Keep Getting Up

Lately I have been haunted by sadness, loneliness an exhaustion. It has been 4 months since Matt's stroke and I wish I could say I've healed as well as he has. I've been in so much pain. My heart hurts. I keep having flashbacks of the whole experience, especially from the day it all started. I don't know what to say because no one wants to hear it hashed out again and again. Frankly I don't want it hashed out in my mind again an again but all it takes is a sound or a smell or a word in a conversation and I'm back in that trauma room watching my husband dying. It doesn't take much to bring me to tears anymore. That day was Terrifying. On the way to the hospital I started getting a little scared. When Matt started to throw up in the car I was nervous because I knew for sure that he had a concussion and it was bad. I look back and wonder how I didn't see it coming. When we got to the hospital he started to get out of the car and then told me he couldn't walk in. I figured it was just the effects of the concussion I thought he had. I was so stupid. I wheeled him in and when I told the nurse that he had hit his head and was throwing up they were on it. I was glad because his pain was bad and I wanted them to help him. I still had no idea what was really going on. I am so mad at myself for that. I didn't realize until seconds later when I saw his face droop that something was happening. When he lost control of his bladder I remember feeling sorry for him for a split second because I didn't want anyone to see that but the feeling quickly turned to terror and confusion as they raced him to the trauma room. I followed because there was no way I was going to stay out in the hall. My heart was beating so fast and I could hear my ears ringing. He wasn't breathing and I was so scared. They were all lifting him from the wheel chair to the bed and I covered my mouth and cried as his head rolled to the side and he started foaming at the mouth. A that moment my mind went blank. I was feeling so many things that I went numb. I was as if my body couldn't register all of those feelings so it just stopped feeling anything. When he began to posture I was so confused and I silently cried as they worked on him. They would stop every time he postured and in every one of those few seconds I wondered if this would be his last moments on earth. I was so worried about him being scared. I didn't want him to be awake inside of this broken body, aware and confused and scared. I was scared enough for both of us. In that moment I watched as everything in my world changed. I nearly lost it all. Last night Matt and I talked a little about that day and the month that followed. He said that he gets glimpses here and there but they are more like a feeling than a memory. He doesn't remember anything after he walked out to the car. I was surprised because he was totally lucid after he fell in the driveway. When he came to outside his dad brought him inside and Matt called work and we debated going to the hospital. I never realized that he didn't remember all of that. I am so grateful though because he was in so much pain on the way to the hospital. I feel foolish not being able just to move on now that he is healing. On the outside he looks awesome minus the scars on his head and stomach. There are times though where he doesn't remember things. Sometimes those things are little and sometimes they are very important things and it hurts, it's hard to watch that and I hurt for him. I want to just move on but there are times when the smallest thing brings back everything and it's terrifying. So we live day to day. I work on getting myself out of bed without a panic attack and from there I work on getting dressed and so on. We rate the days and hope and pray that there will be more good than bad. I am grateful for the days when my house is full of children and noise, it drowns out most everything else. I am grateful for the short conversations that Matt and I get to have throughout the day and as silly as this sounds, I am grateful for my new dog Bruiser. It was so hard to get rid of my little Libby Lou but I never had the connection with her that I do with my big beautiful Bruiser! When all the older kids are in school he and Naomi will be my company. I just count my blessings and keep getting up.