January 23, 2022

What was on my mind a lot these days….? Was I starting to lose hope? Or trying to think of different plans for different scenarios? On my drives into and out of town, if I saw a house for sale, I would wonder what it was selling for because what if I had to sell the property and move. If he died, there’d be no way I could continue to live out there without a “real job,” and there’s no way I could get a “real job” and live out there. Should I start looking for a job now? How would I hold down a job and take care of him? There was no way I’d be able to work full time at a regular 9-5 job and be there for rounds, to talk to doctors, to advocate for him with the nurses if he can’t talk for himself. I knew I had enough money for another month, maybe two, but then? Then I’d have to worry. Especially if his short-term disability didn’t kick in soon, which was a whole other thing that was just starting to get stressful. More on that in a later post.

Who can say where the road goes?
Where the day flows? Only time
And who can say if your love grows
As your heart chose? Only time

First, what I sent to family

10:00 AM

Just a quick note to say that I’m here, they’re doing rounds now (I missed Tim’s, sadly) but Daryl tells me that as soon as they’re done with rounds, the doctors will be in to talk with me, and then they’re ready to do the trach. People are milling around, looking like they might be walking this way, so I just wanted to get that in, in case they ask me to leave for the trach and I can’t give any updates until they’re done. If I understand correctly, after the trach, they’ll be able to really take him off most the sedation, so we may get some eye contact and hand squeezes in the next day or two (I hope). More later!

Aha! Doctor Surfer Dude says that the trach will be in about an hour and a half; the doctor that’s going to do it is the one who does 95% of them at the hospital, he’s very good, very quick, very efficient, and does it in the room (I’ll probably have to leave for it, tho). He also says that as soon as Tim gets the trach, they are going to start weaning him off 100% of the sedation.

I’ll check back in after the trach and let you know how it goes!

2:15 PM

Trach is in and everything went well! They did put him on the paralytic to do it, and that takes about an hour to run through the system, so when he gets what they call “the twitches” back, they’ll start weaning him off the sedation. That will probably take hours, like, late into the night, so I don’t expect to personally see much result until I get back here tomorrow morning (I was planning on staying today until about 4, so I can get some HaldeCraft orders packed up to drop off at the post office first thing tomorrow morning on my way in). Right now he looks very peaceful, it’s not nearly as stressful on his mouth and face as the vent is. And did I mention the nurse shaved him before the trach? But not where the pads were that were holding the vent in, so Tim has a really, really cute set of muttonchops going on here. His face is still pretty slack because of the sedation so I don’t want to take a picture, but maybe tomorrow. Just think salt-and-pepper Civil War General. 😉

That’s about it, I think. They got him off the TPN overnight, back onto the feeding tube, and his body seems to be responding, shall we say, appropriately? And his numbers all look pretty routine. That makes it a Good Day!

Whoa. My hair was a little out of control that day. And as much as I thought it was gray, then? So much more of it has turned gray in the last six months.

Who can say why your heart sighs
As your love flies? Only time
And who can say why your heart cries
When your love lies? Only time

Then, what I posted on Facebook

What a day of hurry up and wait!

When I got here about 9:30 it was very “they’re doing rounds now and when they’re done they’re going to do the trach!” … which moved into “so they’ll probably do it around 11 or 11:30” which moved into “so they’ll probably do it around noon” and now here it is, 2:15, and they’re done and I’m back in the room.

He’s still pretty sedated, as they had to give him the paralytic to do the trach, but it was push (not IV) so should be out of his system in the next half hour or so. After that, they’re going to start weaning him off the sedation, which means that starting tomorrow maybe we can hope for some hand squeezes, eye contact, and thumbs ups, again.

The nurse (whom I’ve been calling Daryl, but it turns out it’s Dylan, so whoooo am I glad I never called him anything out loud!) even shaved most of Tim’s face before the trach. Sadly. I mean, good for Tim, but I do like a good beard. HOWEVER! And I wish I could photograph this for y’all but today isn’t the day for it, Dylan couldn’t shave under the pads on the side of Tim’s face that were holding the vent in place, so now that they’ve removed those pads, Tim is working on an EXCELLENT set of muttonchops. I KNOW. Dylan and I were joking about keeping on shaving him like that, so that when he gets out, he can do some Civil War reenactment. Maybe be like our friend Matt, who got wounded at… I think it was the battle of Olustee? 😉 ANYWAY.

Let’s see… anything else today? They took him off the TPN and are back on the feeding tube… his rash got a little better when they finally started putting that damn cream on yesterday, but it’s still there, so HEY WHAT they’re taking him off the antibiotic he’d been on since the day before the rash started showing up, in case he’s allergic. You know. LIKE I SAID ALL YESTERDAY. So hopefully by tomorrow it’ll clear up. I’d hate for him to be awake and that itchy. Yeesh.

There’s just a couple other random things but they’re better explained in pictures, so I’ll add those in a second and caption them.

Happy Sunday, y’all ❤

Back then, when I wrote posts, I was posting photos from the day before. So whatever pictures I said I was going to explain, I actually (now) put in yesterday’s post. I’m sorry if that’s confusing… I felt like photos on the day I took them ultimately made more sense for this six-month-later narrative.

Who can say when the roads meet?
That love might be in your heart?
And who can say when the day sleeps
If the night keeps all your heart?
Night keeps all your heart

Another post that night, later, on Facebook

I left the hospital a little earlier than usual, a little after 4, so got home a little after 5, because I had a couple of orders to get out for HaldeCraft and Patreon. I got the one big, complicated order packed up, and two of the six easy orders, felt how tired I was, realized it might take me longer for the four other easy ones than it just took me for the three just because I was getting a little goofy, so….. Wait for it…….. I told myself it was OK to pack those tomorrow evening! And as I was buying labels, I let myself arrange for the three to be picked up tomorrow rather than try to get to the post office before going to the hospital. I KNOW. Now I’m back over in the house about to eat a reasonably healthy dinner. I KNOW. Who am I, even?!

PS. Hoping to be able to stay awake long enough to see Amy crush it on Je—wait, shit, today isn’t Monday, is it. Ugh. Well, so much for my smart streak, that was nice feeling on top of things for three seconds.

If you don’t know Tim that well, you might not know, but he had a thing for Hallmark Christmas movies that was right up there for my love of bad science fiction or disaster movies. He was constantly taping them to watch later, but because they have names that don’t really stand out, and the plots are all basically the same, he’d have to watch the first few minutes to see if he’d seen them before. He’d still tape them all, though. Well, it was getting ready for the shows we watch together to start back up after winter break, and I didn’t know how long he’d be in the hospital so how long I’d need to keep stuff on the DVR. And about 75% of our recording space was taken up by his Christmas movies. And a couple of weird romance mystery things he liked to watch, too. I KNOW. THE THINGS YOU’RE LEARNING ABOUT HIM. I swear he was the most unromantic man who ever lived (he got me a lawnmower for my birthday one year, genuinely thinking it would be a romantic gift, because he’s the one who would use it) and yet his favorite thing to mindlessly watch were… Hallmark Christmas movies. ANYWAY. I decided that it would be best if I deleted them all, to make room for however many shows we watched together that I’d need to store, and I’d rather delete them all, all at once, than one at a time as I needed space. So I wrote down the titles as I deleted them, in case he made a recovery and wanted to find them again. LOOK AT THAT LIST. JUST LOOK AT IT. Oh, Tim.

Who can say if your love grows
As your heart chose? Only time
And who can say where the road goes?
Where the day flows? Only time

Lyrics by Ni-Bhraonain/Ryan/Ryan
Only Time