January 9, 2022

Another day where not much happened, in a good and boring way. No separate notes to family that I would have to clean up and make not as dark, for Facebook. Nothing really earth-shattering happening. Just a bunch of people hanging out, waiting for the big day tomorrow.

Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while
Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies
Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or let us live forever
We don’t have the power, but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music’s for the sad man

I really don’t feel like anything can top Tim being able to stand on his own and hug us yesterday….! However, he’s had an MRI and a CT scan both in the last 36 or so hours and the doctors are pleased enough with what’s not going on inside his brain that they’ve okayed him for valve replacement surgery tomorrow. That doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods – you know I’m going to be chewing my nails all day tomorrow until we see him after the surgery… but dare I hope we’re headed in a good direction???

He was still throwing small strokes around like beads off a Mardi Gras float, but taking out the mitral valve with the vegetative infection should stop that from happening. If they get it all. If everything goes well.

They’re also really not great at changing the day on the wall chart. They’re pretty good about changing nurses’ names, just… not the date, for some reason.

Can you imagine when this race is won?
Turn our golden the faces into the sun
Praising our leaders, we’re getting in tune
The music’s played by the, the madman

Forever young
I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, and ever

In other news, we are loved (the pillow that goes over the seatbelt is just absolutely BRILLIANT) and the kitties are not that impressed with whatever Burr is waiting for. Oh, and I got a new mask, and thought I might wear it today along with one of the 94s that came last night, but wearing two is going to take some getting used to and maybe not in a place with freezing temps like this hospital room. My glasses keep fogging up, the 94 keeps poking me in the eyeballs, so I’ve switched to another mask I had with me (and I’m a little worried about offending Tim’s mom, AKA “the sweetest woman in the entire world” but she said it was hardly noticeable and that the flowers are very pretty. 😉 ). And Tim is on Day 3, I think, of Univision. Did the stroke give him Spanish language skills? I’m really starting to wonder. I can’t wait until he can start to tell us everything about this story from his point of view.

x o x o

He never was able to tell us anything from his point of view, and I’m not gonna lie… that bothers me to this day. He had another two months after this, but kept… retreating? losing bits of himself? I don’t know. I mean, I know from hearing his childhood stories that Tim was a late talker. And he was still able to make his immediate needs known, so I tried not to be too worried about the diminishing speech (and the never-recovered ability to swallow). But… I would have really liked to have known what he was thinking, what he was feeling. Was he afraid? Was he sad? Was he angry? I would have liked to have listened to him talk about all of those things, and also what he thought about what was happening. But. Alas. Sigh.

Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later they all will be gone
Why don’t they stay young?

It’s so hard to get old without a cause
I don’t want to perish like a fading horse
Youth’s like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever

There was really kind of good news/bad news on that Catio. Personally, I loved it. Tulip loved it. I had planned on it to be space for her, pretty much, but with getting Serenity put to sleep so someone wasn’t peeing and pooping all over the house, I could leave my bedroom door open. Which meant that Newt could get in the Catio, and Newt loved it just as much as Tulip did. Maybe more, because she could bug the shit out of Tulip while using it, haha.

But there was an unintended consequence that I didn’t really think through. I had not yet gotten a cat door… or maybe I had but it came late, I forget now. I did just find one in Tim’s office, so it’s possible that I ordered one, it came but didn’t get installed because whatever, and then I forgot about it. I vaguely remember looking for one online but don’t actually remember buying one, because I got too stressed out about the sizing. BUT ANYWAY. What this meant is that in order for the cats to get in and out, I had to keep the window open. In my bedroom. In January. And the ac/heating unit was very close to that window. So I was always cold, especially at night, and the heat would come on all the time because it was so cold in the house, and the sound of the heater coming on would come in through the window, and wake me up. If I wasn’t already awake, because I really wasn’t sleeping very well. So. Yeah. January, I was cold and tired a lot.

This was the first of many thank-you baskets to the healthcare staff on the different floors where we stayed. The ideas that my friends helped me toss around included food that can be eaten on the go, individually wrapped because Covid (so no sharing), hot drinks, hand lotion, and water were at the top of the list. I did what I could from some stuff I had at home (the last of some of my HaldeCraft lotion, teas that I buy in bulk because I include them in HaldeCraft packages, a friend sent me box after box of Kind bars… I was very happy with how the baskets all turned out. And more importantly, so were the nurses and staff!

So many adventures given up today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams swinging out of the blue
Oh let it come true

Forever young
I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever
Forever, and ever?

Lyrics by Lloyd / Mertens / Gold
Forever Young