Today was a tough one. My neighbor Christina, who has dementia, started calling about 7:15--and called and called. She didn't need anything except for me to check on her air conditioner, which she asks me to do several times a day lately. About 9:30, I finally went down there. I was only gone about two minutes, tops. When I got back, Mark had crumped. He was just fine when I left, but when I got back, he was slumped on the couch, his eyes wide, struggling to breath. He was in severe pain. I called the medics, and they took him to the hospital (the right one this time!). Becca called and offered to take the boys. (Bless you, Becca!) I hurried off to the hospital, nearly certain this was a "big one" that would land us at OHSU. Nope. The tests all came back negative. We were there for about six hours while they watched him and gave him fluids and an assortments of medications to control his pain, nausea, and itching. Then we came home. My day (my life, it seems sometimes) in a nutshell...
I was so discouraged when I got home that I just laid on the couch for about a half an hour. Brendan was off playing with the neighbor, and Alex was upstairs watching a show. I just laid there, feeling like this was it. I'd pretty much reached the end of the line and couldn't possibly do this anymore. And then ... I don't know what happened, to be honest. I guess I just got on with life. I COULD leave. No one is forcing me to stay here, to go through this day after day. But I CHOOSE to stay. And since I've made this choice, I might as well make the best of it. That sounds trite, doesn't it? Cliche. But ... it's what keeps me going, this knowledge that I only have one life and that I sure as %^&$*# (censored to retain PG rating) am not going to ruin my only life by lying on couches wishing I could change things that cannot be changed. Well, okay ... I'll lay there for a bit. Sometimes ... that's all I can manage. But then I have to get up and get going again.
While I cleaned the kitchen, I wrote some verse for the line of greeting cards that Joellen and I are starting. Then I played a game of Sequence with Alex. (Whooped his booty, thank you very much!) Then, as I was putting the boys down and washing my face, an opening line came to me: "Some nights linger far past dawn." I went downstairs and grabbed my ever ready notebook and wrote out the rough draft of a poem. And I feel much better. I truly think that as long as I can write, I can survive pretty much anything.
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