memories.... (sing along now...)

So it's coming up on the 2-year anniversary of Loopy's big surgery ordeal... i've been dreaming about it and feeling sad all week (there are a couple other reasons i've been feeling sad, but trying to stay on topic here... )

i went back to read old blog entries and realized a lot is missing because i started emailing everyone... so i'm slowly putting the emails into the blog. i'll post my today-thoughts here as i do this... no need to read this, it's really very internal and i'm sure none of you want to remember all that any more than i do, it's just i feel the need to kind of go through it and ... i don't know... purge it a little?

first entry updated... checking Loopy into the hospital.

i remember why we decided to go. her pain had been so awful for months and months. she had fallen on the concrete at the gym and almost not been able to get up again (see this post, under "that mean bad concrete came up and whapped me in the face!"). she had started using a cane (i still remember the weird horror of that, the doctor fitting the cane for her and helping her walk across the room with it, the way everything seemed to be going dark and awful and yet the fluorescent lights gleamed inexorably on and everyone was doing their best to be brave and positive and even funny when we could manage it...). (and that only the latest in a series of visits to the spine clinic, visits for medication, for tests, for getting special orthopaedic back braces...)

but that day, October 27, in the living room, she was trying to stand up and she was swaying, couldn't get her balance, almost fell over to one side and then the other and had to catch herself, and almost couldn't - almost went down right there in the living room, to maybe bang her head on something or hurt herself worse.

i felt so helpless. the pain had been intermittently unbearable - she would have episodes of almost crying (Loopy never cries) and begging me to do something, anything - i would make calls and demand that someone do something, anything. (it was this that finally got us that second MRI that showed the tumor).

that day the pain was worse than ever and now this swaying, falling. i felt totally helpless. i called everyone i could. "i can't keep her safe, she is going to fall, do you hear me, she is GOING TO FALL, and her pain is out of control. we need help. we can't do this anymore."

the consensus was, go to the hospital. check into the hospital. but there apparently was no way to do that except to go through the ER.

so we went to the ER. me in that state that had come to be so familiar that year. one foot in front of the other. ready to fight when needed, waiting in between, trying to rest my mind and body as much as i could. i remember parking the car somewhere illegal and thinking, 'tow it, i don't care, i'll deal with that later.' (they didn't; probably, cars parked haphazardly and illegally around the ER entrance is not an unusual phenomenon).

and we had to fight to get her checked in. even though we had talked to her primary care doctor, the spine specialist, the surgeon's nurse - we had talked to everyone and they had a bed for her upstairs. the ER nurses were on our side. but this stupid mean bitch doctor in the ER wouldn't fucking check her in. she kept saying, "what are they going to be able to do for her upstairs? there's nothing they can do." (and she was fucking mean too - no empathy, just annoyance and attitude, like how dare we waste an ER bed on her shift - and she had the most hideously ironic name - it meant "kindness goodness" in two languages).

we were there for hours. i see the time stamp on my email (telling people we were going) is 12:09. i think we left around 1 or 1:30, got to the hospital around 2 or 2:30, and didn't get upstairs til after dark for sure, and i think it was about 6:30 or 7. as time wore on the ER got busier and busier because it was Friday of Halloween weekend. (Halloween's a bfd in Madison, ugh).

i just remember doubting myself briefly, and then gathering courage from knowing that i could not, i absolutely could not, keep Loopy safe at home. i just kept repeating that to them. 'i cannot control her pain or keep her safe at home.' it felt like they sent all these forces against me and i just stood firm on that, and knowing that i would get her in there, i had to, there was no going back.

in the middle of this, beloved friend Shamus arrived with sandwiches, which we desperately needed at that point (i believe my sandwich got cried into). i can't remember how that went down - whether he called or just showed up - but i'm pretty sure it was all his idea. he was an immense support in one of the worst hours of my life. i wish we were still in better touch with him, but he's one of those friends you never lose, even if you're out of touch for a while...

Shamus's dad is a doctor and he encouraged me to put things in more lawsuit-friendly words, like, 'you will be responsible if i take her home and she falls and is injured.' and also to stand my ground. as i recall. that whole day is a weird combo of razor-sharp details and blurry misery. anyway. Shamus was a lifeline, a godsend. thank you Shamus. we still love you so much.

finally they checked her in and we ended up in the cardio ward because that was where a bed was available. they said they'd have a bed in neuro in a day or two (they did). i remember the infinite kindness of the nurse who did the intake. i am so grateful to her too. in those awful times, simple kindness is such a HUGE thing.

as i recited the litany of events and tests, landmarks on the 'how did we get here' path, which i had recited to each new doctor and knew well ('by June she was starting to feel numbness; in July she had a cortisone shot;' etc. - this had become my job, along with managing all the meds etc, since Loopy was too strung out on pain and morphine to be able to remember anything....) as i recited that familiar litany i remember how the nurse's kindness slowly eased my frazzled nerves and i calmed from anxious defense/offense posture ('she deserves to be here dammit!') and gratefully accepted their compassion and gentle help...

it was such a haven after everything we'd been through. finally i wasn't alone. finally we had trained professionals. finally there was some pain relief. Loopy still had horrendous symptoms and i don't even want to talk about all the ways we struggled through those days and the things i did to help her through. but it was better and i wasn't alone and we were safe there. she wasn't going to fall down. it was a haven and a relief......... it woudln't start to seem a prison for another month.

This post is already so long... but i do want to keep going through these old emails and posting some... keep the record accessible.... but i'll stop this post for now.