Atomictumor

That wasn’t the last post of the night.

The house is quiet.  Everybody’s in bed.  I don’t want to sleep because I’m fearful that the phone might wake me up.  If I stay up, it might not happen.

At night, if GAC is sick, it gets a little worse.  I hear thats normal, to some extent.  Maybe the pull of the sun does something to our cells.  I was outside earlier, looking at the sky, and the stars, and the significant things, and thinking about the cells in her body.  Thinking about the world in her head.  A world bigger than the sun, and the stars.

Somebody once told me that Stephen Hawking said that he believed when you die, you become as a god, because the energy that consciousness is turns inward, or something like that.  Maybe it was that because of the whole matter/energy thing.  I don’t remember.  It sounded nice at the time, but I was probably stoned.

Its night, and I’m afraid to call Nate at the hospital.  I’m afraid he’ll tell me that her BP went back down.  Turns out I was wrong about the BP medicine after all, they really didn’t take her off enough of it to be worth a damn.  I just took that and ran with it, and it was hollow.

How many days can be like today?  How many people go through this, silently, in the next car.  When the world is normal, and you’re worried about getting to work on time, or realized you forgot a dental appointment, or just mad at your wife for something stupid that you don’t remember, how many people around you are feeling this?

10 hours until … no, 11 hours until I can see her.  But its not her.  She’s reacting, but I’m not as sure now that its really not just twitches that my mind, desperate for her being, interprets.

How can I sleep when she’s hurting.

I’m hurting.  I know I’m hurting you guys.  Mom told me that I’m sharing the grief, that its the whole “but by the grace of God” thing.  I hope it helps.  I hope that one day I’ll be telling you about the truly insignificant things like how Ford and Corker both look like wieners, or how the RIAA sucks, or how they’re digging a hole in the street.  I’d love to fade back into the kind of insignificants (sorry, spelling really sucks tonight) that I’d have if my wife were awake, and we’d gone to bed watching Office downloads.

I tell MastaG that tomorrow will still be Sunday, and that Monday will still come after that. It seems to work for him, but he’s not terrified of the cellphone charging at the foot of the bed.

Thanks for being there.  I can feel you, peering through the 1s and 0s into my grief and my terror.

GAC will read this, right?

…

I love you, BJ, so very, very, very much.  You are the most precious thing.  Sleep free from pain, sleep free from fear.  The God that we denied for years is watching you and keeping you.  Come back to me.

Good night.  I don’t think I’m going to sleep yet.

I want to take just a moment to thank you all for your kind thoughts, your prayers, and most of all your love. Thank you for taking the time to drop by and keeping up the watch. Please continue and I know you all will.

When AT and GAC renewed their wedding vows on the tenth anniversary of their wedding I said that,

We will walk with them along the way, lending a hand where we may. Who knows where the marriage will take us all? We are, all of us, traveling together along the Way.

Let’s continue to walk with them, holding them in our hearts.

We all love you, GAC.

AT, we love you. Know that you’re surrounded by many, many people who are holding you in our hearts so dearly.

I’m trying to type quietly, because Pigpen is sleeping in Mommy’s bed about 5 feet away.  We didn’t have enough beds for everybody, and we’re doubling up.  MastaG is too much of a kicker, he is banned.  I don’t really want to share the bed with the kid, because last night I kept thinking G was GAC (minds out of the gutter, people), and that I was dreaming this.  Thats not a good realization to make.

We’re still the same at the hospital, no improvement, no slide.  A few days like this, with no drops in vitals, and we may be out of the woods.  GAC was restless.  I think she wanted to be alone.  Maybe she just wants it to stop.  The only thing keeping her alive is her will, and I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Sorry, not much to say tonight.  I want it to be over so very badly, but this is going to go on for a very, very long time.

My sweet BJ.  Baby, I love you so much.  You are my everything.  Sleep well.

GAC started writing this post several months ago, at the end of either last years winter or this years summer semester.  While I liked it, it wasn’t up to her exacting standards.  I’m posting it so we can hear her voice.

I love you, GAC.

        -AT
As I’ve said on previous posts (if you can find them, that is), this past semester of school has been a real bitch-a-roony-doony. I only had three classes, but at 3-hours a pop, that was 18 hours of required classtime a week, not to mention the many extra hours I spent slaving over projects both at school and at home.
Money was also a big factor this semester. Books for three classes were a little over $200, plus two I didn’t even bother buying. Since 2/3 of my classes were art-intensive, I spent a goodly-sized wad on art supplies, mat board, markers, and drafting crap. It was a real boon for me to be able to get between $200-$500 worth of paper from an architecture firm in Knoxville last summer. I suppose I’ve still got around $150-$450 left. So, you know, call me if you need some fancy paper.
I hated my Autocad class. A program that I had previously had a great liking of became a tool of the devil. My chipper-as-fuck-at-8-in-the-morning teacher saw to that. She would talk very fast, going through steps for a project in 2 minutes, and then call us idiots for not getting it the first time and telling us our questions were stupid. She would give out hand-outs that were so littered with typos and grammatical errors, even leaving out critical steps, that they were impossible to follow. Several students cried. It was that bad.
My other two classes were infinitely more tolerable, but way more labor-intensive and with strict deadlines. During the bleak months of February and March, I strongly considered dropping out and taking some time off. But I perservered, and for my efforts received all As. What a relief.
But I’ve been having nightmares. The most vivid involved a final, my much-hated speech teacher, Autocad and drafting a house remodel. With a horrible head cold. In the rain. Other nightmares have involved such thematic elements as being held hostage in a classroom and snakes. I figure I’ve had nightmares half of the nights since finals ended.

While I’m far from seeing Charlie in the trees, I am displaying symptoms that have been tied to post-traumatic stress disorder. Do I have it? Probably not. But my nightmares, coupled with difficulty sleeping at night and the migraines I began developing during autocad class are bothersome.

Man, I just realized that the tumor is still on daylight saving time.  Fixed that.

Went to see GAC for the 5:30 PM.  Pigpen’s teacher was there, and Jen (sister - Jdub or whatever her secret internets name is) was there, but they let me head back alone and talk with GAC, for the first time.  It was nice.

I love her, more than any pull in existence.

I have so much hope now.  I thought we were losing her, and that the next phone call would mean that I would say good bye, and then she got a bit better.

She’s still on that plateau.  Got a few more numbers for the numbers people out there.

BP - Arterial line is crapping out, which evidently happens after 24 hours or so.  It was reading a BP of 64, which is low.  Hopeing thats because its crapping out.  The cuff pressure was 70s/50s, which isn’t as good as earlier, but she tapered off a bit more of the BP medicine, so she has a window to fall back on if she needs it.  I think.  I didn’t ask about that, but I don’t go fishing for bad news when I can avoid it.

Pulse - 133

Pulse o2 - mid/high 90s, based on a blood gas taken a few hours ago.  Course, she’s on a vent, so it just means that she’s taking oxygen, but not, y’know, breathing it.  Yesterday it was 70s.  Ideally it should be high 90s - 100.

Temp - 97.7.  WOOT.  Still got a cooling blanket on, which warms also, which makes me wonder if it shouldn’t be called a cooling warming blanket.  A wooling blanket.  But that’d be silly.

I can communicate with her in a way I don’t understand.  This is testing my objectivity, but I’m going on faith.  Thats hard for me, guys.

She told me she’d prefer not to have Pigpen’s teacher head back, and I respected what may well have been her wishes.  She won’t remember this.

I hope she doesn’t.

She’s got a long way to go.  We played tennis on Monday, and she had a great game.  Saturday she almost died.  That doesn’t bring up emotion in me now, but its OK, because I still laugh with my mom and my sister, and I still love my kids.  Even if they irritate me.

Great news is the cats moved down to the Blueberry Farm!  Its the best situation.  They’ll be outdoor cats, which I think is better for them, they’ll be with their sister Rosie, and they’ll be awaaaaaaay from me.

Man.

I want to tell you guys stories about her, about GAC, but I can’t think of any.  I want to say something that will touch you, something that will make you think of the person in your life, and how things happen out of nowhere, how tennis turns into praying for your wife’s heathen soul to be allowed into heaven, because I can’t bear the idea of being separated from her, and because I was sure that her end was imminent.

Guys, this is hard.  I’m too drained to think of any of these stories, and I really want to.  I want to for myself.

And I want to cuddle her.  I want to breath in the scent of her hair.  I want to kiss the back of her neck, and tickle the tiny hairs back there.  I want to rub her feet.  I want to hear her voice.

Man.
I love you, baby.  My sweet BJ.