Another cut

Saturday was hard for me. I wanted to go the hospital to be with him. Given the past two weeks, that desire was clearly masochistic. I was shamefully grateful that I had to stay home because my brother was coming to address the leaking ceiling. I kept reminding myself that Rich was securely tucked into the oncology floor that is staffed by angels.

So my brother came and rescued me yet again. By three in the afternoon he had assessed the situation despite the fact that I had the wrong type of ladder; he went for supplies, came back and repaired the leaking skylights, (AND washed them), gave me brotherly comfort and distraction. By four pm I had a shower and my fresh baked macaroni and cheese (one of Rich's favorites), a bag of the things he wanted me to bring plus his rice pillow and his robe and I drove in to see him.

All the way there I struggled with how badly I did not want to go. I wanted to stay home, light incense, sink into a hot bath, crawl into bed and not resurface for a week. And I wanted to not feel guilty for it. The drive was bad enough, but the walk from the parking garage to his room at the ass end of the fifth floor was like trudging through a mile of quick sand in flip-flops. Once I reached his bedside I managed to suck it up. I crawled into bed beside him and we were both amazed at how naturally something clicked.

Since the beginning of US Rich and I have slept like spoons in an antique double bed with room left over. Since he was discharged Aug 11th, I switched sides of the bed so that he would be closer to the bathroom and there would be room for the bedside commode to be right next to him. This meant that I had to sleep on his right side—his PIC line in his right arm and the drain from his liver. Now in his hospital bed I was correctly on his left side again and we both relaxed, and we even discussed how crazy it was that we never noticed before how wrong the adjustment had been.

There was an “NCIS” marathon so we snuggled in like almost normal to watch our favorite show. His wonderful nurse came in and all three of us carried on as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her patient to be cuddled in the hospital bed with his wife on one side and the beeping IV on the other side. She was in pretty frequently to check his temperature because they were waiting for it to reach normal so they could start another blood transfusion. They were getting a bit anxious about it because the order came at 9 am. It took eight hours to cross match his antibodies and just about the time they got that accomplished, Rich started spiking his daily fever. We watched four episodes of “NCIS” like floating in a blessed bubble of normal. By nine pm I knew I had to leave or figure out how to spend the night. I managed to tear myself away and Rich would call as soon as he knew if they would do surgery. He was so miserable I think he was relieved to see me go. There are times when you are so miserable that Jesus Christ would feel like an intrusion.

Either I failed to set my alarm or I slept through it. At 8:30 this morning I was nuking a cup of yesterday's coffee and trying to wake up. At 8:45 Rich calls to tell me they're taking him for surgery at 9 am. Seriously? The one freakin' morning that I manage to sleep past 5:30 and I've got 15 minutes to get my ass on the road for a forty minute trip? This is the same flippin' place that tells us at 7 am he's being discharged and I'm loading him in the car at 7 pm. Really? TODAY is the day that two months of shit has to be resolved at the snap of somebody's fingers? Well, okay then. I wave my magic pom-poms over the phone and assure him that everything will be fine. I tell him I love and there's silence. .. then I hear him crying.

Oh my god do you people realize how much I could hate you for denying me the chance to hold and comfort him before you cut into him again? Seriously. On SUNDAY morning your surgery schedule is so fucking tight that I get fifteen minutes notice for a non-emergent surgery? I am trying so hard not to hate you.

My guts are grinding with the effort of comforting him over the phone. He is simply worn out. He's not afraid. He tells me “I love you, pupshun, but I'm just tired of this and I just can't hurt anymore...please....”

Honestly? I don't remember how I responded, but I think it was pretty good because I do remember that he was not crying when I hung up the phone and dove into my car to get to him.

And I gotta tell ya'--that is one incredibly surreal commute. Twenty minutes from a dead sleep, with half a cup of coffee, on a Sunday morning, forty minutes heading to a surgical waiting room to sit and wait for someone to walk towards me in slow motion to tell me if my heart will or will not shatter into a thousand pieces. Who needs a Red Bull?!?!

You know I'm wanting to pull out my knitting and dig in, but Rich's brother and sister-in-law are already there because they live closer and while I love them dearly, I just want to be alone. In minutes I'm drawn into their attempts to comfort my wait. And gradually we ease into a comfortable silence, and they pull out their bibles and prayer books and I embrace my yarn and needles and the steady rhythm of knit, purl, cable.

There is a big screen TV that is filled with a graph like an Excel spreadsheet on steroids. It is the entire OR at a glance. It is color coded for the status of each operating room. On the entire grid there is only one block active. OR-6. Right now it is chartreuse, which means the surgery is in process. From fifteen feet away I can watch the chartreuse block move with the time passing. Suddenly I look up from my stitches and see the block has changed to deep purple so I check that out. Purple means recovery. It is 11 am and a few minutes later I see Dr A coming our way.

First thing out of his mouth is an apology for how little notice I received of surgery, and he tells me that he knew only five minutes before I did. (Knowing Dr A as I do, if he told me the sky were now green I would believe him.) It takes me a few seconds to realize that he's trying not to smile. (You'd have to know him) He tells us that surgery went better than he hoped. To sum it up for you, he removed approximately 1-1/2 cups of necrotic tissue and puss from the liver. The drain we have been living with for the past five weeks was like trying to suck mashed potatoes through a swizzle stick. The IV antibiotics were barely keeping pace with the infection. He checked out all of the surrounding area and nothing was leaking into the liver, he did not have to resection any bowel, bile ducts were in place and he is confident that everything was a result of dead tumors rotting in his liver with nowhere to go. He replaced the old drain with a new one at the surgical site and assured me it was strictly a surgical drain that would probably come out in a week or two, and he would probably go home Thursday or Friday. What do you say to the man who unlocks your prison cell and leads you into the sunlight?

At 11:15 Dr A wraps it up for us, tells us that someone will call us when Rich is moved from recovery to his room. Two and a half hours later we're growing a bit concerned that Rich is still in recovery. The phone has rang but not for us. So I know the phone is working. Then, I remember where I am and roll my eyes at how silly I am for forgetting where I am. I tell his brother, “Ed, go to the phone, call the front desk and ask what room Rich _____ is in.” He looks at me funny like a reasonable person would. I say, “trust me, just call like you're sitting on your couch and want to send flowers.” Sure enough. Rich is back in his room.

We walk into his room and Rich says, “jesus, where have you guys been?!?! Buddy and Michael have been here and I thought maybe you'd left.” No, dear. We were sitting in the surgical waiting room waiting for the phone call as directed. Rich had been in his room for 1-1/2 hours. I am trying so hard not to be angry.

The three of us are frozen at his bedside. We're trying to comprehend what we're seeing. His color is good, his eyes are bright, he's fully engaged. He's yacking like a magpie. Every other sentence out of his mouth is--”I can't believe how good I feel!” His brother is in shock and he last saw him ten days ago before it really got bad. I'm in shock. He's talking in complete sentences, and actually seems to care that I am present. He's holding my hand (not the other way round) and his skin feels warm rather than hot, and it's not clammy. I need someone to pinch me but I'm afraid to wake up from this dream. When it's just the two of us Rich tells me, “I woke up in recovery and my first thought was....I must be dead because I feel so good.”

A few minutes later his body is responding to the trauma of surgery and he's ready for some pain meds. The nurse pushes dilaudid and that's my cue to head home because I don't need to listen to two hours of Rich singing Christmas carols.

I leave the hospital knowing they may not have to puncture his lung to drain it because Dr A thinks it might resolve. Based on the fact that Rich talked for over an hour without coughing—I think he's right. Before surgery he barely gave one word responses without trying to hack up a lung.

I am so afraid to hope, more afraid not to be grateful. I will sink into my hot bath, light candles and incense, Enya on the stereo and cling to the joy of being in the presence of my husband and best friend for the first time in months. “How can I Keep from Singing?”