Holding Steady

(David's last day in the ICU)

David “graduated” from the ICU yesterday.  His new room on the regular hospital floor is very comfortable, but it has been a hard adjustment for me to have him in there with less intensive care than he has received up to this point.  There is no longer even a single screen in the room monitoring any of his numbers.  He is down to just his feeding tube and his PICC line (a fancy IV line).  He has scheduled visits from the nursing staff every 4 hours to check his vitals, and they come in between checks when they are called or if there is medication to give.  But nobody is watching him as closely as in the ICU.

I am glad the doctors think he is stable enough to move on, but it’s a little uncomfortable for me to not be able to see everything going on with his body in colorful waveforms and end-tail numbers on an LCD screen.  He also has not made any major advances neurologically and sleeps most of the time, even though he is down to just one kind of painkiller and some antibiotics.  When he is awake, he still does not speak or follow verbal commands.  He does indicate when he needs to go to the bathroom, and he did give me a high-five last night after I successfully read his cues and helped him pee in the little hand-held urinal.  And he has been more liberal with his smiles.  Agonizingly slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

After we were married David and I went on an extended honeymoon trip to Zimbabwe, a place that continues to call to me, to us, all the time.  While we were there we traveled to the mighty Zambezi River and went on a wild whitewater rafting tour.  I have the details of the trip written down elsewhere, but something that has come back to my mind during this week is the feeling of that moment we first pushed off into the current.

It was deliciously frightening and exhilarating and disconcerting all at once.  A feeling of complete surrender to the pull of the current.  A knowledge that there were no brakes on that raft, no stopping, no going back.  Only forward.  Forward into the rush and the rage of the whitewater, the surge and power of the magnificent, cold river.  A feeling of complete powerlessness, of smallness and weakness and lack of control.  True surrender.

On the river, it thrilled me to my core.  But the magnitude of the current I am now being swept into dwarfs the Zambezi into shame.  Part of me continues to try to cling, to claw my way back to where we started.  But my hands rake through the water and find no purchase.  There is no stopping, no way back.  I am carried inexorably forward, clinging to the unstable little raft of my faith, my hope and trying desperately to guide my little family into and through the huge gaping maw of this rapid we are entering.  To say I am terrified doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel.  

I am doing my best to face forward.  To trust in the things I have been promised in blessings, and in the knowledge of the great, over-arching plan of our Creator.  But it is the struggle of my lifetime to surrender to this, to navigate it and to hold steady to the course, believing that He knows the end from the beginning, when I certainly do not.

Thanksgiving

David’s progress has been too slow for me, but faster than some of the doctors expected.  But really, as they keep telling me, with brain injuries there really are no rules or set timelines.  Anything can happen.  He still sleeps a lot.  Sleep has always been his default setting when he is sick or in pain (or in church) and he is just exhausted all the time from his body regenerating and healing.  When he is awake he is very alert.  He follows voices, he looks at me with meaning and feeling, although I can’t always tell what it is he’s trying to say to me.  He still has not spoken.  The lower part of his face stays fairly immobile.  His left eye, both eyebrows and forehead are where all his expression comes from, and really he has always been that way.  His right eye does not open, the current neurointensivist thinks it’s a damaged 3rd cranial nerve, which controls eye and eyelid muscles.  He was officially discharged from the ICU today, and will be moved to the regular hospital floor when there is a bed for him there.  He was able to sit up on his own for a few minutes today, and he looked like he was ready to make a run for the door!

Thanksgiving has been. . . excruciating.  So hard to see all the families we know, intact and smiling and spending time together making memories.  It’s hard not to feel jipped, and a little angry, that our family is missing a critical piece at such a special time of year.  And it’s really painful to me that the memories the kids and I make this year will not all be shared with their Daddy.

But, this being a day of thanks, the following are some things (far from an exhaustive list) I am eternally grateful for:

• David is alive and recovering, and hope still remains for his return to full function as head of our family, Daddy to our babies, and eternal companion of my soul
• Our children.  Their wide, innocent, inquisitive, mischievous blue eyes.  Their strong, active little bodies.  Their vibrant personalities.  They are my heart.
• My own health, and the ability of my body to carry and bring another beautiful little life into the world.
• The beauty of this island, this world.  The safe haven of the home that I currently enjoy.
• The unimaginable love, prayer and support I have received from all sides.  I have been so touched and so humbled at the sheer volume and scope of what has been done, and continues to be done, for us.  Who are we to merit such great love?
• My mom, who has been my savior this past 10 days.  To be completely confident that my kids are well taken care of has made this time bearable.  I’m sure I would have broken down completely if it hadn’t been for her coming to my rescue.
• The gospel of Jesus Christ.  The knowledge of our Father’s plan for us.  The testimony I have of many parts of His gospel.  Faith in things that are not seen but that are true, that are real.  I don’t have a knowledge or testimony of all things, but I am a work in progress.  And I am grateful for the time in this life I have to continue to make that progress, to learn more, to know more.

I spent some time with David today going through pictures on the computer, and realized something else I can be grateful for is that we really have made the most we could out of every moment to this point.  I do not feel the guilt or regret that some people talk about when their loved ones are lost or changed.  We have spent our days together having grand adventures, loving deeply, being silly and crazy with our kids, working hard, feeling happiness and peace.  We have grown together through shared experience, becoming connected and intertwined in a way that was incomprehensible for us when our relationship was younger, fresher.  It feels absurd to me that we would not continue to go on merging and binding and bonding together.  And so, while I grieve for the memories we may not share this holiday season, I feel confident that we are not yet finished, that there is more to come.

So Many Things

David continues to improve little by slowly.  Yesterday they moved his feeding tube from his mouth to his nose, so his mouth is now completely unencumbered by wires and tubes.  They also removed his neck collar and his lung drainage tube.  Piece by piece his body is regaining and regulating its own functions.  The physical therapist came and was very optimistic about his potential to return to full functionality.  There is talk of moving him out of the ICU in the near future.

I visited with my midwife today, the same one that attended the home births of our two babies.  The plan for baby #3 to be born at home is very much in question now.  During the labors and births of the first two David was my rock and my confidence.  He was the reason I was able to fully trust in and surrender to the process.  He held that space for me and I knew I could fully enter “labor land" because he was there to watch over me, to be with me.  I feel safe when I’m with him.  And now. . . . what his condition will be when the baby comes is still such an unknown.  And I just don’t know if I can do it without him there.  I will probably have to plan for several contingencies and decide what to do when the time comes.  It’s just so hard not to know.

Yesterday the kids came to visit again, by my daughter’s request.  When David saw her. . . he smiled!!  For the first time!  And I cried, but I tried not to cry too much, because happy tears are hard to explain to a 4-year-old.  When I helped him reach his hand up towards her he tickled her arm with his finger.  The love and longing on his face was really unmistakable.  When he saw J he raised his eyebrows at him and rubbed his little hand with his fingers.

It was nice for us to just hang out in the room with him for a little while and give the kids time to look him over really well and ask some questions about him.  I don’t have the answers to all of their questions.  And I don’t know if/when/how to tell them that there may be some things about their Daddy that will never be the same.  And I worry about them.  I worry that they are having trouble processing what’s been going on, that I am compounding the issue by being absent for such long stretches of time, that their emotional needs are not being filled.

I feel the mantle of responsibility that David and I used to share resting squarely on my shoulders and mine alone.  All the decisions that must be made about all aspects of our family’s life and David’s medical care.  But along with the heaviness of it all I feel reassurance that I can be guided, that my decisions can be wise as I allow myself to be open to and rely on the inspiration that can be available to me if I seek it out.  And I feel very keenly the support and love and willingness to help that have been extended to me by family, friends, strangers, making it all bearable.  This would certainly be beyond me without all of that spiritual and physical assistance.

And, while I rejoice and wonder at the truly miraculous progress David has made, I also have had periods of panic and depression equal to or greater than those I had when he was still comatose.  The elation of seeing him awake, moving, alive gives way sometimes to new depths of fear and worry.  Visions of all the different what-ifs of our future together come pouring in through the cracks and threaten to crush me with their hopelessness.  In these bleak moments (or hours) I find it almost impossible to willfully cast out the fear, to turn away from all the potential negative outcomes and have faith in something good ahead.  And so I cry.  And I pray.  And when it’s over I refocus on all the good that is already here.  All the blessings we have already received and all the promise of what may still lie in store for us.  And I am trying to choose to believe in that, instead of despair.

Miracles Continue

My reservoirs were replenished yesterday by taking the sacrament, and by holding and playing with and loving on my babies.  It’s been really taxing on me to be away from them for so many hours at a time, and I’m sure they feel the stress and drain of it a thousand times more than I do, despite the fact that their Grammi is a professional at making life fun.

We did their bath time routine and snuggled in bed to read stories.  They both went right to sleep and neither of them ended up in my bed until around 5 this morning.  I honestly have to say I was a little disappointed that they slept in their own beds instead of crowding in with me. . . . never would have thought I’d ever say that!

I left the house around 6, eager to get to the hospital to see the miracle man.  The going was slow in the torrential rain from the very rare thunderstorm that had blown in.  It was beautiful and wild and powerful, and made me feel small and humble.  I was almost sad when I reached the end of it, but I was glad to be making faster progress to the hospital.

I arrived just in time for the doctor’s morning visit, and David was already off the sedative and pain meds.  He was opening his eyes and looking around a bit.  The doctor came in and started trying to wake him up, and he started responding to her right away.  He was looking around at everyone and she asked me to come help her see what he could do.  When he recognized me he lifted his right hand and waved to me!  He reached out for me and I held his hand and talked to him.  He wouldn’t really do anything with verbal commands only, but he would respond immediately to being shown visually what we wanted him to do.  He held up two fingers, gave thumbs up and tried to wiggle his toes.  It was really hard not to start jumping around and celebrating.

When the doctors were done testing him I continued to stand by him and talk to him.  He kept reaching his hand out and touching my belly, and grabbing for my purse.  When he finally got ahold of it he used it to pull me down on him and I lay my head on his chest.  He patted my back and my head with his hands.  Unbelievable.  Just unbelievable.

He was really anxious to get the ventilator tube out of his throat so I tried to read to him to distract him but he pulled the book out of my hand and dropped it over the side of the bed.  He kept pointing towards the door.  It was hard to tell but I think he was trying to ask for the doctor to come faster to take the thing out, he was very persistent.  She did finally give the ok and the respiratory therapist came in and removed the thing.  At first his breathing was really ragged and choppy but within an hour or so it was sounding much more normal.  Now he is breathing normally and soundlessly, except for when he yawns or coughs, and he seems much more comfortable.

He has not yet spoken.  And he still does not respond to verbal cues.  But he does try to communicate with hand motions and pointing.  It is frustrating that most of the time I can’t figure out what he is trying to say.  Generally it seems like what he wants most is to pull out all his remaining tubes and lines and I hope he’s not angry with me for not helping him. . .  

I just keep looking at him and thinking how miraculous it all is.  We have a long way to go yet, but for today, this is enough.

Zalea expressed interest in visiting for the first time today.  She was very hesitant and nervous, but we did manage to get her to touch and hold his hand.

Preparing to take the ventilator tube out.

Yay, no more ventilator!!  The pressure monitor in his head (still pictured) was also removed today.

Sunday Miracles

Last night I was feeling tired enough and emotionally secure enough to actually get some sleep on the hard hospital pull-out couch.  I was so asleep, in fact, that when the X-Ray technician came in to do David’s nightly chest X-Ray I did not wake up, and he/she did not wake me up to leave the room. . .  so I (and baby #3 in utero) were both peacefully slumbering in the there when that happened.  Had to file an incident report for that one, and will get a call from radiology tomorrow to talk about what kind of exposure it caused.

In the wee hours of the morning the nurse had begun to slowly lower David’s sedative dose per the doctor’s orders.  All his numbers were staying good and he was not overly agitated unless the nurse was bothering him by cleaning him or turning him or suctioning him.  Around 7am the attending neurologist visits each patient’s room and checks up on them.  Generally the sedative is turned way down or even suspended while she is in the room so she can get the best response possible from the patient.

Any family or visitors in the room are encouraged to watch, but to stay more or less out of the way and not get involved in the doctor’s exam.  This is sometimes difficult because most of the neuro exam involves her loudly asking David to hold up two fingers, or wiggle his toes or open his eyes.  It’s really hard to stand there silently, with my heart begging and hoping and wishing for him to give us a sign that he is aware.

So I was standing at the foot of the bed and the doctor was opening David’s eyes, rubbing the sensitive spot between his neck and shoulders and telling him it was time to wake up.  After a minute or so of this he seemed to actually wake up a bit, holding his eyes open on his own and moving around, but not frantically.  He seemed different somehow.  His fingers were brushing on his hospital gown in a way I hadn’t seen him do before.  He also had a blink-to-threat response, which was new.  The doctor kept trying to get him to show her two fingers or wiggle his toes, but he was not responding.  She asked me to come join in and see if a familiar voice would have an effect.

I was standing at his left side talking to him, requesting him to show us a sign he could hear us.  He reached out and I grabbed his hand and held onto it, mostly to make sure he didn’t make a move for his ventilator tube . . . and he held my hand back.  Up to this point, he would squeeze reflexively whenever his hand was held, or try to wrestle his hand away in a combative manner but this was different.  It was not reflexive or combative, it was intentional, reciprocal.  He actually shifted his hand around in mine to get in a better position and held on with his eyes open and moving back and forth slightly, appearing to search for the source of my voice.

And then he reached across his body with his other hand and put it on top of our two clasped hands and held on, not frantic, not agitated, but holding onto me.  It was such a clear sign to me, very different from any reaction or interaction I’d had with him thus far.  My heart ballooned in my chest and I just poured out how much I loved him and how good he was doing and how I was there for him, how we were there together.

I asked him to wiggle his toes.  He didn’t wiggle them but he did let go and reached towards his feet with one of his hands.  Again, so different from the way I’ve become used to seeing him act.  It was just unbelievable, and very clear to me that he was responding to my words, my presence.

The doctor was very pleased with the apparent increase in his awareness.  Said we were moving in the right direction, and that she thought it likely we would see a true response to command soon.  At several other times that morning David would open his eyes and I would talk to him, he would turn his head and shift his eyes, searching.  His protective mitts were back on so I didn’t get a chance to try to repeat the hand-holding.

I spent the rest of the morning reading to him, playing music for him and catching up on emails and things.  The pressure in his skull began to increase beyond the parameters set by the doctor, so the nurse got busy trying different things to bring it back down, none of which was really working.  I sat in on the “rounds,” where the doctor goes through all the details of the night before and makes her orders for the day.  She ordered some tweaks to David’s medications and ventilator settings to bring the pressure back down, which worked.

David’s mom and dad came and I packed up, said goodbye and left to spend the rest of the day with my sweet little Z and J.  When I got home they were still at church and so I had a bit of time to unpack and reorganize.  My heart lurched when my phone rang and I saw it was David’s mom.  I answered with my stomach in a ball and asked her how things were going.  I couldn’t believe my ears when she told me that the nurse, doing his routine repeat of the neuro exam, had actually gotten a response!  David held up two fingers when the nurse asked him to do so!  And he did it repeatedly, 3 times in a row.  And, on top of that, he wiggled his toes on command as well.  David’s mom held the phone up to his ear and I told him how proud I was and how much I loved him and how excited I was.  She said he moved his eyes and mouth a bit.

I was awash in a downpour of relief and gratefulness and I could hardly speak as I hung up with David’s mom.  I set my phone aside and knelt on our deck with my hands over my exploding heart and tried inadequately to give thanks in prayer to Heavenly Father.  I know the surging gratitude inside me was heard, was felt and was accepted, even though my words were insufficient to express it.

I have to admit I was also just a tiny bit mad that I missed it!!  I can’t wait to get back there tomorrow morning and see the miracle for myself!

He has over the course of this day continued to respond to commands, and removal from the ventilator now seems closer than ever.  Today marks one week to the day from his accident.

Well, not long after that phone call Z came bounding in the door.  Of course, the first thing she did was ask me how Daddy was doing.  I told her what had happened. . . . and the pure joy and love shining from her eyes, and the look on her face were a mirror image of the feelings inside my own heart.  She started jumping all around and cheering and we all had the happiest afternoon together.

In this moment it is hard for me to feel anything but optimism, hope, faith, humility, confidence and gratefulness.  And it is impossible for me to deny the role that God has played in this miracle, and that all of you have played in calling down His power on our little family.  He hears you, He hears me.  It doesn’t mean there won’t be difficulties ahead.  But it means He is at the helm.  And I mean to remember that, to embed it in my being, to trust in it as fully as I am able.

Calm

After yesterday’s failed trial run on the lighter sedative David is having a rest day today.  He is back on a type and dosage of sedative/pain meds that allow him to still be responsive and cough up mucous but high enough that he is calm and restful.  The bacteria causing his pneumonia has been identified and he is on a more precise antibiotic.  The plan is to allow David to rest for a couple of days and let his lungs recover so that he can oxygenate well, and then try again to bring him up to consciousness.  The next real goal is to have him conscious enough to breathe and calm enough to not need much sedation.  His doctor continues to be cautiously optimistic about his recovery.

Today I am feeling peaceful, after the emotional storms of last night.  I dreamed of him, whole and smiling, sliding his arms around me and holding me close.  Warm, familiar and filling me with comfort.  It feels like home when he holds me and it always has.  Today in this moment I am certain I will feel his embrace again one day.  I pray I will be given the strength, little by little to bridge the great wide chasm between this time of alone-ness and that day when I can return home to my resting place in his arms.

Something I would like to share is that I have never before in my life felt in such a real and palpable way the power of prayer.  It’s something I’ve heard talked about often but in the past 6 days I have literally felt it around me, giving me clarity, holding my pieces together, comforting me.  It comes to me from you, from Heavenly Father, surrounding me and filling in all my weak spaces.  I really don’t know how to describe it but it is truly, magnificently powerful and real.  Deep thanks to all of you praying for us and keeping us in your hearts.  What you are doing matters and has made a difference.

I know all my days will not be as peaceful as today but when the next storm comes it will be this power and comfort that I will cling to and that will bring me through.

Pressure and Catharsis

I didn’t realize until I got home today how much the pressure has been building over the past couple of days.  I felt pretty ok yesterday, spent the afternoon playing with and getting loves from my babies and went back to the hospital in time for the 7pm shift change.  It jarred me a bit to go back in there, to see his condition unchanged and to be reminded once again of the absolute enormity of it all.  

He’d had a pretty rough day, his sedative dose had been lowered and he was breaking through it pretty frequently, whenever they would suction his mouth/throat or move him around or turn the bed vibration on.  He also was coughing more, which is part of the point of turning the sedative down.  He has developed pneumonia and it is good for him to cough up the mucous, but when he breaks through in response to pain he becomes very agitated.  

It’s quite a sight when he gets riled up about something.  He tries to sit up in bed, grabs for the ventilator tube, tries to pull off the mitts the nurses keep on his hands to protect him from himself.  He swings his legs around and tries to get out of the bed.  He tries to push the nurses off of him.  In a way it’s really good to see him struggle, it feels better to see him fighting than to just see him lying there, the ventilator pumping his chest up and down.  But although his movements are purposeful, he is still unconscious and does not respond to commands or voices.  It just makes it look like he’s still in there.

As the evening wore on it was really hard for me to feel hopeful, to feel connected with him, to feel sure that he was still there.  And a cold panicky depression began to creep into my heart as my mind started looking too far ahead, asking too many questions and imagining too many possible outcomes.  I tried to sleep but it was a busy night.  The doctor had to come in to re-position an IV line that had become dislodged during one of his fighting episodes, the radiology tech came in to do the daily chest x-ray, the nurses managed his medicines and changed his bedding.

In the morning the doctor decided to switch his sedative to something that might calm him, take the edge off, but still allow some signs of increased consciousness to come through.  She had observed some promising signs that he might be ready to show some meaningful response.  Well, it was a total bust.  No increased consciousness, just lots of fighting.  So they put him back on the other one at a dosage that keeps him pretty sedate.  We will try to bring him out of it again in a few days.  This will give his lungs a chance to recover from the pneumonia as well, the hope being that next time perhaps we can wake him up enough to take out the ventilator tube.

The depression from the night before continued into the morning, and rolled on through the afternoon.  It did me some good to sit in on the “rounds,” when the doctor goes through all the different aspects of a patient’s condition and makes a treatment plan for the day.  It helps me to understand the details of how all the medications and treatments are interacting and what they are trying to achieve with all of it.  But as the day rolled on I just couldn’t feel optimistic or at peace about anything.  All the unknowns just kept swirling and sucking me down, swamping the little speck of hope inside me.

I left the hospital this evening and drove home in the pouring rain.  I walked in the door and fell on my sweet mom and sobbed it all out.  She has been such a lifesaver, coming to me in my time of dire need to watch over my babies.  I gave voice to the bitter hopeless feelings.  I let all the fears and questions and darkness come out.  And when it was over I felt better.  The hope and optimism were still there, just buried by the grief.  Let the grief out and the little nuggets of peace and faith were what was left.

And now I’m too spent to do much else but fall into bed.  It turns my stomach that David will not share it with me tonight, and not for many nights to come.  But I’m letting my sweet Z sleep in there with me.  She and J are my rays of sunshine through all of this and I’m really looking forward to the snuggles.

Banana Banana Cake

I savor the last bite of cake and lick the last of the sweet frosting off the tips of my fingers slowly with tears wet on my cheeks and pain in my heart.  I close my eyes and remember Saturday, sending David and the kids ahead to Grandma’s house while I stayed behind to put together J’s birthday cake.  He turned two a couple of weeks ago and we were getting around to his birthday party BBQ.  David and the kids made the cake the day before while I went to an exercise class.  It was “Banana Banana Cake,” his new favorite recipe, except he had forgotten to add the walnuts.  He made sure to remind me on his way out the door to add them to the frosting instead.  He is so good about taking the kids away when I need just a few minutes’ peace to restore my patience with them.  I put the cake together and headed to the party.  We had a great time and even made it home at a decent hour to get the kids to bed.  

Then Sunday came.  David got up with the kids at the crack of dawn, he always does.  I adjusted my pillows around my big belly and drifted in and out of semi-sleep, listening to them getting breakfast and watching cartoons.  He came back into the bedroom and asked me if I was ever getting up and I pulled him onto the bed to snuggle.  I scratched his head and rubbed his back, in perfect contentment until the kids started fighting and he got up to go referee the situation.

I rolled out of bed slowly, reluctant to leave my nest.  I always make the bed first thing after getting up to lessen the likelihood that I will crawl back in it instead of getting ready for the day.  I joined everyone in the kitchen to get some breakfast.  David, of course, was already itching to get out of the house and do something before church.  He suggested avocado picking in Pupukea.  It sounded good to me and we got ready to go, too slowly for him.

We didn’t talk much on the drive, it was a beautiful day and we are good at companionable silence.  I knew from the look on his face he was thinking about his next business move with our house that he was trying to sell, those wheels are always turning.  I reached out and rubbed his shoulder and smiled at him.  The air in Pupukea is always a little cooler and fresher and it felt nice driving to the trailhead.  We parked and he was surprised to notice that the tree by the road was ripe already, and all the lower-hanging fruit had been picked.  He decided to climb that one and pick a few, and then we would walk up the trail and check the other tree that he had initially intended to pick from.

Up he went with strong easy movements, gripping with his hands and feet, to the first branch where he asked me to hand up the picking pole.  I did and then herded the kids a little way off to climb on a fence while David picked.  I was always worried that a falling avocado would hit one of them.  I was feeling happy, the kids were happy playing and everything just felt. . . .good.  From time to time I would hear a branch crack as David would kick some dead wood down, or clear off a stray vine.  It always made me turn my head to see what was going on, but wasn’t alarming.

It must have been the sound of a branch cracking that made me turn my head to see the very last millisecond of his falling body out of the corner of my eye.  I don’t have a clear visual memory of it and I don’t try to search too hard for the details of it in my mind.  But the sound of it.  I am praying to forget it.  It comes back to me in my moments of panic and makes me sick.  The sound of a hard avocado hitting the ground and splitting into pieces.  Except it didn’t make sense, because it wasn’t an avocado, it was him.  I swore and ran to him, Z screaming “Daddy!” behind me on the fence.

He was laying on his left side and I fell to my knees beside him, calling his name.  My heart stopped as I saw the blood pouring out of his right ear and I knew.  I knew it was his head.  I grabbed my phone out and punched in 911 as fast as possible, the panic mounting.  The operator answered and I started yelling into the phone that my husband had fallen from a tree, is unconscious and hurt and please please send an ambulance.  It didn’t make sense at the time but the operator did not respond to me but hung up instead.  I dropped my phone between my knees and screamed his name, trying for any response.  He started breathing, ragged, labored breaths, red foamy blood coming from his nose and mouth.  His eyes never opened.

I became aware of others around me, from the nearby Boy Scout camp.  One of them was telling me they had my kids, one was calling 911, others were finding and putting pressure on his wounds.  He started fighting them off, eyes closed and swelling fast.  He tried to push up off the ground, tried to get up.  I held my arms under his head while he rolled and fought and struggled to breathe, to cushion him from the hard asphalt.

The firefighters arrived and tried to strap him to a board.  He fought.  They got him restrained awkwardly and we waited for the ambulance.  Minutes, hours, years, who knows.  Finally the sound of sirens coming and they took him away from me.  I was asked to give information.  I felt clear and was able to answer, though the panic seethed just below the surface of necessary lucidity.  They packed him into the ambulance and I was sick that I couldn’t ride with him. . . . my kids.

They were brought to me as the ambulance drove off.  I decided to allow a kind lady from the camp to drive us in my van to the hospital.  My heart yearned to fly to him, it didn’t matter how fast we were going, it was too slow.

That night passed in sleeplessness and numbness.  I went home the next morning to my empty house to shower and collect some things for that day.  My breath caught in my chest as I saw his slippers outside our front door.  His tile saw on our porch.  His keys on our counter.  His dirty clothes on our floor.  I tried to shut it out and focus on the task at hand.  Packing food, I opened the fridge and there was the leftover cake.  And the world swirled around me and I broke inside.  I cut a piece to take with me back to the hospital.  I eat it outside on a bench and feel the sweetness of what our life has been fading away, savoring it as I savor the last crumbs of Banana Banana Cake.  Knowing there is nothing I can do to keep it, to save it.  

My heart grieves and aches.  And I know from here everything will be different.  And hard.  But somewhere deep in the smothering unknown, I can feel a tiny speck of something.  Something good.  Maybe different will be ok.  Maybe different can even be good.