Saline and Tears

Today’s water is saline solution, tears, tepid tea, IV antibiotics and pain medications. We are back in the hospital.

This is the third time we’ve moved into a room on the ninth floor. This one is at the end of the hall.  It’s a smaller room, with only a sleeper chair instead of a pull-out couch. Instead of a panoramic view of the bay and San Francisco, we’re looking out at downtown Oakland. It’s a rainy, gray Sunday; drops are pelting the windows of our room.

A smaller room at the end of hall suits us better this time. We are tired. Less optimistic. Not caring if the room is nice, not caring about a million-dollar view.

My husband puts his favorite station–number 83, instrumental music–on his nurse-call/tv-remote handset, pulls on his tan no-slip socks, tucks his thin blue blanket up under his chin and closes his eyes for a nap. It almost feels like home.

With any surgery, there’s a chance of complications, and when you have complications, there’s a chance of more complications. He hit the jackpot.

I am not the patient, but I’m here with him many hours a day. It’s the most time we’ve spent together since our honeymoon. I’m trying to balance what needs to be done outside of the hospital with what needs to be done here: keeping him company, advocating for him when he needs something.

My schedule is on hold.  I’m not home to cook, and dishes from food grabbed and eaten quickly sit in the sink. I have to call someone to walk the dog or let him out to go potty. Laundry piles up. I lose track of days and dates. I go home in the evening and come back in the morning, doing only the bare bones of normal responsibilities.

When I’m home I don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t want to think much, or talk either. I just feel tired. I might eat something, or just get in bed with a glass of wine and watch a show. When I’m away from the hospital, I feel like I might miss something important, but when I’m at the hospital, the day is spent waiting–for a doctor to visit, for new orders to come through, for the meal tray, for the next dose of pain meds, for healing.

This has been a little window into the lives of families dealing with chronic illness. I know I don’t understand it fully, because I still have the hope that this is just temporary, but the total disruption and the need to focus all my energy on the one who is sick must be the similar. For us, it’s a bump in the road, not the whole road. It’s been longer than I imagined, but it is not yet normal. I have new compassion for the ones that can’t see the end of this road.

It hasn’t been all bad. Easy for me to say, I suppose, since I haven’t been the one in pain. My husband would say it too, I think, or at least he will when the pain is gone.

It’s been nice to have quiet time. I work on my computer or read while he reads or dozes. Sometimes we play games or talk. It’s been a little like a snow day, hunkering down in the storm and staying in together. The companionship, the long days of just hanging out together, has been healing for both of us.

I almost hate to say that, because it has been an expensive time-out from daily life. It has cost my husband dearly in pain and suffering. It has taken a toll on his work, keeping him down for much of the last 10 weeks.

The benefits have been rich, though. The view from a hospital room always brings new perspective. Brushing up so close with mortality can’t help but shake up and re-order priorities. I feel like something broke open in both of us through this ordeal.

We’ve been married for 32 years. There’s a certain crustiness that builds up in relationships, and the familiarity of roles and routine makes it easy for us miss each other. We think we don’t have to pay attention because we know what the other one is thinking and doing. This experience pulled us up short.

Some of the crustiness has cracked off and revealed tender, fresh bits of our relationship that are alive under there, waiting for some fresh air and sunshine to start growing again.