Still sleeping on the couch. I like it; again, the solidity of my back, and Hamish stretched out beside me. But the couch doesn't face a window, or a clock, so I didn't wake up until 10. Doesn't matter - I took the day off work.
Can't remember if I wrote that the crows are back (I'm writing all this stuff but I can't make myself go back and read it). Bob loved crows, and so do I. I put food (cat food and peanuts) out for them. Two days ago in the garden I heard the high pitched annoyed chirp of a hummingbird, so I put out the feeder and they're using it.
Sudden flashback. About the time that we realized that Bob wasn't going to make it, our friend Kim put the word out. Bob used to go to high school reunions (that's how he met Kim). So his friends from high school, and his new friends from the reunions, started sending messages and stories about Bob to Kim and she forwarded them to me. When Bob would float to consciousness I would read them to him. Happy memories. It was a lovely thing for her to do.
So, this morning I'm drinking tea and eating scones and playing Wordle and watching the hummingbirds. Two years ago, about this time, I said goodbye to Bob.
That morning I helped him make two phone calls - to Della and Amanda. He couldn't say much (he hadn't been able to talk well for the last two months) but he was able to tell them he loved them and say goodbye. Then he started fretting for the nurse to come with the morphine. I myself wasn't in any hurry. I kept trying to talk to him, to make sure that he knew this wasn't a temporary fix, that it was goodbye forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah - why is the nurse taking so long? Go ask for the nurse.
And the nurse finally came in. I really want to say that he took me in his arms, looked at me with those great eyes of his - that we told each other that we loved each other, and whispered a last goodbye. But that's not what happened. I was trying to get his attention, to get him to say goodbye, to make at least some sort of ritual of passing. He brushed me off, fussing at the nurse, who was hanging the IV bag and attaching to the pick line. I at least put on "The Minstrel Boy" on my tablet. I don't know if he noticed. I nodded at the nurse. I said "I love you. Goodbye." And I was crying too hard to know if he ever said it back to me.
A couple of hours later Dr. Farhadfar comes storming into the room. "What's going on? Why?" I told her that it was his decision, that he didn't have the strength to fight any more. And then she said the words that will haunt me forever. "But I just checked his blood count. The numbers have shifted." Well, not really. The numbers had shifted from <0.01 to 0.01 [for the record, the number needed to show that a transplant is taking is 1,000; normal is over 2,500]
It's amazing how much can flash through your brain in a few seconds. Of course, first a surge of hope - he's going to be all right! Followed by the reality of no, he isn't. If he survived (still not likely) he would be in the hospital for months, in the halfway house for more months. Never really get his strength back. Be on dialysis several days a week for the rest of his life. Be alive, but not living.
Two seconds maybe. I held up my hand. "No." She stared at me. Looked at him. Looked around the noisy crowded ICU room, strangers coming in and out. "Not here. He's my patient. He's coming back to my ward." She stepped outside. I heard her yelling on the phone. "Get him a room, now."
They unhooked him from the monitors, and rolled his bed down the hall, through the underground tunnel that led between buildings. Up the elevator, and into the ward that had been our home for three months. One of the staff, Tanisha, came running up to me and caught me in a tight hug. They put us in the room with the large window overlooking the prairie. No monitors, no machinery. Nurses who had been caring for him, and by now cared for him, for his sense of humor, his gentleness. When I stepped out to get some water, I saw that there was a butterfly sticker on the door with the word "Quiet." I had seen this from time to time on other doors, not knowing what it meant.
I went back to the hotel to get a few things - pajamas, toothbrush. My phone rang. There was a soft female voice - "Ann, it's Nosha." Nosha. Unfamiliar, but the voice was. But I had always just called her "Dr. Farhadfar." Now she was Nosha, a woman feeling pain. "Is there anything I could have done?" I told her that he hadn't even wanted to do the second transplant, that even then was too tired and weak to fight, but he did it for his family. That he said he was grateful and humbled that so many people were fighting for his life. Then she asked what I wanted. "I just want it to be over. I want to let him go."
So I went to the room and sat. I doubt if I read. Maybe I knit - I don't remember.
I called Mike and Margo to let them know. Mike startled me - he broke down into hysterics. I've known him my whole life, and I'm not sure I had ever heard him cry before, not even when he lost his first wife. And now he was begging me not to let it happen. Bob was sedated; I could keep him that way, authorize the pick line change, go back on the medications, dialysis, keep him alive. I heard Margo trying to get him to quiet, to calm down. I was oddly grateful - because breaking down and begging was what I wanted to do, but couldn't. His was the voice speaking for me.
I don't remember the rest of the day. Maybe I went outside to feed my turtles (odd, how I thought of them by now as "my" turtles). Sat by his bed. Sent texts to our friends. I did sent a text to Max, our housesitter, letting her know I would be coming home soon, permanently. But mostly just sat, gazing out the window, and waited.
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