Every morning, I wake up and for just a few seconds, my mind thinks of all the "normal" stuff. Is it a school day? Is Ben in the shower or already downstairs making his lunch? What do I need at the grocery store? And then, it hits me. Ben had a transplant. He's not home. Life paused at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. He's in a hospital bed, in the Transplant ICU. He's in pain, he has a port in his neck, and his belly looks like something out of Nightmare Before Christmas. But, he is amazingly, wonderfully alive. It seems like a dream. This was too fast, too easy, where's the catch? So far, he's sailed through the complications that've come up. The biggest being blood clot in his new liver during surgery, and an allergic reaction to the Thymo (a chemo drug to destroy his immune system). His blood pressure was high but it's responding to the blood pressure med they put him on. His pain level came down late last night, a blood transfusion seems to have helped his hemoglobin level (not sure about the spelling there but frankly it's 6:41 in the morning and I don't care), he's being given Magnesium and Insulin and the doctors seems satisfied with how that's progressing.
I guess I'm just waiting. Holding my breath so I don't get blindsided by something. I can't wait until he's given the all clear and we can bring him home.
When he's next to me again, I'll breathe . . .
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Every minute of every day brings him closer to home; to the little nest you’ve built. The healing time seems to take forever, but, believe me, one day a few weeks from now, a few months from now, you will look back and this healing time will seem like a few short minutes compared to all the time that’s in front of you now. The following is a little poem by Ginger Andrews called “The Cure.”
ReplyDeleteLying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk, I’m not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she’s just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it’s snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn’t been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She’s been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.
If that doesn’t do it, put on a red dress.
Sweet! Love, the Anonymous, Linda