February 23, 2022

This place was just… exhausting. You would almost swear this part of Shands is haunted. It’s just so heavy when you walk in there, so soul-crushing. I’d be exhausted by the time the elevator got up to the fifth floor. Not to mention the people in the elevator who would argue about having to wear masks. That never happened at the other tower. And like I mentioned, the health care workers on our floor just all seemed so much more ground down than the others. There was just a weird miasma over that building. Speaking of weird, I had THE ODDEST meeting with Tim’s health care team. It was exhausting, though, and I wound up not talking about it until the next day. I know I’m using the word “exhausting” a lot in this paragraph…. Anyway. Let’s get to it.

The water is wide, I can’t cross o’er
And neither do I have wings to fly
Give me a boat, carry two
And both shall row
My love and I

Ugh, I feel like I get started so late now!

PT/OT was working with him when I got here at 10, and they worked with him for about 20 minutes on sitting, standing, and brushing his teeth, but then the rest of the time was spent cleaning him up and getting him back into bed. Then there was a brief minute of rest and then the nurses came in and moved him over into the chair, and that’s where he is now. He’s kind of half-napping while watching TV, but he’s also having a prolonged afib moment so the heart monitor keeps going off every couple of seconds. They did give him some meds for it, through the feeding tube, and the doctor dropped by and said he’s going to write an order for an IV push which will take effect faster than through the tube. Tim doesn’t seem bothered by the afib. He seems more bothered by the beeping of the monitor than anything else.

We’re getting a new case manager since we’re on a new floor, she called me to ask me a lot of questions and when I was like, look, I’m here, you’re here, could you just come talk to me in his room instead of on the phone?! She was surprised that I was here (clearly she doesn’t know me) and said that she was one of the people coming to the 1:00 meeting so if I’m going to be here for that, she’ll hang out in the room with me after that for a while and talk to me then. She sounds very, very, VERY SOUTHERN. Very. Y’all. Anyway, I am crossing my fingers that I don’t have to give her a nickname like Seagull Sarah!

Love is gentle, love is kind
The sweetest flower when first it’s new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like morning dew

I’m writing this a couple of hours before our 1:00 team meeting, so I don’t really have too much else to say. One doctor did come in this morning to take a look at his afib numbers and talk to me a little about his afib history. Oh, and he said that within about the next 24 hours, he’s going to consult with Neuro, and get Tim another brain CT/angio – it’s been about a month since he ad the other angio and they want to check things and compare.

In other news….? I’m tired, but not as tired as I was yesterday. I got some good sleep last night. And it was a little easier to find my way around the new place today than it was yesterday, and also it didn’t seem nearly as chaotic in here. Parking was still a beast, though. If I thought this was just going to be a couple of days, I’d do valet parking… it’s almost worth the $3 just to not have to stress out about a parking space. But not if this is going to be a few weeks, or a month. I wish I could see into the future!

Oh – that Korean zombie show I’m watching, All of Us are Dead? I watched episodes 5 and 6 last night, I have six left. I’m rationing myself to two a day so I don’t binge the whole thing (and stay up all night, and then get tired and cranky). So far the things I really like about it are the small cultural things – the one girl who had a pink roller in her hair and nobody even said anything about it… the two boys who are good friends who stood hugging each other for comfort during most of a conversation… the gentle chimes that indicated class was over… the mother who handed her daughter a bag of something and said to share with her whole class. I mean, yeah, the whole zombie storyline is fine; zombies are usually a great hook to get me to watch a show. But I love the little things.

There is a ship that sails the sea
She’s loaded deep as deep can be
But not as deep as the love I made
I know not how I’ll sink or swim

I guess that’s it for this post right now…. T-minus one hour until meeting time.

For the rest of the time I’m posting these, I’m going to try not to get any pictures with Tim’s face in them. Or most of Tim’s face, anyway. I think I have a couple to share where you can see his nose, or his chin. But not the entirety of his face. It’s too… well, you don’t need to see it. I have photos, but… I won’t share them. As I look at them now, it’s so clear that he was … leaving. I don’t know if I didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to admit I saw it, or saw it and that’s why I was so tired and shattered all the time. It breaks my heart for him, and I hope he wasn’t suffering. I think that yes, his level of care went down quickly when we went to Select. They were in no way prepared for someone who needed the kind of care he needed. I know he wasn’t suffering as in, “in pain,” when I say “suffering” I mean more… I hope he wasn’t scared. Afraid. Worried. Regretful. If he was, he never said so. I hope that he knows he could have talked to me, if he was.

The water is wide, I can’t cross o’er
And neither do I have wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row
My love and I
And both shall row
My love and I

Scottish traditional, lyrics vary
The Water is Wide/Waly Waly