?"

When the paramedics DID arrive, I've never been so happy to see ANYONE in my life.
They gave him an IV....got his blood sugar back up...but unlike ALL these other times......he did not come back. His eyes stayed rolled up. His tongue stayed out. He continued making animal sounds.

They thought maybe he had had a low blood sugar & his seizure triggored a stroke.
They took his 100 pound body making these crazy sounds and twitches to the ambulance on a tarp.

And suddenly my house was quiet.

I called my sister in law, who later said she couldn't believe how calm I was.
I mopped up the blood.
I didn't know what I would know when I came home & I knew I didn't want that to be the first thing that I saw.
I gathered stuff for him.
His meds.
His PJ's.
A T-shirt

And I made my way to the hospital........

(To be continued....)

2 comments:

  1. I love your strength, courage and conviction to your marriage. You take the vows of taking care of one another so seriously. I am so proud of you and the way you have weathered all of this shit. I don't think I could do the same. I just wish I could be there with and for you. Take good care of yourself. You're important to me! P.S. Well, that's not the only reason!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Anonymous.
    xoxoxoxo
    LOL.

    ReplyDelete