Atomictumor

So, we had met.

We went on with our lives. I lived on campus, she lived at home, we went to school, and worked dissimilar shifts. I didn’t usually wake up until after she had left work for the day (despite the scheduling of a few classes during these wee hours, like Geography).

We’d get together and hang out. She had a car, which is an enormous power, putting places like West Knoxville in the grasp of a poor ass’d college student like me. I cracked my first (and only) BJ and the Bear joke, and it didn’t go over as well as I thought it would.

I went to her house, with my roommate, in Andersonville (which is a king hell drive from UT). She had a computer with a CD-Rom drive, a Pentium 1 processor, and a massive 250 MB hard drive. She had tons and tons of WAV files. She was an internet rat, to an extent. It was awesome. For me, living in the x86 world, her computer was friggin amazing.

I recall a day when I had my arm twisted (very, very lightly) into missing French class, and heading to the mall with her. Back then, you could still smoke in West Town mall, in certian designated places, and smoke we did. She sprung for pizza at Sbarros, I gave her piggy back rides, and we had a good time. She was a great friend.

Thats been the basis of our relationship since then.

Time went by.

Halloween of 1995, I got a phone call from her, a bit distraught, asking if she could stay with us. We were in Clement, and were about the least popular of the RA’s guys due to our penchant of either playing punk music way too loudly, or of opening up the windows and serenading the courtyard with an impromptu two man show, he on the guitar, and me on the drums.

That, and the room was friggin disgusting. I had to carry BJ around in there when her shoes were off, because she wouldn’t touch the floor.

Oh, and because it was a non-smoking room, and we smoked anyway. With the windows open. Pretty much kept them open all the time, and the heat turned up all the way for this chilly winter nights. Good times!

Anyway, she had some sort of problem at home, she explained, and wanted to hang out. I had her drive on down, distracted the RA, and smuggled her up. Turns out he knew she was there the whole time, and didn’t really care.

Ah, youth.

So, she stops by. I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, and it was because, as she explained, she had a nasty break up with a boyfriend (who eventually became a good frined, and has dropped a line in the shoutbox since this started. Kudos, J!), quit coming to classes, and got in a fight with her Dad when he told her to either be in school or get a job. She split, and she wasn’t going back.

Me, I was on her side. I didn’t know her dad, and didn’t realize that 10 years later I’d agree completely with him regarding the methods used to treat slack teenagers (lo, I have become the enemy), I just knew that she was really cool, and needed help.

We watched halloween movies on the sci-fi channel, Night of the Living Dead, and Evil Dead 2 (still some of my favorites). As the night drifted on, she ended up falling asleep next to me in my little bitty twin bed. While I still considered her a good friend, and knew that feelings tend to ruin perfectly good friendships, I couldn’t help looking at her. At her sweet face, her soft skin, her dark hair. I watched her breathe. I touched that hair, afraid that she might wake up and think I was being weird (well, I guess I was).

I wanted her. Not sexually, necessarily (although that was certainly there), but I realized that I loved her. I realized that she is a person with whom I am very compatible, and I realized that she would probably make me pretty damn happy.

We slept together for the first time. We didn’t touch, or embrace, but we layed in the same bed and dreamed.

The next day, she came with us down to Chattanooga. She had a friend she was going to stay with at UTC, so she rode down. She met my family, who thought we were more than friends, evidently.

I dropped her off at UTC, and met her friend. I said my goodbye, and drove away.

I didn’t see or hear from her again until February 16, 1996, but I thought of her often.

Good night, BJ, from a different bed. I’m thinking of you, and I love you so much.

No new news (is good no news).

Something that happened earlier today, that almost dropped me to me knees, was that at the 5:30 visit BJ was washed and dressed in a new white cotton gown, being changed out of the flimsy blue one she’d been in since this began.

Her hair was braided.

She smelled beautiful.

It really, really, made me feel good.  And I know it made her feel good.

I forgot to mention that, and in fact I forgot after I left the hospital until I was suprised at it again at the 8:30 show.

“Everything is going to be OK” is what I told Bos as we left.  He was wanting to stick around and talk, but I felt like getting home and relaxing.  Finally relaxing.  For the first time in a couple of days.

But, I’m typing instead.  So this is gonna be a short post.

Guys, thanks for your help.  Today has been such a good day.  I’ll spend the rest of my life babying BJ, reminding her how much I love her with little and big actions, and never taking her, or anything else, for granted (as much as humanly possible).  I’ll also spend it trying to be worthy of your support.

Sweet, sweet baby.  Days go by, and I love you more and more.

I went to the 5:30 show to see BJ, and during the visit saw Dr. Cross, her surgeon.  Tomorrow they’re going to trach her, and they’re going to remove a lot of the dead tissue from her right hand (that flip side of the palm that I still don’t have a name for, from about a half inch below the knuckles, to maybe an inch past the joint).

She might keep her toes, or all but the tips of them!  Dr. Cross sounded heartened by a couple of things.

1. The flesh under the blisters in the bad zone appears to be alive, meaning that she may lose the skin, and keep the digit.
2. She had what appeared very much to be a non-automatic response to the pain of Dr. Cross treating her feet and hands (I didn’t allow myself to get pissed about the doc hurting my baby, since it was good news about the reaction).

   I specifically asked, because I believe so many of the reactions her folks are getting excited about are automatic, brainstem responses, if this would be something like that, and Dr. Cross told me that she was pretty darn sure that BJ was having a real, non-auto response.

Woot.

Gotta go to the 8:30.  Sorry about not being around much today, I don’t know where my time is going (the kids).

I’ll tell you about it before I crash tonight.  Later!

I love you, my little angel baby BJ!  I’m on my way.

Howdy folks!

I slept through the 3 o’clock show, which is rapidly become the show of choice for grieving and sleepy husbands to miss.  I don’t think BJ minds, but this would be the time of day we’d be having a beer and talking about our days.

Man, the normal things seem so long ago.  I mean, its just coming on two weeks now, but its like talking about the house you used to live in, thinking about things like smiling at her as she pulled her van in after coming back from school.  Or looking forward to seeing her at lunch.  Things like that, that this whole thing has put on hold.

Instead, normal is becoming normal without her.  I lamented that (all over again) last weekend, that group acknowledgement that we’re all just going to go back to our stuff and catch her up when she gets back.  I’m more OK with it now, particularly that I’m making a change like working from home, some clear delineation that says “this is what is different without you, BJ”.  I like that.

I know that as the sun drops, so will my resolve.  Thats irritating.  Tomorrow’s gonna be a rainy day, that’ll probably do it too.  Sigh.  Poor ol AT just has no emo control…

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Little B, this thing just doesn’t stop, does it?  I know you’ll wake up again, maybe in a week, or a few weeks.  I know when you wake up, you’ll be drained, and a shadow of yourself, but I’ll love you out of it.

If that makes sense.

Sweet one, I’ll see you in about an hour.

Sorry about the 12+ hours since update. Slept in, (accidentally on purpose), dropped the kids off, did the things.

First, I’ll talk of BJ.  While I haven’t seen the elusive neurologist, Dr. Mas was telling me that the seizure activity was probably keeping her unconscious, and that its not affecting limbs (although there have been occasions where us or the nurses will see twitches, very lightly).  She has a bleed in the frontal lobe, not a new one, but one they’re growing concerned about.  It is in the part of the noggin that affects emotion.  I’m hoping maybe she won’t be mean to me anymore.

Something else he said is that he’s never seen a patient on so much blood pressure medication that lived.  She’s been off all now since the weekend, and is doing peachy.

Body’s doing better, except for her fingers.  Those poor little tips of her right hand seem to be shrinking.  I think I managed a reprieve, for now, on her toes, but surgery will be happening in the next comple of days on the fingers, as I described yesterday.

Her white blood cells count back down to 29, best its been in a week.  She’s there.  Just waiting on her head.

And in the morning, with the sunshine, I can do that.  Shame its winter, and the nights are longer, eh?

Theres no sense stressing over things I can’t control.  While I was bitching about her doctors, I continue to have the same sense of gratitude toward them for caring so much.  They GENUINELY DO care.

There have been a bunch of stories I’ve been too tired or busy to tell.

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Wow.  I started writing this, and then I logged into work, and then I got distracted with how cool it is to be working from home, and then I forgot.

I’m a total loser

Stories… lessee.

Theres the elderly fellow that I’ve been seeing around.  He was probably there when I first started coming in, with a smile, asking how my wife was.  I’d say something hopeful, and head out.

Yesterday, he came in the quiet room while we were talking, and said that they’re talking about unplugging his wife.  I never asked why he was there.  They’d been married for decades, she survived an illness she shouldn’t have survived 40 years ago.  Mom, being the woman she is, talked to him for a good while, and I wasn’t sure at all what to say.  I gave him a hug, and thanked him for his kindness during his pain.

He gave me a prayer book today.  Friendly old guy.

Or about the preschool.  They went in and paid our utility bill for the rest of the year. Completely blew me away.  I was speechless.

Or Dad, and my uncle, who are entering me into the world of the laptop’d, to help with my working from home (or from any place that has wifi).

Or BJ’s school friends, who came to see her today.

Its good stuff, man.

Anyway, I’m going to post this.  I haven’t checked the tumor all day.  I hate that I’m getting busy, because you guys out there have truely kept me at peace during this time.

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Little girl, my little lost beauty, I love you so much.  I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.