Fumbling towards Ecstasy

There are two kinds of people in the world. (I love that opener) Those who crumble in a crisis, and those who conquer the crisis and wait for the dust to settle to crumble in private.
I fall into the “crumble later” category. Not by choice, but by training. The “up side” of having alcoholic parents. (There IS a bright side to Everything)

Now that we're emerging from the dark hole of sepsis, with hope in sight and smiles on doctors' faces, the trauma of the crisis is replaying in flashes of pain in the dark cloud at the back of my neck. I SO empathize with soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You feel that it would be easier to be back in Hell because it's familiar and you know how to handle it, and you're so well trained you barely have to think. Returning to “normal” is hard because Normal is only the void of crisis, an empty hole of illusion that you don't know how to fill.

You struggle to deal with the broken part of you that can no longer embrace “normal”. While everyone around you is congratulating you on having returned to Normal. They don't have to listen to Dobby's cousin bouncing around in my van, reminding me that “ you're not done yet, that was just that, and then we'll be there, and the mountain behind us is not the mountain in front of us, do you smell something burning?.. do you...? can you? ….. will you?.... “

And what the fuck is wrong with me that I can't be fearlessly happy? Hmmm. I'm thinking it's because Rich has a drain tube from his liver, stitched in place, that his body is trying to reject resulting in a flaming red area of pain with a stitch that is screaming to bust loose. He can't sleep for more than 90 minutes at a time, so he's suffering from serious sleep deprivation. The demonic torso-doubling abdominal pains have lessened just enough to tease him.

And don't I feel awful that I offended people who didn't give a shit about what I was dealing with until they thought I had something to say about them.

The worst part of this is that I've gone through it without my best friend. Lately I've been trying to talk to Rich about it. What it was like in my car on the fast train to hell. He doesn't remember the first three weeks he was in the hospital, and after that nothing is really clear until after his second surgery in September. When I try to tell him what happened he's okay until I start telling him what it felt like for ME. Then he shuts down and changes the subject. No matter how carefully I tell him that it's not his fault I just need him to know, it's just too painful for him so I stop.

If it weren't for Christy and Lynn—between the two of them I had a shoulder every day—I would have lost my god damned mind. Not to mention the wonderful support from Chris and Alicia, Joe and Carrie, and so many others. At the risk of sounding horribly ungrateful, collectively they don't fill Rich's place.

I work passionately to be in the moment. It's difficult since I had to give up my dogs. They always knew what time it is...... “It's RIGHT NOW!!” I struggle to be in the NOW with the cloud at the back of my neck. I work constantly to be grateful for where we are, and nurture my faith in each step forward. It would be easier with Richard at my side, but he's somewhere else right now. I do focus on the miracles. I'm just … fumbling towards ecstasy.

TIP of The DAY; If you tell the Emporer he has no clothes, he may get really, really pissy.