Atomictumor

I’m discovering that I can’t plan my grief.  I wanted to close the door, turn the lights off, take GAC’s pillow and grieve, but I’m too tired.

Its caught up to me, and I’ll sleep hard tonight.  I’ll sleep through the checkups I want to make.  Gary is the nurse tonight, and I had a good talk with him earlier.  He’s good people.

This has hit the unbelieveable stage.  It feels like GAC either is gone for a short while, and will be driving back home soon, or it feels like she was never really there.

That really, really, really bothers me.  I know, intellectually, that its the fatigue preventing me from racking myself with grief, but I want it, because its all I have of her right now.

Shes so far away.

She’s puffy.  Her body is not doing well with the fluids at all.  They’re filling her up, and not coming back out.  She could squeeze my hand yesterday, but she can’t today.  I did hold her hand tonight, I made myself hold that cold hand. The hand that conveyed such tenderness, and emotion.  The hand that created art.  The hand that held her childrens hands, and her husbands hand.  Those sweet fingers that I caressed at night are cold, and fat, and puffed up with fluid.  She can’t move them.  They’re dead weight.

…

I got the feeling from her this evening that she is alternately scared and brave.  I baby her when she’s sick.  I cater to her when she’s well.  I can’t do anything for her now.  I can’t ease her pain with a backrub.  I can’t massage her temples to make it better.  I’m nearly impotent.

She reacts, and she knows when people are there.  Sometimes she moves.  I think that helps her.  I think she likes hearing me.  I love her so much, people.  I love… well, we’ve talked about that.

This may take months.  I typed that slowly, and I looked at each letter.  This may take longer than months.  I want to ask “how can I…”, and I swear I delete it 10 times a post.  Its a dumb question.

I can.  I will. It doesn’t matter how.  Yesterday (yesterday?  Jesus, has this only been 40 hours?) I told MastaG that tomorrow will be Sunday, and the next day will be Monday.  He is amazing to me.  He is strength incarnate.  He took that in his moment of weakness, and made it his.  He knows everything that his mother goes through, and he’s chipper, and sweet, and HIMSELF.  He wants to make me happy.

And thats what I’m doing for everybody else.  I saw Bos and Eaves tonight, because I thought I could help them.  It helped me more to do that, and I think MastaG is cut from the same cloth.  Thats something GAC and I did well, I guess.

I still haven’t taken that pillow.  Its her nightly pillow that she stole from me months ago, one of those nice foam dealies.  I broke it in for her, and she appropriated it.  It smells like her hair…

there are the tears.  Not as much as I thought, but enough to ground me and make me realize that yes, this is real.  This girl I love so much, that I would give anything for, make any sacrifice for, complete any task for, is hurting, and maybe dying.

Only two days are over.  She hasn’t improved in anyway worth telling.  I’m too tired to even run down the numbers now.

I love you, GAC.  I burn for you.  I cherish the days we had, and I beg God for more of them.

I love you so much.

Night.

My wife, the Missus, AT and myself were all standing out in the driveway just a few minutes ago. There’s a full moon out tonight lighting the clouds and the ground. AT talked about playing tennis with GAC last week. They’ve gone on to the hospital where GAC is fighting off, with God’s help, this sickness.

I had been dealing with doubt about God for the past couple weeks. That was before GAC got sick. The doubt comes and goes like moonlight. It consumes all my attention like some massive program slowing down a computer. That’s nothing new, but now I know it’s not all there is. I’ve witnessed God’s Kingdom all over again. How many people have come by to give support, sympathy and encouragement? Call it what you want, but this care, solidarity and love is something beautiful.

Get well, GAC.

May God make his face to shine upon you.

In no particular order:

Appalachistan

The Lynnster Zone v2.0

Mike-Henry.com

Lynne ydw i

Mel’s Diner

The Search for a Good Story

Oh … Really?

Reality Me

Newscoma

No Silence Here

AnotherThing2

Citizen Netmom

Domestic Psychology

jonathan hickman

knoxviews

Cup of Joe Powell

Nine Months

Busymom.net

Happily Ever After!

MRSA Notes

Hey, you!

This Mom’s Life

AdventureDad

Cotton-Pickin’ Days

A Whiff of Smiff

If I’ve missed your post of support, let me know. Send me an email.

Actually, I think a post has been written titled this in the past.

I’m still in my stoic phase, and it was helped by an application of porter at lunch and a minute ago. No, I’m not drinking my pain away, this would be about a normal Sunday for me. Wish I could have it with the lady, but we’ve talked enough about that, eh?

She’s in the same boat. BP kept in acceptable levels by the pumps. Fluids in all the wrong places. Pulse down to 110 still. Temp good. All these tiny, tiny signs of hope that I cling to like a shipwreck survivor to a piece of wood.

I feel like I’m developing relationships with the nursing staff. The ER nurse from the very beginning of all this came up to visit her today, and that was touching. I noticed the other day in the paper that she’s the MMC’r of the month. She deserves it.

It has to be something for them. Harber, one of the nurses there today that was there when GAC was admitted, and when she was wheeled in for her futile exploratory surgery, told me while we were chatting that GAC is a month younger. It must be something for them, used to dealing with the old, or the run down, to see a 29 year old girl, in the peak of her life, stuck down to death’s door by this.

Ahh, BJ. GAC.

I ran out of things to tell her at the 3 PM visit. I can’t have a tender moment with her without running my mouth, telling her how much I love her, and what she means to me, and blah blah blah. But I ran out of things today. I stood there, and stroked her sweet head (I’ve always loved touching her forehead), in silence. No tears, the stoicism in full swing. No emotions at all now. I can speak about her, about her work in the house, the things that mean something to her, the things we shared. About the life insurance we have for her, what would happen if she left me. Plans we have.

Yesterday I would have wanted to say “plans we had”. Thats the difference between today and yesterday, I guess.

I look forward to breaking down again tonight, and now that Pigpen is back in his own bed, I’ll be able to do it without fear of waking him up. It feels good to sob. I promised myself, at 1 AM last night, that I’d write that story about our meeting, or some meaningful story about us tonight during that time. I wanted to do it then, but I needed to sleep. Got about 4 hours, all told.

I don’t know what to write now. I feel like now that I have your attention, I have to say something that will change things. Maybe if I let this all out, and share this grief, and more importantly this hope, that maybe something will change.

BJ, my sweet girl, I think you’re coming back. I have so much hope, but the fear of tonight is coming on.

Jeez, I love you. I love you so much, my little one.

Edit:

Read this.  I don’t have words for it.  I know many of you are writing your feelings, and I haven’t had time to read them all, but I will.  Thanks.

Ah, the circadian rhythms.  I think thats working toward my stoic days and my empassioned nights.  I’m dried up and numb now, and thats working for me.  Pigpen is great, he’s playing with MastaG and Katy outside now.  Its been decided that Katy (my 11 yr old sister) is spending the night again tonight, so G will be distracted longer.

He still comes to me everytime I come back from GAC to see how things are.  I tell him the same thing, she’s still with us, she’s still the same, her vitals are low, and that she’s hanging by a thread.  And that she’ll win, and she’ll come back to us.

Still eyeing a possible infection caused by an abscessed tooth.  The docs want to do a head and chest CT to see if they can find any infection to drain.  That’d be super cool, but GAC can’t do it until her BP is up. Its still around 75.

Pulse is back down to 111, which is the best its been since she’s been in the hospital.  Little ray of sunshine there.

Her blood gasses are encouraging as well.  She has a good co2 level, a good oxygen level.  Her calcium is going somewhere, but not in her bloodstream.  That’ll be a problem for another day.  So are her little blue hands and feet.

Maybe she’ll be a smurf?

Yeah, that was bad.

I don’t have anything to tell, on a personal note (not that any of this is impersonal, I guess).  I was hopeful, more so than I’ve been the entire time.  I was almost giddy beside her today.

But I didn’t hold her hands.  They feel dead.

I’m too numb now for that to bother me.  Its there, like a gorilla beating on a door, but its a thick door right now, and it won’t get through until tonight.

She’s hanging in there.

I love you, my BJ, my GAC.  My sweet sweet girl, I love you, and I miss you, and I want you to come back to me soon, and hale, and hearty, and healthy.

I love you, baby.

OK, had to get the haiku out of the way, or it wouldn’t be Sunday.

GAC always gets onto me, because I’m lousy at relaying information. I gather it, but it has a really hard time getting out of my head into my mouth, and it drives her nuts. She’s very much the brains of the outfit. I’m the comic relief.

She had a hard time last night around 6 or 7. Her BP dropped, and they gave her more medicine. Turns out that the arterial line that I was hoping was inaccurate is all sorts of accurate. Her blood pressure isn’t getting better.

Jack says that if she makes it through the week, she should be OK.

I sobbed. I broke down in there with her (again), and told her how we’re doing. I told her secrets we share, and about times we had. I told her the boys were fine, and that I’m fine, and that its so very hard, and we’re making it through. I told her not to worry about us, to be strong, and to keep fighting, and to trust in that God we never saw until now.

This morning was hard. I left so that her parents could have some time, because it seemed more dire than before. As much as I love her, she means so much to them also. I cleaned up, and went back, and she was reacting a bit more. That cheered me a bit. By reacting, tho, I mean her eyebrows were raising, her mouth was twitching. Automatic reactions?

I don’t care. It means so much, but I don’t care.

I had a real hard time bfore we went to the hospital hanging onto my stoiciscm. There was a picture I took, both because pictures are a halmark of a good website, and because it has been hurting me.

A week or so ago, GAC had a rough day. She took a bath, and while she was bathing, I figured I’d give her a body massage in a candlelit room, and then we’d watch a movie and fall asleep cuddling. The candelabra was still in the room, and I took this picture:

Seems like a long time ago.  Funny how objects can have so much power.  That thing sat on a shelf in the kitchen for months, and I never knew it would mean so much to me.

I love you, little BJ.  You’re so far away now, and I love you so much.