Journaling

entry NO. 1

I’m hearing whining . . . Meeka is up and needs to go outside.  I finally fell asleep and now I’m so groggy as I head to the kitchen to let puppy out.

I crawl back to bed wondering how Greg’s night was.  I think I should get up with a strong cup of coffee and begin my journal.  I begin to plan out the ‘table of contents’ in my brain.  How do you begin when it’s been so long and I have so much to put to paper.  I turn my phone on.  Oh a message from Greg  (J )

6: 31 am - “good morning, not sure if you’re awake yet . . . ’ “

7:10 am - I’m responding and wonder why aren’t you responding to MY response?”

Panic is on the edge of my brain.  I’m trying to begin to journal at 7 this morning after I got a text from Greg.  He hasn’t responded to my response yet so I continue to write (type) out my thoughts trying to be calm.  I’ve learnt that anything can be an alarm and anything can be a ‘nothing’ moment.  So I wait . . . and here I begin . . .

For approximately $1.95 plus tax I purchased a small book in a store in the hospital to begin noting the days that were spent in the Health Science Center hospital in Winnipeg.

To this day I haven’t opened the little book.  I don’t want to re-read all the information in there, all the emotions, all the ‘stuff’ that Greg had to go thru in the month of October.  Not yet.

7:50 a.m. - Finally a response back, “I went back to sleep”.

I continue now to write as my panic button is on hold for now.  I even called the nurses’ station. Could be they moved him to another room, could be he’s scheduled for more tests due to bad test results, so many reasons flood my mind.  I don’t have any calmness left in my system when I’m not in Greg’s room to actually see what’s happening.

So many memories of days past.  Now they come tumbling forward as I collect them here.  The lady who left her false teeth in a Kleenex box and now they’re gone, the drywaller who can’t breath, the farting (giggle), the call for nurses’ aids to help in room 9 (you know what that means), a ‘mercy bed’ and family in tears, the lady in the next curtained room and the noise never erased from your mind as she falls out of bed, the calls in the night “nurse nurse! ”, the codes over the intercom as nurses run, the blank eyes of other families gathering in the ICU lounge, and more personal yet is the crowded salmon-colored ward in A4-448, the tubes, the injections, the blood transfusions, the monitored breathing, the blankets piled high to keep him warm, the coughing, the physio guys who helped calm the coughing, the x-rays, the doctor jibberish (I’m right here-tell me!), and finally the calmness that came when moved from the ‘salmon-colored’ ward to ‘high observation’, the nurses’ smiles, the caring touch, the extra minute spent with us explaining, the laughs, the walks for coffee, more physio, talk of discharge, the chair they gave me to sleep on, the talks with the nurses (they really ARE the backbone of how your stay will be in the hospital).  I’ll probably talk more about these events and memories as I journal back.  But for now, I have to end this time and get ready to see Greg.  It’s Sunday and we’re finally in Alberta.  HOME! 

Is this what we had envisioned?  Silly, of course not, but it is the now and we shall be strong, stronger.  I’m looking to the future and hoping for all the good things in life.  Love, Health and Happiness.