Kake and the terrible, horrible, no-good very bad day

 

Before "brainstorm" meant a bunch of people sitting around throwing ideas at each other, it meant a brain overwhelmed. "by 1861 as a colloquial term for "fit of acute delirious mania; sudden dethronement of reason and will under stress of strong emotion, usually accompanied by manifestations of violence." 

I had such a brainstorm on Friday, though I gave it a more contemporary name -- "emotional hijacking."  I'd forgotten that the term Daniel Goleman used was "amygdala hijacking".    

Friday started off crappy.  The night before I'd chatted with our caregiver about how things were going and we agreed that my spouse has probably entered the dying process....he is eating very little, sleeping much of the day, shuffling.  So I woke up sad.  And then, in answering an email, I got sadder and sadder and was crying out loud in my shared office space.

Then, after I came home I got breakfast for Will then went outside.  I told him I was going outside with the little dog.  I was cleaning up some clippings in the back yard when I heard the back door close and lock behind me.  That's when the fear and the rage it produces started flooding me.  I ran to front door which was also locked.  Then I started beating on the door with my hand which first hit the wood and then hit a glass panel -- oops.

AND blood started spurting from my wrist with great gusto and I knew I did NOT want to die.  (It's been a good 24 years since my last suicidal ideation.)  I immediately put pressure on the spurting spot and ran across the street screaming "Help me!  Help me!  Call 911."  And in seconds, three sets of our neighbors were out helping me.  One, who works rescue on the mountain in the winter, got my hand wrapped in a towel and got me holding my hand above my head.  Another called 911.  Another went across the street to be with my spouse and try and explain to him what was happening.

By this time, I was terrified.  Mr. Rescue Guy kept telling me to stay calm, that I was going to be okay.  He also called the Bend Senior Care Management person who is in charge of Will if I get sick or die.  She couldn't find carers at the  beginning of the four day weekend so she came herself and called in a church friend who got me on a prayer list.  Another friend from my former workplace also came over and then our regular carer came at 4:30 - 7:00, her usual times.

The firemen who came to get me in their red truck didn't use the siren on the way to the hospital because I wasn't in dire straits, so they said.  They rolled smoothly to St. Charles.

I spent 7 hours in the emergency area at St. Charles and then at 5:00 finally was rolled into surgery.  I believe the cause of my long wait they were a bit short-staffed while being super busy.  As I waited, I had my medical history taken about three times. And because I have a history of depression, a couple of folks questioned the accidental nature of the injury.  I told them that the injury wasn't created consciously but that I couldn't speak for my subconscious (waving my hand at the back of my head, as though the unconscious lived there!)

 The regular emergency room doc took a look at the wound while I felt my very hot blood spilling over my own hand. (I was surprised by how hot it was.) He said that the cut required a vascular surgeon.  So, more waiting.  I tried watching a movie on my phone but the battery was almost dead by 3:00. So my 7 hours were a mix of fear and boredom.  While I was prepared to go home when I thought surgery was going to be at 3:00 pm, I was told that I would need someone to stay with me to care for me and I didn't want to try to arrange that.  Nor did I want to try and sleep in our 80 degree house after a 99 degree day. 

Funny bits: 

1. The nurse who reminded the surgeon to mark the correct arm...even though I had a huge bloody bandage on it and the other arm was fine.  Dr.
   
2. I made what could be considered a sexually harrassing joke...I thought it was funny but the nurse who was getting me ready for the operating room didn't crack a smile.  While she was helping me get my underwear off I said, "And I didn't even buy you dinner."
3. The hospital food service had NO dairy free cheese and LOTS of dairy involved options to eat.  Pretty funny for a hospital, to be unable to serve all dietary needs.
   

By 7:30 or 8:00 pm I was in an upstairs room.  I ordered dinner (not very good and didn't follow my request for toast) and was ready to sleep by 10:00.   

All the nurses were very nice and the doctor was amazing.  I wound up with a small bandage and the opportunity to stay overnight in a cool room.  Because I can't sleep without some talking in my ear, I had the TV tuned to C-Span books and fell asleep to former presidents chatting about their books.  (George, George, Bill, Barack).

I was up at 4:00 on Saturday morning for blood pressure, etc. and couldn't get back to sleep.   I watched tv till 6:00 then ordered breakfast -- the omelette was actually pretty good, except it could have used some fake cheese.  After that, I kept annoying the nurses with "I want to go home" and "When is the doctor coming to see me?"  Finally, everything was in place for my wheelchair ride down the elevator and out to my friend's car.  I got home by 10:00 am to find that my kind neighbors had put cardboard over the hole in the front door and cleaned up all

Even though I felt like an idiot for allowing myself to be subject to an emotional hijacking, over and over people assured me that being overwhelmed emotionally was to be expected on occasion in my role as caregiver.  

But next time I'm going to lay down on the ground, take deep breaths, and count to 10, 20, or 100 before I respond to the angry demands of my alligator brain.

 

 

Betrayal?

 Am I betraying my sweetheart to write about him here?

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I ask myself this about every topic and every memory I share. Once, long, long ago during my first burst of writing fiction, I asked him if he minded if I wrote about him.  He said, "Yes" and so I didn't but found other intense relationships to address with pen and ink.

Later I wrote a bad novel with Will as one of the characters.  Not a lead character, no, but the loving husband of a rapacious gay man who was center to the tale.  My spouse read it and had little comment on it.  (The outside world gave about 35 rejections, one of which, by a leading gay NY editor, was actually rather "positive.)  

Once, after a poetry reading during which I'd read a revealing, published poem, I asked Will how he felt about my sharing such work.  He said, "It's all part of the literary life."

Our relationship has been filled with perceived betrayals on both sides.  But it's also been filled with a love that could contain and drown the pain of our differences.  We forgave each other over and over, though usually with actions rather than words (he was far better at this than I).

And now we are in the last, long, strange, part of our journey together.  If he understood and "felt" what was happening to him, he would be very sad.  Or he could still be as angry and frightened as he was at the start.  As it is, he seems relatively cheerful or he's asleep.  

And I think my fear of betraying him is a sign of that evil, lingering, unconscious hope that he will be my husband again and be angry and hurt that I'm writing this. 

My husband is gone.

My sweetheart is still with me.  

"I think you'll like him"

 I was thinking about when I first saw him.  I could call it love at first sight.  That's because he was my physical "type" and he was vouched for.  What happened was that my aunt Huldah Bell pointed him out to me in the darkening theater in the basement of the Fine Arts Building at Idaho State University.  We were there on a Sunday night to see a foreign film as part of the "Cinema 6" program of which Will was a leader.  That nighty it was Bergman's Virgin Spring -- definitely NOT a romance.  Before the movie started she pointed to an hirsute fellow across the isle from us -- he had long hair, a beard, glasses, and looked skinny.  He stood up tall.  Definitely my type.  A shaggy ectomorph.  Not unlike the handsome star of the film.  After pointing to him she said, "That's Will Huck, a friend of mine.  He's weird.  I think you'll like him.

I told my sweetheart about my memory just now and said that I'd always loved him and liked him.  He asked, "How is Huldah Bell?" 

I said, "She's dead."

"When did she die?"

"In 2002 or 3."

"I must have forgotten.  How could I forget that?"

"It's not important," I said.  "You remember the important things -- like that you love your dogs and your wife.  The rest isn't important."