January 19, 2022

This was a hard day. Not bad, I mean, compared to a lot of other things that happened, but just … hard. I had a doctor’s appointment that I cried most of the way through, and was kind of treated like shit during, which only made me cry harder, and then I had to carry that around for the rest of the day. So it was … draining.

This is Gospel for the fallen ones
Locked away in permanent slumber
Assembling their philosophies
From pieces of broken memories

Late start this morning, as I had my own doctor’s appointment (which went about as well as I expected, so I’m now shopping for a new Primary Care Physician. Hopefully one who can take Tim on as well as me). Thank you for everyone who weighed in on that post; I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine – I’m angry! Who looks at another person who is clearly in pain, and ignore it so blatantly? Especially in a field in which you’re allegedly there to care for humans?! But I also only have so much energy right now, and I’d rather focus on giving that energy to Tim, and finding another, better doctor. After that, I can lay into those folks like I know you all expect me to (and will love hearing about).

Oh Woah-oh
(This is the beat of my heart This is the beat of my heart)
Oh Woah-oh
(This is the beat of my heart This is the beat of my heart)

The gnashing teeth and criminal tongues
Conspire against the odds
But they haven’t seen the best of us yet

That “earlier post” that I mentioned was me checking into my then-doctor’s office on Facebook, with the following comment:

Nothing like getting a lecture from the new PA about how high my blood pressure is right now, and how I should really try to relax, you know, as I’m sitting there sobbing because my husband has been in the ICU for over a month, with multiple strokes, endocarditis, open heart surgery, and now pneumonia, and I can’t sleep for more than two hours at a time.

But sure, I’ll just relax a little, that’ll fix everything.

With all (aka “no”) due respect, this place can go fuck themselves. Time to find a new Primary Care Physician. Really wish Dr. Jessica hadn’t left.

That place really can go fuck themselves. Who sees a person in front of them, obviously in emotional pain, and then… LECTURES THEM? What kind of human would do that, when they’ve gone INTO HEALTH CARE as a profession? Where you have to tend to human beings who are sometimes hurting? Ugh. I’m still salty about that. Fuck those people.

If you love me let me go
If you love me let me go
Cause these words are knives that often leave scars
The fear of falling apart
And truth be told I never was yours
The fear, the fear of falling apart

But a late start is fine on a slow day, and it looks like that’s what we’re having. Tim is still hooked up to the breathing machines, but is doing really well on almost zero actual help from them. We’re waiting until his lungs have healed enough that he can lay backwards without coughing, both for the CT scan (which takes about 15 minutes) and the tracheotomy (or is it tracheostomy? I’ve heard both?). Right now he’s able to lay flat for about ten minutes before he starts coughing, so they’re hoping for the CT scan tomorrow, and the trach later this week/early next week.

He’s on the TPN, the nutrition IV I mentioned yesterday, so I’m glad that’s happening. Even if he can’t EAT eat, nutrition will help his body heal.

Linda has gone off to have lunch with Amy and the kids, and I think they’re going to try to get her to the airport around 4 for her 5:00 flight. I’m so glad she’s going to get to see those happy faces one more time before she goes back to the frozen wasteland!

This is Gospel for the vagabonds
Ne’er-do-wells and insufferable bastards
Confessing their apostasies
Led away by imperfect impostors

Oh Woah-oh
(This is the beat of my heart This is the beat of my heart)
Oh Woah-oh
(This is the beat of my heart This is the beat of my heart)

Don’t try to sleep through the end of the world
And bury me alive
Cause I won’t give up without a fight

I know this isn’t much of an update what with being later than usual, and slow, but… slow and steady wins the race, right? I keep telling everyone (like, literally, people are probably tired of me saying this) that I will take imperceptibly small steps vs. backsliding, absolutely. And every day he’s just the teensiest, tiniest bit better. Maybe measured in millimeters, not feet, but… I’ll still take it.

… was he? Was he, though? Was he really better? Or was that just what I wanted to see? Was I seeing “not getting worse” as “getting better” when really it was just “holding steady”? I’m looking back on some of these posts and I seem so …. hopeful. But at the time, I didn’t feel hopeful at all. Was I just putting on a show so that people wouldn’t worry as much about Tim? About me?

ANYWAY. Funny story about that picture with the ceramics. I’d been emailing with someone from GRACE about HaldeCraft donating some ceramics for a fundraiser. I didn’t have time to put anything new together, so I pulled a bunch of things that hadn’t sold and were on my “homeless ceramics” shelf to put together in a basket. They could auction things as a set, or individually, whatever worked for them. I sent her pictures of the ceramics. I put this basket together. I took this picture. And then…. I have absolutely no memory of them until getting a thank-you from them about how well they did in the auction. HOW DID I GET THEM TO HER???? I have absolutely no idea. Did I drop them off? Did she pick them up? Did I give them to someone to get to her? I have absolutely no memory at all of how they got to GRACE. Brains are weird, man.

x o x o

PS. As soon as I find a type of bracelet I like (why did my word bracelet hookup have to quit??? I loved his stuff!), I have two words chosen for this year. Becasue this year is only 19 days in and it already deserves two words. “Indomitable” and “Unsinkable”. Coming soon(ish)!

This was also about the time I had a few days of not taking pictures in the hospital. I didn’t want anyone to see him laying there, unresponsive, looking so… well, looking the way he did. It’s not that I didn’t want to document it, it’s just that it was so … much. And it wasn’t changing, not perceptively. This was… day five, I think, of him basically being in a medically induced coma. They told me that for him, it would be like he went to sleep on the 14th and when he woke up he would think it was the morning of the 15th; that he wouldn’t have any memory of any of the time between. Still, I talked to him. I said good morning to him when I got there, I asked him how his night was, I told him how the cats were, I would talk to him during the day, and I would say goodbye to him when I left and would tell him that I’d be back in the morning. Why? They say the hearing is the last thing to go, and if he was leaving, I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone at the end.

It was a lot to carry. Honestly, it still kind of is.

If you love me let me go
If you love me let me go
Cause these words are knives that often leave scars
The fear of falling apart
And truth be told I never was yours
The fear, the fear of falling apart
The fear of falling apart
The fear, the fear of falling apart
(This is the beat of my heart This is the beat of my heart)

Lyrics by Urie / Weekes / Sinclair
This is Gospel