Breathing

Tubes...lots and lots of tubes

Tubes pushing things in, dripping, monitoring...and more tubes, draining or carrying away what the body doesn't need.

More specialized care...specialized doctors and nurses.

We didn't have a choice, not really. If we didn't go this way the other way was a long slow certain death with a lot of pain...this was the choice with a light at the end of the tunnel that didn't mean ascension of one sort or another.

She told me yesterday, after the surgery, when she was cold...when she was uncomfortable...when she was scared. It's hard to believe, I guess, since she's been kept under generalized anesthesia, but I can hear her...or maybe it's better to say I can feel her. Or I could. Today we have a new doctor on the case, someone we trust and respect a great deal more than anyone else they've put forward. He caught something that has slipped through the cracks...she was silently going through withdrawal. Years of being on morphine were silently catching up with her and the sedation was keeping the physical signs from coming through. He looked at her pupils...there were pin-points and completely nonreactive. He climbed all over the nurse...I have to admit it felt good to stand there behind this powerful gray-haired man as he defended her and took care of her and people had to listen.

I'm tired in some deep and fundamental way. I feel sort of hollow...it's hard to explain.

I can't express how grateful I am for my family, for the well wishers all over the world, and for the care she is receiving.

I miss her, I have a knot I can't seem to untie in the pit of my stomach...all I know is something is deeply not right and I can't juggle things enough to be able to get enough time to fix it.