John remained in the first hospital until he was fully
stable. Then I was told he would be moved to a hospital closer to our home that
was on our insurance plan. On the appointed day, I waited at the second
hospital for him to arrive. I waited several hours, or at least what seemed
like several hours to me. Time had become a non-entity for me. I was always
either waiting or moving to the next situation to wait. The Cloud-Fog was never
gone. It just flitted out now and then to give me a moment of respite, only to
return when I was not looking.
It was either the fifth or sixth day after the stroke when
he was moved to the second hospital. I only remember seeing him come down the
hall on a gurney and saying “This one
belongs to me!” to the driver.
The days were now a blurry haze within The Cloud-Fog. I had
gone back to work after three days off. I needed the money from my barely above
minimum wage part-time job in retail sales. Gratefully, I was the manager of
the department in which I worked. The first thing I did on the job was to give
myself a full 35 hour work week to increase my income. They needed me there
more, anyway, so it was a win-win. I had flipped into “solution” mode to solve our financial concerns. Well, my concerns. I now realized that John
was no longer a part of the financial team as an asset earner in our household.
He was now completely a financial liability. The full realization of this fact
was an explosion of dirty-bomb capacity on my time and awareness.
All the “whys” of the previous days since the curtain
dropped had now turned into “hows”. My thoughts revolved around “How was I
going to provide the income? How was I going to find the time to hold down a
full time job? How was I going to support him emotionally, physically,
psychologically? How was I going to get him back to normal?” I actually
believed normal was still possible at this point.
At the second hospital, as he had at the first, John refused
to eat hospital food. I bravely added another layer of duty to my roster. I
cooked his food each evening, and brought it into the hospital for him each
morning when I visited at 7 a.m. The kinder Scrubs at this hospital were happy
to refrigerate it and heat it for him at noon. In the evening after work, I
went back to the hospital to visit and bring another meal for him.
It never even occurred to me at this point that I was
heading down a path of no return. That path was one of permanent Caregiver to a
handicapped person. Each new self-assigned task was assumed without even a
twinge of anger or resentment. There was no time to be angry or resentful. It
just “had to be done”, so I did it. I added layer upon layer to my schedule. I
was in shock. It was months before the shock began to dissipate and I allowed
the anger and resentment to drop in for a long visit.
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