Letters to the Editor
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You made me smile
Anne, thank you. Tonight I'm exhausted and overwhelmed, both coming and going. Going because my wife was taken off ventilator today after a week in the ICU because of the most severe, life-threatening asthma attack you can have and still live. It's been a week of graduated hell, starting in the ninth level, when for four days she showed no response, to today, when they weaned her and fully woke her. I'm raw and tired and frayed and we have a two-year old daughter who I now know will not lack a mama.
I'm exhausted and overwhelmed coming because of everything else: the fact that my weak and scared wife begged me to take her home from the hospital today while still plugged with tubes and leads, desperate to see her little girl and not knowing yet that she will no longer be able to nurse with the life-saving steroids in her system...the fact that as a writer who works at home, I've got to find a way to care for my wife, my daughter and my home and still get my work done while giving my wife a chance to recover...the financial stresses always associated with healthcare these days...not knowing if my headstrong, stubborn wife, who has always attached her self-esteem to what she can do for others while ignoring her own needs, will comply with her asthma management program...the uncertainty and change of this trying, trying time...my little girl's wailing and tantrums all day and refusal to sleep tonight, which may have more to do with being two years old and possibly getting teeth than mama's absence, but which sear my heart and ruin my patience...being the phone center for our world of hundreds of friends wanting to know, "When? How? What can we do?"...just being sapped and drained and in need of a night watching baseball and not worrying.
In spite of the blessings of our friends and my wife's recovery, I feel overwhelmed and depressed. Of course, I felt the same black wave of despair when we brought our daughter home from the same hospital, and I flashed on the idea as I got a diaper: "What did we do? We'll never have a moment to ourselves again." Of course, that turned out to be nonsense; our girl is the goofy, brilliant light of our lives. Change is always stressful; we want to think the routine of our days will always be what it is. But it cannot be. It always changes.
My point here is that in the face of all this, partially driven by just being beat down pooped and at my limit, I've been despairing and desperate-feeling all day. But then I read your piece and saw the things you did when you found your beloved son turning into a monstrous enemy, which must have rent your heart: coping things, things that reflect a simple understanding: this shall pass. And I feel better. I took my daughter for a drive and she passed out. My wife is frail but alive when she might not have been. Life will be sweeter.
Thank you.