November 13th, 2006 by Atomictumor
Well, thats what I expect to clock as productive working paid hours today, so I’m thinkin the work from home route is sounding more and more feasible. Why do I think I can get more done at home than at the office? Because, thats why. Geez.
So, I went to the 10 o’clock show to see my baby, and Dr. Cross, the surgeon, had been in before. As you undoubtedly know, I’ve been kinda down lately, and it seems to be hard today and yesterday.
Anyway, Dr. Cross told the nurse they were looking to take off at least the three middle toes on the right and left feet, they want to remove part of the heel tissue on the left foot, they want to take off the first two or three fingers down to the second (big) knuckle, if not the whole darn thing, on her right hand. Body seems to be doing a bit better, BP was 120, which is damn near healthy, pulse is 112, she’s off all blood pressure meds (since Saturday, did I forget to mention that), her white blood count is still 33.5, but all things considered, her body is doing pretty well.
As is par for the comedy of errors, of course, the focus has shifted from her body to her mind. She’s going to have another head CT, as well as an EEG, to see whats happening.
I went in there really dwelling on those poor ol’ deviated eyes, and lifted the eyelids to see the pretty green (still green, folks. Evidently thats the coma color) eyes. They didn’t look deviated nearly as much, which I took for a good sign, until Selena explained that the eyes are showing bad ‘dolls eye’ movement, which I guess means she’s, I dunno, in trouble. Or something.
Hell, I can’t keep up anymore. Thats not the point, just another unfortunate piece of news in an otherwise sunny and light picture.
So, I talked with Dr. Mas. (always screw his last name up, so I truncate it. Sorry) for the first time since he told us that she might die on Friday (the day after I took her to the ER). He mentioned that it could be that because her liver and kidneys were giving trouble, they could very well still be processing the sedatives, which could be keeping her under. That’d be cool, OK. But I was doubtful, which has been my obstacle over the past few days.
My little faith in things working out for the best just isn’t working. It has occured to me that her being alive, and being brain dead, is the absolute worst case scenario, barring her turning into a zombie and eating the kids. I think that’d be a little worse.
But I’m joking. Wanna know how that happened. Oh… wait… well, yeah, it wasn’t a funny joke… shaddup.
I held BJ for a while, as much as I can, and talked with her. I admitted to her that this is hard, and told her that I think I’d trade places with her in a heartbeat regardless of the ‘keeping wife from bodily harm’ part, but because I’d take the physical shock and pain over this crap anyday. Hell, man, if I could lob off a toe and some fingers and feel better, I’d get the multi-pliers out right now.
I walked out, and talked to her folks for a while. Her mom seems to be a bit better, but they never leave the hospital. As I walked out with Mom, we discussed that. I can’t help them. I really can’t. I can help the kids, and myself, and I’ve reached out to BJ’s folks, but I can’t do anything for them. I think its bad for them to spend 12 hours a day in the hospital, but I can’t say I’d do it differently if it were one of the kids. I probably would, tho.
So, on the way out, as Mom and I were separating to go to our separate cars, we chatted about the nature of depression and faith. She told me what a shrink had once told her about one of my siblings, that they weren’t ‘depressed’, they were ‘demoralized’. They’d just had too much awful happen at one time, and it looks very much like depression. Maybe thats whats happening there.
I told her about what one of you folks said about BJ talking to God while she’s out, and how much I’d like that to be true, but how so much of my mind just believes in the meat. That she’s stuck in her head, if she’s awake at all in there. That theres no BJ in there, right now.
My little newborn faith is shaken, imagine that? Hell yeah, I’m starting to get a bit irritated. I still pray, but its an appeasement thing now, a “just in case, chief, please don’t smite my honey”. I feel bad about that, because I think I was allowed to see something I don’t usually see at the end of last week, and now that I don’t, my brain is just shutting down and forgetting about it.
Anyway, I don’t remember the nature of the conversation, but I felt better afterwards.
I walked outside, drove the van around, said ‘thanks’ to Mom as I drove by, waved at BJ’s mom sneaking a smoke (after a few years of smoking, and knowing full well how pissed BJ will be when she finds out… even without the tips of her fingers, I imagine she can form a very effective fist), and as I rounded the bend, I smiled at a lady in a Buick. She smiled back, and I thought “hey, this is alright.”
I drove out of the garage into the sun. I opened the sunroof door to let the sky in, and I saw two things.
I saw a rainbow, from the way the light was hitting the sunroof.
I saw a hawk, directly above me.
I’ll be fine. BJ will be fine.
I love you, sweet honey. Come on back when you’re ready.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Damn.
Sending good thoughts your way. Don’t know if it helps, but I’ll do it anyway (cuz I’m like that)
November 13th, 2006 at 11:53 am
It helps, dude.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:57 am
So I do a google search on “dolls eye,” and the third hit on the list is for www.bjcraftsupplies.com. Weird. Was it an absent dolls eye movement, or a bad dolls eye movement?
Faith comes and goes. It’s like a boomerang. I’ve watched people close to me struggle with that for years.
November 13th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
your writing is so humbling and honest, it brings me to tears almost daily. thanks a lot. lol
but really, i don’t know what to say, but i want to say SOMETHING. something that makes me sound brilliant and fills you with so much hope and light and goodness that you’re bounding off walls for the rest of the day. but sometimes, i’m just not that clever. and this is one of those times. i have nothing. except fake, bullshit, internet hugs for you- and all my good thoughts.
November 13th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
I am really a lurker from afar, but my heart breaks for you and your family. Living in the Tampa area I know some of the unspoken fears or issues. Please do not lose faith, it’s hard I know, and you are trying to have a productive life for those 2 sweet children that I only know through these posts, but feel you are blessed with them. I find myself checking around the time I think you are at the “show” just for updates. I also find myself praying throughout the day for you guys and wish that she would just wake up.
I do not have words of wisdom, but I have a heart filled with faith for you and prayers.
Kym
November 13th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Because, like jennster, I want to say something I will borrow:
1 Corinthians 13, which states, “In the end there are faith, hope and love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
Horizon Of Promised Expectation (H.O.P.E)
By Michael Hickey
Hope is imagining the unrealized,
What is longed for and foreseen,
Always oriented to the future,
Not what is or ever has been.
It is spring in the dead of winter,
Sunrise at darkest of night,
In the bottomless abyss
called “God”,
But a tiny beam of light.
Horizon Of Promised Expectation,
Unknown, uncontrolled, uncertain,
Beyond planning or self-calculation,
Awaiting the rising of our curtain.
The seed within our flower,
The flower in our seed,
God’s providential power,
Supplying what we need.
An attitude of eternity,
An advent, but a not yet,
A transcendent leap internally,
Without need of safety net.
Always involving a risk,
Of danger, failure, despairing,
With opposites being twofold,
A prideful, deadly pairing.
Despair; anticipated failure,
Presumption; anticipated success,
Both assume a given outcome,
Self-assurance, beyond any guess.
Hope keeps spirit youthful,
Never becoming quite grown,
Time open unto infinity,
A dimension all of its own.
It is our daydream of tomorrow,
Leading to God on a bumpy ride,
Requiring a power beyond us,
Asked but to trust and abide.
Forbidding our human creation,
Of any worldly paradise,
Spending life and its duration,
While rolling heaven’s dice.
When faith is seen; hope realized,
Wisdom will then evolve to be,
On the shore as future wave,
Brought by wind tossed, stormy sea.
It’s the day of our own resurrection,
God ahead, not only above,
Horizon Of Promised Expectation,
Faith before, hope within, ahead;
only love.
November 13th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
I keep leaving comments, hoping that it’s helping you AT. I know you don’t know me, but you guys haven’t been far from my thoughts since I started reading. My heart breaks for you and I hold my girls a little bit closer, hug them a little bit harder, and kiss them one more time before bed every night.
November 13th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Caring about you and your family in Nova Scotia. Sending only best wishes.
The one good thing? The hawk didn’t pooh on you!
November 13th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
I also am one you don’t know, but you and BJ occupy a piece of my heart because it is breaking daily for your plight. I wish I could make everything better, as we all do. I only hope my prayers have an effect and that the goodness I (and all the others) wish for you and your family comes through to sustain your strength.
As Mrs. Eaves said faith does ebb and flow. And I feel much like Jennster … just wanting to help and hoping our words support you.
Please take care of you.
November 13th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
If I were you, I’d be shaking my fist at God by now. I highly recommend it. God’s got big shoulders and can take it.
November 13th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
I, too, feel like jennster. I wish I could say something to make it better. Those words just are not there. I admire you for keeping your hope and finding your faith during this. And I don’t mean faith=God, I just mean faith that she will come back. Faith that something will bring her back to you the way she would want to be. Miracles do happen everyday. Just continue to believe, as we will believe that something good is going to happen. It may not be soon but it will happen. And in the meantime, if you need someone to lean on, you have many to choose from. We love you!
November 13th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Sweet man, you are working your way through stages of grief. That is driving some of your thoughts. Ask at the hospital for a grief councellor, I’m sure they have one, and just finding out what the process is, and where you are on it. You can talk about what you are facing and feeling, and he/she can give you some perspective. It won’t make the process go away, you will go through it whether you ask about it or not. But if you hear about the stages of grieving, it might help you get through it without cracking up. You would bargain your digits and limbs for BJ, we would bargain our serenity for your peace of mind. Just keep breathing. That’s all. If you keep breathing, you will outlast this terrible time.
November 13th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
I know we should be giving the doctors the benefit of the doubt. I’m not a doctor, I’m not even an armchair doctor but damn man, amputations… Thats serious and something, if it were me, that I’d need quiet a few doctors to convince me it was needed.
I had to re-read through the posts, this amputation business took me off guard. I’ve been starting at this reply for a while, trying to compile my words and thoughts so as to express my frustration with your situation without adding to the depressing situation. As long as she’s taking steps to recovery, there is hope. Even if they are only the steps of a toddler who stumbles.
Thats all. We’re rooting for you all.
The asshole in me wants to advise you to avoid the temptation of neogenics and don’t splice in any salamander or lizard DNA. My Spiderman costume isn’t fitting well these days. The asshole in me also wants to take credit for the zombie remark.
November 13th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
I struck it out on my Get Well post because no matter how much salt you pour on it, I tought it was in bad taste. Plus at the time this thing just started and I figured she’d get a laugh out of it when she read it.
I’m sure she’ll get a chuckle out of it when she gets to reading it.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
AT,
Man, I wish there was some way to come up with words that would fix all this.
Unfortunately, I can’t think of one other than I’m thinking of you and I don’t know if I’ve ever read anything more brutal and honest about love.
I wish her and you well.
Sending what I have through the cosmos to you.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Still here…
November 13th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
I want an AuntNun. Seriously, the lady knows of what she speaks.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
I keep expecting that GAC will come out of this as suddenly as she went in. As the days go by and that doesn’t happen, my heart breaks more and more for you and everyone who loves her.
I think you were in a state of grace last week - but you can’t stay there all the time, which sucks. In my limited experience, though, it always comes back.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Still keeping you in my thoughts.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
AT, hang in there. There are ZILLIONS of us out here, praying for you and holding you and your family close to our hearts. I can’t even imagine how tough this is for you.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Still here, praying, reading. Aunt Nun’s right- He can handle anger, and in order to be honest with Him it’s impossible to never show it. Also, the greatest theologians out there write and think regularly about crisis and challenges to their faith.
But mostly I just wanted to be one of the many telling you we’re thinking of you and yours.
November 13th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Just wanted you to know that I am thinking of you, BJ, and your kids. Your writing is beautiful; I really get a sense of all the things you love about your wife. May she come back to you and her babies soon.
Katie
November 13th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
In the midst of our own family crisis at the moment. We’re dealing with that anger with God crap as well. Since I don’t have the ability to pray for myself these days I’ll throw one up to the Big Guy for you and your family. I’m just so sorry for you. I wish you peace and comfort.
November 13th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Dear, dear AT,
I fly a lot for work and the moment I step on to a plane, every time, I whisper to whoever might be listening, “Bring me home to my sweetheart safe.” When there’s unusual turbulence during the flight, I close my eyes and picture the outline of a giant hand –outlined like Wonder Woman’s invisible jet on the Superfriends, you know — reaching toward the plane, and the plane’s nose just nudging into the hand, until the turbulence stops. Anyway, I’ve been whispering to whoever, to bring BJ home to you safe, picturing that great big hand lifting you and BJ up, up, up.
Monday afternoon love and light from midtown Manhattan. Be as well as you can.
November 13th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
PS: Just lit a candle for BJ online:
November 13th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/enter.cfm?l=eng
November 13th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
Candles here:
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=GAC
and
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=BJ
and
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=BJ%2FAT
November 13th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
Crouching Mommy sent me.
I’m sending BJ, you, and your family my very best thoughts.
November 13th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Thanks very much, Alison
November 13th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
I am praying for you and your family. I am in amazement at how you keep your thoughts here for us to share. I lift you and your boys and your wife to the Glory of God. May he help you through this difficult and painful time. I, too, lit a candle for you and your family. We are here and thinking of you…
November 13th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
I huess my thoughts are along jennster’s, but I wanted you to know my thoughts are with you. Dh and I are the same age and have been married about the same time, and coincidentally dh has been dx as bipolar as well.. I think of you and your family everyday and know she will make it back to you..
til then ya’ll are in my thoughts and prayers
November 13th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Your story fills me with awe. That you can funtion and be someone for your kids is so heartwarming. I send prayers and wish you luck in keeping faith…
November 13th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
I gots good kids, and a mighty helpful family. It helps.
November 14th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
I live in New Zealand, and someone took it upon themselves to put up these nice God ads around town. A black bilboard, with white text, saying stuff like “I don’t mind if you yell at me. At least we’re talking. - God” so there you go. :)
November 14th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Yeah, those God billboards were around here too, but not quite as permissive…