“I love
you and we’re going to get through this”- the last words Derek barely was able
to say to me before hospital staff shoved a living will in my hands and
shuffled me out into a waiting room while they put his failing lungs on a
ventilator.
For the next
two weeks, I was forced to leave for two hours during the evening shift change
and I was not allowed to stay in the ICU overnight.
“Can I stay
the night here?” I asked a nurse on the first night.
“We only allow
family to stay if the patient might die during the night” the nurse said.
“So…?” I
asked.
“You can’t
stay the night” she said and I was relieved.
So I had to
call and pester nurses multiple times a night to check on Derek and sometimes
had to bribe staff to let me in early. I existed like a zombie, barely eating,
barely sleeping. Over the next two weeks I watched every single bump and drop
on the ventilator screen, watched as he coughed up blood from his hemorrhaging
lungs, and dealt with a constant stream of well-intentioned family and friends
as many disillusioned themselves to the circumstances.
I sat in
a conference room with 6 doctors, all alone, as they took turns telling me how
Derek would never recover, how it didn’t matter even if he did because he still
had cancer, and how hope and faith were pointless. And yet I still prayed, I
bardered, I pleaded, I begged. I was not above any thing to get him better.
But they woke
him up out of his drug stupor and told him he would die.
“What will
happen to my family?” he mouthed. He didn’t ask how, he didn’t ask if there was
anything else they could do.
“That is nice
that you are thinking about your family, but you have to think about yourself”
the doctor said.
“I want to go
home” he mouthed and that was it.
That night, I
got to stay the night. And I would wake up and catch him trying to pull out his
feeding tube and scold him. I had learned how to do his physical therapy, how
to change him, and how to calm him as the drugs made him feel and do crazy
thing. I thought I could heal him.
The next day
they shut off all the machines, except the ventilator, and we endured a bumpy,
anxious ride in an ambulance home. They wheeled him in and he looked relieved
to be in his own house. They gave him drugs to keep him calm. He tried to make
out with me. True story.
And the next
day, in our insanely hot house, they turned off the ventilator and gave him
only oxygen and I watched my husband slowly die over 8 hours. And then sat next
to his body for another two. I punched a wall as they rolled him out the front
door and screamed. It was a tough realization that I couldn’t heal him. That
love was not enough to perform a miracle.
So here we are
a year later. What a wild, trippy, terrible, wonderful year. Terrible,
for sure. Wonderful..how?
I don’t want
to confuse you. Let me be clear: I am not an optimist.
The last year
has been hard. So hard. I have had to face some personal demons I didn’t know
existed and I have had to see myself in a way that was not very flattering.
I grieve in
quiet and my depression has worsened. I have become forgetful and confused. I
have probably spent the equivalent of 7 months of the last year in bed. I also
went months without crying. I also went months with crying. Sometimes the
combination of it all hurts so bad. And as much as people think they are
encouraging me with their words remarking on my “strength” and “grace” of which
I have dealt with this trial, I feel that people have boxed me into an
impossible standard. I am so weak and I feel that no one allowed me to be that
way, so I am weak in quiet.
I’ve lost
friends. And that hurts.
But as we have
celebrated each birthday and anniversary. As I have endured funerals, attended
baptisms, and celebrated weddings, I have discovered I am not made of dust like
I once thought I was. It is impossible for me to float away with the wind.
This day a
year ago I sat by Derek’s bedside and held his hand while he died. And
sometimes it is all I see when I close my eyes.
I still only
sleep on one side of the bed, his clothes still take up half of the closet, and
sometimes I think I hear him walk down the hallway and expect him to walk into
our room.
I catch his
scent in Camden’s room at night, and sometimes, I think his spirit lays down on
his side of the bed to help me sleep at night.
I have been so
worried that he would be so ashamed of me. That now he gets to see me in all my
flawed glory. I wasn’t sure if he had realized how weak I had been all along.
But then I
have had to realize that love, especially when you have a better view of
forever, is not weak. Our love could not heal his wounds and it would not make
him rise from the dead. But our love has performed a miracle. In fact, it
created one. And over the last year, I have had to drag myself out of bed to
give that miracle lunch and make sure it didn’t watch too much TV. That miracle
has helped pull me out of my own despair and remind me that life really is
worth living. That miracle has forced me to realize that even though I am so
weak, I am also so strong. So I couldn’t heal Derek. But the last year has made
me realize that I can heal myself and I better take that opportunity before it
is gone.
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