Day 1229

What a difference a couple weeks can make.

I still have to get surgery -- tomorrow! -- and I'm a little uneasy but overall I'm very grateful there IS a surgery because the shoulder has stopped getting better and has in fact gotten mildly worse since last I wrote. Yes I'll be immobilized for six weeks and need to not cheat on that immobilization because tendons don't have very good blood flow and are thus slow to heal...but even if I only get a 50-75% improvement from where it is right now I'll be happy with that since where it is right now is Just Not Good At All. I'm sure there are parts of this I'm going to hate and I'm sure the road to FULL recovery will be long but I want to get started on that journey.

Meanwhile my husband is so much better that I really do see the miracle. It took every bit of two complete months but he's just like he used to be years ago...well, he doesn't have the energy level yet and we're both a lot older but he's not yellow and not swollen and it's just so amazing and wonderful. He's getting closer to normal each day and his lab values are all great and the timing couldn't be better so that now I can focus on dealing with my own injury and healing.

Good thing, too, because it was really awful there for a while. Right after the surgery it was very touch and go; I remember sitting in the ICU on Saturday July 20 watching all the blood pour into the wound evacuation container and watching them pour more in through wide-bore IVs and thinking very dispassionately "well this just isn't compatible with life. We can do this 24, maybe 48 hours but then he's gonna start dropping off organ systems."  Praise be the second-look operation that afternoon showed and fixed a bleeding blood vessel.  Only now can I even start remembering those early awful hours---I remember Eldest wanting to drive out on that Saturday during the day and using every single calm rational argument I could use to get her NOT to come till at least Sunday. I was soothing, I was kind, I was loving....and I was scared to death he might die when she was there at the hospital three hours from home, she'd break down completely and I'd have an extra car to deal with and not know how to get it or her back home again. Total soldier mode. Fortunately on Sunday when there was no stopping her coming by any means necessary he had turned that immediate corner.

But now it's settling down to pretty much normal. He still uses the stair lift but not -every- time and has commented on how he will know he's totally back to baseline again when he can call the company to have it removed. Because I was on the phone with my pre-op nurse early last Thursday morning he drove himself to his lab draw---I came downstairs after the call, wondered where he was and then went outside to see him just putting the car in gear.  I hopped into the passenger side, pajamas and all, to ride along and he did just fine. Decided to have me drive the six miles home again after the lab draws but hey, he did it.

I'm actually at work right now -- I stopped in yesterday and today to sign things and make an appearance before I get the Big Arm Sling. That's been good too as I was surprised and a little touched by how many people had missed me and how glad everyone was to have me back. Heartwarming.

I really don't know how I could have done all the things that had to be done this past  year if I had still been drinking. Badly, that's how.  Showing up hungover all the time and half-drunk sometimes, probably....no driving needed and there was a liquor store within walking distance. Back in 2002 I did hospice care for beloved Grandmom about half-lit about three-quarters of the time and although I held it together the way that we overdrinkers do I look back and see that I was making it harder on myself that way even though at the time I thought I -needed- it like medicine. Nah. Having done major healthcare stuff and other major stuff both while drinking and while sober I can say with complete assurance that majorly bad stuff is STILL better as a non-drinker. It's bad, but at least you can be there to deal with it and be there for the other people who are dealing with it.

I know a couple people in the really early stages of sobriety -- under a month to right at a month -- and I know it seems like one will never ever get out of that "this is really hard and awful" stage and sometimes it's just a challenge to get through each day but it DOES get better if you stick with it.  I had my back to the wall and felt really bottomed-out and awful a couple weeks ago with my husband's illness: we were at home finally but he was still just SO sick and weak and couldn't do -anything-  and we had visiting nurses all the time and had to make that drive every week and he had a wound-vac machine and I remember going around for at least three days in a row maybe more thinking "yeah we saved his life but this is NOT a whole lot better; this SUCKS this does and it's HARD and what are we even doing here and if this is how it's gonna be this is AWFUL and did we really do ourselves any favors here...." and if you pluck "we saved his life" out of that rant and replace it with "I quit drinking" it feels really familiar!!  Y'know what?  I rode it out and it got a lot better. Like a LOT-lot.

I'm keeping that in mind for my post-op state starting tomorrow.